Homeschooling 101
Lesson 5: Record Keeping and Scheduling
Grades!
Grades. Either you love them, or you hate them. Either way, they are sometimes a necessary part of life.
In my house, we teach to mastery. But, we do keep track of grades. I keep track of the beginning and ending grades so that I can know how long it took us to get to where we are.
How do you decide what grade to give an assignment? Depends on what it is.
If you are interested in learning how to write a rubric, The Chicago Public Schools has a great tutorial online how to create a rubric from scratch. If you don’t want to write your own, there are plenty of rubric generators, and even prewritten rubrics available online. Try Teach-nology.com (Scroll down past the advertisement for T-shirts.) If you are going to use a generator or a prewritten rubric, here is a great way to make sure it is what you need Tips for choosing rubrics.
For worksheets, math tests, and papers with "black and white" answers, this is a great way to figure grades... and it’s easy, too!
1. Correct the paper.
2. Determine the number of total questions. Some questions can get more than one point - if there are multiple answers or if it is a particularly long answer.
3. Count number of correct questions.
4. Take the number of correct questions and divide by the total number of questions.
5. Multiply this number by 100 to turn it into a percentage.
6. Typical grade scale:
93-100% = A
85-92% = B
77-84% = C
70-76% = D
69% and below = F
If you have MS Excel (or a similar program) on your computer, then create a simple spreadsheet listing all the subjects your child has during the day. Then, once a week - I do it every Friday afternoon - enter all of the grades for the week right into the spreadsheet. This doubles as a report card. This helps you with accountability when the state is checking up on you!
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