We had a simpler and quieter Christmas this year than we've had in the past. We didn't splurge on big gifts and we limited our gift-giving to the kids and those in our extended family that we'd see. We didn't have an opportunity to connect with my husband's side of the family but spent Christmas Day with mine.

Christmas Day with my family included our only turkey dinner of the season and plenty of time to play games. As always, we ate w-a-y too much as my mom had no sooner cleaned up the remains of the main meal than she was putting out all kinds of treats, and loaves of bread for making sandwiches. The little nephews didn't last long as all the holiday excitement finally took it's toll.  So the day with them felt rather short. We lingered on, however, into the early evening and headed home at a more reasonable hour than some years. Everyone had a good time but the constant refrain was the same as always, "I can't believe Christmas is over!"

On Boxing Day we spent the day at home. I finally escaped the house for a wonderful long walk. Although the sun was shining brightly the air was bitingly cold. The rest of the family was happy to remain indoors and enjoy some leisure time in front of the TV, playing video games, or starting some of their Christmas projects. One daughter loves to do paint-by-number and she got two of them from her sister. Another one was playing around with new watercolor pencils. I got to delve into some books I picked up when I was in Victoria.

Mom sent some turkey legs home with me so I made a big pot of soup yesterday which we enjoyed with baguette. My kids love eating finger food so salami and a variety of cheese accompanied our meal. What a feast!

Now my thoughts have been tentatively turning toward school preparation. We have some problems to solve with my on-line students and I have lots of marking and planning to do in order to begin the new year with some energy. Our holiday seems to be quickly slipping away so I'm trying to make the most of every opportunity to relax and enjoy it.

Praying all is well with you and yours. Best wishes for a restful holiday and a very Happy New Year to you all.

Advent Greetings and Merry Christmas, too!

I had fully intended not to write a Christmas letter this year – a plan to make me feel better about the fact that I was sure I wouldn’t have time! But it seems I’m addicted to writing a yearly letter, and as I presume you enjoy all the fun tidbits and news about the family (however cheesily they may be presented), here goes another:

Matt’s finishing up his first year as the Motorcycle Traffic Enforcement Officer with his department, and he really loves his new niche. So much, in fact, that he bought his own motorcycle for the commute, and I don’t think I’ve seen him so giddy in quite awhile. Don’t worry, he’s a very safe and careful rider!  I’d have to say one of his other little happinesses this year (if I’m not mixing up my years) was the finding of our dog, Dobby the House Dog. Matt really missed the basset hound we once owned, and though I did not especially miss her, I hunted around for yet another one for my hubby. The perfect dog for us happened to be a stray basset who wandered into a local pound. The “hound from the pound” came home, and settled very happily into our house. Matt adores him, the girls all love him, and I must admit he’s a perfect dog for us…he must think so, too, as he never runs away, and he has mapped out every warm area in the house where he can lay down and fulfill his calling as “the great lump.”

Matt had expressed a desire for our family to become more musical, and grow in our knowledge and understanding of music as a way to bring joy and beauty, and of course to glorify our Father. To that end, Isabelle and I joined the church choir, and we absolutely love it! I’m thankful they took us, as I often wondered if I was tone deaf, but we are learning some incredibly beautiful music, growing in our ability to sing (and not have to take so many breaths!),  and blessed to be sitting under a brilliant choir director who teaches us more than she realizes, and makes us laugh, too – many blessings. We were also thrilled when our churches formed a singing/music school for all the little ones in our community. Four of our five girls are happily skipping off to music school each week, and learning delightful songs to fill our days – everything from Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, to bits of classical masterpieces - we are so thankful for this lovely and fun new addition to our week!

Isabelle at 7 still delights in reading through massive amounts of books – I think she stays up later reading than I do. She says King Arthur and his knights is her favorite book, but she was rather hard pressed to actually name just one! She also started piano lessons this year, which is a perfect addition to singing school and choir. She’s having to “learn to read” all over again with musical notation, but she’s already surpassing her mom and dad’s ability in this area!  She also learned to ride a two-wheel bike this summer, and has now lost her first tooth!

Hannah, who is five and half, is a creative little gem who comes up with the most entertaining illustrated stories. She somehow thinks of wildly different plots each time she writes one, draws with devotion, and we love reading her little phonetically spelled adventures! She’s getting quicker at reading, and loves to do math…not that I had really intended to teach her first grade math at five, but she always asks to do that first. Mommy’s footsteps, indeed, we had to have another little math-lover! Oh, and she learned to ride a two-wheeler as well…good times!

