To grade or not to grade? That is the question!

People outside the homeschool world may not realize that this is even a thing, but it really is something that we ask ourselves as homeschool parents, especially in elementary years.  Do I grade, or do I not grade?  Letter grades are given in multi-student classrooms as an objective way to monitor student performance.  One could argue that it should be a must for any student as it is concrete, but I'm not sold on that for the younger student.  In fact, I even look back on my own report cards from public school and see that early on I was given some pass/fails and some Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory/Needs Improvement type grades.

Some opt for a all-in-one school program where a transcript is provided by the curriculum company.  I just am not satisfied with the price or the product of all-in-one high school programs.  Let me clarify, I think many companies do a great job with one or two subjects, but I haven't loved a package deal enough that I'm willing to pay the price to try it out.  AND I love a few of the companies that I've chosen through the years.  I can't say enough about Apologia Science!  My kids and I have enjoyed that through elementary and the kids loved it less in middle and high school as they're expected to do lab reports and hypotheses.  Teacher Momma loves that they are required to do that!  Since I use a different company for almost every subject, I find myself in need of a way to keep good records, grade reports, and now a high school transcript.

I have aligned our curriculum schedule with our state's Board of Regents guidelines so that a college transition and possibility for scholarships improves.  I know there are many ways to do grading and high school.  This is just our way at LSA.  All high school courses are getting a letter grade and we are using the 4 point grading system that many high schools across the USA use as well.  I could figure out the algorithm, it's  not that hard, but I have an app for that!  One of the best investments I've made in record keeping for homeschool is Homeschool Helper.  According to AppBrain.com it hasn't been updated since 2014, but is available for Apple and Android and is still $4.99.  I've been using it for several years and it still has previous years' information on it, but that is mostly hidden.

Homeschool Helper Start-up screen

Homeschool Helper is great as I input my grading scale, all the classes with resources and my student names.  It keeps track of attendance, has a reading log, a fieldtrip log and grade book.  It also has a planner which directly translates to the gradebook by clicking, "create grade for this lesson," button.  The attendance record is by the day or half-day.  In Kansas, we have to have days that are an approximate equivalent to a 6 hour school day, so if we do 5-8 hours (yes we do long days sometimes) I select full day.  If we do 2-4 hours, I click half day.  If we only do one hour, I don't generally count the day at all.  I may record it in the field trip area, but not count it in my days.  The reality is that we really need the book days to complete our work, so I don't over-do the field trip or extra-curricular activities counting as school days.

The open book of Homeschool Helper.  Each subject has a tab.  You can calculate the grade right there and plug it in.

I had chosen a grading scale that had 69% as failing.  The reason being I don't want a care giver or even someone doing any service for me that is only 62% competent, but they passed.  In high school, I did relax my standard a bit and made it as 65% is still passing.  My reason for this decision is that most schools in our area have a 60-70-80-90 grading scale.  My kids are both interested in college and their GPA will compete with the GPAs of other smart kids who are rated on an easier scale.  Until high school, I still expect the 70-78-86-93 work.  High school's change is slight, but 65-74-83-92.  I have no ill feelings for anyone who chooses any grading scale.  I just love that we can choose those details about our home schools!  I think sometimes that I do want to prove naysayers wrong that homeschooling is not slacking.  We don't raise incompetent learners.

THE SUBJECTIVE

Here is the rough part about grading.  I'm their mom!  Everything they do is wonderful, right?  Well it's not.  I do think my children are bright.  I have high standards for them, but there are places I push them and places I don't.  My husband pushes them in places that I don't and that is a great balance for them.  We support each other as a team!  Here are subjects that really mess with me, though.  Physical Education, Art, Music, Projects, Speeches, Creative Writing.  I know that if they say 8x7 is 49, they are wrong.  One child had a 5-day project to tell how other nations influence our culture today.  They had to make a visual representation.  I gave them input that they could draw arrows on a map that are color coded to imports and exports, etc. and they ran with it.  I received a printout of a world map.  There were 4 colors of ink used and a scribbled key and a bunch of curved lines that look like a sloppy airline map of where this and that airline flies to.  5 days to make this???  So I shared that I will try to rate these projects as if they were submitted to the fair.  "What color ribbon would this get?  It looks like you only spent 15 minutes on it!"  The response I got from the child was, "I did only spend 15 minutes on it."  As a parent/teacher I don't even know what to do with that!!!  I have nothing to compare it to with other students.  What should I expect of a child that age?  It hasn't been graded at the time of this post.  I'm searching the curriculum company for advise on objective ways to grade this type of project.

