Officer Daddyman likes to containerize. We tease him about his collection of bins, particularly clear plastic bins of various sizes. While he really does buy bins with some degree of regularity, he usually does buy them with specific goal in mind, and the purchase typically is precipitated by lots of measuring and sorting. January is a good month for Officer Daddyman, because it’s when all the bins go on sale. I want you to hold all of this in your mind as I continue with this Tuesday’s “Ask a [Smrt] Homeschooler” post.
I wanted us to start our second semester with reorganized binders. Officer Daddyman wanted us to start with a neat desk. These are both noble goals.
Reorganizing binders meant a lot of sorting into categories, repairing torn notebook paper holes with those little white circle thingies, and generally reshuffling. Officer Daddyman walked into the school room to find me surrounded by piles of papers. His eyes grew wide, and he asked, “Are you keeping all of that?” (Of course, I immediately told him I’d be blogging that).
Today’s question, from Officer Daddyman is, “Are you keeping all of that?”
The short answer: No.
The long answer: While I’m not required to produce records for what we’ve covered, I want to keep them anyway. Keeping records does not, however, mean keeping every scrap upon which Captain Science ever scribbled a math problem. My keep file boils down to this:
The “dispose of” pile included all the “your turn to play” sections from Life of Fred, rough drafts of essays, old history vocabulary and timeline stuff (since we pretty much ditched that), and any scribbles, doodles, or scratch paper. Trust me, the “dispose of” pile was much larger than the “keep” pile.
Now the [Smrt] Homeschooler has a question for you? What do you keep? What papers are you required to hang on to for continued homeschooling on the up-and-up? What do you keep for personal records?
One thing I’m going to try this year, after seeing it recommended on the WTM boards, is getting the work bound at Kinko’s at the end of the year. So we’ll have a bound book with our history stuff, Latin, language arts, etc. I haven’t decided how much of the math will be kept, though I’m tempted to keep all the algebra work because, you know. Fourth grader doing algebra.
The homeschooling battle cry: “Fourth graders doing algebra!”
No way! Your husband and I must be long lost twins. I say those exact words every May to my husband while standing in the middle of his classroom.
In CA, we are ONLY required to keep attendance records and a copy of our yearly affidavit, but I basically keep a portfolio and a cum file.
1. Portfolio – I keep our history/science notebooks which you see pictures of from our week in review. These are things the children have drawn & written & won’t give up for anything. Additionally, I keep a monthly sample of writing and math and any tests they take (just to prove progression). By the end of the school year that usually equals one 3-ring binder and a 10×12 manila envelope for each child.
2. Cumulative Files – Again, not required in our state but I prefer to have them on hand should they ever need to quickly transition back to an institutionalized setting (I’d be dead probably). Cum file has things like course of study, attendance records, vaccination proof (or waiver), third quarter grades and/or comments, any standardized test scores, and the like.
Every loose paper generated goes into a subject binder. At the end of each quarter I pull two samples from each subject and place them in the kids’ portfolios. Then they go through the binders, pull out anything else they want to keep in their personal files, and throw the rest away.
You may be long lost twins. He seems to have a few out there. I sometimes accuse him of being the Boy Patchfire (who accuses ME of being the girl version of her husband).
I don’t accuse, I merely state it as the fact that it is.