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To find out the home school laws for the state that you live in, go to:
Home School Legal Defense Association

Also check out Record Keeping for Homeschool for more tips and information.

If you are one who needs (or wants) to keep track of grades and hours for home schooling, I highly recommend you checking into Homeschool Easy Records.  It is the computer program that I use.  With Home school Easy Records you can keep track of lesson plans, unit study ideas, books read, print out report cards, progress reports and even print out transcripts.

Another computer program for keeping track of grades is:  Edu-Track  This is a newer program which I just learned about.  This program can also be used with a palm pilot.  I do not own this program, so can not compare it to HER.

How I use Homeschool Easy Records  (HER):

    First the basic set up needs to be done.  This is where you tell HER what your grading scale is going to be, how many hours a day you plan to do school, and how many days are in your school year.  For the most part I do not do lesson plans.  Instead I type in what was done after the work was done.  Those who wish to enter lesson plans may do so though.  What I have found that works well for our family (especially for younger students) is to make a log sheet to fill out.  (A similar one can be found at the Robinson Curriculum's main website here.  That page also contains more tips for record keeping.)
    My log sheet is very much like HER's lesson planing section.  In fact the first few years I used HER to print out my log.  I entered in a line for every subject for every school day.  I left all the boxes blank except for the date and the subject name.  After the work was done I then entered in the rest of the information into HER:  what the assignment was, how long the assignment took, how many points the assignment was worth, and how many points my daughter received.  On my daughter's log sheet I have a place for her to write down the time she starts each assignment, and the time that she finished it.  That way she can do her work independently without me having to time her all the time.  It is good to know how long it takes a child to do an activity, even if it isn't required.  If you know how long it takes your child to do each activity, you can tell eaiser if they are playing around, having difficulties, or if the work is getting easy enough for more work to be added.  I work part time so I am not at home sometimes when school work is being done.  Keeping track of the time provides accountablity in our family.
    Another thing that I do is to have one chart for each subject listing the activites that need to be done for the shool year.  My daughter then goes down the chart and does each activity in order, and the grade is written in by the activity.  For subjects like writting where I do not do any lesson planning, the activity is filled in as it is done.  I then use the information from these sheets and enter it into HER.  That way I am not at the computer every day to enter grades in.  Instead I can do it once every several weeks and not have to flip through a lot of books and paperwork while doing it.
    Once all the information is entered into HER, the program then calculates the grade according to the grading scale that I set for the year.  The program also adds up the total amount of hours worked in each subject and how many hours that were worked each day.  In the basic setup of HER I can choose the average amount of hours of school that needs to be done each school day, and the number of days the school year will be.  As I need to I can use HER to check to see how well I am meeting the goals that were set.

Advantages to HER:
You can enter in as much information, or as little information as you like.  You don't have to keep track of grades or time worked if you don't want to.  Works very well with the Robinson Curriculum because of this.  You can type in what was done, grade only the work that needs grading and enter the grade in, and keep track of time only if you are required to do so.

Disadvantages to HER:   (Most if not all will disapear with the upgrade.)
 You can not repeat events -- you have to retype in everything everytime you do an activity.  Also you can not reuse lessons plans without having to retype everything (unless you use the unit study part).  The unit study also can not be imported into the lesson plan part.  I hear there are plans for an update that will elliminate some of these disadvantages -- if not all.