We went yesterday for Biggun's yearly testing. See in the state of Florida you have two options, you can have your child tested or you can do a portfolio review. You have to keep a portfolio no matter what. Well since Biggun did so low on his reading part during his reading test last year. I decided to do testing again this year to see if all the hard work and a stuff paid off.
To my shock he had only improved 4 months not a year but 4 months. This is very discouraging. How is it he works so hard to only improve 4 months. I am still in shock. His evaluator kept saying "he DID improve" Might not have been much but he did improve. I drove myself nuts yesterday wondering what I am doing wrong. How come my soon to be 10 year old can only read at a mid 1st grade level? We have used all kinds of curriculum, we listen to books on cd all the time, he reads, but probably not enough I guess.
I decided to keep going w/ our plan to start our new curriculum and our new summer schedule. So we woke up at 730 this am to start school at 8 instead of 9, in hopes of getting most of it done before Baby Bear wakes up. (she woke up at 8 :-( but she watched her cartoons while we schooled in his room so it still worked out)
Biggun did great. He read out loud his reader w/ only few problems. So maybe he had a bad day when he had the test? We are going to keep up w/ what we are doing, I might add in some extra reading of subject he likes, he is big on fishing right now.
Oh the best thing about his testing this year is he jumped 2 grade levels in math!!!! I love ABEKA math. His tester said if he would have written stuff down instead of doing it in his head he could have jumped 3 grade levels. :-)
Spent the day looking and taking in Biggun's new curriculum. Before I started I moved a desk into Biggun's room so he can have a place to sit in his room. Last year he just sat on his bed, his choice, due to the little ones were to much of disruption. This years work will need more help from me, so he will need to sit down at the desk and we will put the baby gate up to keep littles out.
We are doing Christian Light Publications - Light Units. Exept for Math wil be Abecka There seems to be more meat in them then PACE's. I ordered Biggun the Student Planner also. I spent some time this afternoon during naptime writing up lesson plans for the next month. Biggun will do his testing on June 2nd, then he will start his summer schedule*. School on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. He will go bowling on Wed and Friday (bowling is free during the summer)
I add more work every year and about this time of the year we start talking about how each school year you grow older and can do more school work. Well this curriculum has LOTS more work. More work then we have ever done. I did not even get to schedule the Bible yet as it is on back order. Biggun is in for a rude awakening. I look forward to him being more challanged, now to get past his laziness. :-)
*We will go to 4 days a week schooling in August, we use the 5th day for errands and extra curriculum stuff like field trips.*
It is that time of the year when we re-evaluate our schooling and see what is working and what is not working.
Well I can tell you that what is working is Abeka math. I am so happy I found that this year. Biggun has enjoyed the fact he only has to do 1 page (front/back) a day. I enjoy the fact that it is very clear in explaining how to do new stuff. I like that it has review on each page. I like that I can circle the problems I want him to do and skip the problems he has mastered and only review them say once a week instead of daily. I am so very pleased with this curriculum.
As for everything else we have done this year, I am not so happy about. Since Biggun has reading issues, I have to be careful what we use. I would love to something like Son Light, but I would be the one reading all the books, as most of them are way to hard for Biggun, and I just don't have that in my right now.
I am looking at Christian Light Publications. They use Lightunits, very similar to ACE's PACE's. We have used the PACE's this past year in English. I keep coming up w/ the same thing, w/ PACE's, and that is they are behind. These CLP Light Units are right on w/ grade level items. I am looking at using them for Language Arts, Bible and Science????
I am in the process of giveing Biggun the placement test. We will see how that goes and go from there.
If any of you who read my blog have ever used this curriculm I would love to know what you think.
