Wrapping up 7th grade

Looking back on our first year of homeschool, there were ups and downs. Most were expected. What I didn’t expect was how much my son would mature. Some of that could be due to his age. But, I think most of it came from his learning about himself: how he learns, what he likes to learn about, and where that might take him in the future. It made total sense to build on that and homeschool him for 8^th grade.

There are many tangible ways to measure academic growth. I saved work samples from each subject in his portfolio. This is not a new thing, though. It’s something I’ve done every year for my kids and it a great way to see how they’ve developed over time. He also took the mandatory standardized tests required by North Carolina. We used the Iowa Complete Battery Tests. Looking back over the test scores and work samples, plus just what was apparent after working with him daily, here’s the punch list for planning for 8^th grade:

• Keep up with the wide variety of writing tasks: short, long, formal, informal, informational, timed, untimed, with prompts, free writing, etc….
• Start from scratch with grammar lessons
• Dig deeper into math with Algebra I: reflection questions, application labs, and inquiry based lessons
• Practice more timed math tests with computations; he can do the work fine until there’s a time limit and then he freezes, this could be a problem when he is testing to get into a STEM high school
• Continue having fun with science with lots of labs and silly videos (Crash Course and Brain Pop)
• Focus on the causes and effects in US History with an emphasis on the decades after WWII
• Have several electives for fun, not for grades:  fencing, orchestra, programming (C#), Spanish

All in all, we have a busy year planned!