Evaluation~on to 4th Grade!

Having never been "evaluated" before I was very nervous for us!  When I look back over the year, I realize #1~it went soooo fast, #2~I forgot to have fun and be creative some of the times when I should have, #3~I want to do more science, #4~I've got to figure out how to teach Emily that math can be fun, will be used all the time and everyday  for the rest of her life, and figure out what makes her "tick" in that area, and #5~when I finally got everything together that we did, it really was A LOT even though I continually doubted myself!  One of my longest friends did the evaluation and she has done many of them over the years.  She is even listed as an evaluator on the TEACH home school website evaluator list.  She said luckily Florida Law is very simple and easy to follow.  As evaluators, they have to "prove" the following sentence, "I have found that the student has demonstrated progress at a level commensurate with his/her ability."  So as you can see this can be vague and it is up to the parent and child to show the evaluator what they have do and what the student can do....and this can be a very wide range of things.....She took notes on all the different areas, looked at all of our things, projects, books, math and writing.  I had made a photo album of about 150 pictures from field trips to science projects to vacations to book club activities to science topics, etc and she said it was helpful to see the wide variety of learning that took place.....which goes along with one of my favorite quotes taken from a friend, "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life"  Charlotte Mason.  I am sure Emily would have "passed" even without me pulling everything out but it also helped me to see our progress...got me excited about getting everything ready for next year and reaffirming to myself and to John why we are doing this!  He said, "Wow, look at all those books we have read!"  The evaluator also asked Emily some questions about what she liked about homeschooling, what her favorite subject was, what she could improve upon, and had her read a paragraph out of her favorite book.  It was an encouraging experience and best of all.....WE PASSED!!!! On to 4th grade!!!!

A couple of highlights other than the normal school subjects that we will definitely do again:

1.  Book club and all the great books we are reading
2.  Bread Wagon Bakery field trip
3.  Washington DC as a "living field trip" that goes along with what we are studying.
4.  TeenPact at the State Capitol
5.  The home school Science Fair