Homeschool Day 9/24 + Making Some Adjustments

 After looking at some of his scores on the standardized test, I'm going to make some adjustments.  

Language Arts

• I think it would be ok if we took a break from spelling or worked on spelling during his writing
• I would like to add copywork, dictation and narration to his writing.  I don't feel like he's getting enough writing with The Good and the Beautiful
• I feel like we are doing too much language arts in general

Math

• Because of his math scores, I told him we can either bump him up into Saxon 7/6 or we could do Life of Fred Fractions, Decimals and Percents and then jump into Saxon 8/7 or Life of Fred Prealgebra.  He chose Life of Fred Fractions.  

What we finished today:

Reading

• Where the Red Fern Grows
• The Wild Robot

Language Arts

• The Good and the Beautiful LA 6
• The Good and the Beautiful Cursive 6 - this counts as copywork in my opinion

Math

• Life of Fred Fractions - we did the first lesson, which he says was too easy

Science

• Apologia Earth Science
• How tides work
• How the major five ocean currents work

We finished the California Achievement Test Grade 6

 We finished the California Achievement Test Grade 6...which is the grade he would have just started if he went to public school.  I try to do standardized testing once in middle school, just to give my kids some exposure and experience with testing.  Then, about sophomore year of high school, we dive into SAT test prep.  Eventually, my kids take either the SAT or TSI (we prefer the TSI).

Results

Let me just say that the results were a bit unexpected.  

Overal Composite = 99th percentile

Reading Composite = 94th percentile

Language Composite = 99th percentile

Math Composite = 97th percentile

Things that make you go hmmmm....

Lack of a complete understanding of fractions lowered his math score.  This has been an issue for about a year now.  I think he's just little and struggles with fractions because they take a bit of a conceptual leap to understand.

Saxon Math is definitely doing him good.  Before this, Life of Fred was probably giving him a great foundation also.  I'm totally ok if he would like to jump between Saxon and Life of Fred.  Both are apparently super solid math programs.

The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts is excellent and so was Grammar Island, the book we used over the summer which taught him the eight parts of speech.  Spelling Workout is apparently...um...working out.  I think his spelling was in the 96th percentile.  

I expected his reading/language arts scores to be much higher than his math, but I guess I'm wrong.  He may end up being a really good test taker, which will help him with the SAT or TSI.

This was a huge morale booster for him.  It really helped his self-esteem, especially since he has been through so much with his dyslexia.  I'm glad we took the time to do this. 

Homeschool Day 9/23

 Here's what we did today.  We also finished the California Achievement Test, which I'm going to post about separately.

Reading

• Where the Red Fern Grows
• The Wild Robot

Language Arts

• The Good and the Beautiful LA 6
• The Good and the Beautiful Cursive 6

Math

• We finished the computations section of the California Achievement Test

History

• Story of the World 2 - Henry the Navigator
• The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn

Art & Music

• Violin lesson

Homeschool Day 9/22 - almost done with CAT testing

 We are almost finished with the California Achievement Test.  I think we will finish tomorrow morning.  He has one math section left (computations).  He scored in the 99th percentile in conceptual math.

Bible

• The Action Bible - Jesus tempted in the desert

Science

• Apologia Earth Science - oceans

Math

• We finished the conceptual math sections of the CAT test

Homeschool Day 9/21

 Here's what we did today.

Bible

• The Action Bible - John the Baptist

Reading

• Where the Red Fern Grows
• The Wild Robot

Language Arts

• Spelling Workout F
• The Good and the Beautiful LA 6

Math

• More testing with the California Achievement Test (we only have two sections left)
• He scored a perfect score on the word problem section.  Some of the problems were word for word from our Saxon textbook, it seemed like

History

• Story of the World 2 - Ferdinand and Isabella
• Famous Figures of the Middle Ages and Renaissance - Queen Isabella
• The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn

Art & Music

• The Good and the Beautiful Drawing I
• Violin practice

Friday Co-op Day 9/19

 I am teaching a weekly mini-co-op class using BJU Press' 7th Grade Life Science textbook and lab manual.  The students are all boys in the age range of 11 and 14.  

Chapter 1: Seeing Life Through the Bible's Story

• We watched a BBC Earth video about the Tenrecs of Madagascar
• We discussed what an organism is and the characteristics of something that is alive
• We looked at the section on the elephant bird
• I introduced the 6 kingdoms (this text lists four, but I disagree, so I introduced six - my degree is in biological sciences)
• LAB: I introduced how to use the microscope, how to make a slide with coverslip and we looked at prepared slides of stained onion epidermis

Homeschool Day 9/16

 Reading

• Where the Red Fern Grows
• The Wild Robot

Language Arts

• The Good and the Beautiful LA 6
• The Good and the Beautiful Cursive 6
• Spelling Workout F

Math

• We did the Fractions section of the California Achievement Test

History

• The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn
• Story of the World 2 - the Princes in the Tower (Richard III)

German

• DuoLingo

Art & Music

• Violin Lesson