cgeorgenow

hi there,

i'm hoping some of you out there can help me work through some of my concerns about reporting to the state by the end of the summer.

my kids went to school for a couple of years but are home now. we're all making progress in deschooling ourselves and evolving into unschoolers. we're happy!

but it's almost time for me to write a progress report to my local school district. i know my kids have not learned what the schools think they should have learned in the past year. i realize there's flexibility in many school subject areas, but reading/writing and math are not so flexible.

i'm trying to think of real-life things my kids do with numbers and words to flesh out the progress report, but honestly, the schools would say they're "behind." they just haven't encountered real needs to learn those schooly things.

so I want to write an honest progress report, but I'm concerned that if I do, i'll draw attention to us and we'll get hounded. i'm not sure what to do. I would hate to spend some time over the summer "doing math" or "doing writing" but I'm not sure what else to do. any suggestions?

thanks in advance for any insights you may have....

cc

Meredith

It would help to know where you live, since requirements vary widely. What do you Have to report? Frankly, you may get more specific help from a local homeschool group - although we're happy to help you brainstorm.

How old are your kids, and what sorts of things do they enjoy doing?

---Meredith (Mo 7, Ray 15)

Tammy Curry

I have been working on putting a journal together for my records. I blogged somewhat this past year and I have gone through some email exchanges with other parents to pull together what would be considered core class work. I want the journal available if I am ever asked, I do not have to send it in to the state. Anyway, this what I looked at for math. My daughter has helped me to bake and cook, so I would guess that covered fractions, addition, and subtraction; also we had to convert a number of recipes from a friend in Europe from metric to standard measurements. She went with me to the grocery store and helped me figure out all the by X for $X. So that covers division figuring out if there is a real savings by breaking down to the individual cost and comparing to the regular price. While we are shopping I round our numbers up to keep a running total to stay within budget. She used a calculator to keep an actual total and then we figured sales tax. So
multiplication and percents. None of this was done with the intent of teaching, my daughter asked how she could help and we just went about what we had to do.

Reading and writing was fairly easy. She has read a wide variety of graphic novels. She is finding that there are graphic novels above and beyond her beloved manga. I have lost count of how many books she has read. She loves to tell me about the characters and adventures they have and has even found in many cases tv shows out on the web based on some of the series that she likes. For writing she loves keeping a journal, writing poetry, emailing and snail mailing friends and family, writing songs, short stories and creating some small comics. These are things she did for her own enjoyment. Oh and there was the proposal on why having a terraium would be beneficial and wouldn't count as having pets in the house, we aren't allowed pets according to our lease. She presented it complete with a power point presentation to her daddy, it has taken quite a while but he was quite impressed by the overall effort and depth of detail. So we are now deciding what type
of terraium we will have. DH informed the landlord that she is required to do a science project involving a terraium and the landlord ok'd it as long as it isn't a cat or a dog type of thing.

We also have a variety of workbooks, unit study thingies that I printed out and made available. My daughter did some of these as well. The ones she felt like doing I have put in tote box to hold on to. They run the gambit from spelling, math, language arts, history, current events, etc. Oh and I cannot forget her puzzle books and maze books and such. If someone were to look at all that we "did" during this past school year and compare it to school we would probably come up short on something I am sure. However, the things we have gained in other areas have far out weighed all of that.

I think science and history are pretty easy ones to pull together from a variety of things

I don't know what state you are in or how indepth you are required to be in your report, but I hope some of this helped.


Tammy Curry, Director of Chaos
http://tammycurry.blogspot.com/
http://crazy-homeschool-adventures.blogspot.com/

"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in."

