I can see it!!

I can see the finish line just around the corner... finally scheduled our EOG tests for next week. This week we (Shane and I) are getting ready for the Spectrum Fantastic Art Live Show in Kansas City, MO. So for school I have been a little relaxed in adding new things to our schedule, the boys have some review sites and worksheets that they are doing right now. I just want to make sure that they remember things that we did last summer. Since I still have tons to do for the art show, to help hubby out, I have them go onto sites that help them review everything. They are doing everything from some typing games to making flashcards for those things that I can't find sites for OR for personal favorites that they want to quiz themselves on. I personally use our EOG tests as a guideline of what we need to work on... the last couple of years it has been spelling and writing. So I am interested to see how they do this year.


I have something else to share.. Anthony was telling me about the Titanic the other day. Things about the boat that I remember talking with him about that first year of homeschooling. He was very interested in why boats sank that year, we went over a ton of them and found out all we could about different ships/boats. As he is talking I can hear Shane coming home from work and I feel like this is going to be my moment to shine.... cuz you know I need to know that they are actually listening to me right??? So before Shane comes inside I said, "Do you remember us talking about that? Wasn't that fun?"

Wait for it... "Mom, I learned that on Time4learning the other day." Then he continues to tell me everything he learned. So while I am happy that T4L is teaching him things I am wondering why oh why they don't remember us doing that together!!  HOPING that the thing special things that we are going to be doing this summer will be remembered as something they did WITH MOM!

It's almost here, It's almost here!!

So this is the part of the year is when I began to panic a little bit! In a couple of weeks, we will be taking our end of the year testing (which in NC is required by law). Now my oldest is not a test taker by any means but my youngest doesn't seem to mind, well for most of the time anyways. I am  personally,a middle of the road mama on the subject of end of the year testing. I would probably have the boys tested on a yearly basis even if it wasn't required of us by state law. If for anything else, just to see how we were doing from year to year ( I like being able to see that yes we still have to work on spelling or that we did AWESOME in math!) and for later for my oldest's high school transcripts if they are needed.

I have had a couple people ask me this year, do you do anything special before your testing?? Those first couple of years I said, "No, I don't teach for a test, like in the public schools do". Now I still don't teach for these tests but I do use end of the year guidelines like in workbook for such and such grade, you know basically like those books "What your ?? needs to know" just so I make sure that we have the basics down. I also have started doing some vocabulary in subjects like math, science and history so that the boys will have a wide range of words in their vocabulary. I usually do some kind of search on google for what I am looking for, for my oldest I did a search the other day for 8th grade math vocabulary and came up with a vary of sites online! For my youngest, I did a search for 3rd grade science vocabulary, just so we could see if there was any of those words that he didn't know that meaning of;)

All in all, it is a personal choice on what testing you like to use if any!! I personally like the Woodcock-Johnson test, because it seems to be a good fit for my boys. They are allowed to take the test as far as they can so we can see their strengths and weaknesses! Now if only they had video game level design questions or even basic animal facts my boys would score off the chart! This test has a fee associated with it, due to the fact that only certified testers are allowed to administrator it. While other tests are free and have little requirements for giving those tests at home. I like having this one thing that someone else does, so that I can sit back and relax for a couple of hours;)