Monday, April 09, 2007

School Days....School Days...

I began the day by giving Arielle, Nolan, and Jared placement tests for Math U See. It became apparent that it is possible to have big holes in understanding, even when scoring well on standardized tests and chapter tests. I have some thoughts brewing on testing and will have to gather them soon. Jared would like to switch NOW instead of next year...and after finding some fairly good sized holes, I also see no reason to continue on our course for 9 more weeks. I'm still not sure what I'm doing with Nolan and Arielle. They aced the Alpha competency test. I didn't think they were quick and fluent.....but they did ace it. I think I'll give them the beta test and watch to see what happens. Margie loaned me her Primer and Alpha so that I can see exactly what's in the year's work.

History Quilt...we worked on squares for our quilt. We are really happy with how this is shaping up. We had gotten behind and so did about six weeks worth of work on this. I think I'll sew it together when we are done. It still won't be "totally durable" but I think we'll like the way it hangs and such if it's stitched. I may do this next year too. They really like working on it. Some of our pens have dried up....In addition to the squares below they did ones on those who hid Jews during WW2, the dust bowl, the depression, Pearl Harbor, the Hindenburg and more.

Arielle checks details

Nolan's service flag (white doesn't show well)
Arielle's Prohibition SquareWork in Progress...but shaping up (I think I got it a bit bigger than planned)
We read about flies. UGH....millions of bacteria germs on a single fly.....ugh, ugh, ugh. We began a fly experiment...I forgot to take pictures but will do that tomorrow.

We continued studying about the civil rights movement.

Josiah registered for a second go at the SAT. I tried to register Jamin but it says that you can only register one student per email. I plan to call them "tomorrow".

The littles and I will continue moving forward this week in our study of the Civil Rights Movement....but we need to tie up some loose ends....We have several half-finished projects. We'll see how we do. Part of our problem is that Fridays used to be for hands on projects.....then Produce co-op entered our Friday morning line up, then drama entered our afternoon line up and I can't seem to get motivated by 2:30 p.m. on Friday. ::snort::

5 comments:

Cynthia said...

Curious. Do your kids not do the ACT test? The colleges around here all preferring the ACT over the SAT so our dd is taking it instead.... so much for all of the SAT preps we've been doing.. now she's switching gears and doing an ACT prep for the next month or two until she tests in June.

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

NO we haven't done the ACT...all the colleges they've wanted to attend request the SAT. We'd do ACT if it were requested. LOL

Maybe I should have him take it for the fun of it.

all in the family said...

I was doing an online search for FREE SAT testing for my boys (grades 2, 7 and 6, the elemenatary version) and noticed FREE online stuff for the College level SAT. Maybe that will help your boys?

On MUS, if you need to do Alpha, and they know SOME, you might want to get TWO years for one. My boys are doing that. I knew they would fly through Zeta (decimals) and they are, and they are doing Epsilon too. The beauty is, if they know it, give them a test and skip it and if you get to it and they don't, then you know where they need to stop and focus. That is one thing I love about MUS is there is not any wasting of time on stuff. I also like where Mr. Demme brings in strategic review in sections D, E and F. What levels are you needing?

Romany said...

The quilt is such a great idea. What do you plan to do with it when it's finsihed?

Dorothy

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

Thanks for the tips, Beth.

Dorothy...I have no clue because NOW they want to do one each year. I think I'll decorate with them. Seriously....I'll probably go ahead and stitch it so that it can be hung. I'd put it in a school room if we had one of those....but I'll find somewhere to hang it.