I have been asked so many times by so many wonderful readers if I would begin to blog more about my experiences with Pac Man. I have been reluctant to do this because it is SO far out of my comfort zone and I feel I have nothing to offer. A kind reader commented on last week’s Pac Man post that it would be helpful for me to actually share what is like to be “Out of My Comfort Zone” which has inspired me to create a new feature on my blog {hopefully weekly} to share something regarding Pac Man and his schooling. 3rd grade and beyond is not comfortable for an early childhood educator ;-), so everything I will share about him officially falls into being out of my comfort zone! I am excited about learning along with him and growing as a teacher and mom through our experiences over the years. When out of my zone, I tend to learn the most!
I do better with features on my blog {so I don’t forget}; Tot School, Raising Rock Stars Preschool Behind the Scenes, Preschool Printables, Raising Rock Stars, In My Spare Time, Thank You. It just seems to make sense to add a new feature to help me remember!
For the past several weeks I have been labeling Pac Man’s posts “Pac Man Loves” but soon realized that he may not love everything I share about!!! 😉 I will now be calling these posts…
For my first Out of the Zone post I thought I would share my initial thoughts about our big ol’ stack of Calvert supplies now that I have planned out our first 40 lessons. We have bumped our start date back a week due to major construction going on to renovate the new schoolroom, so I have a bit more planning time built in now!
Specifically this is what we got in our Calvert 3rd Grade box…
Here are the subjects that are not published by Calvert, but are used within the Calvert program {I linked if I could find it online}. You can see the inside of any of the books on the Calvert website itself using their awesome interactive features.
- Reading: Houghton Mifflin
- Phonics: Steck Vaughn; Level C
- Spelling: Scott Foresman/Addison Wesley; Everyday Spelling {writing, vocabulary}
- Critical Thinking: Steck Vaughn; Level C
- Social Studies: Scott Foresman; Communities
- History: Tales From Far and Near/Tales of Long Ago
- Smiling Hill Farm
- Geography: Steck Vaughn; Maps, Globes & Graphs Level C
- Science: McGraw Hill, 3rd Grade
Calvert has it’s own math program, which we like a lot-it works really well for Pac Man and he LOVES math. Calvert also publishes a few of their own resources; one I really love this year is called A Child’s Study of Famous Americans.
We also have access to these awesome online resources, the computer component is truly amazing.
I just found this website which helps you find out if you are able to receive Calvert free of charge in your state. You have to fill out the form and I guess they get back to you.
I have planned out the first 40 lessons of 3rd grade and I am excited! It is a FULL schedule and will about double the workload Pac is used to. Next week I plan to share my planning forms and how I have our days planned {I will provide downloads in case anyone else is using Calvert 3rd grade {my forms are specific to this program}.
As we move along I will try to share what is/isn’t working for us and what I think of different parts of the program. After browsing through the books, I am really excited and pleased. I really like the changes and think this will be a great fit for Pac Man!
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