Assessment 2020-21: Mister Man
Mister Man had kind of a rough year. He's bright and articulate, but the trauma we've had around our house has taken a toll on my oldest boy. I also gave him a lot of independent work in addition to our family studies, and he might have liked a little more mom-interaction to help him along his way.
Here was his plan as of last August:
Literature Grade 3, Memoria Press
Writing with Ease Level 2, Well-Trained Mind
Language Arts 3, Core Skills
English Recitation I, Memoria Press
Cursive Kickoff, Handwriting Without Tears
Arithmetic 3, Rod and Staff
Latina Christiana I, Memoria Press (He will finish what he started last year, and then we will see if we can find a usable copy of Latina Christiana II--Memoria Press has revised the program and does not sell the separate versions any more.)
Book of MormonNo one is more fun to teach than Mister Man. He is enthusiastic about everything! He understands. He makes connections. He remembers what he learns. He just loves learning! Morning Meeting, Academy, and Evening Reading times are opportunities for him to soak up information almost faster than I can present it . . . maybe truly faster because he loves to read and study on his own, and he will come to me having gathered information on his own and narrate what he learned and how it connects to what I covered in school.
He worked very slowly on the Memoria Press literature guides. He completed 3 out of 4 of them, and I chose not to have him complete the 4th. Mister Man is a voracious reader. His reading skills and comprehension are far above average, and I'm not worried about him being a literate human being.
Writing With Ease level 2 was a wonderful success for Mister Man for teaching practical spelling and punctuation, except that he depended on me to help him with it, and other kids' behavioral issues interfered with our time together. We were able to complete 20 of the 36 lessons this year.
Core Skills Language Arts 3 was finished some months ago, and Mister Man learned a lot about grammar and English mechanics along with some dictionary skills and an introduction to outlinging and essay writing.
English Recitation I played to Mister Man's strengths as he had to memorize 30+ grammar and punctuation rules. He completed the entire course.
He loved Cursive Kickoff. He really got the hang of cursive writing, applying it to most of his assignments whether I asked for it or not.
Rod and Staff Arithmetic 3 is still in progress. Here's where some better oversight on my part would have contributed to better accountability on his part. As of this writing, he's completed 145 out of 170 lessons. Working on 2 lessons a day, I expect him to finish this by mid-July.
He finished Latina Christiana I! We did not pick up with more Latin this year.
He's reading and studying The Book of Mormon on his own each day. His study guide work is time consuming, and I never intended him to finish it in single school year. I'm quite content that he is learning the habit of daily independent scripture study.
Mister Man is tender-hearted, absent-minded, and interested. He's at that delightfully gangly, awkward stage of growing-boyness when he is all arms and legs and inclined to be unable to control his body fully. He is very sensitive to criticism--even the most constructive--and he has a keen desire to do what is right.
This was his last full school year of being a single-digit age . . . I feel his impending adolescence with many bittersweet achings of my heart.
He and you accomplished loads of stuff with or with out all of the crisis in your lives.
ReplyDeleteBlessings, Dawn
I found those Memoria Press lit guides to be *hard*! Jack and Hannah slogged through them years ago with a lot of help from me. On the one hand, I was glad they introduced us to fun books like Mr. Popper's Penguins, but Jack did the 3rd grade level in 6th grade, and still struggled with it. I tried to have Katie do Paddington this year (5th grade) and the questions were just too much for her.
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