How do you know your kids are learning? wonders DH

[kiloyd]

Yea! We are going to homeschool!!! Dh finally agreed to try.

He asked me today how I/we would know that DS is learning and retaining the information. I said we can have him tested at the end of the year. But DH wonders about tests more often.

I don't care that much, I figure it's kindergarten, I'll know if DS is 'getting it' or not. Maybe I should look into the A Beka academy for DH.

What do you think? Remember homeschooling is totally foreign to DH. So I need to compromise and keep a lot of it close to schoolish.

[RubySlippers]

:jump2
I'm so happy for you! :hug
With K it's really easy to quiz and review orally to check whether they are getting and retaining info. (phonics, numbers, etc.) throughout the year. As far as I know, there isn't any traditional testing for K.

[kiloyd]

Now I need to not feel the pressure of proving myself to DH. I need to remember if God has called me to this then He will equip me for it.

[Mama Calidad]

With DD it's really, really easy to see what she's learned. One way is looking at the skills she had in the beginning and the skills she has now. She knew her numbers 1-20 last year. Now, she knows 0-999 and can do basic addition and subtraction. Those things are pretty obvious. :grin Plus, she'll spout things out a month after you talked about it with her. "Remember when we made the coin appear in the water?" (One of the experiments we did.)

IOW, you'll know. :hug

[Punkie]

Narration is another great way. When your child narrates to you, then you can see exactly which parts stood out to her :) This has been really eye opening for me with both of my kids. Its amazing what parts they find important, and it emphasizes what they know rather than what they don't know (like traditional tests do).

Karen Andreola addresses your question in this article about narration:

http://www.home-school.com/Articles/AndreolaNarration.html

You could write down her narrations if you wanted something more concrete. :grin

[ArmsOfLove]

we don't do annual testing and we don't teach to the test. You can just know when a child is learning something--you spot check them with questions and when they can teach it to you then they have it :tu

[Moon]

I know because I'm right there with them the entire time. If they don't "get" it we don't move on until they do. You can't get railroaded under while the class goes onto the next subject at home. :-)

[CelticJourney]

Oh, in kindergarten it's easy - they will talk non-stop about some subject to people in the grocery store and then act out bits of history with their stuffed animals. Early elementry is great because they take it all in as life, not school.

My oldest got all dressed up in about 2nd/3rd grade and performed the 'opera of the Greek gods', not to be confused with the performance art version of 'the death of the dinosaurs'.

Let them dictate stories for you to type up and them to illustrate. Take photos during the day or on field trips. It all adds up to a wonderful world of learning!!!

[booboo]

How do you know your kids are learning? They talk, talk, talk about it! Okay I have 2 girls and they both do their share of talking my ears off. :giggle When they are in the grocery store and they say "Hi ____" to someone who has on a nametag. (my 5 yo did that recently - really surprised the guy - she didn't know him but he worked there) Or when you're trying to figure out something and they give you the answer! That happens to me all the time. :shifty They even surprise my dh every now and then.

It's tough enough my kids are bossy. Now that we're homeschooling, they try to teach me a thing or two! :lol

[Piper2]

You're right there teaching them the material, you're looking at them...you can tell when they "get it".

I have tests for most of our subjects, but I'm not going to be "teaching to the tests". I don't even look at the tests until the day they're scheduled to happen, and then I usually just present them as another workbook page, not something too important.

DH's uncle's wife (nobody calls her "aunt" because she's, like, his 3rd wife and not the mother of his children) asked me a couple of years ago how I could tell Kevin's learning anything if we don't "do testing". :rolleyes This was right after he (at 5yo) had just skip counted by several different numbers -- I resisted the urge to quote from "A Bug's Life"..."Do I look stupid to you?" :rolleyes

[hsgbdmama]

I do wonder some days with ds1, :giggle and sometimes it takes months before he applies a concept -- for example, rhyming. I have been going over it, pointing it out when we read things, explaining it and this is the expression I have received :arrow :ex. Suddenly a few weeks ago, walking from a store to the car, he suddenly says two words that rhyme and says that they rhyme! :woohoo

On the other hand, he has been asking some pretty pointed questions about space, the earth and anatomy. :read :think

With the way he is wired, he applies things when he wants to. I know he is absorbing, and sometimes I do need to back off of something if it seems too much for him right now and revisit it later, but that is the beauty of hs'ing. :amen

I do not plan on teaching to the test as that will be a disaster for all of us, plus I find it limiting. :shrug I do plan on using some of the CM guidelines as those are challenging but attainable.