Monday, May 6, 2019

Our school year by the numbers


Here is some of what I came up with when I prepared the documentation for our reviewer yesterday:
  1. From July 1, 2018 through May 5, 2019, Nadia read 52 chapter books. Five of those were Rush Revere books that she read in conjunction with what we were studying in history. Many of the other books were from one of the following series: Mr. Lemoncello, Boxcar Children, Young Whit, and the Blackgaard Chronicles. I recorded how many pages each of those books were, but I didn't take the time to total it all up. Maybe I will do so at the end of June.
  2. During that same time span, Ian read 40 chapter books, the majority of which were from the Magic Tree House or Imagination Station series or authored by Dick King-Smith.
  3. As for books I read them (or we listened to via CD or Audible), we have finished 91 chapter books thus far (in that same time span). I have a list of ten more I'm hoping to finish by the end of June. 
  4. We’ve gone on 53 field trips thus far, and by June 15 we should have gone on 17 more.
  5. Of the three tests they took, both Nadia and Ian did the best in Reading, Language was in the middle, and their lowest scores were in Math. Next year none of them need to take a test. In two years Ian and Oliver will need to be tested. 
  6. Today was our 168th day of school. I anticipate by June 15 we'll have hit 186 days. We are required to have at least 180 days per year.
  7. Ian finished the 4th grade spelling book (he's in 3rd grade), Nadia finished the 6th grade spelling book (she's in 5th grade), and Oliver finished the first half of the 2nd grade spelling book (he's in 1st grade).
  8. Nadia and Oliver finished the math textbook for their grade level. Ian completed half of the fourth grade textbook in addition to finishing the third grade text this year. We also completed the first four Life of Fred books together. 
  9. Nadia completed her last handwriting textbook this year. Ian learned to write in cursive this year.
  10. Nadia improved her typing speed to 25 WPM over the past several months. Ian has improved to 17 WPM.
  11. Last year Nadia said that reading was her favorite subject and math was her least favorite. This year reading is still her favorite, but writing is now her least favorite. Her attitude toward math improved this year by using the Teaching Textbooks online curriculum although it went south when she heard what her math score was on the test last week. Although she said writing is her least favorite, she showed dramatic improvement over the past few months in terms of using more adverbs, phrases, alliteration, and strong verbs in her writing (as well as avoiding the use of words like go, went, said, and say). Ian said that science is his most favorite and math is his least favorite. In science we covered land animals in the fall and human anatomy and physiology in the spring. 
  12. Our progression in history has been that we studied Creation to the Greeks (2016-17), Rome to the Reformation (2017-18), and Exploration to the 1850's this year. Next year we plan to study from the Civil War to the present. We studied our first 15 Presidents this year. We already visited Mount Vernon this school year. Over the next five weeks we plan to visit four more Presidential homes - Wheatland (Buchanan), Monticello (Jefferson), Highland (Monroe), and Montpelier (Madison). Nadia and Ian used Stack the States app to learn the capital and location on a map for each of the 50 states.

No comments: