Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

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Gauge Homeschool Progress

When to Skip Ahead Or Stay Longer on a Homeschool Subject

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7 Tried & Tested Tips.

Knowing when to skip ahead or stay longer on a homeschool subject can mean the difference between delight and drudgery when learning.

It is hard not to press the panic button when we hit a wall.

There are some basics to evaluating when to pole vault ahead or simmer on a homeschool subject.

There are a few guidelines that I have benefited from through the years and I’m sharing them today though each scenario may have very different circumstances.

  • If your child is real young, basically up to 3rd grade, you are not wasting time by going back over such important topics like reading.

If you are new to homeschooling, you soon find out that it takes at least the first year to know what your child knows and doesn’t know.

  • If purchasing a curriculum turns out to be more of a review than teaching new concepts, then move on just a little faster and skip lessons.

The advantages as the teacher is that you have started from the beginning. You can better evaluate where your child is academically. I had one new bee homeschooler tell me it’s like when you go to a medical specialist for a second opinion.

They don’t really care about your old test results. They start over so they are certain what they are dealing with (wise advice).

It is the same for you. It is not a waste of your time, but enriches your journey when you quickly cover what your child has been taught before. You now know for sure basic concepts have been mastered.

  • It is very different for an older child.

When to Skip Ahead Or Stay Longer on a Homeschool Subject


When to Skip Ahead on a Homeschool Subject

A child that is reading well and past the basics of learning can easily become frustrated when they repeat content they may have done over and over in previous grades.

If you are not sure if it’s the curriculum, but detect resistance, cut back to half the lessons.  Speaking to them and listening with your heart as your child tries to articulate the frustration goes a long way to smoothing over any rough spots. A budget may limit you switching curriculum.



  • Because switching curriculum may not be the answer, learning in a different way may be the solution.

If it is math you are working on, can you do some of it orally? If the complaint is handwriting, can some of it be typed or better yet use their iPad? Turn a project into a creation.

  • Give them a reprieve.

If your child knows that a subject they excel in or will enjoy follows one they struggle in, it makes struggling seem less.

Take a look at the order the subjects are being covered to be sure it fits your child’s personality and remember to give attention to the subject they struggle with the most when your child is at peak performance.

  • Resist the urge to determine curriculum level based on their prior public school grade.

Most of the large curriculum vendors provide free downloadable tests to give you a better rule of thumb.

Don’t be embarrassed if your child is not where you think he should be. Just give them the 1:1 mentoring they deserve, build your confidence and know you are not alone.

  • Finally, don’t be afraid to skip lesson plans or grade levels.

Jokingly, I had another new bee homeschooler tell me that when she started homeschooling she didn’t realize that most homeschool children are gifted.

Reckless or Worth it Risk?

While she was kidding, it is true in a way. It’s not because we push our children, it’s because we prepare them.

Nowadays children that receive an excellent education are viewed as gifted.

Make adjustments needed each year and don’t worry about skipping ahead or moving on. If you make either choice and it’s not right at the moment, you can start back over in the morning.

When to Skip Ahead Or Stay Longer on a Homeschool Subject

You’ll love these other tips:

Hugs and love ya,

When to Skip Ahead or Stay Longer on a Homeschool Subject @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Narration – Telling Back or Testing? Books that Make Teaching Narration Easy Peazy.

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Gauging homeschool progress is only natural. Besides, we do need to know what our children are retaining.

Narration not only works for filling a child’s mind with useful facts, but it is a gentle way of measuring progress.

Narration Telling Back or Testing. Books That MakeTeaching Narration Easy @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Instead of administering a test, try narration.

What is narration? It is simply telling back what they have read or what you have read to them. It is telling back what a child knows.

A child doesn’t really own the information until he or she can tell it back.

Gentle Art of Narration – Equals Meaningful Progress

This is a Charlotte Mason technique that has produced positive results in children of all ages and learning styles.

