Planning & Record Keeping {Homechool Review Crew Blog Hop 2017}

Welcome to day three of the Back to School Blog Hop with the Homeschool Review Crew. Planning and Record Keeping for home eduation need not be a complicated task nor does it need to be a stressful one.  Keeping it simple will illiminate many headaches for you and your family. As a friend recently pointed out: providing too much information is often driven by our need to justify ourselves.  It also can become a stumbling block to successfully passing a review or inspection. 

Planning to Home Educate
If you are in the planning stages of home educating one of the first things you will need to do is find out what the legal requirements are for where you are living.  Home Education is a viable and legal option in most countries/states in the world.

To find out more about the registration requirements take a look at

• Australia take a look at Home Education Association.
• New Zealand take a look at Home Education Foundation.
• America take a look at Home School Legal Defence Association and choose your state.
• South Africa take a look at Association for Home Schooling, and Pestalozzi Trust and  Legal Issues
• Other Countries take a look at the HSLDA International page and click on your country.

Home Schooling in Victoria Australia

• Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.
• Victorian Registration & Qualifications Authority. There are changes for the 2018 year which are currently being rolled out. Please look here for more information: Home schooling changes from 2018
• Home Schooling Application for Registration for Home Schooling.
• Home Education Network

Legal information

1. Queensland
2. Northern Territories
3. Western Australia
4. South Australia
5. Victoria
6. Australian Capital Territory
7. New South Wales
8. Tasmania

Record Keeping
The requirements for record keeping are different everywhere.  Currently in Vicoria we are awaiting to hear about what our new record keeping requirements are going to be. In anticipation of the changes I was introduced to a fabulous app called KeptMe. KeptMe has been optimised for accross platform performance meaning it can be used on all your devices i.e. apple, android and pc.   It is currently being used by many different schools in variouse countries around the world (including in the USA).  I highly recommend this app for it's ease of use and the beautiful report it produces in pdf for you to download and print should you ever require one.

Why do I like KeptMe?

• I like that it is easy to use.  I simply snap a photo on my phone. Add it to KeptMe.  
• I can easily select the template (This year I'm using year six Victorian Curriculum) I want to report and within that template ALL the information I need is at my finger tips.
• It's a fabulous way to show friends and family who want to know what your children have been up to.
• It's easy to use with multiple children in one family

KeptMe Timeline of Learning

KeptMe keeps a timeline of your entries.  Here is a Learning Timeline I created in less than an hour  with KeptMe.  I like that I can see at a glance which Key Learning Area is needing information in my report by the absence of a little graphic.  Each of the graphics you see within the report page above correlates to a full page report within the document.  This timeline of learning also demostrates the regular nature of our home educating.

 Here is a sample page using the Victorian Curriculum Year 6 template.  As you can see I took a photo of the vidoe we watched and then added in a couple of notes under observation.  I then read through the different Learning Areas and added a tick to the boxes which were relavant to our learning.  KeptMe then added these sentances to the bottom of the page.  These are a direct quote from the official Victorian Curriculum for year six.

Here is another sample.  We did a unit on volcanoe's and covered both geography and science.  You can see that KeptMe has colour coded each subject.

KeptMe can be customed to use anywhere and is so easy to use that your older children can keep records of their own learning.

KeptMe is FREE to sign up to and a breeze to use. Please note you will need to sign up as an EDUCATOR in order to access all these functions.  I will do a full tutorial in a few weeks time and show you how to use KeptMe.

Blessings
Chareen


MEET SOME OF THE CREW PARTICIPATING IN THIS WEEKS BLOG HOP:

1. Jodi – Insane in the Mombrain – Jodi is blissfully (?!) rocking this homeschooling journey with three punks still at home. It’s “not back to school” time, because she schools year round, but it is time to get organized and refreshed. Let the fun begin!
2. Karen – Tots and Me…Growing Up Together – I am a homeschool mom of 4 young children. This year I will be teaching a 5th grader, 4th grader, 2nd grader, and kindergartner doing 1st grade work. I’ve been blogging since my 5th grader was doing home preschooling at 2 1/2 years old. I love sharing what we are doing in our homeschool (lessons, crafts, recipes, books we are reading, and LOTS of pictures). Stop by and see what we are up to. I love making new friends
3. Kelly – God’s Writer Girl – Kelly is the single mother of a unique teenaged boy with diagnoses of Asperger’s Syndrome, ADHD, and Learning Disabilities. Her blog, God’s Writer Girl, focuses on offering encouragement for life’s journey for which she draws inspiration from her own life: eight years of homeschooling, her son’s perseverance and abilities, and her own journey with chronic pain and illness.
4. Kellyann – Walking Home … – I am a homeschool mom of 3 (who are currently in each school bracket – elementary, middle, and high school aged) who is passionate about helping others reach their homeschooling goals and potential through reviews and teaching, training, and mentoring others. I also help co-lead a large homeschool group coordinating field trips, events, classes, and activities.
5. Kemi – Homemaking Organized – I have been homeschooling for 8 years and have found that one of the best things I can do is to share what I’m discovering along this journey.
6. Kirsten – Doodle Mom’s Homeschooling Life – Homeschooling mom, former senior market analyst, former Biophysicist. Now I write blog posts about homeschooling and product reviews for the HomeschoolReviewCrew.com while my teens sleep in.
7. Kristi – Classically Quirky Learning – An overview of what homeschool looks like for a couple of 2e kids.
8. Kym – Homeschool Coffee Break – I’m about to start my 20th year of homeschooling – wow! My three oldest kids have graduated, and my youngest will be a junior this year. We’re eclectic homeschoolers, and the focus with this youngest student is definitely music and the arts. I love coffee and history, and try to encourage other homeschool moms through the co-ops and fellowship groups I’m in, and through my blog.