It’s that time of year again; when the days grow longer and our thoughts turn to swimming, trips to the beach and vacation. For homeschoolers this is also the time for evaluations – depending upon your state’s laws, this can mean different things. For us, it means a teacher evaluation, the path we’ve chosen for the last seven years. Every year as we wind down the traditional school year, I make an appointment with our evaluator and then immediately start to panic. Have we done enough? Will this be the year they tell me that I’m not qualified? Am I ruining my children’s lives? Ack!

Then, I take a deep breath and start to collect the things that I want to bring to our evaluation. Things that will show the depth and breadth of everything we’ve done, proof that my children are learning, growing and flourishing.

1. Writing Sample – this can be a letter, a short story, a particularly good book report, anything that shows that the child understands the written language and can communicate through writing at a level commensurate with his/her ability
2. Looseleaf Notebook – that the child has been putting their work into all year. Sometimes we have one per student, sometimes we have more.
3. Workbooks – for us, our math curriculum is in two workbooks, the practice sheets and the test booklet (we use Math-U-See) or any other workbooks you’d like to showcase.
4. List of books that have been read – I’m mean and have my children do a book report for each book that they read. It really doesn’t take much time at all and gives them writing practice too (see #1)! I’ve found this site to be really useful for book reports.
5. List, or better yet, scrapbook - of any field trips, co-ops, extra-curricular activities or lessons that the child has participated in, especially art, music and physical education. This might seem silly, but sometimes I forget to mention something that I really wanted spotlight.

We always plan a special activity for after the evaluation, sort of an “end of school” party. And we most certainly take the next day off for celebration… You know, before we start our summer session.  I mentioned that I was mean, right?

Photo Credit: bfick