© Beverley Paine

Recording outings, field trips and social activities on a wall calendar is a very easy and quick way to keep homeschooling records. The following except from my book Getting Started with Homeschooling, Practical Considerations, Australia's first homeschool manual, shows records from six months taken from one our calendars (1996). There are many more examples of different ways in which to record learning at home in my book, all taken from our personal homeschooling archives.

JANUARY

• Victor Cinema - Babe
• Bushwalk - Springmount Conservation Park
• Begonia Farm visit
• Roger experimenting with making robotic arms, two and three fingers, from lego.
• Thomas discovering and playing with the concept of spin on objects.
• April selling jewellery on her stall at craft market, swimming at Wirrina, staying Amanda's.
• Visit to friend's house at Willunga
• Thomas visit Dental Hosp., Adelaide, broken tooth
• Organised card collections
• Down loading games from PCSIG, using Paintbrush
• Walk around Granite Island
• Read James and the Giant Peach aloud

FEBRUARY

• Jimmy's Birthday - overnight, party with friends
• 9th pm: FOSAM -Bats, slides, touch, made mobile
• Woodwork - clinometer, geoboards, distance wheel
• Fleurieu HBL Network Willunga picnic, ball games
• April resumes school: Art, Computing, English
• Read The Mona Lisa Mystery aloud
• April holiday Stansbury with her friend's family
• Kids sleepover at friends
• Investigator Science Centre - Sportsworks/Mitey Sc.
• HBL excursion to Vili's Bakery factory
• Visited Austcare office - talk about refugees and information on poster competition
• Lego building - designing Star Wars Tie Fighters
• Roger - technical drawing of his Tower House, beginning to excavate site and level
• Thomas - visit to Dentist to fix tooth, filling
• Roger made a siren with the Dick Smith Kit
• Swimming and practicing diving into rock pool
• Roger visit to Optometrist, glasses
• Continued to write in journals
• Helped with renovating cabin - painting, grouting, carpentry and tidying up
• Capacity measuring device, joystick; made from Lego - Roger

MARCH

• 16th p.m.: FOSAM - Desert Fish
• Visit to Festival & Fringe - Visual Arts Exhibitions, Scientriffic and Aboriginal Day, Opening and
• Symphony Concerts, Cyberfringe, Art Gallery, Narabundah Theatre Co "The Wave"
• 6th: FHBLN Rose Gardens Picnic & Ball Games
• Stayed at friend's place for weekend; tried Internet
• Roger got a bantam rooster; built roost, feed tray
• Collecting compost material for gardening
• Helped with transplanting seedlings, thinning out
• Reading Dinotopia the World Beneath
• Lego building - spaceships, town with shuttle
• Journal writing and maths pages
• Visit homeschool group - social, played computer and cricket, rode bikes
• Visit to libraries to research environmental projects
• Learn and play new games on computer - Tie Fighter, Lands of Lore
• Thumbprint ink caricatures
• Helping with the gardening - planting, constructing new garden, mulching pruning
• Thomas started Worm Farm for Food Foresters
• Beach walk - Sellicks, drawing with ochre pebbles, found gummy shark intact
• April and friends slept down shed; Roger and his friends played board games.
• Helped build new compost heap
• Connected intercom cabin/house with Robin's help
• Visited Debra and Gary (first time in 8 years)

APRIL

• FHBLN Lego games day, problem solving games, paired and individual
• April excursion to Yr 12 Art Exhibition and Art Gallery in Adelaide with Yr10 group
• Roger and Thomas visit friend, played on new pentium computer
• Went to Carol and Phil's and helped to demolish stone wall for door using jackhammer
• Levelled soil in front of shed in preparation for paving
• Help transplant seedlings
• Discussed environmental benefits of ants
• 13 - 28th: Holiday on Kangaroo Island:
• Bushwalking, cave exploration, swimming, fishing, national parks, wildlife, visit to historic sites, lighthouses, seals and sealions, Remarkable Rocks (geology), Admirals Arch, witnessed small bushfire, visited replica of The Endeavour, played pirates, built elaborate villages and landscapes with natural materials for games (four times), honey production, eucalyptus oil distillery, visit to bird and animal park, beach walk collecting rubbish - Roger's journal eaten by a kangaroo
• Read aloud Devil's Hill on holiday
• Thomas, April kept up Journals

MAY

• FHBLN day - played chess games, computer games, children played in creek (Jill and her children were there too)
• Children's friends stayed over one night - Roger and friend came over late and played computer all day.
• L.E.T.S. BBQ at our place - lots of people turned up, kids went for walk to swamp and played together. April traded B$198 of beads.
• FOSAM - Taxidermist demonstrated how to prepare a tawny frogmouth for storage, walked around stuffed animal cages and completed worksheet. Saw couple of homeschooling families.
• April helped Robin make her a new desk. April helping with painting spare room ready for her to move into. Bought divan and painted it and the mirror frame.
• Roger and Thomas spent several days rebuilding and making bigger Roger's treehouse.
• Thomas repaired hatchet with Robin's guidance.
• Roger and Thomas lit fire for BBQ lunch, cutting wood with hatchets. Played by fire all afternoon.
• New game on computer - Pirates, strategy game a bit like chess
• FHBLN at Willunga - Robin demonstrated battery by making an organic potato battery and measuring current using meter. The everyone got busy for two or more hours building lighthouses and decorating them - use of electronics, soldering iron, power circuits and switches.
• Gave Roger new journal
• Olive picking and processing over two days with two other families; BBQ lunch
• Eastern spinebill flew into window and we kept it warm and April identified it using bird book
• Friends 6th birthday party - boys stayed all day, played computer and other games
• Watched Cutthroat Island - Thomas and Roger built lego pirate ships (ties in nicely with Endeavour excursion)
• Stayed with friends, cruised the Net, played Hero Quest
• Attended Learning Styles Workshop (Beverley, Robin, April)- boys played with other HBL kids all day with little adult supervision - indoor and outside games
• Moved April into Lego room. Spent a lot of time re-organising space and going through stuff.
• Made paper helicopters and experimented with size and shape to determine speed and drag factor.
• Collected pine needles from forest floor for guinea pig cage.
• Roger and Thomas replacing motors in slot cars from racing car set with higher power motors

JUNE

• Made one million using 2mm graph paper pad. Used 69 sheets and covered just over 4 square metres
• Buried Benjamin bunny.
• Began tree planting.
• FHBLN at Willunga. Investigated the properties of electromagnets and made some using simple materials. Played with magnets. Played computers. Jill and her children were there.
• 15th p.m.: FOSAM -
• Bushwalk - Kyeema Conservation Park, Willunga