You choose whether you want percentages or the E, S, NI, U grading systems.

Art, Music and Physical Education are graded mostly by effort applied.  That is changing in high school.  So far, I have nothing to grade, but I'm looking on how to navigate that.  I really prefer the younger grades with a pass/fail.  I have a page that I've developed for writing criteria.  It includes whether or not the subject is covered, grammar, sentence structure, use of a variety of adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and descriptive nouns.  How many paragraphs are in there and what the topic sentence and closing sentence looks like.  I have a speech grading criteria as well.  I'm looking forward to forensics, though and I will grade by the rating they receive.  Someone who doesn't love them and think they're adorable can give them a score for those things.  I am likely to find a grading criteria for the other subjective subjects so that I can be confident that I'm grading as an unbiased teacher would grade.

ELEMENTARY YEARS

I started homeschool as many homeschool parents and tried to format it like a public school, but after experiencing it for a while, I relaxed my approach.  It adapted to where during the elementary years, I hardly graded anything.  A handwriting grade just killed my little girl!  I switched to putting a heart around the letters or words that looked really good and making a mark by those I could not read.  Homeschool Helper App has an option to give grades of Excellent, Satisfactory, Needs Improvement, and unsatisfactory.  They don't have a pass/fail option, but I would appreciate that.  I understand why a teacher of 20 would need the NI option so the parent can see it.  Personally, I know when my child is not doing well and help them before moving on.  I have been guilty of not grading something for a few weeks and not realize that they need improvement until they've moved on.  I feel terrible as they are circling the verb, too, when they were supposed to circle the complete subject.  Things like that do happen and we review instead of grade.  Coming up to middle school, I began to grade the concrete things and I guess I always graded math.  I do give 1/2 credit for answers that are close, but incorrect.  I would much rather see a try than a skip.  For instance I recently received an answer that was correct in some instances, but not in what the text just explained.  I gave half credit.  The next question asked something specific and the answer written was not remotely about the content in any setting.  They got no credit for that answer.  I do want my kids to thrive outside the walls of my home.

Would you fail your own child in a subject?  Yes.  I have done it and will do it again if I need to.  Now there is a math concept that one of my children could get correct for the tests last year, but in review, it was like they were never taught how to do it.  I will just say it.  Fractions!  We could do great with adding, we could do great with subtracting, we did great with multiplying, but then forgot how to add and subtract.  Once we got to dividing, we forgot how to do all of the others.  Conversion factors make sense while in the unit where we do them every day, but get past it and come back to it and its gone.  I have a rough time with explaining them, because I do all of it in my head and have to step back and slow down to explain it again each time.  We are redoing 2 whole math books.  No shame!  We use Life of Fred math and supplement with YouTube o
n occasion.  The program is fantastic and has brought us back around from hating math to somewhat enjoying it again.  There is no rush to complete everything, and by high school the concepts should be solid.  I would rather that than try to push through just to say we did.  Why push through something that isn't understood?

I'm just beginning in high school so I found a credit planner that I really like so far.  You can find it here.  They have many more printables and template downloads, so you might want to check out their whole site! 

I'm not paid to advertise for the people I promote, I just want to share things that work for me!

Yes, No, I don't know!

