Review: Grade-books

Tracking your child's progress in homeschool is mandatory in a some states and encouraged in others. My personal philosophy is that you, the parent-teacher, will have a good idea of your student's mastery of concepts without assigning a specific letter grade. However, if you live in one of the more regulated homeschooling states, or have a potentially contentious custody situation, or have an older child who is transitioning from traditional schooling, keeping grades is a good idea. Do you need to record a grade for every workbook page or assignment in elementary school? I wouldn't, but you do what makes YOU comfortable. Some parents don't even record letter grades in high school. That makes me uncomfortable, but, again, homeschooling allows for many different philosophies. So, you've decided you want to record grades for your students. Great. Now, HOW to do that? If you are using an enrollment based curriculum or an exclusively on-line school, they will often record the grades for you. Easy! There are also literally hundreds of printed grade-books available. If you have more than one or two students in your homeschool, a grade-book marketed toward public school teachers might be a good fit for you. I only have two children. They are, now, both in high school. They were used to receiving grades on their work, due to their 7+ years in public schools. Because we tend to move every few years, I try to limit the number of papers I can misplace. So, an Excel-based spreadsheet ( with multiple off-site backups!) makes the most sense for our homeschool.

I started with this grade-book. That form does not separate grades by semester and I needed a bit more spacing. Plus, I used a slightly different grading scale. So, I used her version as a template and spent a weekend tinkering with it. I've updated it several times since then. Here's what my tab for a class looks like (grades have been altered slightly for privacy reasons and the entirety of the second semester is not pictured):

I love that I have a central spot to record field trips:

And books read:

Here's what my 9th grader's grade-book looks like now. Once we start school and I start entering grades, those blanks will fill in.

As always, if you have questions about any of this, or if you would like a copy of my modifications to the grade-book, drop me an email or leave a comment here or on Facebook.