The past couple years of homeschooling, I have struggled with coming up with a system for checking over my kids’ work after they have finished it.
It wasn’t always difficult for me though.
You see, when I was only homeschooling one child, he was young and needed me to help him with all his work for the most part. He was little, couldn’t read, and so we worked on reading together. Then over the next couple years, he started doing more on his own, but I was still right there next to him. I checked everything basically as he finished it.
Then I was homeschooling two kids. At this point, I was then working directly with my younger child, and my older son was working nearby on his own for the most part. Still pretty easy.
I would look over everything my daughter did as we did it. My son would hand me his work as he finished and I’d look over it then. Simple.
Honestly homeschooling only took an hour or two still at this point. And the work they were completing was fairly simple for me. I could quickly look over it, check the answers in my head, and move on with my day.
Plus I wasn’t trying to give them real grades or anything. I was looking for understanding and mastery. If they got one wrong here or there, it was no big deal. If there were a lot they missed, we’d look over it together and help with better understanding.
And the subjects that didn’t have a straightforward yes or no answer, I’ve never been concerned with correcting, but I do still look over it occasionally, if for no other reason than to be sure I am holding my kids accountable for doing their work.
When young, so much of what my kids complete for school is about exposure to basic concepts and practicing skills. Like handwriting isn’t necessary to mark up all over. I am looking to be sure they are actually completing it and doing their best. If there is a big error in formation, I will correct that, but usually I just want them to be trying. Getting better mostly takes good practice.
I have a similar strategy to composition at this age.
Science and history don’t often have things for me to look over and grade, as it is usually reading and doing some experiments. Most of this we do together.
But math is a different thing altogether. Math requires correct answers. It builds on itself. Things learned incorrectly requires correction. This is what I tend to focus on for checking over.
With all that said, once my son hit middle school things started to change.
It was more difficult for me to just quickly look over his math answers and do them in my head. Grammar and writing was longer and more complicated as well. He needed a little encouragement and correction.
Also his schoolwork began taking him longer to complete. What used to take only an hour or so was now taking two and sometimes three hours on occasion. So we would all begin at a similar time, but his sister would finish before him and I would start working on another task.
Once I switched tasks, it was more difficult for me to stop and check over his work at the end of the day. But I could make it happen.
Then I added a third child to our homeschool routines.
I had a 7th grader, a 4th grader, and a kindergartener. So I was teaching my youngest to read while my other two were working fairly independently for many of their subjects. And I was starting an online business.
So my time became much more in demand.
I would work with my youngest for 30 minutes or so, then my other two were still working. So I began working on other things. I have a tendency to get sucked into things and have a little bit of a hard time changing focus. So checking work starting falling to the back burner.
It was no longer as much of a quick and easy task. There was work from two kids to look over now, and the checking was not always something I could just do in my head with a glance. It required pulling out answer keys, reading papers, and trying to decipher difficult problems.
I was present enough that I could help them with work in the moment when they struggled but I started forming a pile of papers that needed to be checked. And as it grew, it became more and more daunting.
I started feeling quite guilty over this.
Here I am. I was supposed to be somewhat of a model to other homeschool moms through this website and I couldn’t even take a moment every day to look over my kids’ work.
And it became a problem.
Think about it. If your child does a page of math each day and they don’t know whether they are getting answers right or wrong, eventually they will be missing problems left and right and never know it. Then when I finally got around to grading things, we’d have to take a week or two and review, correcting mistakes and their understanding.
Within each of these transitions, I also struggled with how I was planning and tracking our daily schoolwork, as well as the workflow for my kids. But I had already found ways to deal with the changes on these fronts. So I knew I could figure out a way to handle this as well.
So I began searching for ways to help with grading. What do other moms do as their kids get older? Am I just being lazy and need to suck it up? I starting wondering if it was just always going to be a difficult thing like this for me.
I could use an online grading system, but that meant switching the curricula we used. I didn’t feel right about that.
I decided to try having my son correct some of his own work. He was old enough and trustworthy, so I began having him look over his answers with strict instructions and some oversight. I think he was in grade 7 when I started having him do this. And I still looked over his writings and double checked his work occasionally.
This actually worked quite well! Boom!
But I had more work to look over than just his. And the pile was still growing!
So I kept thinking through ideas. I wasn’t comfortable with my 10 year old checking her own work yet. I still felt there was a way I could do things to help me. Something I hadn’t come up with yet.
I could set up a weekly time to go over schoolwork. I could even have her do it with me. But I could never make this happen!
I needed something that would work so I didn’t have to sit around and twiddle my thumbs waiting for my kids to finish their work so I could grade it. But I also needed something that didn’t allow the work to pile up before I got to it. I needed something that would quickly allow me to move on with my day so we can all work at our own pace.
And this year as I was setting up and planning out our school year it came to me. It was so simple, I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before.
I didn’t have to correct or look over my kids’ work on the same day they do it. But if I created time the following school day in my routine to check the work from the previous day, it would work great!
And this has revolutionized things for me!
It may sound so simple, but this one little thing has taken away so much stress from our homeschool for me!
All the guilt I was feeling was gone. I could easily keep up with things. My kids could work at their own pace and I could move on with my day after working with my youngest on her work.
I didn’t have to feel trapped any longer or unorganized.
And it was such a simple fix!
So if you too are frustrated by something in your homeschool routine or workflow, don’t give up looking for a new system until you get it figured out.
Sometimes this will mean you need to change your expectations or think outside of the box a little. It also may be a bigger change to how you do things over all.
But ultimately, we each think and work differently. What works for one person may not work for another. But there are nearly endless systems and approaches you can take to things. Don’t give up searching!
Need help finding another way? Reach out to me or another experienced homeschooler. You may be amazed by the various things we have all tried over the years! It usually isn’t the first thing we tried that worked. And of course, just when you get used to doing things one way, it seems that something else changes in your homeschool, and you need a new system!
This is something about homeschooling. It will always keep you on your toes!
You’ve got this, mama!
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