Authentic Assessment: Squirrel Math

First, please accept my apology for such awful photos.  I don't know why my camera on my phone has such a hard time focusing.  Ugh.

But I wanted to talk about Authentic Assessment today.

Wikipedia defines it as:

"Authentic assessment tends to focus on contextualised tasks, enabling students to demonstrate their competency in a more 'authentic' setting. Examples of authentic assessment categories include:

• performance of the skills, or demonstrating use of a particular knowledge

• simulations and role plays

• studio portfolios, strategically selecting items

Squirrel Math from our Mother Goose Time Orchard Harvest is a perfect example.

My girl role played 4 different math problem cards using actual acorns, a picture of a squirrel, a flower garden, and a magnetic tree.

This was a great beginning to understanding addition.  We also practiced subtraction with a few of our problems. 

Although this activity didn't take long, I could see that she understood addition pretty well, but we definitely needed more practice in the area of subtraction.  

Quick and easy assessment by observing the child.

In preschool, all there is is authentic assessment.  Role playing, portfolios, and demonstration of learning is the only way to understand the knowledge of preschoolers.  It's so sad how we have left that so far behind in our high-stakes testing in public education.  I lived that world for 8 years.

It is devastating to watch your little 3rd graders so nervous they are sick on the day of the test.

I can not tell you how often I was asked, "Is this going to be on the test?" As if only that information or knowledge was worth learning.

Or how many things I could not teach because there was not enough time due to having to cover everything that was going to be on the test.  

It's a huge reason on why we have chosen to homeschool our children- 

to take them from the test and actually see them learn... really learn, and enjoy the process of it all.

To give them the opportunity to learn just for the gift of learning.

I am so grateful we can homeschool.