How to Use a Homeschool Grade Book Template Printable

If you are new to homeschooling, or have been homeschooling for a while, you may be wondering the best way to keep track of assignments and your children’s grades. A printable grade book template can be used as a grading system to keep you organized during the school year.

Grade Book Template

Using a gradebook template or grade sheet templates is a great way to make sure your kids stay on track with their different subject areas. You can keep track of the grades of specific assignments throughout the year to help you come up with an end of the quarter or end of the year grade.

What is a grade book template?

A grade book template is a helpful record keeping tool that teachers use for tracking student progress and organizing their grades. This can be done digitally and stored on a Google drive, or you may prefer to use a physical grade book.

How to Use a Homeschool Gradebook Template

There are many different ways that you can use a printable gradebook template to track student progress and come up with a final score for them at the end of the year.

Printable grade book templates can also be used throughout the year as progress reports to show your child how they are improving.

You can print the pages off as many times as you want and use them over and over again. They are a great way to encourage your children as they are going through their homeschool lessons.

There are many ways to keep a homeschool grade book template to keep you and your children organized! Let’s dig in to the organizational world of using a gradebook in your homeschool!

Recording Grades Using a Grade book Template

One of the many benefits of homeschooling for some families is that they don’t always need to grade every single worksheet, quiz or test. This is a great benefit and can save a lot of time for a homeschool teacher.

Some families prefer to do a portfolio review using a homeschool portfolio checklist to keep track of what their children have learned. This is another great option for children that have different educational needs and progress does not need to be grade specific. 

This grading process can change as your children move up to high school and pursuing a higher education. This time is when you need to be more careful with your homeschool record keeping. You will need to begin keeping a letter grade for those high school transcripts.

Different Ways to Track and Keep Grades

There are many different ways for you as the homeschool parent to keep track of your student and their academic performance during the academic year.

In the younger years you may just want to list the assignment names from your lesson plans and keep track of what you are learning on one of the printable template pages. 

For middle school and high school students you will want to average scores of different assignments throughout the year to be able to assign a final letter grade for them.

Read on to learn how to use the many different types of the grading process, and how physical gradebooks can be used as professional documents of tracking for your homeschool year.

Gradebooks Using Percentage

Gradebooks using percentages are very common and the most familiar. A final letter grade is almost always defined by the percentage grade.

An easy way to determine a percentage grade is by doing some simple math. First, you need to calculate the number of questions that your child answered correctly. Then you will divide that by the total number of questions on the assignment or test and multiply that by 100.

Grade Percentage Example

If your student took a test with 50 questions, each question is worth 2 points. This is the easiest math and what it would look like if they got 40 questions correct.

40 divided by 50 = .80

.80 x 100 = 80%

You would then enter that test score in your gradebook, and use the weighted combinations of assignments, quizzes and tests to come up with their final grade at the end of the year. It really is pretty simple by using the math above.

Gradebooks Using GPA

Gradebooks that use a GPA are normally seen at the high school level. If you have younger students you will most likely not be utilizing gradebooks that use a GPA.

However, you will want to start calculating GPA for your high school students. Colleges use the GPA grading system as well, so it is important to get used to that type of system.

Some schools may calculate a GPA differently, but the most common GPA is calculated at 4.0. This is an example of converting a GPA to a 4.0 scale using letter grades and percentages that equal a final GPA number.

Letter Grade	Percentage/Points	GPA
A+	97-100	4.0
A	93-96	4.0
A-	90-92	3.7
B+	87-89	3.3
B	83-86	3.0
B-	80-82	2.7
C+	77-79	2.3
C	73-76	2.0
C-	70-72	1.7
D+	67-79	1.3
D	65-66	1.0
E/F	Below 65	0.0

Gradebooks Using a Point System

A common point system that is used for grading is called the 1,000 Points Grading System. You can develop your very own grading system for each subject that your child is taking.

The great thing about this system is that it is customizable for each subject and works great for electives you want to give your students credit for. First, you will want to lay out the categories in which you want to grade within the subject. 

Categories you may want to use in a point system are:

• assignments from your homeschool curriculum
• quizzes
• discussions or narration
• research projects
• tests
• final exams
• If you are in a co-op setting you can add group projects and in class participation to these categories.

Next to each category you will determine how much each section is worth point wise. You can determine the different weights of the grade by calculating a percentage grade. 

For example: 10% of the grade would be 100 points, 20% would be worth 200 points, with the categories equaling up to 1,000 points total.

Gradebooks Using Letter Grades

Letter grades are grades that are most commonly found on report cards. Everyone knows that an A is excellent and that an F is failing, and C is in the middle, but what exactly does that mean?

There are many different ways that schools and even colleges calculate their numbers and percentages and turn them into letter grades. Percentages have changed some since I was a child, and there is a little more room for error before the grade drops down to another level.

The most common example of a percentage to letter grade conversion is:

• A (90–100)
• B (80-89)
• C (70–79)
• D (65–69)
• F (below 65)

Grading Scales

As a homeschooling parent, you can choose whichever grading scale you would like to use with your children. This can even change with the grade level as well. You may choose not to grade until the high school years.

Define a Grading Scale

A grade scale is a guide that explains what the actual grade means. They help to translate letter grades or satisfactory check mark grades to numeric grades such as those that define a GPA by the total points that each letter grade is work.

You may want to choose a specific grading scale or rubric to work off of when you are assigning grades. This is also very helpful for an end of year transcript when you need to come up with a final grade for your student.

Weighting Homework, Quizzes & Tests

A type of grading scale that many families choose to use is a weighted scale. This is where you will take homework assignments, quizzes and tests to get your final grade. Homework doesn’t weigh as heavily as a quiz or a test will.

An example would be:

Daily homework and assignments – 30% of the grade

Quizzes – 30% of the grade

Tests – 40% of the grade

The total will equal 100% with tests bringing the most value to the overall final grade.

HSLDA Grading Helps

The Homeschool Legal Defense Association has some amazing articles on how to track your children’s progress by keeping grades and using them as assessment tools.

Teaching My Kids: Grading – Learn how to use grading as an assessment tool, how to assign grades, and how to keep grades for your high school students.

Homeschool Record Keeping Forms

Homeschool record keeping printables, grade sheets, and homeschool portfolio printables will come in very handy at those end of the year student evaluations.

Utilizing these forms can help you stay organized and help with whatever grading system that you decide to use for your children. You will have everything you need to seamlessly finish up your paperwork for the end of the school year.

Printable Gradebook Template PDF

These homeschool grade book template pages have everything you need to easily keep track of your students’ grades throughout the school year. You can print multiple copies to create your very own physical grade book, or print out single pages to put into student portfolios.

Pages in the packet include a spot to record student names, subjects, and grades. There are detailed pages to help you keep track of the date, assignments, total points earned and final grades.

Additional pages include basic recording such as subject, assignment grade and notes explaining the grade or assignment. There are even pages to keep track of grades per quarter.

The final page will help you to keep track of all assignments and grades throughout the year for a single student.

In Conclusion:

Using a template to record grades as you go can save you a lot of time when it comes to calculating those final grades at the end of the year. Everything is laid out for you to make it easy to calculate when you need to.

They can be also be used as mid year progress reports and is very helpful to you calculate final grades to add to a transcript for your high schooler.