homeschool review

Homeschool Year-End Assessment Guide

May 12, 2020 By Valerie Mcclintick Leave a Comment

The end of the year is coming and it’s time to wrap up homeschooling. Before you rush off to your much-deserved summer break, take some time to assess your homeschool. Here is a homeschool year-end assessment guide to help you can finish out the year strong.

Setting and Meeting Homeschool Goals

Did you start the year with lofty goals? Goals are part of planning. Now is the time to take out that list of goals, again. How many have you met? Are there any goals that were unrealistic? Did one of your children blow your goals out of the water? Could you set a bigger goal next year?

Assessing your goals will help you plan better for next year. In addition, you can see how far you have come. Sometimes, we all have difficult homeschooling years. However, every year has its own successes. Yet, it’s difficult to see progress in the every day. So, look at your goals, celebrate the ones you met, and re-evaluate those that you didn’t.

Prepare Homeschool Portfolios for Evaluation

Portfolios are an important part of homeschooling for many families. If your state requires a portfolio, this is a vital step in concluding your year. Here are some simple steps to prepare your portfolios for submission:

Gather any required documents and ensure that they are filled out completely
Finalize grade sheets
Tally hours/days completed
Update field trip and book lists
Collect any certificates or outside documentation for courses
Go through sample work and make final decision on what to include
Double check that all subjects are represented
Organize all the contents and submit

Assessment of Your Curriculum Choices

Curriculum choices are big decisions. We all invest abundant effort, time, and energy into finding what our family needs. Sometimes those choices are perfect fits. However, sometimes our choices don’t live up to our expectations. So, how did you choices work this year? What did you love? On the other hand, what was a struggle for you or the kids? First, make a list of what worked well. Next, make a list of what didn’t work and why. Now, make notes of anything you would do differently with the curriculum you liked. This will help you plan an even better year for the fall.

Review Student Progress in Each Subject

Student assessments are essential for reviewing your year. In fact, it should be your central focus.

What progress did each child make?
What new skills were mastered?
Where did they each struggle?
What surprised you about their progress?
How do your children feel about their school year?

How do I Preform a Homeschool Assessment?

There are many ways to assess your children. In general, standardized tests and final exams are the most common end of year assessments. However, there are endless means for evaluating student progress. Here are some suggestions:

End of year narration (Students retell everything that they learned over the year.)
Comparison of samples of work throughout the year.
Student self-evaluations
- Score based evaluation
- Written narrative
- One on one interview
Cumulative project for each subject
Administer the same skills test at the beginning and end of year
Grade appropriate checklist

Review of Homeschool Schedule and Systems

Before you finalize your year, take a moment to review how your homeschool is run. Firstly, how is your homeschool schedule working for you? Consider start times, end times, length of the day, extracurricular activities, and online courses/meetings. Next, consider where you have been homeschooling. Is that space still adequate? What can you change? Do you need a new organization system? Conversely, do you need to re-locate your school area? Lastly, review your habits and systems. What worked and what didn’t?

Make a list of what changes you want to make. In addition, record any items you need to replace, replenish, or would like to try next year. Now, take a deep breath, pay yourself on the back, close your “homeschool door.” and enjoy your summer break with your children.

Do you have the itch to plan out your Summer? Try our Free Homeschool Field Trip Guide!

The Reading Kingdom Review

August 31, 2012 By Valerie Mcclintick 1 Comment

This month we’ve been testing out a website called The Reading Kingdom.

The Reading Kingdom is an online subscription website that teaches children to read and write up to a third grade level. The program was developed by Dr. Marion Blank, and incorporates elements of phonics and whole language skills by introducing children to six different reading and writing skills:

Here is a guide to further explain how the program works in each of these areas.
The Reading Kingdom is recommended for:
Struggling Readers,
Early Readers and
Accelerated Readers.

Here’s How it works:

When you first join up your child with take an initial assessment test to place them appropriately within the program. The goal is to let your child take this part of the test unassisted so that they will be placed in the appropriate level. During the assessment children listen to directions and respond accordingly.