Rachel Carson




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

cgeorgenow

thank you, meredith! i didn't intend for it to take me so long to respond....

i live in Mass., where we have to report to our town's superintendent's office. i have not found any unschoolers in my town, unfortunately. i'm going to be writing a narrative progress report for my kids as a summary of this past (current) year and then as an education plan for next year. one letter will cover both years.

i'm worrying about something that hasn't happened yet, which is that the person reading my letter will look at the ages of my kids and what i wrote and try to align what i wrote with a certain grade level for each kid.

one kid is 11 and the other 9. the 11-year-old likes music, puzzles, and loves to read. also loves art. the 9-year-old loves to be read to (still learning to read), playing outside, pokemon, and just really playing. both kids have general interests rather than a particular passion for one or two things.

my younger child will be easier to write about for math (learning a lot from playing board games and various computer/online games) and my older one easier to write about for reading/writing (reads, keeps a journal). so they've each done things in those areas that i think can translate for the letter.

but i've racked my brains for things i can say about what they've learned in the past year the other areas from the things they've done, and i can't come up with anything. nothing in the games we play or things we do in real life have helped my older child learn new skills in math (as far as i can see).

someone's probably going to tell me to not worry until i've submitted my letter and gotten negative feedback from the district. :-) that's okay. i know i'm worrying about something that hasn't happened yet. but i really don't want to worry myself to the point that we do some schoolwork in the next couple of months so i can put certain things in the letter.

so that's why i wrote .....

thanks again!

cc

--- In [email protected], "Meredith" <meredith@...> wrote:
>
> It would help to know where you live, since requirements vary widely. What do you Have to report? Frankly, you may get more specific help from a local homeschool group - although we're happy to help you brainstorm.
>
> How old are your kids, and what sorts of things do they enjoy doing?
>
> ---Meredith (Mo 7, Ray 15)
>

Joyce Fetteroll

On May 28, 2009, at 1:43 PM, cgeorgenow wrote:

> the person reading my letter will look at the ages of my kids and
> what i wrote and try to align what i wrote with a certain grade
> level for each kid.

There's nothing in the wording of the case laws that suggests kids
need to keep at grade level. I think "equivalent education" is as
close as it comes.

What you'll show is progress from one year to the next. If this is
your first year, you're golden since you're setting the baseline.

The best place to ask is the Mass Home Leaning Association list. It's
at their website:

http://www.mhla.org/

What I would do for next year, or even right now real quick, is do
some fun things that can by chance be listed under the math or
history or whatever activity. Rather than trying to get the math in
them, make sure they're exposed to something you can write down ;-)

I didn't hesitate to underplay Kathryn's progress so I would have
wiggle room for the next year in case she didn't progress ;-) She
always did, of course, but I was always leery that I'd be able to
document it. Be aware of what they couldn't do last year and can do
this year. I would write things like: "She seems to have more
problems with common words (such as spelling never as neaver) that
she’s been spelling wrong long enough that the wrong spelling look
familiar than new and more complex words. But even the misspelling of
familiar words are becoming fewer with time." But for some subjects I
just wrote activities like: "Pony care camp, gardening. Fascinated by
anthropology and delving into that." (I can't even remember the
anthropology thing so I'm guessing it was some short lived question
or she watched a couple of videos.)

I wanted to project conscious awareness with activity.

I keep a file on my computer desktop so it's easy to just click on it
and add stuff to it when she does something that will fit into a
category.

Joyce

cgeorgenow

thank you joyce and tammy curry for the specific suggestions and examples - very helpful!

> What you'll show is progress from one year to the next. If this is
> your first year, you're golden since you're setting the baseline.

oh, that's interesting. i was looking at it as the schools would have assumed last year, at school, was the baseline.

> What I would do for next year, or even right now real quick, is do
> some fun things that can by chance be listed under the math or
> history or whatever activity. Rather than trying to get the math in
> them, make sure they're exposed to something you can write down ;-)

great idea - i'm going to pull out lots of card and board games and see what comes up in those. my older child has also expressed an interest in lego robotics, so i'll look into too.

