Pendleton Home School Association

Here is the Registration Form and this information in PDF format.

Testing Information for 2010

Tues., May 11th                                  

 Peace Lutheran Church

(9th and Carden, Pendleton)

Wed., May 12^th                                                      

 Nazarene Church of Hermiston

(1520 W. Orchard Extension.)

Take the Hwy 207 Exit off I-84.

Go North about 5 miles.

Go through the stop light at Highland and Hwy 207.

At Orchard turn left and go about ½ mile.

Church is on the right.

Testing times:                                      Grades 1-12 9:00-11:30

Please arrive 10-15 minutes prior to testing time. Pencils are provided. Calculators may not be used. Students may bring a book to read while they are waiting for others to finish. They may also bring a snack for break time. Grades 1,2, and 3 each test separately. Students in grades 4-12 test together.

Testing is done by Basic Skills of Oregon City. The test is the California Achievement test (CAT).

The cost is $40 per student. There is an additional fee of $7 for an optional diagnostic profile. The profile gives you more specific information of the content of the questions your child missed.

Testing is required by the state in grades 3, 5, 8, and 10. Some school districts require testing if home school students are to participate in public school sports or activities.

Practice tests are available through Basic Skills- please go through the PHSA.bcmi.net website and click on the Basic Skills button. They are reproducible for your own family use.

You can contact them at (503) 650-5282 or www.basicskills.net.

If you have questions, feel free to contact Janet at (541) 443-2920 email: witnesstree@eoni.com

DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION IS April 30th, 2010.

The new Subscription/Membership Form has been added to the forms section.

We changed the fee schedule for this year.  We’ve included gym time in the regular fee instead of charging seperately for it.  The fee for this year (July 1- June 30)will be $25.00 per family.  Please read the By-laws.

The Gym- Rec time is a popular time.  We meet at a local gym and let the children play for an hour.  I believe we are adding more weeks this year so it will start earlier in the fall and go into spring.

We request the information about what curriculum you use in order to provide a resource for others who are interested in that curriculum.

We are always looking for people to be involved and welcome your input.

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Why Homeschool.

I found two articles about The Big Question- Socialization, interesting. The first one is at Principled Discovery titled “What is it about socialization?” Then The Rebellious Pastor’s Wife continues the subject with this post- “The Plus Side of Homeschool Socialization.”

Is there a novel floating around in your head? Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month? To learn how it works and some tricks check out National Novel Writing Month at Little Blue School.

Check out the Carnival and find some gems of your own.

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Homeschoolbuzz.com. There are many interesting articles to read but one that caught my eye was “16 Reasons to Read Aloud” at Works in Progress. I read aloud to my children often and this confirms why it’s a good idea. We tend to want to buy the newest and greatest new programs and forget what a great thing just reading out loud can be for our children’s education.

The Charlotte Mason Carnival is up at Homeschoolers. Oregon Style. The list is fairly short this time. Go see if anything catches your eye.

“A Review of the Homeschooling Literature” at Help! My Kids are Smarter than Me! is an interesting, although a tad intellectual, read. One of the things that caught my attention was this:

In the United States, at every grade level, home schooled students’ average score placed between the 82nd and the 92nd percentile in reading and reached the 85th percentile in math. Overall, test scores for home schoolers placed between the 75th and 85th percentiles. In contrast, public school students scored at the 50th percentile, while private school students’ scores ranged from the 65th to the 75th percentile.

And this one can help us all breath a sigh of relief and a possible talking point when those people look at you all horrified as they drop the big question- “what about socialization???!?”

Research also suggests that home schooled students are more sociable than their school peers, as well as more independent of peer values as they grow older.

I’ll leave you with this last article about a study in the United Kingdom about how father’s spending time with their children can effect, for the good, their children’s I.Q.

A big hat tip goes to Why Homeschool for highlighting the last two articles. I glean most of my articles of interest from them.

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at A Pondering Heart. I haven’t read any of the articles yet but if you do come back and tell us your favorite!

Also, the Charlotte Mason Carnival is all about narrating- so your assignment will be to go read an article ONCE then come back here and narrate it. It’s hosted at Simply Charlotte Mason.

I found mention of a site for homeschoolers called Homeschoolers Like Us. It’s a “social network web site”- has anyone used this site? What do you think of it?

We went on a field trip to see how grass seed is cleaned.

This very nice, funny and informative man took us on a tour.

(Click on thumbnails to enlarge. The thumbnail tends to cut off some of the photo.)

The dirty, right out of the field, seed is put into large storage rooms. Here the kids are feeling it.

These are screens that the seed goes over in one of the processes to clean it. The seed must meet certain standards- I believe it has to be 98% clean – before it can be sold. Every batch is tested before it’s bagged.

On the second of three floors we saw some seed going over a screen.

On the top (third) floor we got to feel the insides and outsides of drums used to filter out the dirt.

Here he is explaining how this machine works.

We walked back down the three flights of stairs and went over to see how the seed is bagged. I’ll show those pictures another day. Stay tuned!

I am totally stealing that blog title but I am going to direct you to where I found it. It’s at a blog titled “Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers”- I just love that name! There is a picture of kids wearing tee shirts with that on them- you can find out how to get your own at that site too. But, while you are there, check out this post- titled “How Do You Know?” How does one know what level your child is reading on? Curious? At the end of the post there are two links to simple tests you can give your child at home.

If there is someone in your life who is a little, shall we say, concerned about your child’s education then you can breezily say “Oh, Junior is in 2nd grade but his tested reading level is the 11th grade.” Or you can use the tests to see progress- sometimes we lose sight of the little gains that are being made. It’s not about reading on a certain grade level but learning to read so that it is a love and a pleasure to the child in years to come.

It’s the time of year again when the question comes up- “Do we have to notify the Education Service District (ESD) that we are homeschooling this year and how do we do that?”

In order to answer that question, I’ll provide a few links. In the “Link” section of this page you will see one for the Umatilla Morrow ESD. That link will take you directly to their homeschool page. They have what information is needed for a letter and also a handy form you can fill out and mail in. Their address is there also.

Confused about when you have to inform them? The Oregon Department of Education provides that information on their home school page. The pdf is titled “Oregon Guidelines for Home Schooling- Questions and Answers“.

Another site that also explains Oregon requirements is this one at OCEANetwork.org.