Grade Levels

Last year at this time we were exploring the possibility of homeschooling. I remember asking one mom who has homeschooled all of her children what grade her daughter was in. She hemmed and hawed and the pause went on so long I started getting nervous. How could I possibly trust an education where the mother doesn't even know what grade her kid is in?

A year later, I understand. Now when people ask what grade my kids are in I hesitate, think about it, and then often give the standard reply. Sometimes, though, people are actually interested in knowing what grade levels my kids are working at, so I can go subject by subject. The thing is, not all materials my kids use are by "grade level." For example, both the kids are working on a book called "Jamestown" for reading. It is the intermediate level. So what is intermediate? It is probably 7th-8th grade. My 4th grade son and 6th grade daughter are using a 7/8th grade book. In history we're studying ancient civilizations. I'm not sure what "grade level" ancient civilizations are taught, but I suspect it's not elementary school.

I doubt you're interested in what grade levels my kids are at in all their subjects, but the thing is, if they go back to a 'school,' they are going to be way ahead of their classmates in a lot of subjects. I'm sure there are gaps in their education that aren't being filled through homeschooling, but then there are gaps in education even in the classroom. So in homeschooling I end up with kids who simply are at the level they are at, and unless someone asks, I generally don't think about it too much except to find appropriate materials for them. A year ago, I was ready to write off homeschooling because of the response I got from one parent on this question. Now I'm right there too.

Pondering Writing....Making it Fun

This has been an interesting year encouraging my kids to write. Their journeys, like everything else, have been very individual to them.

The kids have to do either their Jamestown reading book (which also involves writing) or else exercises from their Vocabulary for Achievement books (First Course, Pub: Great Source), and they also have Daily Grammar Exercises (Pub: Evan-Moor) which they do.

We started out the year with Aurora doing writeguide.com, an online instructor-student relationship, but the instructor would have her make one word change and resubmit it, so it took an entire semester to write one semi-polished research paper. We dropped that and Aurora focused on doing her Jamestown, middle level, which studies 5 different genre's. That has clicked with Aurora and she has produced some delightful writings. I don't give her huge amounts of feedback on what she writes, yet her writing continues to get better and better. She also started writing for fun in a notebook and I suggested she type it into the computer for her daily typing practice. She did so, and continued it as 'typing practice' each day and is now on page 27 of a single-spaced story. In many ways, schools restrict students simply because teachers cannot have 20 students going 20 different directions at 20 different speeds. Somehow I doubt Aurora would be diving into writing projects like this if she were in a regular school because the school mentality is "Do what you're told to do and no more," while our homeschool attitude is "You make this what you want. Follow your passions and interests."

Denver has been more challenging to guide in the writing process. Jamestown is a bit advanced for his interest level (though not reading level), so he found it hard to muster any enthusiasm for the writing activities. Working with a tutor for 10 weeks on it made it clear that he was understanding what he was reading and had some good thoughts about it, but didn't have much joy in it. Sometime during the fall I added an additional day of writing to Denver's schedule called Fun Write. He could write whatever he wanted. He loves writing short stories about space adventures, and his joy knew no bounds.

Then his idea list petered out and he was having a hard time getting started. Sitting around one day, I started stringing a story together about a sister who steals stuff out of her brother's room and then he discovers it is actually the cat that is doing it through special powers of making lego creations into working machines at night when the boy was asleep. Denver's imagination was caught and away he went. That was a turning point for Denver in writing. Before then he was always trying to follow rules and do things the 'right' way and make them realistic. It was like there was a mental box in his mind for how he 'should' write. When we talked about it and he removed that box he discovered a great joy in writing. The words flowed and he worked on one story for an hour every day for a week.

Denver has been begging for a blog of his own for months and I finally got around to getting one put together for him. That has added a new dimension of joy to writing for him, and he is 100% self-motivated when it comes to keeping up his blog. As he informed me this morning, he only counts blogging as a fun write when it is over 300 words. He set that standard, though we had casually talked about whether it should count or not.

Both my kids know how to put words together and have great imaginations. Their grammar could be better, but then, I teach college writing courses so my expectations are pretty high too. Denver detests revising and editing his stories, especially when I mark all of the errors. I think in the future I need to choose a couple areas to edit (say, just punctuation or correct use of quotes) so that it is not so overwhelming.

Mostly, though, I am so happy that the kids love to write! It is not something I have to impose on them; they have found the spot inside themselves that loves to put their words on paper in a delightful way. Once again, I say, "Mission accomplished!"