So friends, it has been a couple of weeks and so much has happened at Virtual School.  My son is in his second face to face day of assessment.  Today is the Language Arts test and last week was  the Math test.

Everyday I love seeing him come in and be excited, even for a test! And as a mom, I love that this test measures not only achievement but progress, especially over time.  This test is produced by the organization NWEA  and has produced a fantastic adaptive test.   The computer asks questions based on the answers of the student to give a more fuller view of the student’s abilities in the given subject.  It is better than a standardized test, especially that many of the questions are not multiple choice which eliminates guesswork – whether right or wrong.  Questions are created or crafted by students with drag and drop and other technological functions  that demonstrates a student either really knows it or doesn’t.  The results of the test reveal specific areas of need or strength which makes giving instruction more personal and efficient use of homeschooling time.

While we weren’t initially able to see the results of the test, we found out later after Open House where his number is and what the projected hope of progress will be in Math by the end of this school year.

Open House was fun, even if crowded, just excited to see so many individuals in the program.  A good presentation by NWEA helped us understand what his score means for schooling.  Also MCC had a bunch of technology out and examples of some fun kits that can be checked out.

I enjoyed my children and my husband playing and learning about the playdough circuitry or the caterpillar robot.

This past week my son’s classroom also started Minecraft and so he was super excited to get some additional time on his computer to learn about Minecraft.

We did the first lesson on History and am very excited to learn more about it now that our supplies are here.  I am so grateful to Wendy for her assistance in guiding me around the K12 website to check on our order under “info” and “orders”.  If you need to check on supplies go into your account and look on the tool bar for “info”; click on that and it will give you an option on the left tool bar to check your orders.  Then click on the one you want to view and on the lower right hand side there is a tracking number to find out.

Since we were still waiting on History to do the second lesson it was reassuring to know that we would, and did, receive it Monday.

The History lesson so far I found very easy to do and follow along and while he can do it himself and read, I find I am enjoying sitting alongside and hearing him read or guiding him into the next step.  I like all of the different pieces of learning they had him do.  The first worksheet asked him to find the different pieces of the online book, such as maps, indexes and particular answers to questions, for example reading a short piece about a fort the Americans took back from the British.

I enjoyed that it had him to vocabulary and that we worked out how he could look it up online.  Although at first there were technological problems with both our router and K12 website, eventually they got worked out.  It is an aspect of a virtual school I have to get used to still.

And while we still need to have our contract about devices talk, I look forward to doing that as a family shortly thanks to great resources from Common Sense Media.

I am mostly excited to send back his Art, to get further on History and then to start on Science.  And of course we will have more to do when his Math and Language arts shows up.

Now, I just need more energy to keep up with it all!

So where did I put that cup of tea?….More next week folks!