Assessment 2018-19: Little Princess


Little Princess was a bright, curious, opinionated 9-year-old this year.


She studied the following subjects:
 
*Math
    Math Lessons for a Living Education Level 4--completed this level that was started in the previous school year
    Saxon Math 5/4


Little Princess is good at math, and she likes it.  I'm really glad that she did 4th grade math twice over because her basic arithmetic skills are super solid, and she's ready to expand into more decimals, percents, fractions, and higher-level thinking problems within the world of math.


*Language Arts
   ~Reading
        We tried working on Readers in Residence volume 1 which she'd begun during a previous school year.  This was not a program that worked for Little Princess.  She hated it.


        We switched to simply reading great books for her age.  This worked.  She read the following for school:
            Heidi by Johanna Spyri
            A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
            Anne of Green Gables (the whole series) by L. M. Montomery
           Wonder by R. J. Palacio
           Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter
           Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
           The Story of Thomas Alva Edison by Margaret Cousins
           The First Woman Doctor by Rachel Baker
           The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars
           Little Women (three times--once as a read aloud and twice on her own)--by Louisa May Alcott
           Along Came a Dog by Meindert DeJong


   ~Writing
        At first I didn't require any writing, but partway through the school year, I was bothered by how little writing she was doing because Academy was so geared toward the young ones.  I printed a month's worth of writing prompts--some creative, some factual, some poetry--cut them apart, folded them, and slipped them into a plastic bag that was attached to a composition book.  Her job was to draw one out, tape it to the top of a clean page and respond to the prompt. 
         She wasn't a huge fan of the creative prompts, but she liked the poetry and the expository writing.  And she wrote a paragraph to a page every single school day from December forward.


   ~Grammar
        We didn't do much grammar until the spring when I pulled out an old copy of Milestones Academy Level B Language Arts (It can no longer be found on the web--the site has closed--but it's a lot like Primary Language Lessons by Emma Serl).  Little Princess loved it!  She'd completed Grammar-Land by M. L. Nesbitt the year before, so she had a working knowledge of parts of speech, and this year she got to put her ideas into practice with copywork, simple compositions, and grammar exercises.  She did not complete the curriculum before the end of our school year, but we put it away with the intent to pull it back out next school year.

   ~Handwriting
        Little Princess does everything quickly--including handwriting.  Like mother like daughter!  She completed Beautiful Handwriting for Children which she'd started the previous school year, but after too many instances of making her re-do her work more slowly in order to make it more legible, I purchased The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Level 5.  She worked through the first half of it, and her handwriting is improving quite well.
        (But she wasn't any too pleased when I told her she'd be finishing it this coming year!)

*Chinese
Little Princess loves Chinese.  Last year she got started with it by watching YouTube videos.  My discomfort with having her online for school coupled with her clear desire to keep learning prompted me to buy her a couple of sets of study flashcards and a workbook for practicing characters.
        Tuttle Chinese for Kids: Simplified Characters (Red)
        Tuttle More Chinese for Kids: Simplified Characters (Blue)
        Tuttle The First 100 Chinese Characters: Simplified Characters Edition


She memorized all of the Red set, and she finished the entire character-writing workbook


*Personal Scripture Study
Little Princess reads The Book of Mormon most days, if not every day.


*Academy
Academy covered geography, world history, American history (westward expansion), science, literature, music, art, poetry, Advent (crafts, Christian studies, and music), and character training.  Little Princess was a valuable member of that little class, and while she hated drawing her narrations, she was quite good at note-taking and summarizing what she learned in written form.  She made connections, drew conclusions, and voiced opinions that she backed up with facts she learned. 


*Morning Meeting
  Little Princess is present and participating at every single Morning Meeting.  She loves the scriptures, and she bears a sweet testimony of Christ.  This year we've had a special focus on the New Testament, but we've also kept up with daily readings from The Book of Mormon.



*Ukelele
Little Princess got a ukelele and some primer learning materials for Christmas.  She threw herself into learning chords and strumming patterns and fingering, and she's gotten to where she can sing and play in public! Her interest ebbs and flows, but she keeps coming back to it.


*Evening Reading
Little Princess is still young enough to be home for evening reading, and she's fallen in love with many beautiful books.  The list is on the sidebar until the end of June when it will be moved to a blog post entitled 2018-19 Read Alouds and Audiobooks.


*Extracurriculars
Little Princess dances with our dance troupe, attends Activity Days (the church group for 8-11 year old girls), and she attended Fall Co-op with our homeschool group where she took 4 classes:  Coding Unplugged, Ballet, Lego Challenge, and Yoga.   As it turned out, her coding teacher said Little Princess has a remarkable gift for coding, and she recommended we nurture that gift. 


I'm not letting her get involved in coding classes until she's 10--that's not far away!  But based on her mathematical skills and her ability to problem solve, I'll bet that teacher is right, and our girl will fall in love with coding once I open that door for her.


In Summary
Little Princess is gobs of fun.  She's social, helpful, and bossy.  She doesn't keep a tidy room, but she loves to help in the kitchen.  She's still a little girl, and as Nature Angel pulls out of childhood, Little Princess feels left out and lost.  She likes to be at the center of the action, and if there are conversations, Little Princess can be found lurking about, waiting for a way to insert herself in what's happening.  She's tech-crazy, and we have to rescue our phones from her constantly.  She loves to take pictures--using our awesome-but-only-partially-working digital SLR camera to capture beautiful moments.   She feeds the chickens, collects eggs, sweeps the front entryway, and vacuums the dining room every day.   She's like her mama in her fiery temper, but she's like her daddy in her ability to apologize and make things right again.  She's tender-hearted and in tune with the spirit of God.  She's quick to cry in a bittersweet moment.  She's quick to laugh for fun.


I can't imagine life without her!



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