Homeschool World Forum

I have three questions regarding the Daily Activity Log needed in the
Portfolio:

1. Do we need to have 180 days logged or 365 days?

2. Are there any samples as far a basic legal requirement of a Log?

3. Does teaching our children how to make their bed, wash their face, and
brushing their teeth, count as an educational activity ?

Any additional advice regarding the Activity Log would be much
appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Deyson

A daily activity log is just a basic outline showing that you covered x hours of material over y days. You should only have to give a number of days at least equal to your state's minimum requirements (so it won't matter if you skip some as long as you have 180+), and as far as what you need to put down, it should be enough to say you did such and such number of hours on each subject. And honest estimates are enough, don't worry about being off a few minutes here and there

Yes, daily chores can count as home ec, playing outdoors can be phys ed, daily hygiene can be health education (up to a certain point), etc. Be creative.

True, I didn't think to check that. That's if you're homeschooling under the homeschooling requirements, however - if you're homeschooling under an umbrella school and officially part of a private school, you're required to have 180 days of instruction.

I've always figured that out of 365 days in a year, my dc were learning something for at least 180 of them.

In reference to the last comment...I agree our children are probably learning most days. Especially if they are readers (as my kids are).

However, the question was keeping a portfolio in the state of Florida where you have to keep a "log" of what you did on school days and a "portfolio" of their work which you must keep for two years and make available for perusal after being given 15 days notice by a member of the school system.

So I keep a log of assignments (for my older kids who work independently) and I keep a daily log of work I do with my younger son. Sure they are learning things on days we are not officially "doing school" but I don't worry about tracking that because I am not required to log a certain number of days, or a certain number of hours per day. One of the benefits of home-schooling in Florida.

Personally,I use the umbrella (private school) option in florida. I keep attendance for 180 days (we do more than 180 days as we are learning all the time). I am not required by the private school we are registered with to do anything more as far as other records.

I do however keep a collection of their work to keep as proof that they did learn and work on various subjects or skills. They have done lapbooks, booklets about people in history, created reports, did worksheets and more to keep for future reference.

We used to do workbooks but now limit work pages to math, and skills they need to improve on. the rest is online or with cd-roms, or ebooks.

personally I didn't like the register with local school district and meeting with a lic. teacher yearly. I have more freedom with the private school and they support me more than the local district did.

Ideally, after notifying the school dept. of intent to home-school, that would be it. I mean, tell me the school system is making sure every child "makes progress commensurate with their ability." What a joke.

However, I don't like having to document 180 days so prefer home-schooling under the home-schooling statute. But I understand what you're saying.

keeping attendance is actually very easy. I print out a year attendance calendar from donnayoung.org I use a vertical green one that is only one page. I number the days as we do lessons and when I get to 180 days, we stop counting. we actually do about 200 days a year, because my kids tend to work at a slower pace (relaxed) and learn and retain more then going fast. Here is the link, donna young has many forms and also lesson plans that you might find helpful.

http://donnayoung.org/calendars/calendars-green.htm

Yep, all you need to do is mark the days your child is learning something on a calendar, attendance records don't require actually saying what is being learned.