Tools to Keep Up With Homeschool Grading

While homeschooling, it is important to keep up with grading. Why? Grading simply gives us, the parents, a view of how our children are doing in each subject. Yes, we know our children, and we know what they are learning; but we really don’t know what they are actually retaining. Grading and tests help us to see what they know on paper. Because I have never been a good test taker, I sympathize when students struggle with getting a grade or taking a test. When I had to determine how to track and grade for my children, I also had all that on my mind. I needed to find an easy way to determine grades that wouldn’t stress my children or me. Here are the solutions I sought to find:

A curriculum with some built in tools to help me.
A cover school that would give me some helpful guidelines.
The tool to help track and keep up with those guidelines.

Finding a curriculum

The curriculum is a tool and should have all the components needed to homeschool. As a homeschool mom, my educational background was in accounting. I didn’t have a teaching degree, and I wanted my curriculum to help me by suggesting which pages to grade other than just giving tests and quizzes.

Finding a cover school

A cover school is a school that a homeschool family enrolls in for record keeping and transcripts. Also, a cover school has administrators who help guide the homeschool parents through their school year when questions arise and normally require them to turn in grades and attendance. Find out more about cover schools in your state at HSLDA Homeschool Legal Defense Association

Finding a tool to help track

A tool for tracking grades is relative to our personality and style. I used a simple notebook with the grade guide sheets provided by my curriculum placed within the notebook. In the subjects I didn’t have a grade guide sheet, I used a form that I simply created. Here is a free copy of my generic grade form. Recently, I found a more up-to-date way to track things that I absolutely love because I love technology. It is called the Homeschool Manager. The Homeschool Manager helps us track more than just grades. It is full of great helps, and you can try it for free.

Homeschool moms are always asking about grading: how to and what is best to grade. Remember, some work is just practice for mastery or review and not meant to be graded. Elementary classes are more about learning and usually require just a letter grade. Middle school and high school is where we need to really start getting those number percentage grades and helps our student prepare for the college grading process. Contact me and ask me about an inexpensive video that gives more tips on how to grade.

More tools to keep up

EZ Grader
Homeschool Planner
Homeschool Journal
- I like the Homeschool’s Journal by Fergnus Services simple and easy
Teachers Grade Books