Silver Moon Learning

Jun. 8, 2009

End of the year assessments!

We had our traditional end of the year assessments this morning. My kids have done amazing this year, across the board. Today's family meeting was easy peasy, lemon squeezy. I got all my forms printed out last night, some I've had downloaded for ages and some new ones from www.donnayoung.org (LOVE that website). A reading assessment, an individual evaluation, a course of study (list of intended schoolbooks for the new grade), a blank week lesson plan page for what we call lesson maps, and the typical course of study list from www.worldbook.com were assembled for Justice, Joy and Honor. For the first time ever I printed out some grade keeping forms. For Justice. I've had it recommended from more seasoned homeschoolers that now is the best time to start grading. It will be a learning experience for Justice and I, but by the time it's needed for high school transcripts we'll both be comfy with it. Stuff like spelling and math I can handle. Not one bloody clue how to grade the way we do science and history. On to the kid updates/bragging! I started with Joy, for no other reason than she was the handiest kid to pluck from playtime. Her reading level was 1.2 grades ahead of the grade she's in. She was quite pleased with herself!  On the individual evaluation she said her strengths were grammar and memorizing, and her weakness is narration. Her goals are to get better at cursive and to kick narration's butt. I'm quite pleased with how well she did that evaluation. Then she aced the math and language arts sections of the worldbook lists. The only blips were in science and history, which we do quite differently from the traditional model. I'll grab some resources for the ones I think are worthwhile for her to read this week. First evaluation - check! Honor happened to be playing near when I sent Joy on her merry way. He wasn't terribly thrilled but he humored me well. He scored a 1.5 grade level, not bad for a boy who wouldn't be old enough to start a traditional kindy until this fall! He doesn't understand grade levels and just said, "Ok. That was easy." *snort* For the individual evaluation he said his strength was math, he didn't have weaknesses, and his goal is to read a LOT of books.   The few things I couldn't check on his worldbook kindy list were math things that seem poorly placed. Stuff like calendar, clock, money denominations, chart and graph concepts. Considering he's soaring through a first grade math book, I'm not concerned in the slightest. He's doing great and will have no problems with first grade material in the fall. Somewhere in the middle of Honor's assessment Grace figured out there wasn't a packet of forms on my desk for her. I sheepishly printed off a preschool course of study and reading assessment for her. I mean, how dare I leave the three year old out of this! We went down the preschool course of study, checking off absolutely everything except for reciting phone number and address. The kindy list would have served her better, but I was leery of stepping on Honor's toes.   That was enough assessment for her and she ran off on her merry way. I'll keep the reading list handy, lest she call me on it later. LOL Then I shooed all but Justice outside to play. Doing the reading assessment the right way he scored 2.5 grade levels above his current grade. Counting all the words on the list he could do correctly (the test says to stop when they get X wrong on one particular list), he scored 3.6 grade levels ahead.  For the individual evaluation he said logic and reading were his strengths, math was his weekness, and his goals were to get better at dictation and start learning Latin. Fine choices in my opinion. I showed him the grading forms I chose, explained how they'd work, and told him this would be a joint effort as I'd be learning this as we go. He thought that was kewl. I did explain that the grades wouldn't change his lessons at all, and a bit about high school transcripts. Then we hit the worldbook list. Some of the history was way off, and just a couple science topics. I had to explain a traditional school model on those two subjects to help him understand why we weren't lining up. He aced the language arts section, excluding bibliographies. A quick explanation and example fixed that. A couple math things couldn't be checked, and I knew that would happen. He's right on the cusp of moving into that section and will have it done this summer so we're not targeting them. Then we get to the health and safety section. "Preparing for puberty" started it all. "Remember talking about that?" "Uh... not really?" "You know, that's when your body starts changing to be more like a man's, instead of a child's." "Oh yeah, I do remember that." So we went over the basics, voice changing (already starting, eep.), shoulders broadening, hair growing in new places. One thing led to another and testicles came up, which led to testicles making sperm. He knows the sperm and egg story. Then he says it. "So how does the sperm get into the woman's body?" "When a man and a woman have sex the ***** goes into the ******." "That's absolutely gross." A couple more timid questions, with answers as simple as I could keep them, and he declared he was all done talking about that now. Poor guy looked a little green. Like a might toss your cookies shade of green. I quickly turned the topic back to the Life of Fred math curriculum and how we planned to implement it between the math course he's in now and the one we have for the next grade. When his color restored I declared the meeting done, "You're brilliantly smart. Doing great. Looking forward to another great year teaching you. Go play already." "Oh thankyou!" I even got a hug out of the deal. That assessment was a little more than I'd expected!

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