This is our second Home Instruction Quarterly Report for the 2009-2010 academic year that I just emailed it to my school district today:
Name: Alex
Blog Website: http://leperdy.com
Grade: 4th
Hours of instruction this quarter: 225
Arithmetic: Alex completed the Singapore 4B Fraction Unit that includes: Equivalent Fractions, Adding and Subtracting Fractions, Mixed Numbers, Improper Fractions, and Fraction Division. This has been a difficult subject for him to master, thus he will continue to do practice problems even as he moves on to other math subjects. Additionally, Alex is attending a local Math Counts club that meets weekly. Overall, Alex is making good progress in Arithmetic.
Reading: Alex read several books this quarter, including: The Hunger Games, Scat, The Second Mrs. Giaconda, and several biographical books on George W. Bush and Leonardo Da Vinci. He discussed some of these books in a book club, and has reviewed most of these in his journal. (Note: These are being transcribed into his blog, but it’s not up to date at this time.) Alex continues to make good progress in this area of strength.
Writing: Alex completed a historical fiction novel assigned in a writing class, and submitted it to NaNoWriMo and the Book Arts Bash Writing Contests. He is now writing daily in his journal, on topics of personal interest as well as reflections on homeschool assignments. Alex is making good progress toward writing clearly and legibly.
Spelling: Alex continued with Level B in Spelling Power, and we’re starting to see overall improved spelling in all his assignments.
English Language: Alex is making adequate progress in developing English Language skills.
- Handwriting: Harcourt Family Learning Cursive Writing – He completed all the practice sections in this workbook.
- Grammar: Harcourt Language – He learned how to use commas, titles, and quotation marks, but will need to continue to practice these skills.
Foreign Language: Alex did not study a foreign language this quarter.
Social Studies: Alex read several chapters in The Story of the World, Volume 2: The Middle Ages., and completed the accompanying geography activities. Most of this quarter, he has been working on a unit on Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance. As part of this unit, he visited the Da Vinci The Genius exhibit in Baltimore, MD. Additionally, Alex learned about US government, the Bill of Rights, and good citizenship as part of the Webelo Citizen Badge requirements.
Science: This quarter, we’ve begun an extended study of Science and Art, starting with a look at Leonardo Da Vinci’s experiments. Alex is still attempting projects found in Amazing Leonardo Da Vinci Inventions: You Can Build Yourself. Additionally, Alex helped research Space Radiation for the team research project that was part of the First Lego League Competition.
Music: Alex has begun reading and listening to A Young Person’s Guide to Music by Neil Ardley with Music by Poul Ruders.
The Arts: Alex was inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci to sketch and paint. He has also begun to learn how to create digital photo projects using Adobe Photos.
Health Education: Alex continues to work on team building skills with his Cub Scout den and other youth groups. He also completed the final test of his Wilderness Survival Class, in which he camped overnight in an outdoors shelter that he built. Alex exhibited great focus, determination, and self-reliance in this endeavor.
Physical Education: Alex is getting daily exercise through hiking, dog walks, and outdoor play. He is also making good progress in his weekly riding and fencing lessons. And, he participates in seasonal activities such as skiing, snowshoeing, and ice skating.
Technology: Alex has been learning how to script on Roblox, program robots with Lego Mindstorm, and create digital photo projects on Adobe Photos. He has advanced to VIP status on Roblox, and is engaged in collaborative play as well as practicing game theory in the virtual game environment.
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Although we don’t have to do these reports in CT after reading yours I’m thinking that it would be a good idea to do a summary like this. My reports kept for my own records are so detailed that they are not easy to skim quickly. This looks great.
ChristineMM´s last blog ..Poem My Nine Year Old Son Wrote Today
I have to admit, although it’s a chore to do, I find these reports invaluable to helping us stay on track. My tendency is to follow way too many tangents, which results in very little accomplishment. Also, with this format, I’m able to look back and see that even with the tangents, over time Alex has been learning a lot.
I absolutely LOVE how he studied the many contributions of Leonardo Da Vinci. He made connections between social studies, science, art, and reading. I didn’t know there was a museum in Maryland. Good to know.
True learning is when you research a subject on many different levels and in a variety of ways, which Alex has certainly done here. Thank you so much for sharing with us!
Dawn Riccardi Morris´s last blog ..Moms Inspire Learning Blog Survey Results
Dawn,
Thanks for the positive feedback about our lesson plans! I truly appreciate it.
The Da Vinci Genius exhibit is only in Baltimore for a short time, but I highly recommend seeing it if you can. The full-size replicas of his inventions are interesting, but the display of high-resolution photos exploring the mysteries of the Mona Lisa is phenomenal.
Thanks for sharing this. I’ve recently started writing out weekly summaries, for use within in own family, but I can see how a quarterly look back might be useful as well.
Jennifer Fink´s last blog ..Gifted = MORE