Naomi is four and a half, and I think she’s grown even taller than Hannah! She’s growing up in so many ways, which I think suits her as she’s always preferred doing “real” things to playing. She loves when I make potatoes, because she can sit and cut up all the peels! She loves to sing (in her beautiful “singing voice”) all the fun songs from singing school, and she still loves to dance. In fact, she always has about ten times more energy than I do … I need to figure out how to get some of that, too! She loves “preschool time” with mom and Juli, and is learning the letters in her name. Her grandma taught her to play a couple of board games this year, and she would happily do that all the time if she could!

Juliette, who will turn four in a few weeks time, always entertains us with her unique view of the world. She sees everything just a bit differently than the rest of us, and it usually either confounds us completely or makes us chuckle. She was absolutely thrilled to become part of singing school, as she was a bit too young when they first began. She’s joined in for two weeks now, and done beautifully – it’s nice having her and Naomi together as they are often quite inseparable. She adores princesses – tiny or big, and has a strange habit of storing everything she loves in the world behind the header of her bed – it’s amazing how much she can stuff back there (and usually includes at least a few princesses)! I would also say Juliette loves Dobby more than anyone else except perhaps daddy. It’s not unusual to find her in the corner, with her arms around his neck – if she can get him to stay there!

Alyssa is our little blondie, and looks just like her Hungarian daddy. She has far more personality than I’m sure ought to be allowed in a two-year old! I’m also pretty sure she thinks that she runs the world, and she learned to speak well early on, just so she could tell us so! She definitely keeps us on our toes and finds all sorts of unique mischief to get herself into. Nonetheless, she’s an adorable little helper – practically sprinting to put things in the hamper or garbage for me. She gives the sweetest kisses, and the best “squeezy hugs” in the world! She is a delight to us all, and has particularly attached herself to mommy like a little magnet…it’s earned her the nickname of my “personal penguin”– if you don’t know what that is, you’ll have to google it! When she’s not stuck to mom, you might find her trying to convince Dobby to let her ride on him!

Oh, a bit about me is in order, I suppose. Well, if I didn’t mention it before, I’m a bit pregnant – a wee baby is in the tummy! I’m just about to finish up my first trimester, so the new little one should arrive in summer. This pregnancy has taken quite a toll on me, so I’m more thankful than ever before for a husband who loves and serves me so sweetly! I still try to get out and work with our horse, Farah, but that has been put on hold a bit till I get past these (hopefully few!) sick weeks…that, and I’m a wimp when the weather is in the teens!  When it’s not so freezing, and I’m not too sick, though, we all enjoy Farah- she’s a delightfully easy horse to train, and is happy for any of us to ride her! Wonder if she’ll still be happy when I’ve gained twenty more pounds…

All in all, we’re chugging along pretty happily over here, even if we’re doing a lot less than usual till I’m past this trimester. God has, as always, been incredibly kind to us, and we are so thankful for His blessings and the peace He bestows upon His children. We pray this joy and peace will be yours in abundance this Christmas season. Know that we are thankful for you, our loving friends and family, even though we are far from many of you. Blessings and God’s grace to you all!

Love Always,

Matthew, Melissa, Isabelle, Hannah, Naomi, Juliette, Alyssa, and little Baby….

We are a relaxed homeschool family.  We use our curriculum in a relaxed manner.  We rely on literature and living books as much as we possibly can, to help our children connect to the subject matter we're studying.   We don't pile unnecessary busy work or subjects on our children.  We aren't studying for geography or spelling bees, we aren't memorizing ancient poems, and we aren't learning three different languages.  We also are not taking yearly standardized tests in our homeschool. 

At first, it was a philosophical issue that kept us from taking yearly tests.  While I still have that philosophical issue about those tests, and I still see no reason to put my younger children through that ... I have come to appreciate them for older students.  If my children desire to attend college, they will be taking tests to prove their college readiness as part of the application process.  Once they are in college, they will have timed final exams, as well. 

Earlier this Fall, I realized that I needed to start preparing my 9th grade and 7th grade daughters for these new experiences, since they have expressed interest in attending college.  I was considering signing them up for a standardized test somewhere, and wondered if any homeschool groups in the area had a testing date.  It was around that time that I received ACT, Inc's assessment tests --  EXPLORE and PLAN -- to review for the TOS Homeschool Crew.

The EXPLORE test is for the 8th or 9th grade student.  It tests four areas:  English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science.   It is designed to help prepare your student for the ACT test, assess their strengths and weaknesses, and also help them begin to plan and prepare for their future education and career.   Each of the four sections is a timed multiple-choice test.  It's the traditional #2 pencil, color the circle in completely, scan-tron test I haven't seen since I graduated from college.  My daughter had never seen a scan-tron test before.

Each EXPLORE Homeschool packet comes with the Sample Test Booklet and Answer Sheet, the Using Your EXPLORE Results brochure, and the College Readiness Standards Handbook.  This packet is available for $22.95.