Saying yes or no seems simple.  When you have several opportunities to do things you enjoy, of course the answer seems simple, "yes!"  There are times that everything seems to be well-balanced, but then it turns out that everything you say yes to, lands about the same time.
Yes, being a homeschool family gives you freedom to start and end your school days when you can or want to.  It gives you freedom to have days off when other schools are in session, and hold school while area schools are in recess.  It doesn't mean that you have more time than other families, though.  Well, not in the same way at least.  And we still must meet several state requirements to be in compliance with the law.  I got so busy this last few weeks, I didn't review my lessons for this week and it makes a big impact! 
There are weeks that we are all less prepared than others, but I was convicted last year to make sure that I am as prepared for my own kids as I am when I teach a class at church or lead worship.  When I was working full-time, I studied before my meetings and when I was on committees, I gave my best.  My kids deserve no less!  I would be furious if I sent my kids to another style of school and the teachers were ill-prepared and yelled at my kids when communication failed.  Yeah, that happens here on occasion.
There was a time that I tried writing some of my own material to save on money or other reasons.  It was an ok thing and I do enjoy that, but it turns out that it is not for me!  I am more of one to adapt the material to fit my kids and their needs.  They somehow learn in spite of me at times, but I love the interaction of them learning because of me.  If I plan to adapt the material to fit the lesson theme and don't even know what we will be discussing, that is a problem!  Some weeks I can prepare during the school hours, but other weeks I can't. 
For me it takes a good 5 + hours to plan for a week of school for 2 kids.  I have already made a layout of what I want to accomplish through the year in each subject and that took some time as well.  I would say that I am at the point in preparation that people who get a boxed curriculum set are in.  The disadvantage is that I don't have a concise list of supplies laid out for me.  I choose not to make these lists in advance because it requires too much redundancy.  I just do it when I make my shopping list for the week.  I preview the language material so that I know that I can help with questions.  I preview the science experiments to make sure they are doable in our home.  I look through our history curriculum because I don't remember most of it and I like to learn with the kids!  We also have many activities to choose from in history and some of them that I chose when I laid out the year aren't going to work out at this point. 
Another part for my planning that takes plenty of time is my digital gradebook.  I have chosen the Homeschool Helper (HH) app for record keeping.  It is less paperwork and more paperwork all at the same time.  I use weekly planning pages from donnayoung.org so that I have a layout of what is happening with everyone all in one spot.  On the HH app, I have to click on each student individually and that is ok.  It is so interesting that because there is such a variety of styles of homeschooling parent as well as family size, curriculum choice and state requirements, that there can never be a one-size-fits-all solution to record keeping in a homeschool.  This is working for me, but takes a bit of effort.  I transfer daily assignments to my weekly planning page and then enter them into HH.  The beauty of it is that I don't have to rewrite the assignment to put a grade in.  I can alter things and make comments, but all-in-all, the entry at the beginning saves me time with grading in the end.
So I will let my yes be yes, and my no be no!  BUT I will keep in mind before giving a yes or no that I only have a short time left with my kids and open-ended dates will be considered differently than solid dates.  I need to be intentional about keeping a good universal calendar so that I don't over-plan!  Outside experiences and watching the good and bad parts of a parent juggling activities are an education in itself.  Oh the joys of figuring out balance! 

Planning ... Already?

