We have completed 10 lessons of Calvert’s 3rd grade and I am loving it so far. I am wanting to keep more of a journal for Pac Man {which I neglected to do for 1st and 2nd grades ~ bad mommy}, but better to start now than not ever! I did well with journaling {privately and on this blog} for his PreK and Kindergarten year and want to do better for him. Honestly I am learning new things right along with him now {relearning most} and it is fun! I am enjoying 3rd grade so much more than I thought I would. I also think the grandparents {and maybe some of you} will enjoy reading specifics about what he is learning.
I am amazed with how fast 3rd grade math has moved. Pac Man LOVES math though so this is fun for me since I hate math! He is very easy to teach so far. Daddy also loves math so he casually teaches the boys lots of math skills before we even get to them in school! Pac Man has flown right through many new math skills so far with no trouble at all.
For spelling, I still would choose to do All About Spelling, but for now Pac Man is doing well with the spelling book we are using with Calvert, I will be adding in AAS lessons as needed down the road as needed.. For his first 2 pretests he got 9/14 correct and then finished both with a perfect score for the post-test! Calvert has an awesome online program called “Calvert Mastery Spelling” which gives Pac a simple activity each day to work with the words. He loves this and I think it really helps.
Speaking of the computer, he has some cool programs that are integrated into Calvert. The technology lessons are wonderful and he really enjoys them. He is currently learning typing and has already learned many word processing skills. 
Daddy actually walked in and saw him working and said, “man, I don’t even know how to do some of that!” Pac loves the computer {like me} so this is really fun for him! Calvert also has daily check points online, which are brief review questions for each subject taught that day. He logs in and takes the checkpoints and I can easily see his scores immediately to see anything we need to review.
He doesn’t usually like Calvert writing lessons, at least he didn’t for 2nd grade. But, this year he has more freedom to construct his own stories and he is really enjoying it so far. Once I got him over the “I hate writing” attitude, he was good to go for the most part. His first story assignment was “School at Home” which I think he did really well on!
My favorite line… ”I am excited because my mom is going to keep the little kids away from me.” 😉
For reading he really enjoyed his first stories, “The Lost and Found,” and “The Ballad of Mulan.” Would you believe we have never even seen the Disney movie Mulan, and I was unfamiliar with the story myself. Not only did Pac enjoy it, but he also read the story aloud to Krash one day! Pac’s reading comprehension is amazing, and we rarely have to review anything.
Science is fun, but not as fun as it will be when we begin to actually do the experiments. I have put those on hold until we are in the new school room ;-). We have been studying living things, and really enjoying the science book.
Nothing too exciting in Social Studies or Geography yet, but it has been GREAT to see how much P already knows. The basic geography that has been taught is just a review for him so far. I can already see where our USA PowerPoints have come in handy!
Neither of us are really enjoying Mythology, it is just so far fetched and I am not into it-never really was when I learned it in school either. He struggles with it, I believe at the heart level a bit. He doesn’t really understand why he has to study “fairy tales” as he calls them.
We are both loving the Famous Americans book! So far we have learned a lot about the American Revolution and studied these people: Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, John Paul Jones, and Molly Pitcher, I am reading this aloud to him and it becomes a nice cuddle time for us. I decided not to have Pac do the written pages included {they are optional via Calvert} and we go over them orally together. I think he is really enjoying the laid back approach to this subject and in turn really enjoying it. He has actually asked to read additional stories each day! I am researching some supplemental activities for us to do about the American Revolution, probably a lapbook ;-). We’ll see!
Overall the first 10 days have been a success. He really struggled for the first 5 days or so with the amount of work and the difficulty. He breezed through school until now and is finally having to put real thought into things. This was a very hard adjustment for him but I am amazed that he has handled it well for the past 5 lessons. He really turned a corner and the excitement about the new schoolroom keeps him going!
We are still not in daily school mode yet, just getting a bit of a jump start before we go on our 2 week trip in September. We will be officially staring our every day school year when we return mid-September. Pac is working hard now so he won’t have to take any schooling with him when we travel!
~I asked Pac Man if he was OK with me publicly blogging about him and school, he is very interested in my blog. I have promised him I will never write anything about home online without him knowing first {things that could possibly be embarrassing. He was fine with it and excited to be featured! ;-) I hope this will be a neat thing for him to look back on!
