Homeschool Record Book

It's that time of year again...planning time. I actually like planning. I'm weird that way, I know. I have tried so many different planning ideas, books, pages, etc...that when it came to planning time last year, I was frustrated. Frustrated to the point that I decided to make my own. I saw an idea on an old CM Blog Carnival for making a plan/record book and decided to try it for this year. I have loved it! I changed a few things to make it work for our family, but I love looking back at all the things we have accomplished.

I made two books. 1 planning book (for goals and plans) and 1 recording book (for things we actually finished).


(Mental note to self: Make sure books are two VERY different colors this year!) I ended up putting the kids artwork in between the two covers so I could tell the difference between books. It worked out well though, because I think it made the kids feel special to see their work on the front of my book!


Since showing both books would make this post a mile long, I will break it up and show only the record book for this post.

As I said before, I have LOVED looking back at all we have accomplished. So many times in my planning, I have planned too much, or inappropriately (i.e. 3 pages of math when 1 would have been better). This has left things in my planning books that aren't 'checked' off. I don't know if it's my personality or what, but this DRIVES ME CRAZY! Soooo...having a book that only has things we accomplished has been a real motivator for me this year.

Unlike my planning book, my record book only has four sections:

Attendance, Recording Pages, Assessments/Reviews, Misc.

The first section is attendance. I just created a simple title page to put the tab onto then put one attendance sheet per child in this section.

Donna Young has some great attendance forms. I just noticed that she has some new Colonial style forms. They look beautiful!

The second and by far the biggest section is for my weekly record forms.

I got the majority of my ideas for forms from the Tanglewood Corebook. That being said, I'm not going to upload my forms onto Homeschool Launch because I don't want to infringe upon their rights. Plus, their downloadable book is only $5 and well worth it I might add! I just took the ideas and made them work for our family...

Here is one week's worth of independent work for one child. I have forty of these pages per child in my book. I highlighted each child's name in a different color to easily distinguish what page I was looking for.


This is the record page for all the things we do together...I loved the idea of just circling the day we did things...I think this is Tanglewood's sparkling gem!....again, 40 of these total.


At the end of each week, I put a journal page, so I could review the week. This one IS my creation, so it is on my Homeschool Launch page. My file actually has nine different pages with different pictures. I used things that we would be studying this year to mix it up a little. I'm so crazy like that:)


So that I wouldn't have to flip between pages so often, I arranged all the record forms by week. So my record pages look like this: First, independent work pages for child 1, child 2, child 3, and child 4, Then, together work form, and Finally, the journal page. I copied front to back to save on paper and space. I put this combination together forty times and put it behind the tab. Whew!

The third section is for assessments and reviews. The Tanglewood Corebook has a neat system for reviewing goals every six weeks and we used pages from that for this section. I also put my Math u See, Spelling Power, and Sight word recording pages here.


The last section is just a misc. section: Things I want to do differently next year, to do pages, etc...whatever strikes my fancy...

I also put a pocket folder in the back to hold misc. papers and such. I took everything to Kinkos and had it bound. I'm glad I did, because they bound it much nicer than I could have. I had them put two covers on it...1 regular and 1 clear plastic. It has lasted all year.

Where as I will pitch my planning book in the trash this year, my record book is one that I will treasure! It's everything that God has given us the grace to finish!