Protected: Thank You

Did your student make a year’s growth academically?   If so, how do you know that, and can you prove it?  Decades ago, here in Oregon, the rules for proving academic growth by means of an achievement test were rolled back. Previous to the rule change, an annual achievement test was required at all grade levels. It…

Hello Home School Families, I wanted to let you know that the Oregon Department of Education will not be extending the deadline to complete achievement testing this year. The last day to complete testing is August 15. While many home schoolers test their children annually at the end of the school year, the rules in Oregon require,…

Do some easy things first!   When I was home schooling, I found that doing some short, easy things first at the beginning of the day provided a warm-up of sorts. If the subject was math, we had a “question or story problem of the day.” We often followed this with “mental math” drills.  If we began with English, we…

The words open and closed, are descriptive of the way students often see themselves and approach difficulties.  Closed: “I’m not good at math.”  “I’ll never understand this!” “I’ll never improve.”  Open: “OK, I’ll try this.” “I’ll ask questions if I don’t understand.” “I’m determined to get it even if it takes many ‘do-overs’.”   What’s behind both kinds of thinking…

Do you sometimes feel like you’re on the receiving end of a firehose of information that just never stops? That the only way to control it would be to cut off the flow, to turn it off?  But, because we want the information, we “can’t” or don’t want to disengage so we find ourselves resorting…