Here is a copy of Rocket Boys exemption which is still being processed but based on a phone conversation with a member of the MOE I fully expect it to be accepted and the certificate of exemption is on it's way to my mail box soon.
If not I'll update this post, but for now I'm making this live as I've had a request (or two) from friends to read it.
When reading this keep in mind I did go a little overboard. The reason for this was because I wanted as little issue getting accepted right away due to bubs being on it's way to join us soon and not wanting to deal with this at that time. Both English and Maths were the main areas you can see that I provided more information than I needed to, the amount of information I provided for the other subjects was all that was legally required.
I also followed the list of subjects as listed on the New Zealand curriculum which again you are not legally required to, but I wanted to cover all bases again because of bubs.
I've removed all personal information, but if you see I've missed something please comment and let me know.
Also keep in mind this is how I plan to home school Rocket Boy right now, it can change and grow as we change and grow. This application shows my perfect world plan which isn't followed every day, to be honest we are more in holiday mode right now, as I struggle at the end of this pregnancy. But that's the joy of homeschooling, we make it fit in with our family not the other way round, and while he might be having somewhat of a holiday now, we can work through any main stream school holidays as we're not subjected to their term dates.
I've copied and pasted this from Microsoft word and some formatting will be lost so might look a little wonky.
17th June 2013
Homeschooling Exemptions Officer
Ministry of Education
19 Home Straight Rd
Te Rapa
Ministry of Education
19 Home Straight Rd
Te Rapa
Dear Sir/Madam
Please find attached my application for a Certificate of
Exemption for my son Rocket Boy.
As I have been Rocket Boy’s primary educator since birth, I
believe that education in the home can continue even when a child has reached
school age.
I will be providing
my son with the education he needs in a positive learning environment to become
a balanced and responsible, well rounded individual who will contribute well to
society.
As you will see in the following pages, Rocket Boy will be
taught at least as regularly and well as in a registered school, covering a
broad curriculum.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact
me.
Kind regards,
Routine
As home educators we don’t break up our day into subjects,
while some subjects are covered in a more traditional school form with direct
teaching and work books, many other subjects are just part of our everyday
life. We do have a structure to our days
which ensures we cover what I consider the core subjects to Rocket Boy’s
current educational needs without excluding Rocket Boy’s ability to self-direct
his own learning.
Rocket Boy wakes around 7am and joins the family for
breakfast shortly after waking.
During breakfast we complete calendar time where we go over
the day, date, month, year, weather and season. We sing many songs during this time which
teach the days of the week as well as the months of the year.
After breakfast Rocket Boy is expected to complete his
personal hygiene tasks and get dressed for the day. He then has free time until
9am.
On Monday, Thursday and Friday Rocket Boy’s younger sister
goes to a Montessori preschool, we usually leave the house around 8:20am and
arrive home before 9am. We listen to
NewstalkZB while in the car during this time.
Rocket Boy has just started taking an interest in what’s on the radio
and will typically ask questions about the news stories. We discuss Rocket Boy’s questions on the
drive home.
We spend from 9am until 12 noon at the dining room table,
completing any book work I’ve prepared for the day covering subjects such as
English, Mathematics, Te Reo Maori and any other subjects which require us to
be at the table to complete.
During this time we stop for morning tea which Rocket Boy
helps to prepare.
Once book work is complete we move to the computer to
complete Rocket Boy’s reading eggs lesson and then complete a Mathseeds lesson,
as Mathseeds is still new to Rocket Boy he is unable to work independently on
this yet.
Afternoons are usually spent on a more emergent curriculum
based on Rocket Boy’s current interests, as well as our social obligations and
household chores.
We typically keep to this routine 5-6 days a week depending
on outside influences such as sickness.
English – Literacy
and communication
Learning Goals
v
Read a wide variety of text for both pleasure
and information gathering.
v
Print legibly and fluently to express himself
and communicate to others.
v
Listen and speak to a wide variety of people
effectively.
v
To expand on his knowledge of Te Reo Maori
Resources
v
Hamilton city libraries
v
Handwriting without tears curriculum
v
Reading eggs online program
v
Learning language arts – The blue book
v
Reading Journal
v
Internet
v
TV
v
Family
v
Social outings
Methods, Progress and
Achievement
v
Rocket Boy can already identify all letters of
the alphabet in both upper and lower case, although still gets b and d mixed up
at times which is to be expected at his age.
v
We visit the Hamilton city library once a week
where Rocket Boy chooses several books based on his current interests. I also get a selection of early readers at
his current reading level which ensures Rocket Boy always has something new to
read every day to expose him to as many different words and sentences to
increase his vocabulary and reading skills.
v
Rocket Boy has completed the Pre K work book
from the Handwriting without tears curriculum called “My First School Book”
This curriculum teaches printing and
cursive handwriting using different sensory methods such as play dough, wooden
pieces, magnetic board, chalk board, iPad app and work books. Also song and rhyme with actions that require
fine motor skills.
