When it comes to finishing your homeschool year, you want to finish strong. How do you wrap-up your homeschooling year? Do you wonder what you should keep? Are your records in good order? Here are five steps to walk you through using your homeschool planner to finish strong.
5 Step Guide to Finishing Your Homeschool Year
- Collect samples. Start with gathering all your materials and be prepared to purge. Things to keep: a table of contents (a photocopy if it’s not consumable), quizzes, tests, and several samples of daily work. Create a google doc or similar type of document and make a list of what you covered in the year. Use your curriculum’s study guides to guide you. Consider what will fit in the pockets and staple them or clip them together. Keep them orderly. I like to write on the top of the sorted sections what subject it’s for, and write that on the coordinating pocket.
- Finalize forms. – Go to the notes and record keeping forms. Make sure you have all the ones you classify as important completed. This might depend upon your local homeschool requirements, too. I personally like to complete the attendance forms, activity log, and achievement record for test scores. You do not have to fill out every one, just the ones that will help you get a snapshot of the year, what your state might require, and remember what you want to remember. Your homeschool planners will double as a memory book for each year of homeschooling.
- Complete the year-end review. Have your child fill out the Year End Review found in every planner. Since we are looking to foster independence, it is important for our kids to have a say in how they think the year went. It will really help you not only close out the current year, but look ahead as well. This is a great opportunity to have a conversation with your child about where they did well and where opportunities exist for improvement.
- Create progress reports. Now that you have your child’s planner all updated and filled out, you have enough information to hand out grades, if you choose to do that. You can use a typical grading scale to calculate letter grade or percentages. In the younger years, we focused mostly on effort. In eighth grade, we started preparing for grades since we record those in the high school years. Make sure you look through the year or semester as a whole and not just the last few weeks.
- Have a Parent-Child meeting. Once you have it all finished, it is time to schedule a special meeting one on one with your child. You can read through tips and ideas for how to conduct your meeting here. Focus on keeping it fun and productive. Make sure you take their completion certificate filled out and ready to present, so they can feel accomplished for all they completed throughout the year!
After your meeting, start looking ahead to next year. If you don’t have a homeschool planner for your child, get your new student or high school planner ordered by visiting our shop. Make sure you check out our new custom covers, adding yet another customized option for you!
Finish your homeschool year strong and organized and start putting your plan in place for next year.