*Thinking Out Loud* - Tired of Tests

Poor M. In order to get the materials she needs for her 'school' year next year, she's had to do some extensive testing so we could place her in the right grade level. She did well with Math and has placed in Grade 2 first semester which is good because Math is our current struggle to find good material to work with that she likes, so after 6 - 25 question tests we're gonna set her up with Grade 2 Math, I'm good with that.

Roll on to the LA stuff and that's another story. She's ready to start test #10. Reading Placement Assessment 6A. The A's seem to focus on reading passages and answering questions so that's the comprehension part, where the B tests seem to be a short sentence and fill in the blanks. (This is not a brag or exaggeration its a genuine concern!) What worries me is that from what I'm getting from the material they're already testing her for Grade 6 Language Arts and I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that. This kid loves her books, she loves to read.... its a great excuse not to go to bed sometimes! LOL! We're going to follow out the testing and see what they suggest, but I can already guess that she won't be enrolling in the Language Arts program, because I think Gr 6 material just wouldn't be right for a 7 yr old.

So where to go from here? I haven't totally cast out the idea of the LA program we're looking at, but I'm not looking as favourably at it either. I'm leaning toward a hodge podge of things for this area, and thus my research begins for what to do now! Its not an insurmountable challenge, I'm actually quite pleased in that my gut has been right so far with this area! Woohoo....

The duck line up looks like this now.
LANGUAGE ARTS
Option 1: - K12 Language arts (Grade ?)

Option 2: - Light Hodge Podge mix. This would end up being:
READING: access to all the books in the library to read for pleasure focusing in the gr K-5 range. Introducing more non-fiction books into the repertoire and asking for her to summarize some of what she reads. Including more study of Poetry, and Sayings - maybe on level with Baltimore Curriculum Project as our backbone! mental note: We need a book journal so she can review the books and decide if she'd read them again! :) Loose Leaf Review Sheet
WRITING: This will concentrate on both handwriting and improving it so that she is writing in the right instance (Capital or small - I've learned that she knows how to do it just chooses not to unless forced!) We'll also focus on some creative writing - both by hand and on the computer. Prompted writing starts, daily journalling. She writes an awesome story, and we can also use this time to develop her imaginary world of "Greena." We just need to focus on paragraph writing. (maybe mine will improve too!)
SPELLING / VOCABULARY: Spelling is already above level, so we'll just focus on words that we don't know from stories... for this I've found a site that has vocabulary bookmarks. So maybe we'll use those and focus on just expanding the vocabulary!
GRAMMAR: English for a Thoughtful Child - which seems to encompass more than just Grammar. I think this will also be in the backbone of things we do as well... as I think there is a logical grammar component. I've had the book for years and just haven't managed to study it in detail yet.... (this month's to do list!)

Options 3: - ?? (hoping not to have to come up with something!) LOL!

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I think I'm actually ready to branch on in the LA area by myself and getting more into this plannng business!

Grade 2 Plan in the Making

Getting into the swing of this planning in advance business which homeschoolers seem to do (I follow by example! LOL!) We're starting formulate our plans for next year's curriculum. At M's request we will try an all K12 curriculum for next year, despite the fact that I've been told its very time consuming. I think it will give her a good taste of how hard she'd work in day school if she went but hopefully we'll still have time play. I'm also hoping that this will give me a good foundation from which to work out my own curriculum for the following year. I've learned a lot through our History and Science dabblings this year - enough to know that I think I could actually do those on my own in the near future but will hang out for the year just so we have the basics covered!

LANGUAGE ARTS
- K12 Language arts (Grade ?)

I'm nervous about the Language program, just because I don't think they'll position her right. Not to brag or boast about her capabilities but she's an extremely AVID reader (reads faster and hence than me!) So I think this will be our challenge subject. I think she needs the guidance of a structured program, I'm just not sure what direction she needs at the moment.

MATH
- K12 Math (Grade 2)

HISTORY/GEOGRAPHY
- K12 History (Grade 2)

SCIENCE
- K12 Science (Grade 2)

LANGUAGES
- Sign Language (need to find better program - maybe Signing Times Videos + more)
- Spanish (is it the right time?? need to find a better program here too!)