In addition, it can be a useful tool to use when you have recently taken your child out of public school and has test burnout.

True, it can be used a lot of times with younger children, but for children that are having trouble comprehending, it is a great tool.

Start off small with a few lines from one paragraph, move to one paragraph to two short paragraphs, to a page and eventually the whole story.

I used the The Classic Treasury of Aesop’s Fables for longer stories and then for funand to fill my boys’ mind with beautiful thoughts, I used a A Child’s Garden of Verses.When they were real young, I used a higher elementary age book like American Tall Tales and A Child’s History of the World, which was a nifty way of adding history to the day too.
Instead of dumbing down the answers by making a child choose a multiple choice question for a story, have them tell you all the details or facts.

In time, as the child grows, help them to learn techniques like summarization. For now, narration is a very useful tool to find out exactly what the child knows.

They can delight in the love of being read to or enjoy good literature without the fear of reducing it to a worksheet that is dull and boring.

The next time you are wondering if your child is understanding what you are teaching them, ask them to tell back the story to you or to a friend.

Start off small and by letting them narrate to you, they can give the whole scope of their understanding instead of being limited by a few multiple choice questions.

Have you tried narration?

Hugs and love ya,

Also, look at:

Instant Credit, Instant Baby food – Why NOT Instant Homeschool?
Controlling the Time Spent on Homeschool Subjects or Running a Homeschool Boot Camp
Biggest Challenges to Homeschooling

Should My Homeschooled Kid Repeat a Grade?

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Should my homeschooled kid repeat a grade is a tough subject to try to condense to one article because at the elementary level it may not be such a huge setback as it might be for a kid in high school.

Then again, if repeating a grade in homeschool is a blow at a young child’s confidence it could be a significant concern.

Tough subject for sure with all the factors to consider.Should My Homeschooled Kid Repeat a Grade @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool PlusAssigning grade levels is one thing we try to leave behind when we begin to homeschool. However, there are times we have to address it like when some states that require grade level reporting at the beginning of the year or it becomes more important at the high school level to show completion or college readiness.

I want to share some pointers that will help across the board for you to keep in mind if you feel like your child has struggled all year and really didn’t grasp very many concepts.

Are you coping with learning challenges?

This is a challenging situation because you may feel that the right choice is to repeat a level so that your child can retain the information.

Add to that scenario, a state required test. This decision becomes almost too much to bear.

When faced with this decision, it is important to ask yourself if you think your child will make significant changes with that year?

Was it because of immaturity or was it because he really didn’t understand the subject?

If the child is old enough to understand that you are thinking about repeating a grade, will it crush his self-esteem?

A child knowing that he has to repeat a grade sometimes just does not have the same motivation for the next year.

In my experience, holding a child back had significant learning challenges later and more so than the parent is dealing with in the beginning.

Sometimes taking the state required testing and helping the child to understand that his end score is just that a score and doesn’t really indicate the progress he made in all areas of development is the less invasive way to go.

Learning can happen in leaps and sometimes it lags.

I wasn’t a math person in school and I struggled at the beginning of high school. Until I got a teacher that explained algebra to me in a different way, it didn’t click with me until the end of my sophomore year.

Though I kept a C average, I wasn’t held back and I had advanced classes in other subjects I excelled at.  A different approach can be the key to making progress.

This is especially important if you are dealing with some failures at high school because one or even two weak subjects for a highschoolers are just struggles and not necessarily a reason to hold him back a grade level.

Switching gears on you, if you have a young child, then you know how fast a few months can make a huge difference in their physical growth. In two months, I am buying bigger size shoes and clothes One year, within just a few months,  I bought tennis shoes two sizes larger. Academic growth is very similar.  Within months, a child can move ahead quickly in a grade level.

If you decide to repeat a grade, do they really need the whole year to do that?

Can you L-E-N-G-T-H-E-N a school year instead of holding a child back?

Besides the advantage we have in homeschooling of trying not to assign grade levels, we also have the benefit of stretching out a school year.

