3rd Grade

The theme for this year is Zoology and World Geography. I'm going to combine Jibber Jabber's (JJ) favorite subject, animals with Hermione's love of reading and coloring. Sassafras Science has a living book science series out that includes a book series following two kids around the world while they learn about habitats and animals. They record their findings in a logbook that looks very similar to my homemade animal sheets I used with JJ when he was doing oral reports on his animal of the week. So he should be very familiar with the format. He is, unfortunately, still a reluctant writer, colorer, and a lazy reader UNLESS it's something he's really interested in. Hermione, on the other hand, is a perfectionist who loves everything coloring and reading. Together, they make planning the school year very complicated. I have finally been able to consistently school them together which allows me to go deeper in the fun content subjects. They do math separately since Hermione does everything but math at a 3rd grade level.

Here's my plan:
Language Arts
My own reading list themed around what we're doing in Science and Geography.
Read-Alouds with BraveWriter + Subject

  • Charlotte's Web* - Alliteration
  • Because of Winn-Dixie* - Collage
  • Nim's Island* - Similes and Metaphors
  • Just So Stories* - Invented Language
  • The Mouse and the Motorcycle* - Viewpoint
  • How to Train Your Dragon - Punctuation
  • Wind in the Willows* - Imagery 
  • Mr. Popper's Penguins - Feeling Words

    Read-Alouds
    • The One and Only Ivan
    • Babe, The Gallant Pig
    • Mr. Popper's Penguins
    • Rabbit Hill
    • Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook by Shel Silverstein
    • The Tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves: A Story from the Arabian Nights
    • The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor
    • Geraldine McCaugherean: Myths and Legends of the World Series
      • The Silver Treasure
      • The Golden Hoard
      • The Crystal Pool
      • The Bronze Cauldron
    • Jeanette Winter
      • Nasreen's Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan
      • Wangari's Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa
      • Calavera Abecedario: A Day of the Dead Alphabet Book
      • Biblioburro: A True Story from Colombia
      • The Tale of Pale Male
      • The Secret World of Hildegard
      • Mama: A True Story in Which a Baby Hippo Loses his Mama During a Tsunami, but Finds a New Home, and a New Mama
      • The Watcher: Jane Goodall's Life with Chimps
    • My Librarian is a Camel: How Books are Brought to Children Around the World
    • Evangeline Mudd and the Golden-Haired Apes of the Ikkinasti Jungle
    Independent Reads
    • Stellaluna
      • Graeme Base
        • The Water Hole
        • Little Elephants
      • Fox and His Friends
      • The White Nights of Ramadan
      • Manfish: A Story of Jacques Cousteau
      • Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures 
      Globetrotting with Cinderella - Intellego Unit Studies
      I'll be doing these out of sequence in order to align them with Sassafras Science. 

      From the website:
      Globetrotting with Cinderella - Literature, Geography and Culture
      In this 174 page unit study, your children will explore much more than fairy tales and Cinderella stories! This unit study takes your child on a tour of 6 distinct global cultures, looking at history, music, art, food, and scientific contributions. Children will explore the literary genre of fairy tales and learn the elements of this genre while comparing the six Cinderella stories across the cultures. While on their journey, children will also explore culinary arts, literary devices, public speaking, listening skills, chomatics, trees, volcanoes, kites, fermentation, Egyptian math, and so much more!

      Nations studied: France, Micmac Tribe of Nova Scotia and Maine, Russia, China, Egypt and Korea. 



        Spelling: Sequential Spelling (SS) - I have been shopping around for a spelling that works for both of them. JJ hates busywork and writing, but needs to work on encoding as well as decoding larger words. This looks like it will help him practice seeing where he needs to break words into parts. Sequential Spelling is also a good fit for my terrified-of-making-mistakes girl. She definitely had a period of adjustment where she would melt down because we were going over larger words. Part of the program is to have the kids correct their own spelling immediately which takes a ton of pressure off of Hermione. She's more focused on handwriting and making it all pretty. I bought the original AVKO versions (Homeschool Edition) through Rainbow Resource. The only thing you need is the book. The student response books are optional. I just Pro-Clicked some writing paper for them.


