How to Use Our Free Homeschool Attendance Record
By Sun Kyu Bae |
Published May 22, 2009 |
Articles |
printer friendly version
This is simply one of the best student attendance record documents that you can use for your homeschool - it's absolutely free!
6/28/10 UPDATE: The homeschool attendance record noted below has been updated for the 2010 - 2011 school year! There are no differences in how to use our homeschool attendance record so all the instructions below still apply. Don't forget to request your FREE copy now!
Hi everyone!
I'm proud to say that this article is the first in a series that will focus on free documents for you and your homeschool.
Today, I'm going to explain how to keep track of your student's attendance with ProntoLessons' simple but complete attendance record.
Now, before I go any further, the attendance record that we created is an Excel file. So as long as you have Microsoft's Excel software on your computer, you should be able to use our attendance record in no time flat.
Ready? Let's go!
Attendance Record Overview
The illustration below shows you the entire document (or click here to open a bigger version of the illustration in a new window) - it's essentially the entire school year on one page. But before I go into how to use the attendance record, let me explain how to read it first.
The title of the document and school year is located at the top, just under our ProntoLessons banner. Below that, there are 4 white fields going across that you will fill out: 1) student name, 2) school name, 3) grade, and 4) teacher name.
Below that you will see a legend that stretches across the calendar. We used 3 letters for attendance status: 1) "P" for present, 2) "T" for tardy, and 3) "A" for absent.
Below this legend is the calendar. Notice as you read down the first column that we included 13 months, from August of 2009 through August of 2010 - we did this to make this document flexible enough for those who wish to start their homeschool earlier or later than the traditional school year.
Now, to the right of the month column are the dates, represented by black numbers and highlighted in gray. So for example, September goes out to the number "30", while October goes out to the number "31".
And if you look at the three fields to the right of the dates, these fields automatically add up the "Ps", "Ts", and "As" for you as you fill in the appropriate status of attendance for your student.
Finally, at the lower right corner is a total of the "Ps", "Ts", and "As" that are automatically calculated so that by the end of the homeschool year, you'll know exactly how many days your student was present, tardy, and absent.
Let's run through an example of how you would fill this record out.
How to Fill Out the Attendance Record
Now, after you're done completing the student name, school name, grade, and teacher name information, what you're going to do each day is fill in the white fields just beneath the corresponding date with the attendance status of your student.
So for example, if today is September 25th, you will go to the white field just beneath the number "25" in the month of September and you will click into the white field, which will then activate a drop down box. Notice that the only values you can enter in the drop down box are "P", "T", and "A". Use the drop-down box and select "P" for present (click here to open a bigger version of the illustration shown below in a new window). You will continue to record your attendance for each date in this same way until your homeschool year is complete.
If you make a wrong selection in the drop down box no worries - just delete using your keyboard "delete" key, re-select the blank option, or re-select the correct data.
At this point, you may be asking, "why did you include all the dates (i.e., weekends) in the attendance record?"
Well, I don't know about you, but sometimes due to our hectic schedules, Serina and I have to teach Ryan on the weekends. So again, in the name of flexibility, we wanted you (and us!) to be able to record attendance on weekends (and holidays) as well.
So, what happens if you don't teach your child on weekends? Then just leave the weekend dates blank and fill in the attendance status for those dates in which you planned to give lessons (I say "planned" on the off-chance that your student may be sick on that planned day, so you would then have to fill in an "A", for absent).
As you can see in this example (click here to open a bigger version of the illustration shown below in a new window), I filled in the attendance chart with some random "Ps", "Ts", and "As" and you will notice that the attendance record automatically calculate the totals for you at the far right 3 columns titled, "P", "T", and "A".
One last note about using this document - this Excel file has 4 versions of this same attendance record copied to different spreadsheets (called "tabs" named "sheet1", "sheet2", "sheet3", and "sheet4" - you can see these tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet) within the file. Why did I do this?
Simply because the attendance record is for tracking attendance for one student, so if you have more than one student (I assume including 4 attendance records was a safe assumption - I really admire you if you homeschool more than 4!), you can use those additional attendance records for your other students.
If you want, you can even name each attendance record to match the name of your student. Simply go to the Excel file, double click on each tab that the attendance record is located, and just write in your student's name (see illustration below or click here to open a bigger version of the illustration in a new window).
So Where Do I Get Your Free Attendance Record?
Yikes! I was so busy explaining how to use our attendance record that I almost forgot to tell you how to access the document.
It's simple - just go to our Contact page and request the document from us with the following subject header: "Attendance Record Request". Please be a bit patient if you don't see the document in your inbox…although we will make every effort to send the document along quickly (say, 1-2 days), we're just not staffed to handle immediate requests.
My Thoughts on Record Keeping
Let me just end this article by saying that I would seriously recommend keeping records of your student's work (not all, but some highlights that show your student's progression), and attendance records is one of the best records you can have, not just to give you comfort that you are developing your student's academic career, but also, to provide documented evidence that you are teaching your student on a consistent regular schedule.
And, you just never know when you will need to prove to someone that you are homeschooling your student, and the attendance record is one of the most common documents that they will ask for (this is true for states such as New York, where you are required to keep written records of attendance).
So, wherever you live, I hope that our attendance record is something that you will use for the upcoming school year.
See you next time!
- Sun
Not What You're Looking For?
Use our Search Engine!
For best results, enter a 3-4 word search term. Then, if you get too many results, try adding another word to narrow down your results. If you get too few results, try removing a word from your search term to increase your search results.
Try it now!