In high school, this can be particularly helpful if a teen is struggling with a subject and needs more time to mature prior to graduation.  Too, it is very common for a teen to not know what direction or career he wants to take until later in high school.

If he finally chooses a career or college, you may find out that he may need to cover more language arts, math or science to reach his goals.

Instead of holding him back, lengthen the school year to twelve months and arm him with more subjects.  This can look very different from what we consider schooling year round because most of us take a more relaxed approach if we school year round.

Schooling year round in this case would not be more relaxed, but would be more rigorous to stay focused on the goal of filling in areas of our child’s weaknesses in the 3Rs.

Repeating or Reinforcing Learning?

If a child is not getting a concept, then simply explaining to them that they have to reinforce their learning gives them a sense of empowerment and a can do spirit.

Though we try to avoid grade levels because they are not always indicators of what our children can actually do, grade levels can give us indications of what our children are struggling in or what subjects they have strong points in.

As the parent, it is up to you to decide what is the best course for you children, but remember in homeschooling we are homeschooling for mastery and sometimes it takes more than one traditional school year before a child is ready to move on to the next topic.

Do you have a child that struggled with concepts this year? Are you deciding whether to move on to the next level?

Hugs and love ya,

Tina Signature 2015c

Also, look at these articles:
Gauging Homeschool Progress – Masters of their Material
The Dos & Don’ts When You Hit a Learning Plateau in Homeschool

Should we Give Grades to Our Middle and High School Homeschooled Kids

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

It made perfect sense to me because I was modeling a public school by grading papers.  I thought grades were needed then. Also, look at my page homeschool middle school and how to homeschool high school page for more fun tips

My thinking has changed and been tweaked quite a bit since my start up in homeschooling.

I had to rethink the whole purpose of grades and grading. Why was I just following what public school did?

Who were the grades for anyway?

Homeschool Grading versus Homeschool Grades.

Mr. Senior 2013 was wanting some way to measure his understanding of the papers and that is very normal.

Too, he wanted my approval and to know that he was doing things correct.  Again, that makes sense and it is a natural way to make progress.

Taking a closer look at my feelings and experience so far, I understood then that there is a fine, but significant difference between grading and giving a grade.  The two concepts have to be separated.

For example, in elementary grades, I would mark the papers with how many answers were correct.

If there were 20 math questions, and Mr. Senior 2013 got 3 wrong, I would mark 17/20. He would know he got 3 wrong and would look to correct those answers.

This method very much satisfied his need for wanting to be sure things were right and gave us an informal way of grading.

Too, it fit the purpose of what I think grading is all about in the early grades, which is making progress and having quality work.

When the boys started the middle school years, grades became more important.

They were interested in how they measured up against others who were doing the same thing.

As homeschool parents we know we are not comparing our kids to each other, but kids want to know how they would measure up in a formal setting to others their same age.

Realizing too that if I wanted to start seeing more independence at this age, my sons needed some way to chart what they knew versus what needed to be improved.

Should We Give Grades to our Middle and High School Homeschooled Kids @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I came up with yet another system during the middle school time.

I just graded math, quizzes, tests and essays.

This system was not only doable, but it gave my boys something to measure by so they could improve their skills. At this point, they wanted a letter grade.

Too, I realized there was no need to give grades daily because I expected them to check their work each day against the teacher’s manual.

The quizzes, tests, reviews and essays were all done without the answers keys or teacher’s manual. Too, I do oral evaluations with them and this is part of my grading system.

This is much like narration. If they can’t tell me back what they know without looking in the book did they really learn it?

As the high school years crept in, I had to think again about the importance of letter grades because high school is a time to prepare my kids for more formal learning.

After wrestling with many different systems, when the boys entered high school, grade keeping was easier but still needed to be finely tuned.

When Mr. Senior 2013 entered high school, I started off grading all assignments. It made me flash back to my early days of grading in elementary school.

