Procrastination is no stranger to my life, but I’ve mostly tamed it until now.

The end-of-the year homeschool reports were due on Monday, and I finally Emailed them in tonight, one full day late.

Why am I late?  Is it that I am: Too busy? Summer fever?  Sheer disinterest in analyzing and quantifying our lives? All the above?

I’ve definitely lost interest in justifying our choice.  It’s working.  He’s learning.  I’m learning.  Isn’t that enough?

Our learning lives have evolved over the year, to the point that we don’t have much of a schedule anymore.  Alex has daily math and random assignments, but now he is mostly free to learn as he chooses.

With this freedom as our current mind set, it feels like I’m crossing a mind-numbing divide to fulfill New York State’s bureaucratic requirements.

There is an advantage to waiting until the last minute. 

Suddenly, I’ve gained a certain clarity, and a kick in the … from Homeschool Superhero John Munson, who advised me (and anyone else citing the homeschooling.families.com NY State requirement guidelines) that I really don’t have to fill in grades, or percentage of material covered, on the quarterly reports.

Since this guy has definitely done his homework figuring out exactly what is required in NY State, I decided to save myself a lot of grief and use his sample quarterly report and annual assessment.  You can find Munson’s forms in the files section of the NYHEN Yahoo Group, or you can just look at my reports below.

Homeschool Quarterly Report - 2nd Grade, 4th Quarter

Name: Alex

Blog Website: http://alexhomegate.blogspot.com

Grade: 2

Hours of instruction this quarter: 247.5+

Math:

In completing Singapore Math 2B, Alex studied the following: Multiplication and Division (by 4, 5, 10); Money (Adding; Subtracting); Fractions (Writing fractions); Time (Intervals); Capacity; Graphs (Picture); Geometry (Flat and Curved Faces; Making Shapes); Area (Square Units.)

Language Arts:

Alex read several books, including: Dragon Rider, Inkspell, and Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke; Beyond The Lemonade Stand: Starting Small to Make It Big by Bill Rancic; a selection of Brer Rabbit collections; and various poems, magazine articles, and other material. He has been developing paragraph and essay skills and posts much of his writing on his blog.

Social Studies:

Alex completed an extended study of the ancient history of Mesopotamia. He has gone on to read about ancient India, China, and Africa.

Science:

Alex completed a Gifted Kids’ Network Space Colonies class where he learned about various factors to consider when creating a habitat that can sustain human life. At the Children’s Science Museum, he took the Turning the Tides class where he discovered how to assess water quality based on present organisms. At The Tang Museum, he explored Molecules That Matter with a bubble wrap project workshop. He also pursued various hands-on interests investigating plant and animal life and looking for the invasive species that he learned about in The Invader exhibit at the State Museum. Additionally, he presented a science poster at the Education Fair on “Autotomy: The Tale of a Gecko’s Tail.”

The Arts:

Alex continued with his piano lessons, practicing daily, and performing at a recital. He loves to draw, especially dragons and monsters, and has been developing cartoon drawing skills. Lately, he has started to take an interest in digital photography and editing, in addition to videography. In the past quarter he has attended several shows, including a school performance of Greek plays and The Laura Ingalls Wilder Story at the Albany Egg.

Health and Physical Education:

Alex has been expanding his cooking repertoire by experimenting with different ways to make eggs, in addition to learning safe egg handling techniques from Alton Brown’s cookbook. He also enjoyed learning how to decorate cakes, and the chocolate tasting class at the Hershey Factory. Meanwhile, he’s been getting lots of exercise walking the dog, practicing his upper body strength training and stretching for his gymnastics class, playing tennis, swimming, biking, hiking, indoor caving, and exploring our world.

Home Instruction Annual Assessment

June 30, 2008

Name: Alex

Alex has made admirable academic progress this year. Some highlights of the year include: participating in workshops at various local museums, winning the NanoWrimo Young Writer’s Program, service learning with his Cub Scout Wolf Den (and his sister’s Girl Scout troop,) a stellar piano recital performance, developing his weblog, exploring our natural world, and unlimited time spent reading. For more details, see the previously submitted quarterly reports.

“What really matters is what you do with what you have.” ~~ H. G. Wells (1866 - 1946)

Would you like to read more about our homeschool journey? Take a peek at our first year in these articles.  Or, sign up to receive future articles of On Living By Learning by email.  Just click this link.  You can also click here to receive updates on a RSS Feed Reader.