How to Keep Track of Your Homeschoolers' Progress

With today's technology there are so many creative ways to keep track of your student's educational journey. Many can be done online or offline, it really just depends on what type of student you have, what they spend a lot of time doing and what they enjoy doing.

This makes it easier to keep track of things, and making less work for you. I remembered when I first started home schooling my oldest son. I kept every single project, report and worksheet he even attempted to complete; but as he got older, and we became more experienced in homeschooling we tried alternative ways of doing things, this included keeping track.

Now he is thirteen and enjoys writing, drawing and the Internet. His recent works are actually small publications. Stories he has written, or blogged, and illustrations that go with them.

Being a big art, computer nerd like mom and dad, most of his things are archived this way, and kept on a thumb drive. Sometimes they may be pictures of projects and experiments.

My daughter, age seven goes from topic to topic. She really enjoys learning about animals, and taking pictures. We keep track of her work in lap books, similar to scrap booking but not as expensive. She includes things she has written about the topics, pictures she has drawn, colored, or photographed. They have beautiful handmade covers, and can be shared with family and friends when they visit.

Another option of keeping track, especially if your student is a very active scout, are badges. They can be actual badges, or virtual badges, in which they earn based on the projects they complete within a topic.

An organized person myself, I keep everything in outlook. Each of my student s is a contact in outlook; I sit with them on a weekly basis and discuss what there goals are for the week. I jot down what they completed, and what they are still working on. Create tasks list, and calendar items. If I find some really cool info I just shoot them an email, and its all kept in outlook. Every view months that info is exported and put onto a thumb drive as well.

No longer do we keep every single piece of paper, worksheet, and project that the students complete. Our most favorites are kept, and used to create annual portfolios, as well as the USB sticks, lap books, and more.

There is no need to make more work for you, and it's really fun to go back and look at how students have progressed. Just recently we went back to my oldest sons handwriting in kindergarten (a scanned doc) and compared it to now. Sometimes when he gets lazy I pull it out and show his the difference.

Education is a life long journey, the ride must be enjoyable not a heartache. We want to look back and remember all the fun times and share them with others.