Soon, I realized that there was no way I could keep this pace up as I had other children to teach and I realize it was my fear of homeschooling high school that made me go a bit overboard.

Again, I had to rethink why I was grading each day.  I knew high school was the important stage to keep grades for his transcript, but again, I had to come up with another system.

I started grading weekly instead of daily for three reasons:

  • It saved time because there was no need to grade daily work that he was learning;
  • It gave me a better look at what he was doing for the week by glancing at it for a week because then I was able to judge mastery more critically; and
  • It was a much better and simpler way to record keep in high school when I only had 4 grades (4 weeks) to average and give him a grade for the month instead of 30 grades (30 days).

Pretty easy uh?

When homeschooling high school, you don’t want record keeping or grading to get away from you and I have learned it is much better to keep up with as you plod along.

I know some homeschoolers who scrambled for grades for their high schooler at the end of four years, but I can’t imagine that would be easier or even accurate.

The key is developing a system for the needs of your kids, your needs and what your children will need in the future.

How to Reassess A Homeschool Grading System EACH Year.

Look at these questions that will help you determine an easy system for charting progress at whatever level you are at in your homeschool journey.

  1.  At this time do I just need grading or grades?
  2. After my child has had time to decompress from being at public school, is he the the type of child that needs some feedback? If he needs feedback, what form is best for him? According to his age, will a smiley face suffice? Will an E for Excellent, S for Satisfied and N for Needs improvement be sufficient? Does he need a letter grade for accurate measuring?
  3. What is my reason for grades?
  4. Do I want to reward for good grades or just expect my kids to do their best?
  5. How do my children view grades? Do they stress out on a quiz or test knowing that I will grade it?
  6. Do my kids understand that there is no way we can accurately gauge everything we know but that grades are measuring sticks only?

What do you give grades for in homeschool and in which grade do you start keeping grades?

Hugs and love ya,

 

Am I Doing Enough When Homeschooling

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

When we constantly wrestle with the question am I doing enough when homeschooling, it can make us weary, cause self-doubt and sometimes make us think that we are less suited to homeschooling than others are.

Normally, but not always, the nagging doubt sets in when you’re homeschooling young children.

When the boys were all very young, I felt like a supercharged homeschool teacher one day and then the next day I wasn’t sure if I was a classical homeschooler, Charlotte Mason follower or if I even knew enough to make an informed choice about the type of approach we should be doing.
Look at some practical teaching tips for each learning style.

From Extraordinary Homeschool Educator to Ordinary Mom and Back Again

Look at a few tips that will help you to find center again when you waffle between extraordinary homeschool educator and ordinary mom:

Listen to your gut. Yes, trust your gut about whether you think you should be doing more in your day, but only after you take a week to journal what you have done.

What I learned when I felt this way was that I needed to take an inventory of my day. Don’t leave it up to memory as to what you did for the day, week or month.

Big ideas come out of the time you take to journal or write down what you actually accomplished.  What do I mean by this?  From my insecurity, I created my 7 Step Homeschool Planner as a visual daily reminder of what I was doing for each day.

I needed a visual way to prove to myself what we were accomplishing for the day despite the mayhem created by my then two year old destroyer.

In looking back over my day, I was able to see that I got the essential skills like reading, writing and arithmetic done.

Not every day was such a fun filled crafty day for the boys, but it was solid learning.  Young children from about 7 years old and younger only need about 1 to 1 1/2 hours of meaningful learning time.

This means that somewhere during the day and despite the interruptions from your toddler, that you need to give them your 1:1 time for just 1 to 1 1/2 hours each day. The secret is that it does not have to be all at once and you don’t want it to be at this age.  Consistency is the key to plodding along each day.

Many small bites of learning each day equals a life-long learner.

Breaking up moments of learning into chunks also allows for a young child’s natural need to learn through play.

The only way to be sure that you are getting meaningful learning time in each day is to chart the progress.

