Writing Rubrics a tool for you and your children

I think that I have mentioned that ironically I am working on at a site that trains teachers for public schools. Tonight, the speaker is talking about rubrics. I know that you are thinking what does this have to do with homeschooling, but I am sitting her listening, thinking that this would work wonders especially for my older child on larger projects. A rubric is a preplanned, objective driven assessment tool that helps teachers greade assignments but also helps students prepare their work to meet the stated goals.

Websites Related to writing Rubrics:
http://www.carla.umn.edu/assessment/VAC/Evaluation/p_7.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_2083034_create-rubric.html?ref=fuel&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=ssp&utm_campaign=yssp_art

http://health.usf.edu/publichealth/eta/Rubric_Tutorial/default.htm

While obviously these are traditionally used in schools, I can see how we can use such a tool especially for some unique work like computer presentation, etc. The benefit to the homeschooling community is not the ability to “grade” our students; frankly, many of us who homschool have moved away from the grading idea anyway. As homeschoolers we can use rubrics as a tool to help our children clearly understand what is expected of them and help them arrange their projects so that the subject / objective is clearly covered. Rubrics can also be a great tool for the kids themselves to evaluate their work before they even turn it in. After completing a project, give them the rubric to review their work and determine if it meets the goals and if they need to adjust something before they consider it finished.

What other “school” ideas have you adapted to homeschooling?

Internet Resources

I want to let you know about a website, Homeschool Helper, that I found that has some great homeschool rescources. It seems that they are building the site and some of you may have resources that they could add to it. They have unit studies, worksheets, and record keeping forms.

Of course it does not have as many entiries as Enchanted Learning, but on the otherhand, it is free. When the kids were younger though, the $20 that Enchanted Learning charged was well worth all that I received from the site. It actually probably saved me money in fact, because I did not buy whole books for things that I only needed one or two pages of. Better than that, Enchanted Learning offered me meat in my hands when I was hungry i.e. when a question or thought came to mind, I had information and activities in my hand within minutes. I did not have to wait for the next time we went to the library or the store.

I often wonder how I would have survived before the internet.