heartofdakota.com

Besides the key ideas, how do you know if your kids' responses on their notebooking pages are correct without doing all of the work yourselves? There is no way I can read books for four different kids ahead of time. Is there an answer key in the higher guides, particularly high school?

There are answer keys in the high school guides for anything that is workbook style such as the science, logic, Spanish, English, Bible. There aren't answer keys for the notebooking, but those are written narrations where you aren't technically grading the written narrations just if they followed the directions and used the editing checklist. There are graphic organizers for World Religion but it is very easy to look at the page referenced in the question to see if they filled it out correctly. We haven't done World History yet, but it looks very similar. The students are told to list page numbers for some things so again it is easy to check their information. I have found it very easy to grade the World Geography guide. Some of it is just did they follow and complete the assignment as instructed then they get full credit. This is the case with things like the maps and the World Geography activities.

I hear ya! I don't have time to preread the high school materials either! Just as Lynn said, we found WG easy to grade, and we are finding the WH guide to be easy to grade as well. Detailed answer keys are included for science assignments including labs, math assignments, grammar assignments, Spanish assignments, Pilgrim's Progress, Bible Study, and Total Health. I find it easy to follow along as my ds orally narrates his history readings, as they have bolded headings, bolded words, and are on short segments, often having the student choose 1 section to narrate upon if 2 sections were read. The guidelines for each type of oral narration are clearly laid out in the WH guide. For written narrations, I use the editing checklist and follow the parameters laid out in the WH guide. Narrations cannot have an answer key, as each student's narration should reflect what he/she took from the reading personally. I like that this adherence to what CM intended is left intact (but I also like the guidelines provided in the daily plans and the editing helps in the Appendix ). For EIW, the Student Book closely follows the DVD segments, so it is easy to see if my ds followed the steps for each writing assignment. A choice of writing prompts that coincide with the DVDs instructions further helps my ds stay on topic according to the type of writing piece/essay assigned. There are things to label in the WH Notebook, but it is clear what to look for and just using the WH plans to check for accuracy there has worked. It is easy to see if everything has been done by making sure all boxes are completed in the WH Notebook. The Fine Arts study is more open ended, but that is an elective course, and as its nature is more inspirational rather than disciplinary (as CM would say ), individuality in students' responses is allowed. It is easy to see if the art projects turned out! I'm pleased to say my ds is doing a nice job on his art projects, as I've mentioned before, probably due to the clear cueing by Pat Knepley (as art is not a natural bent for my ds ). The Living Library has VERY detailed answers for the plot diagrams, and the rest of the assignments have specific things to annotate including page numbers. Creativity for personal response to reading is encouraged in annotating the rest of the chapters, which is in keeping with the CM bent of the Living Library (plus, the Living Library is not part of earned credit). The prayer journal, well - that's personal. I hope this helps, but I'll just close by saying that I worried about teaching high school for as long as I can remember! The last 2 years of high school have been wonderful. Now I don't worry about the years of high school ahead - I worry about them going too fast! Hope this can help put your worries at ease!

In Christ,
Julie