Planning and Record-Keeping When You’re Unschooling
Almost all homeschool families plan and prep for the school year. As a Christian unschooling/lifeschooling family, we do as well, but instead of doing so based on what I think my children should be learning or what a curriculum dictates, I do it primarily on my children’s interests (i.e. developing art skills or gaining knowledge on starting a business) as well as what would be helpful for them in that season (i.e. they’ve been struggling with habits or it’s election season and they’re confused about how the whole process works).
Honestly, I don’t think there is one official or best way to do this; each family has their own unique way of planning, prepping, and documenting their learning activities (also, don’t forget, you have to consider your state’s requirements on the matter as well!), but today I’ll share how our family does it!
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How We Do It: Planning
Instead of spending my time planning lessons on individual subjects I think they need to learn, I spend that time curating resources, activities, outings based on the input my children have given me when doing their educational compasses for the season, and then I jot them down in my planner for that month or quarter. That way, if they’re ever at a loss for how to occupy their time or need fresh inspiration, I can make suggestions to them.
For instance, one of my daughters really loves art and wanted to focus on that for a season. So, I made sure our home was stocked up on supplies and that our art books were easily accessible, found different online art classes/YouTube videos she could take if she wanted, and put a note in my planner to figure out a time to head to the art museum.
Each day, she was free to choose her specific learning activities but, as an unschooling mom, my job was to ensure she had resources and activities to suggest on the ready.
We also do something called Collective Time, where we gather together each day to cover administrative things (syncing our calendars), group learning (like when they all wanted to dive deep on U.S. Government), connect over a read aloud (the girls and I are currently going through Stepping Heavenward), or go over things that I’m discerning they need to know about or be challenged in (like discussions about selfishness or being missional in this generation). So, I’ll also pray about and curate resources (books, videos, classes, bible verses, etc.) for this time as well.
Note: Even though we are unschoolers, I actually time block our days! You can read more about why and how in this post.
How We Do It: Record-Keeping
As far as record-keeping goes, again, instead of plotting out lessons ahead of time on my calendar that I check off (and could use as documentation if we were ever “audited”), I document my children’s real-life learning and growing all along the way.
I still prefer paper over digital so I just document everything in my personalized planner from Plum Paper. That’s where I’ll write down books that were read, activities that were done, places that were visited, discussions that were had, etc.
I also keep specific, notable work that can be saved in a box (each kid has a big black bin that we keep in our shop dedicated to their learning) – any writing samples (letters, essays, stories, journals, scrapbooks, etc.), math activity books, crafts/artwork (or photos of crafts). Throughout the year, I just stick the stuff in a cabinet in my office and at the end of the year, I gather everything for each child, label the year/grade, and toss in their box. Easy peasy.
Since I am a homeschool blogger, this blog (along with my Instagram page) also serves as quite a bit of “documentation” of our homeschool journey. In fact, this is how I got started as a blogger in the first place; I originally documented our learning journey to share with family/friends, especially those who lived far away!
Record-Keeping When Unschooling High School
Again, there are so many different ways this can be done.
Even though my high schoolers (at the time of this writing) are not college-bound, I still keep a (very unsophisticated, hand-written) transcript of their annual learning activities just in case. And though we don’t adhere to our school district’s high school graduation standards, I do use them as an outline of sorts to help me categorize their learning (this is simply because I didn’t know how to create one from scratch so needed a framework to guide me, LOL).
Here is a sample of Big Bro’s “transcripts” (I literally just plotted in what he did in real-life the best I could under each category):
For those curious about the abbreviations of the subjects in the left margin:
- SS = Social Studies
- PE = Physical Education
- OE = Occupational Education
- CTE = Career/Technical Education
- VPA = Visual Performing Arts
- WL = World Languages
- PP = Personal Pathway
- FL = Financial Literacy
We also have digital learning (YouTube videos/movies watched, online classes taken, podcasts listened to) saved on devices (I have yet to transfer all that on paper!).
Some families create their own subjects and class titles. Some, especially those who have sights on specific colleges, curate transcripts according to the requirements of the college.
If you’re a digital person, I’m sure you can download apps, use Google Docs or Sheets, or keep records on computer files. I just personally love the tangibility of paper, so I use a 3-ring binder to house the transcripts.
Besides the transcripts, this binder holds their old educational compasses, their monthly recorded learning activities, plus other things like suggested book lists, homeschool articles I printed out, notes, etc.
Need more inspiration/encouragement on unschooling the teen/high school years? You can check out these posts: