Skip to content
Willowfolio

Printable

Home education observation template

The notebook you keep meaning to start. A simple weekly observation sheet you fill in once at the end of the day, in about 60 seconds. Not a marking book, not a tracker, not a curriculum. Just a place to write down what you actually saw your child do today.

See what’s inside Or skip to the app
Pages
2
Format
A4 PDF
Updated
10 May 2026

Pairs with our guide: read the article.

Email the PDFFree · No account

Lands in under a minute.

We use your email only to send you the printable and to confirm any future requests, see the privacy notice for the full picture.

A note on use

“We don’t mind what you do with it. Print it, edit it, cross out the bits that don’t fit your family. The licence is: use freely, don’t resell.”

About this template

What this template does

Observation is the part of Montessori at home you keep meaning to start. Every time your child does something interesting you think "I should note that", and then dinner happens and you forget. By the weekend you cannot remember what happened on Tuesday, and the nagging feeling that you are not recording enough settles in again.

This template gives you a place to land those small daily observations (the act of watching what your child actually does, without judging or scoring it) so they do not live only in your head. It is a simple weekly grid: one row per child per day, with columns for the date, what the child chose to do, how long it held their attention, what you noticed and an optional follow-up note. You fill it in once at the end of the day, after the children are in bed. It takes about 60 seconds.

The template is not a curriculum, a tracker or a marking book. It does not ask you to grade anything, score anything or compare your child to a benchmark. It asks you to describe what you saw. That is it. Over a few weeks, the filled-in sheets become a quiet record of your child's real learning, which also happens to produce strong evidence if the local authority ever writes to ask what your educational provision looks like.

Frequently asked.

Is this an assessment sheet?
No. There are no scores, no benchmarks and no tick-boxes for skills. The grid records what you noticed, not what you judged. Assessment asks 'how well did the child perform?'. Observation asks 'what did the child choose to do, and what happened next?'. This template is for observation.
Do I have to fill it in every single day?
No. Three or four entries a week is plenty. If you miss a day, leave the row blank and carry on. The template works best when it is a habit, not a chore. A few consistent entries a week are more useful than a panicked backfill on Friday night.
Can I use this for the council report?
Yes. A term's worth of dated observations is some of the strongest evidence you can send a local authority, because it shows real learning happening over time. But that is a side benefit, not the purpose. The template is designed to help you see your child more clearly, and the council evidence follows naturally.
What if I have more than one child?
Use a separate page per child, one page per child per week, each with seven rows. The DOCX version lets you duplicate pages as needed. Most families find this keeps things simple and consistent.
What goes in the 'what you noticed' column?
Describe what happened, not how well it went. 'Built a tower of 12 blocks, knocked it down deliberately, rebuilt it taller' is an observation. 'Did well at building' is an assessment. If you are not sure, describe what the child's hands were doing and you will be in the right place.

Keep reading

Companion guides from the knowledge base.

The app does this without paper

Or you can keep using the printables. Both work.

The activity log fills the year-at-a-glance sheet for you, and the council report draft writes itself from your records. The demo is real, the data is fictional.

Try the demo Browse all printables