As a homeschooling parent you get the chance to maintain all kinds of records for your homeschool students. You can keep drawings they made, photographs of specific activities you did together, videos of your homeschool student playing a musical instrument or participating in a local cultural event. These are memories that you can use to reminisce about their activities as they grow older.
There is also a need to keep official records of their achievements like papers they wrote, projects they completed, transcripts of what they have been taught each academic session and even pop quiz results. These are going to be needed when they grow older and need to speak to their college counselor when seeking admission in higher education schools.
Formal Portfolio
It’s best to be proactive and organised with your homeschool students formal portfolios. These are documents including your legal permission from the state to homeschool, your child’s birth certificate, annual homeschool evaluations, copies of any diplomas or degrees they worked for, records of their attendance, hours worked and even your lesson plans.
These are ideally stored in a binder that is organised year wise. That way you can get a second or third binder if required and still keep all the records easily accessible. It is very easy to do this if you stay on track with your filing. That way you will also avoid mess in the homeschool classroom of too many papers floating around, even as you document the progress of your homeschooled child. Plus it will be easy to put in front of the state or college authorities when needed.
Informal Scrapbook
This is where you get to have a whole bunch of fun with your child’s records. Think of the field trip photos you took. Even if they were digital pick out a few to print and add to a scrapbook. Go through each important life event of your child and add more pictures to the scrapbook.
You can also make a digital scrapbook or a website dedicated to your child’s progress through life. Share audios, videos, pictures and more on the website. You can secure it with a password so that it is not accessible to anyone but people who you share it with.
