Art co-op and some interesting statistics...

This past Thursday was a big day for Rachael - her first day of her new art class!

I found out earlier this year about the Danville School of Arts and Science - a very professionally run co-op for homeschoolers. They meet three Thursdays per month, and Rachael informed me after her first class that she doesn't want to miss a single class, ever!

I thought that she would have been more torn over which class to take - DSAS offers art, science, Latin, drama, and even a personal finance class for high school students. She IS very interested in the drama class as well, and I would love for her to start Latin at a young age, so maybe she'll take an additional class next year. As for this year, her education in art history and technique is being funded by a generous grant from the Gramma Foundation. ;)

With her big box o' art supplies at the ready, we headed into the church that hosts the co-op on Thursday afternoon and headed for her classroom. She was the first one in, so she chose her seat, said hello to the teacher, and spent some time checking out the orange newt living in a terrarium on the table. As other students started pouring in, Milly and I eased toward the door. Of course, Rachael has been in other classroom-y settings with actual teachers other than me - Sunday School, dance, gymnastics, our previous co-op, Girl Scouts, etc. But somehow, this felt more like a "real" school to me, and the mommy part of me was a little reluctant to go...but I should have known that (Rachael being Rachael) she would be perfectly fine, and she was. She made fast friends with a little girl sitting beside her, and had a great time sketching for the next hour.

Meanwhile, Milly and I settled down in the room across the hall, and had fun chatting with some of the other parents. Even Milly was a little more social than usual, after the necessary checking-out of the restroom and water fountain. She was a little upset that there were no cupcakes to be found (they did have some at the open house a few weeks ago, and one of the moms overheard her complaints and promised to bring her some soon!)

Rachael bounded into the room with her sketch pad when the class was over, to show off her drawings before storing her supplies away for next week. She absolutely can't wait to go back, and I can't wait to see what she learns next!

* * * * *

Now, how 'bout those interesting statistics?

We received a flyer from Henry County Public Schools in the mail on Friday afternoon containing the 2009-2010 Annual Report. They were thrilled to report that all of the county schools are fully accredited - which is awesome for our area and the students that attend those schools. I'm a little confused that only "93% of our schools made Adequate Yearly Progress", but okay. They're accredited.

Then they proceeded to show a graph for each school in the county showing percentages of students that made "Adequate Yearly Progress" (I haven't bothered doing the research to find out why that it is capitalized!) in each subject.

There are eleven elementary schools in our area...two middle schools...two high schools. Does this seem a little strange to anyone else? I shudder to think what class sizes are like in middle and high school now - especially since the high schools switched to the block system (four classes per day, as opposed to seven) back when I was in high school, aaaaaall those years ago. On the bright side, it seems as though class sizes may be reasonable in elementary schools, at least.

Anywho...out of all of the elementary schools, the one that Rachael would be attending ranks 9th place in English, 10th in writing and history, and is in dead LAST place in both math and science.

The middle school that she would eventually attend had lower ratings across the board than did the other middle school, and her would-be high school rated higher in science, history, and math - but only by tiny percentages.

WOW. Add this to my list of reasons for homeschooling. I can absolutely do better than that!

Week #3

Today began week three of our school year...yes, I was a nice teacher and gave them Labor Day off. :) With the exception of only one subject (science), we've finished our review from last year and are moving onward to new things.

Milly is loving pre-preschool, although she insists that it is, in fact, "pretty pretty school." We're focusing on one letter and one number per week, so she now recognizes A, B and C and the sounds that they make...although she does think that C should say "ssss", and I don't blame her one bit. Coloring pages were an absolute Godsend today, and I tried to reinforce the C sound by teaching her that C is for...

CUPCAKE, of course! (What else?!) A slightly gothic/moldy cupcake, perhaps, but a cupcake nonetheless. And yes, Milly is quite seriously considering being a lefty. This stresses me out just a little since I have no idea how to teach a lefty to write, but then, some of the prettiest handwriting I've seen was produced by a lefty. Good thing it's not up to me to decide, huh?

Rachael had a wonderful morning, even though she was stuck doing copy work in her language arts book while her sister colored. As a general rule, Rachael and copy work do not get along well. She tends to rush through it, insert random capitals, omit capitals that actually should be there, and forego a lot of punctuation. This leads to much nagging on my part to just pay attention to what you're copying, because it's right there in front of you, and really, there's just no excuse for getting it wrong. *ahem* Look at what my girl did today!


I hope you'll notice that big A+ at the top too! I'm not sure exactly why, but she wants a letter grade on everything these days, and is happiest if there's a + or a - to follow it. She doesn't even care if it's a C- (not that she gets many of those), as long as there's a letter grade on her paper. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this - for the most part, I want her to learn to do her best and take pride in her work, not do it solely to be rewarded with a letter. So I'll grade things sometimes - usually written work, so I can explain to her that the grade is based on neatness, attention to detail, creativity, etc. I refuse to assign a grade without an explanation to go along with it.

There are two things that are always graded. The first is her weekly book report. She's done two so far - I let her choose the book for her first report, and she chose Green Eggs and Ham. I learned my lesson and assigned her second book, which was Sarah, Plain and Tall. This being a short week, I just chose a book from her shelf that I liked when I was a kid, and we'll be writing the report together to focus on content.

The second thing that's always graded is her Friday spelling test. I'm so proud of this child and her affinity for language arts. Check out her spelling list for this week:

I was a little nervous when her spelling book first arrived and I found that the weekly lists were written in cursive...but she can read them, even though she can't write in cursive yet. (I won't even be attempting to teach her cursive for a while yet. Refer to the copy work picture for my reasoning. I'd love for her printing to improve first!)

One last picture for tonight...the dreaded math. It boggles my mind that she detests math so much, even though she's really pretty good at it. Here are two pages she did this morning, with no help whatsoever from yours truly.

The color is a little funky, so here's a quick recap...solving for unknown (6+X=8), adding two-digit numbers (13+66), adding two-digit numbers with regrouping (44+46), money/counting by tens (which would you rather have, 95 pennies or 9 dimes?) and adding three-digit numbers (244+234). I absolutely adore this math curriculum...and while she's not a big fan, it's obviously teaching her the concepts.

We are eagerly awaiting Thursday's arrival, when Rachael will attend her very first art class at a homeschool co-op in Danville. The last of her supplies were purchased today (who knew it would be so hard to find a black felt-tip pen?!) and I can't wait to see what she learns first!