The Montessori homeschool list was discussing record keeping and I was asked to post my checklist. Decided I would post it here while I was at it.  This year’s record keeping is very simple but we have been able to keep up with it well. I have this chart Download school_weekly_goal_checklist.doc  which I print out for the girls. They can still self-select but it helps to remind us all of the types of things we want to cover each week.  I took the categories from places like Ambleside Online and our Montessori work so its a CM/Montessori mix.

   The red boxes represent the daily seatwork time. The rest they try to hit throughout the week. We don’t do ALL these things every week, admirable as that would actually be. However, I keep the crossed off lists and use them to see if some areas are getting neglected over time so we stay relatively balanced. (academically anyway ; ))

  I also have one composition notebook – per Dr Raymond Moore’s suggestion –  I use as a journal of sorts to write down which pages were done and titles of real books read etc each day. We are enrolled in a private umbrella school and need to keep a calendar so monthly I refer to the dates in the notebook and transfer them to the attendance chart thing. I had once tried composition books for each child.  That was too hard to keep track of and we do much group work so it had to be reentered multiple times.  This way it goes in once for the day. Older kids write their own entries which helps too.

   We have tried computer programs and spread sheets and you name it over the years. Nothing beats ten minutes with the composition bk imo!