Grading can easily become one of the most stressful and overwhelming tasks to do in your homeschool! This is why it’s so important to have a homeschool grading system.
You might need to keep record or grade in your homeschool because of your state’s homeschool requirements (check the Hslda site for state requirements), you are completing an accredited homeschool program or simply because you want to keep grades to track growth.
Which ever your reason maybe, here are some helpful tips to help you do your homeschool grading in a stress free manner!
Decide how often you want to do your homeschool grading.
Whatever you decide to do here, just make sure it something that works for you and it’s sustainable to your family.
There are different times that yo can decide what you would like to complete your grading.
You can decide to complete all of your grading:
- right then and there when your child completes a certain assignment or test
- at the end of your homeschooling day
- every few days ie. Wednesdays & Fridays
- one a week (this is how I do it & I don’t recommend going longer than that)
Since my husband and I are both full time working parents (read more here on how we make it work) , we have divided our homeschooling tasks. I take care of all the grading and record keeping. Do what has worked best for me is grading on a weekly basis on Saturday mornings. Honestly, this has now simply become part of my Saturday morning routine.
Designate a space for all of your homeschool grading materials
Choose a specific location to keep all of you answer key and manuals. This saves time and prevents you from misplacing things.
For us, I have a cubby with book bins that hold all of the answer keys for each of my children’s curriculum and they never move. My husband knows where they are at, I know where they are at and on Saturdays I grab the whole bin, do all the grading and place them back to their location.
Have an organizational system!
This is one of the most important things in my opinion!
We organize our curriculum using the binder system and it’s amazing. Watch this video to see the step by step process that I go through for organizing our curriculum.
The best thing about this organizational system is that everything is all in one place and nothing ever goes missing! When is time for me to grade, I simply take my kid’s binder, grab the answer keys and all the work is located in that binder. I don’t have to waste time looking through different workbooks or folders to locate work or tests or ask my husband or children where anything is at. Everything stays in the binder until the quarter is over. When the quarter ends, I removed the old work, keep the assessments, record grades and place all the new work in.
Doing these things when grading in your homeschool is time saving, sanity saving and stress free!
If you have any additional tips or would like to share how you manage your homeschool grading, go ahead and let me know in the comments bellow! I would love to hear from you!
