Tips & Tricks: Ending a Year

Since we school year round we end our year the Friday before Christmas. What I like to do is a big breakfast like we do on the first day of school. If I include muffins or pancakes I let them help me cook it as a fun activity. For the week before and week of ending the school year I use to test over everything we have gone over that year. This way I know if she has retained the information and if we need to review or add in a lesson or 2 for the next school year. I have yet to have to add anything as she remembers literally everything.

We do school like normal but after the end of each class I like to have a tiny party of dancing around the house to celebrate the end of that years class. We do this for the last 2 days of school since I schedule some classes only on certain days. When we have completed school for the day we do a big celebration of playing different games, doing a final experiment, completing a STEM project or with art. It just depends on what she would like to do. I also give her a certificate that shows she completed whatever grade she was in. I know a lot of homeschoolers do not go by grade but we do for our schooling. We take a picture with the certificate to have as a keepsake as well.

After we have completed everything it is about lunch time and she gets to pick whatever special lunch she would like to have. Likewise with dinner she can pick her favorite dinner. This way the day is all about her and how she successfully completed another school year. When it is her and little sis they will either have to take turns choosing the meals or agree on what we should have. I do plan when it is both children doing school that whatever extra activity at the end of school they would like to do if it is different I will do both activities. Since each girl will have completed their own year and each one is just as special I only see that as fair and right. How do you end your year? Do you have any special traditions you do?

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Tips & Tricks: Making a Review

I recently posted on social media the reviews that my daughter did. They were for the 1st 6 weeks of our 2nd grade year. I got asked a lot about them. How did I make them? How did your daughter remember all of this? I also got comments that it is too much, public school does not do that, your history is too involved, etc. So let's start off with how I make a review. For math it is very easy I make a list of everything she learned. On the last week of that 6 or 12 week any math she does that is on that list counts towards the review. Anything on the list that is not done during the week I give her a few problems on each. Because I want to make sure that she has understood the concepts I make the problems hard. If they are too easy there is no way for me to know if she really understands or if she can just do easy problems. For history I make questions based off what I have read from the textbook. I pull out the key information. We also do social studies and geography. I make questi

Tips & Tricks: Grading

When grading first thing you need to do is check your state laws on homeschool. Some states require you to keep record of your curriculum and and grading while some don’t. I do not have to keep any records or grading. Since I use Timberdoodle they have an awesome online scheduler that I use. It has all the curriculum that we use and in the check boxes I put the grades. At the end of each year I keep the scheduler pages so I have records. Below is how I grade things. I also do not show our daughter the grades or tell her them. I don’t want her to worry about getting a bad grade. When she’s in middle school and high school grades that’s when I’ll start letting her know about grade. My grading system: Pre-K - 2 Grade: she will not see the grade E: excellent; no extra work needed; 100-90% S: satisfactory; give a little extra work; 89-80% N: needs improvement; give a lot of extra work; 79-0% 3 - 5 Grade: she will only see letter grade if she wants to know her grade A: 100-90%

Tips & Tricks: Class Schedule

How do you make a class schedule? When do you do which subjects? How long do you do a class? Does each day look the same? It is easy to make a homeschool schedule since you can school however you like. Since we use Timberdoodle we have access to their online schedule which over the years has been updated to be an outstanding way to schedule our subjects. If you do not use Timberdoodle I would suggest using Excel. If you know a website that allows you to create a schedule (for free) then let me know in the comments. The first thing I do make our schedule is make a list of all of our items and mark which ones I think will be challenging and which will be easy. Core subjects would be harder than things like STEM and thinking skills. Then I use that list to make another list on what day we will do each item. Making sure that not one day will be to hard or to easy. I like it to be pretty even as well as each day having about the same number of items. Some subjects we do everyday those are E

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