I'm so ready for summer break and so are my kids.  I feel more so when the temps are in the 80's.  Today you'd think that waking up to the 30's would put me back into school gear, but it really doesn't.  My husband warned me not to take a spring break because he knew that we'd all feel this way, but did we listen?  Noooooo.  Just a few more weeks.  Just a few more weeks.  I think I can.  I think I can.
Well our book work can be done more quickly than this, but it should be done in 3 weeks.  We did start earlier than other schools in the area and did half days last summer.  I start counting school in June with baseball and softball as PE. 
This homeschool mom is a little strange, because I love new curriculum and paper and planners and school supplies.  I could get lost in the school supply aisle in August!  Actually, I've heard that this is a common weakness of homeschool moms.  I am not alone!  This year, as most other years, the curriculum that I use is on sale right now.  YAY!  So, I ordered our curriculum last week and I got my first shipment yesterday.  I am so excited about that and I am ready to start planning for next year and I haven't even finished this year. 
I use the Homeschool Helper app on my iPad to keep attendance and grades, but I like to start with a paper planner.  This year, I have moved so much around because I like to plan way ahead and then we ended up with doctor's appointments, unexpected travel, and braces which require a whole day off of school for the 1 1/2 hour travel each direction.  Thankfully there are historical sites and museums we can do for field trips those days.  Soooo, I found this planner that is perfect for me.  It is the Term planner "class schedule" at donnayoung.org and I'm so glad I found it!
I was so against printable planners because of the ink they use compared to the price of a good planner.  I really like the Well Planned Day planner from Home Educating Family Association, but I'm really not organized enough to use it.  By the end of the year I paper-clipped all the stuff between the weekly planning pages and skipped it all.  There are inspiring things and menu planning things and grocery shopping lists to tear out.  I thought it was great, but I don't utilize everything.  I want to do something that I will use.  This year, I'm only printing what I know I will use.  All I will need is a little cheap planner from Walmart to make notes in and acclimate myself to what day it is.
There are plenty of other planning pages on DonnaYoung.  SchoolhouseTeachers.com also has printable planners, but I believe you have to have a membership to use them.  I have a lot of organizing things pinned on Pinterest as well.  So there are many ways to plan and organized.  I would like to think I'm finally settling on one, but time will tell.

Ha Ha! It's official, I have fallen behind!

Well it's not really funny, but what can I do?  This is the first weekend this school year that I haven't graded all of last week's assignments.  The classroom is a mess.  The lesson plans are drafted through Thanksgiving, but they're not in the grade book yet.  The Homeschool Helper app has been fantastic and worth every penny.  It does work better, though when you're caught up.  Last week's buttons are still showing up as red instead of green, and it's not because the kids aren't done, it's all me.  

So last Friday was a scheduled homeschool group bowling trip.  I made it so we would do character, math and spelling, then hit the road for a nice 45 minute drive to the activity.  The kids were excited to see and play with their friends.  I scheduled to help a friend at 5 and bowling was until 5 so I would have to leave around 4 to get back in time.  I didn't look at a map because I had the directions in my head.  My husband is laughing at this point if he's reading this.  I drove East and after about 30 minutes of driving and daydreaming, I realized that I should be going North by now, so I turn on the GPS.  It says to continue East for 7 more miles.  I keep going and after a few miles begin to realize that I would be going East to find another paved road to take me North so I can go back West.  No!  At this point, I look at the time I'm supposed to arrive at my destination and it tells me I have another 50+ minutes.  It is already about 2:40.  I don't have anyone's phone numbers in my phone, but I have extra directories in my trunk.  Why?  Because I'm the group's leader.  Now that's funny!  I finally get ahold of someone and tell them I just won't be making it to bowling.  Over 2 hours of driving for 30 minutes of bowling wasn't going to work.  So now I'm going home and I could catch up on grading and lesson plan entry, but no, I let the kids do wii bowling because they were disappointed.  I have continuing ed for my nursing license to do, so I start reading and start to doze off.  I set my iPad alarm to remind me when to help my friend because I can be there by 4:30 now and I won't be late.... If I turn on the volume for my alarm.  So I wake up in a start and wipe the drool off my face.  "Get your socks and shoes on!  We're late!"  I make it to my next destination just before 5.  Done by 9.  

So now the weekend is gone, I never caught up our homeschool stuff, but I've completed 15 of 30 CEU's for nursing and am well on my way to the next 5 being done.  I had a great time at church and fellowship group, bought groceries, babysat the carpenter who still didn't have the right parts to finish a door install started in July, and baked a dessert and bread.  I even got a Sunday afternoon nap which is why I'm still awake and blogging at 2 a.m..

If you've ever read someone's blog and felt inadequate, I bet you will feel empowered by reading this one.  School for us is still successful even though I told my husband last week that I felt like a failure.  My bathroom hasn't been mopped since... I don't know for sure.  My kids have been fed, there's clean and folded clothes in various places in the house and the bills are paid!  I'm just feeling blessed that we made it 1/4 of the way through the school year this time before I got behind.

Have an excellent week!  I intend to.