The PLAN test is designed for the 10th grade student, and is also for assessing your student's progress toward college or workforce readiness, their strengths and weaknesses, and any changes you need to make in their remaining high school years.   It also tests English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science in a multiple choice, fill in the bubble, scan-tron method.  The four sections of the test are timed, and the answers are provided for the parent to grade the test at home.

Each PLAN Homeschool packet comes with the  Sample Test Booklet and Answer Sheet, the Using Your PLAN Results brochure, and the College Readiness Standards Handbook.  This packet is also available for $22.95.

The ElCloud Experience and Opinion

We are not required to do standardized testing in our state.  Living in a small town, with a small homeschool group, there also isn't an organized way to test our children if we wanted to do so.  But being a relaxed homeschooler, that didn't really bother me.

The EXPLORE test was my 9th grade daughter's first ever standardized test.  She had a composite of 21 out of 25 ...  92% of 9th graders are at or below that in the Fall.  Not bad!!  Her math was weak, but still above average.  Her reading test was lower than we expected, showing that she needed to learn to pay better attention to detail.  A lesson learned from a first testing experience.

I wasn't surprised that her math test was low, but I was surprised by the reading scores.  She and I decided to go ahead and have her take the PLAN test for 10th graders, as well.  We wanted to see two things: 

• would her scores in math and reading improve now that she had experience in test taking?
• where would she rank in a grade above her actual grade? 

When she took the PLAN test, she did improve her reading and science scores, but her math went down a little bit (as I expected).  Her overall composite was higher on the 10th grade PLAN test than it had been on the 9th grade EXPLORE test.  I am sure this was just from having gained experience in test taking the day before.    Her composite score on the PLAN test was 23 out of 25, which puts her in the 97th percentile.  97 percent of 10th graders score at or below the level she did. 

We knew math was her weak area, so those scores did not surprise us.  We also know that writing is another weak area of hers.  The EXPLORE and PLAN do not test writing, but the ACT and SAT will.   These tests were a blessing to us.  They provided us with the assurance of areas she's excelling in, and confirmed the areas we need to work on.  More specifically, I can also examine the errors she made in the math section to see what type of math problems she missed.

The instructions were clear and easy for me to follow in grading the tests, converting the raw score to the scale score, and then comparing the scores with the national norms (percents at or below that score).  The four sections of each test took 20 - 40 minutes each.   The EXPLORE and PLAN tests each took us half a school-day to take a test section, score it, take a break, then move on to the next test section.

In general, these tests have been very helpful to us both.  No one sees them but us, and they aren't a requirement ... so pressure during test-taking is decreased.  But the test-taking experience they gave my daughter was perfect.  I was able to explain to her how to fill out the form, walk her through timed testing with tips about skipping ones you don't know and returning to them later.  Then she was able to take her first timed test in the comfort of her own home, which reduced some of the stress the timer can create. 

I'm so thankful she had this experience NOW before we begin taking PSAT's, SAT's, or ACT's.  It gave her a confidence boost, as well as an idea of what the ACT will be like when it is time to take that test.  I am sure she'll feel somewhat stressed when she enters a more formal testing environment, but I also know it will be less stressful than it would have been without this experience.

I definitely recommend ACT Inc's EXPLORE and PLAN tests for homeschool parents.  They would be especially helpful to parents whose children haven't taken any standardized tests but are thinking ahead to college.  These tests provide an excellent way to practice and prepare for the ACT,  assess weak areas, and make plans for your student's high school education and beyond.  They are affordable at $22.95 each, and although they only come with one scan-tron sheet, the booklets could be re-used for review.

This item was provided free for our review as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew.  We received no other compensation, and this review is our honest opinion.  Click the TOS Homeschool Crew banner at the top to read more reviews on this product by other Homeschool Crew members.

Wishing everyone a very happy Christmas!

We are celebrating Christmas with our family today as we'll be heading in to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa, aunts and uncles, and cousins tomorrow. My husband finished work at noon today and we gathered around the tree to open gifts. Now the kids are busy with new activities. And, I'm taking a quiet break before cooking up our Christmas treats. Every year we have a tradition of enjoying a whole smorgasbord of appetizers on Christmas Eve - chicken wings, sausage rolls, cheese puffs, steak wrapped in bacon, etc. Later we will gather round the fire and watch a movie together.

I still have stockings to stuff late this evening. Although, it's almost impossible to get the kids into bed early enough these days to keep anything a 'secret'. Tomorrow morning will be a flurry of busyness as I prepare roast potatoes to take along for our Christmas potluck. I say, 'potluck', but my Mom still insisted on preparing most of the meal herself.

I am trying to soak in every moment. Praying you find time to just take in the atmosphere and breathe a prayer of thanks to our heavenly Father. Blessings to you and yours!