Don’t Forget What Brought You to Homeschooling.  In trying to find the middle ground in teaching, it is important that you hold dear the principles and values that brought you to homeschooling.

When I would hold my 3 and 5 year old sons in my lap, the vision of them being 18 and almost 20 year old men seemed very far off.  Don’t let your eyes dim on picturing the beautiful woman and men your children will grow up to be. That is the bigger picture.

Barring any developmental issues, your children will learn to read, write and do math well if you do not quit.  Beyond the basic academics, it is up to you as to what else is needed in the day to be enough.

Are your goals for your children not only clearly in mind, but written down?

For example, whether your children go to college, take some vocational course, get married or if you set their path on mission service, obstacles are always part of any journey.

Making the commitment and sticking to the long term goal of homeschooling is what counts despite the setbacks.

Is it a Prompt to Change your Homeschool Method?  On the flip side, if we are not careful we can become curriculum driven and drudge forward, but our children may be dreading the time spent together.

Sometimes, we may need to cut in half what we are expecting for the day so that a child has time to process what we are teaching them at the moment.

Without belittling any struggle you may be going through, homeschooling can be quite simple. There is no need to worry about the number of hours it takes, but to focus on what you do during those hours.

Don’t watch the clock each day, but watch how your child develops through each skill set.

It is normal for a child to read anywhere from about 4 to 7 years of age and their skill set will have variety too. They could be reading anything from basic sight word books to chapter books.  It is all within a range of normal.

If you have a gifted learner, you may need to switch your approach so that learning is not boring for him.  Look at stop switching your curriculum, switch your course of study.

Too, remember if your child is real young and you feel they are gifted, it is much better to build their foundation by enriching it horizontally instead of always going up a grade level.  What do I mean by this? Remember their age because they only have one childhood.

Do not pile up the academic load reserved for a much older child, but feed their insatiable need for knowledge by enriching the topic you are currently studying about. Build it out and take different avenues down that one topic.

I learned this the hard way by almost burning out my oldest son by the second grade.  Propelling a high-achieving child can put undo pressure on them during the formative years and they may adopt a perfectionism streak that is hard to conquer later.

If your child is high school level, as a rule of thumb for what is enough, look at what your local state or country requires.

When my two older boys entered high school, I used a simple approach like typing what they did each day on my computer or if my time ran short for the week, I would type some notes at the end of the week to track our progress.Keep it simple.

Comparing what our local public high school required helped me to design a plan for their high school years and to find my middle ground for academics.

Evaluating our homeschool progress is normal.

One year too I thought I was an unschooler.  Later, I determined that what our day was lacking was a more relaxed approached.  Too, my sons’ desire to stay on a subject until their appetite for learning was satisfied helped me to see that I needed to adopt many of the concepts of the unit study approach.

What I figured out was that I didn’t completely have to ditch my workbooks because I liked them, I just needed balance in my day because I didn’t want to be constantly micromanaging my children.

Too, I was part of the problem because I wasn’t satisfying what I needed as the teacher.  I like detailed schedules, plans and thrive in organization.  It calmed me when I had a plan in place.

So it wasn’t necessary for me to prove to every homeschooler what my children were doing.It was enough for me. It was my job to be sure they were doing enough for the goals my family set.  I wasn’t homeschooling to please my parents, the next homeschooler or any of my friends who questioned my ability.

In the end what counts is how wonderful your children turn out to be.

What about you? Do you feel moments where you could rival any veteran teacher with your sharp and detailed lesson plans and then moments where you have sheer panic with no lesson planning?

Hugs and love ya,

2012Tinasignature Discovering Geography Through a Field Trip to Incan Ruins

Grab a few more tips!

Making Each Day Count When Homeschooling

Helping our Homeschool Children Find their Inner Drive When We are Not Sure We Have It

3 Easy Fixes to Recharge Your Homeschool Routine

A Day in the Life of a Homeschooler Part 1 Early Years

The Sticking Power of a Homeschool Schedule

Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 1