Using this program Rocket Boy can now print
all upper case letters of the alphabet and digits 0 – 9.
Rocket Boy’s next step is to move onto the
next work book “Letters and Numbers for Me”.
This book will help Rocket Boy decrease the size of his printing and
then move onto printing lower case before writing words then sentences.
We currently spend at least 15 minutes a
day on this curriculum in the morning at our dining room table.
v
Reading Eggs is an online reading program which
teaches phonics, sight words, word family, spelling and vocabulary. Rocket Boy can also use this program to
create his own short stories, learn songs and play games which all teach sounds
and language.
After each 10 lessons Rocket Boy has to
pass a multiple choice test to unlock the next 10 lessons. This allows me to identify any areas he needs
to repeat before moving on.
Reading Eggs also provides a progress
report for the parent and as at 1st June 2013 Rocket Boy knows 189
phonic skills (Letter sound correspondences and their use in decoding words)
and 145 sight words.
I plan for Rocket Boy to continue with this
reading eggs program and move into the ‘Reading Eggspress” which is aimed at a
reading level of 7 years and older and will expose Rocket Boy to the skills
needed to tackle early chapter books, and another 200 lessons.
Rocket Boy currently works on his reading
eggs lessons independently.
v
Learning Language arts – The blue book covers
phonics, reading, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, cursive handwriting and
higher-order reasoning. This curriculum
uses early readers, flash cards, a student activity book and classic children’s
books such as “Caps for Sale” and “Goodnight Moon”
I find this curriculum covers many of the
material already covered within Handwriting without tears and Reading Eggs,
therefore this curriculum is used mainly for revision and to expose Rocket Boy
to skills presented in a different way.
Lessons plans are provided in the teachers
book, but as Rocket Boy has already mastered most of the skills in this
curriculum we spend a maximum of half an hour on this each week in order to
cover a weeks’ worth of lessons plans.
Once Rocket Boy completes the Blue Book we
will not be moving onto the next level of this curriculum.
v
I require Rocket Boy to read one early reader
each day to his father in the evenings.
This is recorded in his Kluwell ‘Read It Reading Journal’ where he earns
stickers and certificates for each 25 nights of reading.
v
We already use many Te Reo Maori words in our
day to day life such as greetings and directions. I plan to increase Rocket Boy’s and our whole
family’s knowledge of this language by learning songs and rhymes and adding the
Te Reo Maori words to our morning calendar time.
Mathematics
Learning Goals
v
Competent and confident with basic addition,
subtraction, multiplication and fractions
v
Competent at reading an analogue clock.
v
Competent and confidant with basic Geometry.
v
Learn to count money and be able to work out how
to pay for small items purchased using real money in real situations.
Resources
v
Handwriting without tears
v
Mathseeds online program
v
Start right year 1 mathematics workbook
v
Board games
v
Baking
v
Toys and puzzles
v
Tangram Games
v
Internet
Methods, Progress and
Achievement
v
Rocket Boy already has a good grasp of numbers
and can correctly read digits and count into the hundreds. Rocket Boy can read a digital clock although
can sometimes get 2 and 5 mixed up.
v
Using the Handwriting without tears curriculum Rocket
Boy has learnt how to print digits 0 – 9; the next step is to decrease the size
of his printing and printing multiple digits numbers.
v
We have just started trailing the Mathseeds
online program which was developed by the same people who created reading
eggs. This program is new and we still
have some problems with the running of it on the computer so haven’t been able to
consistency use it every day. Once the
developers have this program running nicely I hope to add it to Rocket Boy’s
daily Reading Eggs lesson as independent learning. Skills covered in this program at his
current level have been: number line, matching, more than or less than 10,
counting, ordering, patterns, simple addition and subtraction, connect the dots
and pictures.
v
We regularly play board games with Rocket Boy,
and try to have one evening a week when we play board games as a family while Rocket
Boy’s younger sister is already in bed.
We have a wide selection of board games, and many require rolling a dice
and moving your game piece the correct amount of places. We also have several board games which Rocket
Boy loves to choose which uses play money and requires Rocket Boy to pay and be
paid money throughout the game, teaching him money skills.
v
Rocket Boy bakes with me at least once a
week. Baking teaches both fractions and
weights.
v
We have many shape sorting toys, as well as
puzzles which help teaches many of the different shapes and their names.
v
Rocket Boy enjoys Tangram games, 3-4 times a
week Rocket Boy uses our tangram set to create pictures out of shapes.
v
As Rocket Boy practices his handwriting of
numbers I plan to produce worksheets which can be found online easily using a
search engine.
v
Rocket Boy earns pocket money which is paid to
him weekly based on work completed within the house during the week. Rocket Boy is learning to work out how much
money is earned each week, and to save to reach a goal for a certain item he
wants.
v
I plan to purchase a math program by the end of
2013, at this stage based on my current research I will be purchasing the Math
U See curriculum. The first year of this
program covers many things such as Place Values, Shapes, Skip counting,
Addition of Tens and Hundreds, Telling time with minutes and hours as well as
simple addition and subtraction.
