2017-18 End of Year Assessment: Belle


This was Belle's 8th Grade year.

It was a mix of awesome growth and foolish mom-mistakes.

Mistakes first . . . so we can get them out of the way.

Mistake #1:  I failed to challenge Belle enough academically. 

Saxon 8/7 covers both mathematics and pre-algebra.  Saxon also has Algebra 1/2 that covers pre-algebra again to use as a repeat course for those who need it.  I let Belle do this even though she didn't need to. 

And she got lazy.

She's still 18 lessons from the end of the book, but she will finish it--she's working on it now.

Mistake #2:  I failed to monitor her progress appropriately.

Belle is the baby of my group of big girls.  I lump her in with them, and she gets both privileges and responsibilities right along with them--even though she's the youngest.

I'd check in verbally, "Getting your school done?" fairly often, but I did not sit down enough with her and help her manage her time--she was only 13-turning-14 this year. 

Essays and reading and Symposium assignments never fell by the wayside because I was more directly involved in those subjects, but math and Latin and grammar certainly did. 

She's making up for it now.



On to the good stuff.

First, Belle grew into being my right arm this year.  At least one morning each week, in the earliest part of the school year, I had to drive the 3 oldest to seminary while Sir Walter Scott was at work, and Belle stayed home to manage the 8 young ones (ages 10, 8, 7, 5, 5, 4, 2 1/2, and 2 1/2 at that time).  She got them up and dressed, oversaw their chores, served them breakfast, and conducted Morning Meeting.  I came home to a peaceful, cheerful home every single Wednesday morning.

Since then, as Pixie has gotten busier and busier, Belle has stepped up to babysit and help with our evening routine.  The little ones adore her and often choose her over me to read their bedtime stories.


She does not love this work.  It tires her out and leaves her depleted.  I must be careful to allow her recovery time.  However, I am completely satisfied that Belle has and is developing the skills she needs to care for her own family someday.

And she's not too shabby in the kitchen either. :)

Belle has a passion for animals and agriculture. 


Theo is her precious.

She crawls into the chicken coop and communes with the chickens.

She volunteers at the urban farm and still comes home with a smile on her face--even though the temperatures are regularly reaching 100 degrees.  The farmers love her.  They stumble over themselves to express how well she does her work and how glad they are they took the risk of allowing a teen to work on their farm.


She is a gifted writer . . . though writing is not her passion.

She turns in essay drafts that are so well-organized and well-expressed that I am hard put to give her re-writing advice.  Usually I can find a spelling or grammar mistake or two, but I think I shall have to turn her over to more advanced writing teachers than I am to help her improve her craft.  Until such time, I will simply keep her writing and reading as much as possible because she absorbs the skill naturally.

She avoids creative writing if at all possible.  This is a change from the past when she was happy to keep a creative writing journal.

She practiced her writing skills during Symposium as she wrote history narrations and movie/literature analyses.

Singing and dancing are also not passions, though she enjoys participating in our dance group, and more than one person has commented on her skills in both areas.



She's got leadership skills, and she's gotten the chance to develop them through her church youth group.  For the first half of this school year, she served as the president of her age group, and after she turned 14 and changed groups she has served as an assistant to the president.  She has good ideas; she is gentle with people; she inspires goodness in others by her quiet example.  She's not bossy!  She just goes about doing good without fanfare.


Here's the list of academic subjects and resources:

*Math:  Saxon Algebra 1/2 (to be finished by the end of this month)
*Symposium:  history, literature, and Spanish
*Language Arts:
     Rod and Staff grade 7 (Building Securely)--This book covered grammar and composition, and Belle finished about half of it. 
     Spelling Wisdom book 4--She finished about 30 of the lessons, working from copywork to perfect dictation over the course of a week per lesson.
*Science:  Apologia Exploring Creation with General Science--she read and narrated the entire text
*Latin:  Memoria Press Second Form Latin--she was supposed to finish the entire course, but this is where my mom-fail came into play by not holding her accountable enough.  She finished barely half of the course, stagnating especially badly on lessons 7 and 10.  Time passed so quickly that I failed to realize just how little she was doing.

She's a voracious reader of escape fiction--teen romance (we search hard for clean ones), fantasy, dystopian lit.--and she's happy to work on the classics as well.  She reads and-rereads until the books become part of her; no one disputes Belle when a question about the plot or character development of a book comes up!


She's mostly introverted, but she has a strong social streak as well.  She's been happy to be 14 this year and get to join her older sisters in adding the whirlwind of church dances to the already busy seasons of homeschool events.  She had a bit of a romance--just texting and meeting the boy at church events--but it fizzled out naturally as neither of them was allowed to date. :)



She's smart, kind, friendly, and capable . . . and kind of absent-minded.

So, all in all, I'm happy with  Belle's development through her 8th grade year.

Comments

  1. Wonderful! I don't really think you were lazy with the math. Honestly, getting really comfortable with Algebra makes the rest of high school math so much easier. I wish I had a farmer in my family, but alas my kids hate the heat and hide indoors all summer long unless I force them out to the pool or a nature walk.
    Blessings, Dawn

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