assessment Archives - Growing In Grace

…Now I know my ABCs

April 17, 2012Tracy3 Comments

Little One has wrapped up the alphabet. And in celebration of her success, I made a notebook of her letter papers that she has done through the year.

For my birthday, I asked for a binding machine, and I’ve already had such a blast using it! In addition to this notebook for my daughter, I also made a sermon notebook for my son and re-bound one of his books that had come apart. Of course, I have many more projects in mind for this new toy as well, so stay tuned.

Most of her book are the coloring pages and dot pages that we have worked on from Erica’s Letter of the Week material, with a few other pages and projects sprinkled in among them. At the back, I’ve added a few of her number pages that she has worked on, and at the front I included her end of the year assessments (again from Erica’s blog).

And, in honor of my daughter’s absolute favorite book and a core resource for this year, I made a copy of the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom cover and pasted her name down at the bottom as the author.

So this officially marks the end of her preschool year. Next stop: K4!

(And just so you get a complete picture of our new school arrangement, the baby was crying his head off the entire time I was putting this book together, with big sister trying her best to keep the pacifier stuffed in his mouth.)

Preschool Letter and Number Assessments

April 16, 2012Tracy3 Comments

I like to have official assessments for my kids, even though I often have a very good idea of what they know before we sit down to assess. My main reason for doing them is just to have my kids used to being tested and assessed so that it is never a cause for fear or trepidation when they are older.

So, when the little one wrapped up letter “Z”, I pulled out my fun Chicka Boom Tree assessments and some stampers (like these). The first time I used these assessments with my son, I admit I was at a total loss as to how to use them, and I made the whole ordeal much more complicated than it needed to be. This time, though, I just relaxed and let her tell me what she knew. She chose which letter to do each time, told me the name and sound of the letter, then stamped it before choosing another letter. It went very smoothly.

For the numbers, I once again handed her the stamp and sat back to see what she knew. She found each number in order as she counted, up to twelve and then got stumped. I praised her, put the stamp away, and then we finished counting the numbers together.

Her end-of-the-year preschool accomplishments:

She can identify all her letters and sounds for capital and little letters.
She can identify her numbers up to 12 and can count to 20 unassisted.
She can count to 100 when assisted with the tens (20, 30, 40, etc.—she gets stumped at these transitions).
She knows her colors and the names of basic shapes.
She has lots of fun memories and can’t wait to start reading.

And if nothing else, that last accomplishment tells me we’ve had a very successful year.