Physical education
Physical activity is very important and I believe that we
all need to be active for at least 20 minutes each and every day.
Currently we are attending a Home school Sports Group every
Thursday afternoon during the school term.
I plan to purchase a home school physical education
curriculum called ‘Family time fitness’ which provides lesson plans designed
for 3-5 days a week which last 30-45 minutes .
Rocket Boy does enjoy children’s playgrounds which he’ll
happily play in for as long as I’ll let him.
I plan to take him to the Claudelands playgroup 1-2 times a week weather
dependant.
Health
Rocket Boy is learning about healthy eating and as his younger
sister has weak tooth enamel there is a lot of meal time discussion on what
food is good or bad for your teeth and body.
I plan to follow this up with a unit study on the body later this term,
using online resources found on a home schooling blog as well as pintrest, the
library, and magic school bus videos.
Geography
Rocket Boy is learning about different countries and
cultures in the world through many different methods. I have a store bought curriculum called
“Little Passports” where Rocket Boy receives a parcel from two characters named
Sam and Sofia who travel the world on a magical scooter and send Rocket Boy a
letter, souvenir, information sheet and photo from the country they visit.
We also participate in a global postcard swap through a
website called post crossing. For every
post card we send to addresses provided on this website we receive one back
from a random country. When we receive
them we spend time searching on our world map for the country and read all the
information on the postcard. If Rocket
Boy shows an interest we will then study the country in more detail using
resources such as the internet, family and the public library.
Rocket Boy’s Grandparents on both sides travel overseas
several times a year and send him postcards on their travels.
In the last month I started a New Zealand Postcard swap where
we send a postcard about our local area once a week to other homeschoolers in
New Zealand and in turn we receive a postcard from different areas in New
Zealand each week. We have a large map
of New Zealand we were find the town/city where the postcard came from and use resources
such as the internet, family and the public library to find out more
information about that part of New Zealand.
My hope is this group will grow and the swap will continue for many
months.
History
Rocket Boy shows some interest in learning about the
machinery from war time. To hopefully spark this interest we are planning a
trip to MOTAT in Auckland in August. I
have a book with cardboard model airplanes to give Rocket Boy during this trip
which will hopefully be the start of a unit study on this subject.
Social Studies
We use the Start Right Social Studies work book year 1 - 2,
which is based on the New Zealand Curriculum.
We currently complete 3-4 pages each week. When completed I plan to
purchase the next work book.
Technology
Rocket Boy’s father works as a Network engineer and as a
result Rocket Boy is exposed to many different forms of technology on a daily
bases.
Rocket Boy can navigate his way around a computer menu
within Windows 7 to start games and internet browsers. Rocket Boy is learning that there are
different programs that do similar things, for example internet explorer and
Google chrome.
Rocket Boy has access to tablets, both Apple and Android and
knows they are different operation systems.
Through recent discussions
Rocket Boy has started to learn that technology has not always been in the same
form as it is today and loves to ask questions about what both his Father and
myself had access to during our childhoods.
As his Poppa has been employed within the information
technology sector for several decades and kept a lot of the old technology such
as old Personal Computers, terminals, printers, phones and media I plan to
explore these with Rocket Boy later this year.
Science
We do not have a set time for completing any science
curriculum but I find this is covered in our day to day living for example
weekly baking, watching Myth Busters on TV.
We do complete unit studies when Rocket Boy shows an
interest in a certain subject. We are
currently studying space; we’ve made a model of our solar system and have
learned the names of the different planets.
Our next step is to learn about
space travel and life in space, I plan on showing Rocket Boy many of the online
videos from Astronaut Chris Hadfield.
Rocket Boy has already learned about making a hypothesis and
then testing and researching to find the answer. As Rocket Boy’s handwriting
skills improve I plan to give him a science workbook in which we can record any
experiments he chooses to attempt.
Music
Rocket Boy has not shown any interest in learning an
instrument as at yet but will happily play with the piano experimenting with
the different types of sounds he can get out of it. We also have many percussion instruments
which he will play with if someone else initiates play with them first.
I do plan to teach Rocket Boy how to play the descant Recorder and read music
when he is ready which may not be until after he is 7 years old.
