End of the Year Testing & Medieval Faire

The school year has finally come to a close. Our daughter's school took the SAT-9 as their end-of-the-year test, and in our homeschool, we used Piedmont Education Services to administer the ITBS. We've been administering either the ITBS or CAT at the end of every school year, and it's been helpful to give us reassurance that we're covering the necessary skills of traditional school as well as giving feedback about where more work may need to be done. Standardized tests are a reality for many hoops in the educational process, and most kids would benefit by a little exposure to them before they are really "high stakes." Another source for homeschool testing is Family Learning Organization. Here's info about Washington state homeschool test providers at the WHO site.

Our daughter had a wonderful medieval faire the next to last day of school. The children's costumes were wonderful (including some royalty, clergy, and Joan of Arc), and the children built catapults, a medieval village, and did calligraphy.

The castle (see below) was great fun to build. We printed the castle templates on glossy brochure paper, used spray adhesive / glue stick to attach it to posterboard, and then folded and taped to put it all together. We printed out the paper medieval soldiers and assorted characters, as well as relevant weapons like the trebuchet, cauldron, battering ram, and ballista. It was great fun!



Classical School Blog: Ancient Warfare: Medieval Siege Weapons