Okay…it’s confession time. After watching my kids do seemingly nothing today other than petting the cats and arguing until I intervened and made them find something to do, I was feeling pretty panicky. I mean, even though I know they’re learning, I really don’t think the school district is going to accept ”If they’re living, they’re learning” as proof of adequate progress, so that old (okay…not that old) anxiety came creeping back today.
I can’t tell you enough what a treasure trove of information is over at FIMBY, so once again I turned there for inspiration and some much needed advice directly from Renee Tougas, and, as always, her wisdom has grounded me again. (I highly recommend her blog to you. If you’ve never visited it, trust me. You’ll be glad you did.)
So now that I’m feeling rejuvenated again, let’s get on with this post. Today I’m writing about how I’ve been keeping the state-required daily log and portfolio and how I plan on preparing for standardized tests.
Daily Logs
– In Part 1 of this series, I wrote about how I break down each of my children’s activities into subjects. This is where this categorization would apply.
I bought several teacher plan books at a teacher supply store and labeled each subject on the pages (English, Math, Social Studies, Science, Health/Safety, Art/Music/Phys. Ed., and Consumer Science aka Life Skills). Along with writing the date for each logged entry, I also write what number school day we are at. (Example- Today Arianna completed her 139th day of school, so under today’s date, I’ll just write 139.)
Around 8pm every night, the kids will journal about everything they’ve done that day, and then give it to me. Either that night or the following morning, I will use the journals to log in what they did. Sometimes this takes some creativity, as the school district would probably sneer at Dillon’s phrase ”played military”, so some rewording is necessary. In this case, ”played military” became ”military strategy activity.” The journal is probably the easiest part of the requirements, although it’s very time consuming.
Portfolios
– I have a feeling portfolios are going to prove to be much trickier now than when we were completing more seatwork. In prior years, I had no problem submitting portfolios as thick as phone books. That won’t be so this year, as most of our activities are hands-on projects that you can’t very well put in a binder.
This is why I must be creative this year. While I can always ask the children to write summaries of their activities, I find myself really liking the idea of taking pictures- and lots of them. There’s something about seeing the actual project or experiment in color versus just getting a written account. I feel it brings more life to their activities. Another great asset to record-keeping requirements is this blog. It’s like a diary of our homeschooling journey, and I’d be more than happy to share it, if needed.
Standardized Tests
– Aah…the lovely standardized test- a thorn in the side of students everywhere- homeschool and public school, alike.
My state requires that standardized tests be taken in 3rd, 5th, and 8th grade, which means that I will have anywhere from 1-3 kids taking them every year in the foreseeable future. Sigh. Only reading and math tests are required, but I did notice that the test that we use does throw in some grammar and punctuation.
The main thing that worries me the most is that, since we’ve changed homeschooling styles, I’m a little fretful their test scores may drop a little, as they were testing anywhere from 2-4 grade levels above where they were at.
I have a feeling that Khan Academy will be our friend this year. Dillon is the only one taking it this year, so starting a week before I plan on doing his test, he’ll go through an intense math review by watching these videos. My kids actually really enjoy this website. (They like the colored markers…it’s the little things…) I’m not too concerned with the reading portion, as reading is a large part of our lives.
I used to have to take the kids to the nearest school to take the test there, or I had to find a homeschool group who would administer the test for a fee. Last year, however, I learned about the online California Achievement Test through Christian Liberty Press, and it was truly a godsend. This test is taken at home, and you can take however long you want to complete it, although it is a timed test. You can just take however long or short of a break between sections as you want. The results are then emailed to you within five minutes of completion of the test.
So, there you have it. Again, I’m still a newbie at this whole natural learning thing, so if I hit any roadblocks or have second thoughts about any of this, I’ll be sure to write about it.
Any questions, thoughts, or suggestions? I would love to hear from you!
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