Arts and Crafts
Due to Rocket Boy’s younger sisters high interest in Arts
and Crafts we always have supplies available including paint every day. Rocket Boy has only shown interest in some
craft activities but will usually join in at least once a week with any
activity I am completing with his younger sister.
I do own a curriculum to teach Rocket Boy about 8 of the
world’s greatest artists such as Picasso, Van Gogh and Monet which teaches
about their different styles, methods and images. Currently Rocket Boy is not ready for this
curriculum; I do hope to be able to introduce it to him at some point in 2014.
Areas in the home
Rocket Boy works well at the dining room table during the
morning. We do have a desk in his room
which he may choose to use if he wishes but currently prefers to be in the
centre of the home.
Computers are set up in an open area of our home. We have a separate computer and desk
designated as the school computer.
Library books have their own space in the home but reading
can be done anywhere Rocket Boy chooses.
But as learning is not limited to tables and flat surfaces,
the whole house and backyard are used throughout the day.
Social Contact
Rocket Boy is a very social child and will talk to anyone
and everyone he meets from the other kids at groups we go to, to the adults in
the supermarket.
We also attend church weekly, several homeschool groups including the sports
group and The Home Educators Network play centre.
I also provide after school and school holiday care for
several friends children ages ranging from 5 to 8.
Assessment and
Evaluation
From my daily observation of Rocket Boy I will be able to
assess when he’s ready to move onto the next step for the majority of his
learning. Our store brought curricula
have built in assessments and a progression to the next level, and if I see Rocket
Boy struggling with anything we will take a week off to do revision.
Topic
What sinks and what floats?
Rocket Boy asked if a Lego Minifigure would float in water. We decided together this question was worth
testing, and expanding.
Method
v
Rocket Boy wants to expand on this experiment
and has made several Lego creations out of his many Lego pieces to see if they
would also float.
v
Once Rocket Boy has completed his designs I will
also get him to collect 10 other items from both inside and outside the house
to add to the experiment. I have items
in mind in case he needs guidance such as a face cloth, stick, leaf, stones,
paper, and other toys that I don’t mind getting wet (no electronics).
v
Rocket Boy will form a hypothesis for each item
on if it will sink or float.
v
We will use an old plastic fish tank for this
experiment. Rocket Boy will need to work
out where is the best place for doing this experiment, either inside or
outside. Once a location is chosen and
as we are working with water Rocket Boy will need to identify any risks and we
will work on eliminating, isolating or reducing these risks. Such as placing the tank in a large clear
area, placing a water proof sheet underneath to protect the carpet, completing
the experiment while his younger sister is at kindy.
v
Rocket Boy will be required to record the
results and has requested we do this by making a video of the experiment. I will also encourage Rocket Boy to use his
digital camera to take photos throughout the whole experiment.
v
With my help Rocket Boy will create a graph to
record the results, with either an F for float or an S for sink.
v
I will encourage Rocket Boy to make changes to
the experiment to see if the results change for any items such as changing the
temperature or amount of water, altering his Lego designs.
v
As one of Rocket Boy’s Lego designs is a boat I
hope to encourage him to look at boat designs and move onto water displacement,
starting with the duct tape boat designs that have been featured on TV Myth busters.
v
We will watch videos on You Tube, find designs
on the internet, and look at books at the local public library.
v
I will encourage Rocket Boy to draw any designs
on paper. Rocket Boy has never been keen
to draw and will most likely struggle with this but he will still make some
kind of attempt.
v
If Rocket Boy’s interest stays on this topic I
hope to encourage Rocket Boy to work with his Father who has a month’s leave
from work in August to design and construct a full scale boat which can be
tested in a friend’s pool.
v
I will encourage Rocket Boy to display his
photos, graphed results and any designs on a science project board or scrap
book.
Learning Goals
v
Handwriting practise
v
Drawing
v
Forming a hypothesis
v
Identifying risks then eliminating, isolating or
reducing them
v
Presenting on camera
v
Graphing experiment results
v
Adapting an experiment
v
Designing both Lego and a boat
v
Construction in both small and large scale with
adult help
v
Learning the basics about floating and sinking
(buoyancy)
Resources
v
Lego
v
Experiment supplies such as fish tank and other
home items
v
Local public library
v
You Tube
v
TV Myth busters
v
Boat building supplies in both small and large
scales to be identified during the experiment
Progress and
achievement
Due to the nature of
the topic and Rocket Boy’s age and abilities any evaluation will be done by
observation and discussion. Both his
Father and I will ask questions about his experiments and his discoveries about
buoyancy. We will assess his understanding
from these questions and discussions. We
will also be able to assess his handwriting, drawing, camera and construction
skills as he attempts them. We also
want Rocket Boy to learn to assess his own progress so we will be discussing
what he has done well and what he could improve on for next time.
