Evaluating Our Year

Recently, I had a new idea to involve Emily more in the evaluation of our past school year. I pulled out all of the resources we have used this year and spread them on the kitchen table. I wrote the names of online resources on index cards so that they would be represented as well.

Then I gave Emily a pad of sticky notes and asked her to rate and label each item with numbers from 1 (high) to 5 (low) according to how well she liked each book or program. I was actually a bit surprised with some of her assessments—quite a few programs/book received 1’s or 2’s. We discussed why she liked or disliked each item. Then we talked about learning styles and about which learning methods were most helpful for her.

Not surprisingly, her favorite activity was reading—anything from a novel to a textbook. (Her Apologia Biology is actually the only traditional-type textbook we use, though.)  She also thought she learned well through videos. She also enjoys writing and some computer-based instruction.  Hands-on activities tended to be her least favorite (and the assignments she tends to procrastinate on). She really enjoyed these when she was younger, but I’ve noticed that her tastes have changed in the past few years. Since we’re going back to Sonlight Curriculum next year for history and English, I anticipate a great year with all those wonderful books!

This was a fun way to evaluate our year and to get Emily thinking about how she learns best and I plan to make it a yearly tradition.