I'm not really happy with what we're using here and need to find something better. I'm tempted to let the Spanish sit for a year or 2 and just focus on the sign since we have both an interest and a need for it. That way when S is ready to start "schooling" we can include her in the spoken Spanish lessons and go from there.

ARTS/CRAFTS/MUSIC
- K12 Art (Grade 2)
- K12 Music (Beginning 1)
- various projects
- extracurricular art classes as appropriate

I'm not sure if we will use the K12 Art and music but it seems to fit with everything else we're doing and I have no plan currently in place to cover these subjects. Our library doesn't seem to have the resources I want access to for the breadth of what I want to cover so I'm tossing my hands up here! I can teach crafts like Knitting, sewing, hand embroidery, crochet, etc.... she has expressed an interest and aptitude in sewing (hand and machine) and cross stitch, so we're good on crafts and will just follow interests!

EXTRACURRICULAR
- Brownies
- outside classes as interest deems necessary

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I think we've got a good skeleton here to work with for the time being. It'll be a matter of finalizing things which we'll do before end of May.

If anyone out there reading has an absolute favourite program that they want to share, I'd love to check it out! :) I feel like I'm doing so much better this year in my planning than last year! (question is where will it lead me! LOL! Trouble no doubt!)

Life in the Fast Lane.

One doesn't realize just how addicted they are to the "Net" until the "Net" is yanked out from beneath them. If you visit my other blog you'll note that there is a saga going on about ISPs. Our internet has been flakey for the last little while. The day after I signed up with EnchantedLearning I suddenly found myself with no internet (no correlation there just coincidental timing that I used as a marker.) No internet means no school as K12 is 'online' and S's coloring pages were also online! So we devoted our time to playing and technically doing not much. Baaaad if you're a rigid by the book person, not so bad if you can wing it in other ways. Which we do! A lot is learned in play!

Oh well, we're back now! And I'll try to be better about posting! (ya I've said that before haven't I?)

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So in all that spare time I had I've been reading
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I've been feeling a little guilty that little S doesn't have any classes she can do but in her currrent state a class isn't quite what she needs. She's 2 - almost 2.5. She has major issues with mummy separation. I mean there are some nights if she can't be snuggled right up to me for a couple hours she ain't planning to sleep and I shouldn't either. So my only thought was a mommy and me type class offered by the good folks at the local "My Gym" or a mommy and me type art class through the parks and rec! Dh has offered to take time and work from home so M wouldn't have to be patient or left alone somewhere (like outside the class!) So I started doing some reading on things that would be good for 'almost' preschoolers (is she preschooler yet?) and ended up with a book by David Elkind called "Miseducation". Man talk about an eye opener! Though I don't subscribe to any of the schools of thought he mentioned, I do tend to watch what others do and felt an ounce of guilt that I wasn't doing enough with her socially - I've decided that I was feeling guilted into some kind of class, realizing that at this exact age M was spending hours by my side at the hospital watching her little sister struggle for life, and her mummy melt into a pile of goo... where she would play with a Leap pad (where her love for Frogs, Geography and science started) and coloring pictures while being introduced to *GASP* TV for short bursts of time. Basically she was right by my side where she wanted to be... and that's exactly where S wants to be right now too! SO I think we'll hold off on the classes for a while longer and maybe introduce them next year if she is ready - no rush. I just figured it would be a good experiment to see if she really is more physical than her sis.

Another Month Drifts By

I'm sorry that I don't post here often. With a 2 yr old much of the girls day is filled with play. While the older one pulls away for an hour or 2 of school stuff every once in a while the younger one is fully engulfed in play. She does well playing alone, which allows us to get the basics done with the older one, but IMO preschoolers should play.

The younger one is now asking to sit down and do book work, so I've printed out a color book... ie Things that are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and violet, and giving her a crayon to go to town with... no force to colour in the lines, no force do it right... just a suggestion to do your best coloring job. She loves it. We're also starting to focus on singing the alphabet and a few other things.

Happily I paid $20 to EnchantedLearning site today - because I'm finding their printouts pretty cool... so I figure its worth a year's subscription to test out. I should re-evaluate at the end of the year's term.