Our Experience: My 6 year old son, who tests at a third grade reading level took the assessment test. I was hoping he could use this program as review and to solidify sequencing and grammar skills. He has attention and issues with following verbal directions, but I had hoped that the program would place him accordingly. I have to say he (and I) were frustrated with the initial test. It was long, slow, and way below his ability level with no apparent progression through out the test. There is a small amount of typing required, and by the time my son got his hands on the “home row” he was taking more time then needed. Apparently children are expected to “finger type” instead. In addition, the response time was difficult to master and it left him discouraged. After he finally went through the test, he was placed at Level 1. This was quite a drastic difference in what we expected for placement.

I would say the first level of this program would be good for an average ability 3 or 4 year old, as my little Tot can answer the questions quite simply with a little help on the mouse. So, after all this testing I just emailed them about this issue and my son was moved up to the appropriate level 5 within the day. It was such a quick response that we were refreshed to begin trying out the program again.

Here is an outline of the levels:

I’m sure you can imagine how much more enthusiatic he was after proper placement.
The games were now holding his interest!

What 6 year old boy doesn’t love computer games?
And what homeschool mom doesn’t educational games?
Win-Win

The Reading Kingdom subscription is $19.99/month, or $199.99 per year
You can sign up for a FREE 30 Day Trial here

Pros:
Colorful, Interactive, and engaging for younger children
Key reading skills are covered in game format
Would be a great supplement to your Core Reading Curriculum
Scholarship Program for low-income families.

Cons:
The initial assessment was quite long, and in our case inaccurate. However, a simple email got my son placed appropriately.
Cost. At $199 a year, you definitely want to check your budget first.

Overall, my son loved the games and asked me to “Play” Reading Kingdom often.
I would say that this program has more value to Struggling readers, and Beginning Readers
so you could start at the beginning of the program and work your way through.
I would definitely recommend signing up for the 30-day free trial!

Disclaimer: I was given a free subscription to The Reading Kindgom in return for my honest opinion about their product. You can read what other TOS Crew members thought here.

Teaching Children to Follow Directions

July 19, 2012 By Valerie Mcclintick 2 Comments

A couple of weeks ago we got a Super Duper package in the mail!

It contained something I was really looking forward to,
somthing that could only come from a Super Duper Store.

Isn’t is marvelous?

HearBuilder Following Directions CD ROM
Created by by Susie S Loraine, M.A., CCC-SLP and
Mark Strait, M.Ed., CCC-SLP

This fun and intereactive software will teach your child to
follow increasingly difficult directions using 40 basic concepts in five areas:

Basic Directions
Sequential Directions
Quantitative & Spatial Directions
Temporal Directions
Conditional Directions

Before recieveing this product to review,
I had never heard of such a product!
(You can be sure that I would have ordered it much sooner if I had)

You see I have one particular child who can really take advantage of this program.

Getting real for a moment here:
I have a boy that struggles so badly with listening
that I literally had his hearing checked.

Long story short:

He hears fine.

He just listens poorly.

You can imagine the problems this creates with three other children and a homeschool agenda.

So, I was almost giddy tearing open the package, and loading up the game.

This little child also LOVES his computer time,
so this was akin to giving him candy and ice cream for breakfast.

He kept saying, “Thanks Mom!” over and over through out the lesson.
(yes, he was talking during his lesson….hence the need for the software)

The main goal of the game is to build toys.

But you can’t build toys without tools.

And you have to earn your tools baby.

You earn a tool by listening to the directions and acting them out correctly.

Directions are based on the five concept areas I listed above.

To begin with he was told, “Click on the small boat under the car”
As the game progressed, the directions became increasingly harder;

“First, set the size to small. Second, set the temperature to hot.
Third, set the shape to square. Then, set the color to blue, and press start.”

You cannot start following the directions until all of the directions have been said.

The boy HAD TO STOP TALKING in order to get them correct.

He struggled at this point. He was not happy to get the questions wrong.
But instead of reverting to frustration, he became all the more determined
to earn his tool.

He went silent and really focused.
(I knew he had it in him)
The incentive to listen was great enough to override all the other
distractions going through his 6 year old ADHD brain.

And I hovered over him the entire time, congratulating him with each success.

After his lesson time was over he literally beamed with pride
at accomplishing something he knew was difficult for him.

And also, because his worn out mother has so often ~~yelled~~ said,
“You need to listen dear boy” and here he was being rewarded for such
a good job listening.

