Tips & Tricks: Taking Test

I know a lot of people wonder how do you deal with testing when you homeschool? First off you need to look into your state laws on homeschooling. In our state you do not need to do any testing. This includes all standardized test like the STARR test. So how do I make sure that our children are retaining the information taught.

Some homeschoolers do not test. Test only show what the student knows about that subject not their overall intelligence. However, I do give test. I bought the history, math and science test booklet that goes with our textbooks. I make sure to write down each main point of the lessons we do and we do a 6 week as well as a 12 week review.

Every 12th week of school I use that as the review. The math work we do goes over everything from the previous 12 weeks so our daughter completes both the math work for that week as well as showing me that we knows how to do the problems from the previous lessons. Two birds one stone kind of thing.

When I do give test from the test booklets I don’t tell our daughter that she is taking a test. I don’t want her to be self conscious or worry that she’ll get a bad grade. Instead, I tell her after we complete school for the day that she actually took test and she’s always so surprised because she said she had fun. That is what I strive for when we do school and when making sure she has retained the information given. I don’t think children are learning at their best if they are frustrated, scared or worried. School and learning should be fun!

All pictures shown are from our Timberdoodle curriculum. Even the “tent” she made while being a nomad was from The Story of The World. I highly recommend Timberdoodle. We’ve used them for 3 now and will continue to use them because they make awesome choices for homeschool curriculum.

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