The Zoo - classroom tour and test preparations

I got these in the mail early last week. Yep...it's that time of year again. Testing! The kids are so excited! (Okay...maybe not.)

I thought maybe I'd give you a tour of our classroom while the kids finish up the last bit of curriculum they have before their testing begins.

Scott, hard at work on that math assessment.

She's thrilled...can you tell?

We got lucky with this house. We have a large space set aside just for school.  As you can see below, I have used some of our ample wall space for some awesome maps. On the left is the US, in the middle is Germany and on the right is Europe. 

And before you ask, yes, it's always this messy.

When you walk into our classroom, this is what you see. This is where the kids sit and work. My desk is there on the left, and my craft room is up on the right.

Ah, there it is...my stamping haven. I have my giraffes in there with me and everything.

I also have the door out to the courtyard area. See our beautiful cherry tree back there? The one that buzzes with a million bees sipping from those pink blooms? It's an awesome work space.

This shot was taken from the entrance of my little stamp room.

This is Murray the monkey. He's our school mascot. Scotty earned him when we lived in Castle Rock for participating in a summer reading program through the library. Scotty was very much into the Wiggles when this monkey came to our house, and his favorite color has always been red so it just made sense that  Scott named this furry dude Murray after the red Wiggle. Murray keeps me company while the kids work.

We also have other monkeys, (besides for Maya and Scott) that reside in our classroom.

Click on any photo to make it larger.

Steven's dad, (Poppa) drew this for us many years ago. It hangs to the right of my desk. 

Oh, yeah...we have official Wing Family Homeschool sweatshirts, too. They also have monkeys on them.

April, 2010

My mom, (GG) customized these for us. Our school colors are red, (Scott's favorite) and black, (Maya's favorite). I have a cool school sweatshirt as well but I digress...

Okay...back to the tour!

We have our own sink in our classroom. I think it will come in handy for our science curriculum this coming year. We also have a lot of storage cabinets and drawers which is awesome. If you go out this door, there's a bathroom on the left and straight ahead is Steven's office. Down the hall and to the right is the front door of our house. We have a lot of SPACE. I love it. 

It's a pretty cool place to hang out every day. Click to enlarge. You know you want to...

Testing was supposed to be last week, but I decided to get sick instead. Ah, well. I don't have a lot of flexibility here as the tests have a due date, but we're wrapping it all up today and will start with testing this afternoon. (I administer the tests, but am strict about following all the rules. I will answer basic questions, but won't help them figure out an answer to a test question, and the tests are sent back to Hewitt Homeschooling to be machine graded. Once that is finished, we get the results back by mail, usually within two to three weeks.)

This is the second year the kids have taken the P.A.S.S. tests. That stands for Personalized Achievement Summary System. Many states, (North Carolina being one of them,) have approved this test for purposes of state reporting. Once I get the results back, I will then forward copies of all paperwork sent to me to the North Carolina Division of Non Public Education, (NCDNPE) along with attendance and immunization records for this past school year. Although we are no longer in North Carolina, we still pay state taxes there and are considered to be residents of the state. We are also registered homeschoolers in Wake County.

I believe we'll be through with everything by Wednesday afternoon and so will come an end to Scotty's fourth grade year and Maya's seventh.

Don't look now, but I think there's a smile on her face...and she's working on MATH!

This year has had it's challenges. We began the same month Steven left for Heidelberg in August, then got waylaid in our progress in November when we chose to follow his job back to Germany. For more than a month, our curriculum was disorganized and located in different places...some of it here with us, some of packed and bobbing around on the Atlantic Ocean. Once it all arrived at the house, it took another several weeks for me to find it, get it organized and rework my lesson plans so that we could catch up and still finish everything on our original schedule. Maya and Scott have worked very diligently these last four and a half months. Steven and I are very proud of them and know they will do well on their tests.

These are the grades and the GPA's they earned this past year:

Mylee 

1st semester GPA 3.74

Lang Arts - 94%

Foreign Language - 97% (one quarter of Spanish)

Math - 99%

Science - 87%

Social Studies - 94%

2nd semester GPA 3.74

Lang Arts - 94%

Foreign Language - 93% (German both quarters)

Math - 99%

Science - 89%

Social Studies - 97%

Scotty

1st semester GPA 3.68

Lang Arts - 93%

Foreign Language - 87% (one quarter of Spanish)

Math - 98%

Science - 93%

Social Studies - 93%

2nd semester GPA 3.74

Lang Arts - 95%

Foreign Language - 90% (German both quarters)

Math - 97%

Science - 89%

Social Studies - 90%

I follow the answer keys and grading guidelines that go along with the different curriculum that we use to assess each assignment grade. As for Spanish and German, we use Rosetta Stone, Homeschool Edition. The computer program grades each child, (and me, too) based on our reading, writing and verbal performances. The GPA's are calculated on a basic 4.0 scale.

Thanks for stopping by. So...now, on to testing!