> I wanted to project conscious awareness with activity.
>
> I keep a file on my computer desktop so it's easy to just click on it and add stuff to it when she does something that will fit into a
> category.

good suggestion. i'll try that and see if it helps me with how to make things fit into school categories.

thanks a bunch - feeling a bit less worried at the moment!

cc

--- In [email protected], Joyce Fetteroll <jfetteroll@...> wrote:
>
>
> On May 28, 2009, at 1:43 PM, cgeorgenow wrote:
>
> > the person reading my letter will look at the ages of my kids and
> > what i wrote and try to align what i wrote with a certain grade
> > level for each kid.
>
> There's nothing in the wording of the case laws that suggests kids
> need to keep at grade level. I think "equivalent education" is as
> close as it comes.
>
> What you'll show is progress from one year to the next. If this is
> your first year, you're golden since you're setting the baseline.
>
> The best place to ask is the Mass Home Leaning Association list. It's
> at their website:
>
> http://www.mhla.org/
>
> What I would do for next year, or even right now real quick, is do
> some fun things that can by chance be listed under the math or
> history or whatever activity. Rather than trying to get the math in
> them, make sure they're exposed to something you can write down ;-)
>
> I didn't hesitate to underplay Kathryn's progress so I would have
> wiggle room for the next year in case she didn't progress ;-) She
> always did, of course, but I was always leery that I'd be able to
> document it. Be aware of what they couldn't do last year and can do
> this year. I would write things like: "She seems to have more
> problems with common words (such as spelling never as neaver) that
> she's been spelling wrong long enough that the wrong spelling look
> familiar than new and more complex words. But even the misspelling of
> familiar words are becoming fewer with time." But for some subjects I
> just wrote activities like: "Pony care camp, gardening. Fascinated by
> anthropology and delving into that." (I can't even remember the
> anthropology thing so I'm guessing it was some short lived question
> or she watched a couple of videos.)
>
> I wanted to project conscious awareness with activity.
>
> I keep a file on my computer desktop so it's easy to just click on it
> and add stuff to it when she does something that will fit into a
> category.
>
> Joyce
>

The Coffee Goddess

> What I would do for next year, or even right now real quick, is do 
> some fun things that can by chance be listed under the math or 
> history or whatever activity. Rather than trying to get the math in 
> them, make sure they're exposed to something you can write down ;-)


Another something I did, a thousand years ago when my oldest was young and I still wondered if the state would one day show up at my door (never happened, I didn't worry long)--was, without making a big deal out of it to the kids, started recording all the books they checked out from the library into a database on the computer.  That way I could show as a print out, if asked, how many MANY topics we had covered over the year.  The kids didn't know I did this so it didn't impact their library selections in any way, but I then classified the books into "subjects" and it was amazing the number of things we read about in a year! 

Dana





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Melissa Gray

LOL...Dana, I did that too! Kept track of every book they read for
about a year.


Melissa
Mom to Joshua, Breanna, Emily, Rachel, Samuel, Daniel, Avari, and
baby Nathan!
Wife to Zane

blog me at
http://startlinglives.blogspot.com/
http://startlinglives365.blogspot.com



On Jun 1, 2009, at 12:01 PM, The Coffee Goddess wrote:

>
>
> > What I would do for next year, or even right now real quick, is do
> > some fun things that can by chance be listed under the math or
> > history or whatever activity. Rather than trying to get the math in
> > them, make sure they're exposed to something you can write down ;-)
>
> Another something I did, a thousand years ago when my oldest was
> young and I still wondered if the state would one day show up at my
> door (never happened, I didn't worry long)--was, without making a
> big deal out of it to the kids, started recording all the books
> they checked out from the library into a database on the computer.
> That way I could show as a print out, if asked, how many MANY
> topics we had covered over the year. The kids didn't know I did
> this so it didn't impact their library selections in any way, but I
> then classified the books into "subjects" and it was amazing the
> number of things we read about in a year!
>
> Dana
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Debra Rossing

> started recording all the books they checked out from the library into
a database on the computer

Also good for keeping track of stuff you've got out so that it
eventually makes its way BACK to the library LOL

Deb R


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