Homeschooling in California

We homeschool through a public school home-study program.  They give us resources (or offer them anyway, we can use whatever materials we like) and hold workshops and field trips, and we meet with a teacher-advisor twice a month. 

Well, this week, we’re asked to turn in report cards for the first semester.  I knew going in to this program that report cards would be involved, but I hadn’t really thought much about it until the form was in front of me.  Thankfully, we don’t need to assign letter grades - I wouldn’t know how to go about doing that.  We just write a little about what we’ve been doing for the various subjects.  They also gave us a list of the California educational standards to look at so we can make sure to mention the standards we’ve accomplished.

While it was uncomfortable to sit down and fill out that form, I have to say that reading over the list of standards has made me feel a whole lot more comfortable with how we’re doing.  Here we are, half way through the year, and we’ve already accomplished everything on the Language Arts and Math standards for Kindergarten, except maybe a little bit of writing.  There was one about good form and spacing when writing letters, and the kiddo isn’t consistent about that stuff yet.  But I’m not too worried, because it looks like if we do nothing but work on writing the rest of the year, we’re still good.

Not that we’ll do that.  The kiddo has big plans for stuff she wants to learn about.  More animals - she’s made that very clear.  We’re going to plant a garden and learn about plants in a month or so.  It’s time to head out for another hike to see our area in the winter (we’ve already explored in summer and fall, and compared what changes we saw.)  And she’s very excited about Chinese New Year - she wants to make a dragon to wear and dance with.  I’m sure by the time we get through all that, she’ll have a new list of stuff she wants to know about.

So, my goal is to remember how far we’ve come, and try to relax and have fun with our projects now.  She’s learning just fine.  More than fine.  Yea!