Sunrise, Sunset. Swiftly Flow the Days

The school year is coming to a close. Part of the ‘end of school year’ process at our house is assessing progress and assigning an official “grade” for subjects. Sometimes, just figuring out what we want to assess is a lengthy process.

Some of the subjects are cut and dried. Take Math, for instance. The curriculum has tests about once per week. Average the oral and written grades for each for the whole year and there is your final grade. Voila! There is no “final exam” because we use a spiral curriculum.

Other subjects are much more murky. How do I assess my eclectic science year? We used a Charlotte Mason approach and did a lot of experiments. I don’t want to ‘test’ in this subject at her low elementary grade level. But I do want to reward her for her year of learning and interest with an official record of this subject.

I just got done making up a ‘final exam’ for her Catechism work. It will make up half of her Religion grade with the other half coming from an evaluation of her remembrance of our twice weekly Bible readings throughout the year.

It is interesting to look back at the school year to see what we learned and to look forward to the books we have already gotten in the mail for next school year. It is a sense of accomplishment followed by more than a small dose of excitement.