        Writing
        Bravewriter Arrow - Uses quality literature as read alouds to teach grammar, punctuation, spelling, and literary elements. Each module focuses on a specific topic and lasts a month. This will be my first year using this, but I have heard many good things about it. I am in love with the idea of adding in poetry tea time once a week and discussing the read aloud or some poetry while eating cookies. It's what I always imagined homeschooling should be like. A girl can dream....

        Handwriting
        Getty-Dubay Cursive Italics Book D
        3rd Grade Sample
        "Energizing writing practice for basic italic and cursive italic includes capitalization, vowel and consonant sounds, prefixes, suffixes, phonograms, homophones, tongue twisters and six poem forms. Cursive capitals are introduced with historical development of each letter." Handwriting Success



        Math
        Hermione: Math Mammoth 2A/B supplemented with homemade Montessori materials. I found this combination worked really well for for her. I introduce the concepts using the Montessori manipulatives and allow her to develop some confidence. Then we go into MM and do the work. It's been slow work and she had to repeat a couple of chapters in 1A/1B until she really got it. It feels so good to finally see her enjoying math.

        Jibber Jabber: Testing out Beast Academy 3A if that doesn't work out I have all of the grade levels of Math Mammoth. I'm a little nervous about this because MM has been going well for JJ. I do think, he would like BA and do really well with it. He is strong in math and it seems this program is just his style.




        History
        Story of the World: Volume 2: The Middle Ages
        We are still working on this since we spent so much time on the end of Rome, then learning about Knights and Castles. We still have Celts and Vikings to get into. Lots of fun stuff to do still!









        Science
        The Sassafras Science Adventures Volume 1: Zoology - This is a living book series from Elemental Science. The Story follows a brother and sister around the world learning about different animals and habitats. The Activity Guide is similar to the Story of the World Activity Guide. There are encyclopedia pages, recommended living books to read along with the chapter, experiment information, logbook information, vocabulary, copywork and dictation sentences. There is a Logbook that is similar to the animal report sheets I made for JJ. There is an optional Lapbook that will be perfect for Hermione's cut, paste and color addiction. Sassafras has two different scheduling options, 2 or 5 days a week.

        I have collected a few Scholastic books from their dollar sales that could be fun to include.
        Possibly adding in some pages from Teacher Filebox



        World Geography
        Evan-Moor: 7 Continents and Evan-Moor: Daily Geography Practice - Through Teacher Filebox I can print out the pages that go along with Zoology.

        Art
        Draw Write Now Boxed Set - Teaches children how to draw animals.
        Coffee Filter Spider Webs

        Scholastic
        Around the World Coloring Book



        Games
        Ticket to Ride - They love this game! I might have to get the expansions.
        Brainbox: The World - Quick and easy way to remember facts
        Zeus on the Loose - Math Card game with Greek Mythology references
        Not sure they are ready for these, but I have them. 
        10 Days in Europe
        Passport to Culture


        JJ 
        I had him take the DORA test through Lets Go Learn. It told me exactly what I had expected. He has a very low word recognition score, but very high reading comprehension. I suspect it's partly because he guesses at words rather than decodes them. He's working so hard at guessing, he can use the context of the sentence to get the gist of what is being said. I also know his ability to break larger words is not as strong as I'd like it to be. For him, I plan to add in Explode the Code books starting with 4 1/2 and using Sequential Spelling is helping him see word patterns as he spells. We are practicing those word patterns and endings daily with spelling. Those together, I hope will help strengthen his encoding as well as decoding skills.

        Hermione
        Her DORA test came in almost exactly opposite from JJ's. She had really high word recognition (6th grade) but below grade level (K) reading comprehension. She's currently technically in 1st. Her phonics skills are strong, but she breezes through reading without grasping it. I printed Evan-Moor's Daily Reading Comprehension books to start with. 

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        ABOUT THE AUTHOR

        I have been homeschooling since 2009, but have been reading about it since 2003. Homeschooling is rapidly growing. Whether you are a veteran or new to homeschooling, I hope to filter some of the vast amounts of information for you

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