Posted in Teachers Corner

With so few posts on homeschooling, even the CIA couldn't prove I was doing so.

This year is a transition one for our family. Here in Washington, we are only required to give a notice of intent to our superintendant, and have our child tested annually. Not too bad. And, state law calls for mandatory education at age eight.

So, this fall -- and specifically on her birthday, not a day before -- we have to give notice and start testing.

Oh, boy.

While she is ahead in almost every other subject, spelling and writing are her problem areas. (How my writer's heart is broken, too, let me tell ya.) It mostly stems from a bit of perfectionism (understatement of the year), so I have my work cut out for me.

Fortunately, I have discovered notebooking and lapbooking. My little self-proclaimed artist loves the opportunity to draw and use scrapbooking stuff. She's writing out all of her AWANA verses, summaries of books she's reading, and short papers on other topics of interest. At this rate, she'll outdo me in no time.

I'm also finding she loves all the cool new peechees (do they still use that term?) out these days -- makes it easy to organize all these papers.

And we're trying another tactic -- for every book she completes (basically math at this point, but we'll see how far we can take this), she earns $7 (based on her age, we decided). She then may pick out something within certain boundaries -- Leapster educational games, art supplies, a new book, etc. She's finished six math workbooks in two weeks! (We have a collection of cheap ones from various sources -- it's all pretty redundant, but she's getting great practice). She begs to do math. I love it!

Other than those two main foci, she's spending extra time doing her learning games on the computer -- JumpStart, Mighty Math, Carmen SanDiego, and others. And reading ... always reading. My parents found her a set of children's abridged classics for Christmas. She might read Jane Eyre before I do.

Gotta go read. Can't let that happen.