Pros:

-My favorite part about his program is that the directions are auditory.
I feel my son needs the most work in this area and that progress will help our homeschool experience immensely.
-Can be used with multiple children, up to four and game progress is saved.
-Classroom size program is also available. (also compatible with SMARTBoard)
-No subscription, you get an actual CD-Rom that you can keep forever.

Here are some other features that you as the parent can set:
-Set levels of difficulty for each activity
-Identify and print learning objectives for all levels
-Add background noise at any level (obviously unneeded in our house…snicker)
-Monitor progress and track data for an unlimited number of students
-Track all relevant data
-Customize and print reports

Here is a wonderful video
that explains the software in much more detail.

HearBuilder Following Directions Home Edition retails for $69.95
You can purchase this software from Super Duper Publications You can save 30% by using the code BLGFD30 before August 31st.

Super Duper Publications has HUGE selection of educational resources,
if you’re shopping for next year you want to check them out!
They offer free shipping to USA and Canada on $20+ orders
Be sure to check them out on Facebook for exclusive deals and coupons!

Disclaimer: As a member of TOS Crew I received free product in return for an honest review.
Read what other TOS Crew Members thought of HearBuilder here.

IXL: A TOS Review

June 21, 2012 By Valerie Mcclintick 3 Comments

So.

Not to overwhelm you, but this will be my third math post this month.

You might say that math is on my mind.

Actually, math has been on my mind
ALL YEAR LONG.

3 Grader + Oregon = Statewide Math Test

It was our first BIG one.

It was required.

I was so nervous…

I wanted her to be prepared for it.

I wanted her to pass it.

I feared that if she didn’t pass the first time
that my imaginary liscence to homeschool would be revoked.

I poured over all the requirements.

I purchased any and all math books
that said “state standards” or “correlated topics” on them.

And pretty soon, Sissy was using FOUR different math books every day.

Yes. FOUR.

You see, I purchased ONE because it was the type of math I liked to teach.
ANOTHER because it dealt specifically with word problems, and
ANOTHER because it taught graphing and beginning algebra connections, and
STILL ANOTHER because it promised to get us TEST ready.

So I watched all year long.
My little girl, dragging her pile of math books to the kitchen table,
and I can remember thinking;

Wouldn’t it be nice to just have one math program,
that took her through each standard to the point of mastery.

And while I’m not for ONLINE math as the foundation of our curriculum,
I’m pretty sure that I could have replaced THE OTHER THREE filler
Math books with one simple subscription to IXL.

In fact, it would have made things quite a bit easier.

Here’s Why:

Colorful and engaging.

I know that might seem like a small “PRO” but when you’re staring at a website
every day, it’s nice to have one that appeals to children and adults.
It’s easy to tell that IXL is a professionally designed website,
because I don’t have to squint to see the font, navigation is simple and easy and there is enough
color to keep children interested without burning out our retinas with flashy gimicks.

State Standards:

When you register with IXL, YOUR state standards are made available.
Everything is easily outlined by grade and
you can simply click which one you want your child to work on.

Explanations:

If a child receives an incorrect answer, they are given an option to have the problem explained.
This is a great because sometimes topics are on IXL that aren’t covered in our usual Math book.

Ability to Change Grade Levels:

Unfortunately my son figured this out as well and spent an afternoon on KG math because he was simply having too much fun getting ALL the questions right. Aw well….After reading the user guide I learned that you can easily change the settings to hide the grade level navigation bar from your children.

Reports!

I love being able to take a quick glance and see how a particular child is doing in a specific area. I also recieve an email report with details of their progress.

Here are some more specifications for IXL:

Membership benefits:

Complete coverage of math curriculum from pre-K to algebra.
Unlimited questions in over 2,000 skills.
Fun and colorful practice formats.
Questions that adapt to your child’s ability, increasing in difficulty as they improve.
Immediate feedback and question-specific explanations to solidify understanding of each concept.
Audio for all pre-K through first-grade skills.
Weekly e-mail updates on your child’s progress.
Informative, detailed reports pointing out successes and trouble spots.
Awards and certificates for you and your children to print out as they reach important milestones.

Pricing:

Pssst…..I just broke out my calculator,
and you’ll be happy to know that
$79 bucks a year is about $6.60 a month.

Disclaimer:
As part of the TOS Crew Review I was given a family subscription for three of my children in exchange for my honest opinion about IXL.com