Just starting our adventures in after schooling - for any btdt folk, do you document? If so from what age and what subject? It's my thinking that it's probably just math that needs recording but I could be wrong.

If we do any this year it will be Spanish through the state online school so they will be doing the documenting. He already has the skills and knowledge and the only reason he would be taking it is to not lose those skills and to credential him so the next year he can take Spanish II at school. We plan to start (if we do) the week before thanksgiving and take as long or as little as he needs with a hard deadline of July 31. I feel like he could be done as early as spring break.

Our other after schooling is just he reads at his level non stop..so hunting down and keeping him supplied appropriate books for him...I don't document that.

There's no documentation in the world that would satisfy our school board, alas.

Who do you hope to get to accept the credentials, for what purpose? Is there any way you can them ask what they would require as proof of mastery? I would imagine after schooling would be more difficult to get accepted than full-time homeschooling, and I could see some form of external certification being required.

On the other hand, if you have that magic process (we just dream about up here) where you can test out of classes/ material with an end-of-year test, perhaps the credentials are less relevant, and you need to figure out the acceptable process by which she can prove her knowledge?

I can't see a need for the documenting personally, but I sum painfully aware of what I don't know!

When we afterschooled, I didn't document, except mental notes for my own reference, and then only in math.

A child may benefit greatly by having facts and information organized and readily available to jog their memory when the time arrives for the child to compete, such as:
- applying to a summer program with competitive admissions,
- applying to college,
- applying for an internship,
- writing a college essay,
- writing a scholarship essay,
- self-advocacy.

Parents may wish to acquaint children with keeping a record and collection of artifacts from their afterschooling and independent projects, extracurricular activities, clubs, outside classes, enrichment, competitions, volunteerism, achievements, and accomplishments... including a list of books read. This need not be extensive or time-consuming... just gathered together in one place: an exercise in executive function.

In reviewing these items, certain themes may emerge which may help demonstrate a long-term interest in a particular field or area of study.

We saved documentation when we thought it would be useful later, but most of our afterschooling was aimed at enrichment, not with a purpose of accomplishing anything, so I saw no need to document that

What we did document:

1) Any supplemental work we did to show mastery of a subject. For us, that was in math, but it wasn't *because* it was math that we documented it, we documented it because we had an opportunity to subject accelerate and the after-school work provided proof of mastery of topics.

2) After-school that could count as "home school" - our state offers some home-school benefits to children who are enrolled in private school. Documentation was required for that.

polarbear

Cheers for that - I think I'll just do something similar to a profile book for each subject ie; a scrapbook filled with photos and work examples - mainly from a creating memories point of view.

FWIW, one of my homeschooling friends said that her own documentation was not accepted for much when she tried to move her kids back to traditional school. She said that she had her kids take the talent search tests (i.e. Explore, ACT, SAT depending upon age) every year so that she could track progress. According to her, the school was willing to look at data from those tests.

That's what I would expect as well. Extensive documentation can be a huge drain on parental time: unless there is a known, specific need for it, I wouldn't bother.