We have completed 20 lessons of Calvert’s 3rd grade and we continue to like it a lot. Things are going MUCH better now that we are this far into the groove.
3rd grade math continues to move fast and Pac continues to love it. He is confident in math and catches on quickly to everything being taught so far.
For spelling, he has continued to score perfect scores on his post-tests, which truly amazes me. He comes up with strategies on his own-I guess he is a better speller than I gave him credit for!! He continues to use “Calvert Mastery Spelling” and I think it really helps.
He continues to use and love the cool computer programs that are integrated into Calvert.
I am BLOWN AWAY with his writing. Seriously, this kid has went from a VERY reluctant writer to begging me to write MORE than required!!!! I think it is due to the fact that he is more confident in his handwriting now and doesn’t have to think as much about handwriting and spelling. His thoughts and ideas can flow faster and more freely now. He is really impressing me! His story called “City Kid” really touched me. I don’t have a photo of it, so here it is {copied exactly}…
“We live in the inner city because we are missionaries. God called us to the inner city so we can help people.Our neighborhood is noisy, crowded, and busy. There is a lot of people. We live in a row home at __________ Ave. Our home is made of brick. A good thing is that I have friends and a great church. But a bad thing is a lot of crime, drugs, and trash. Sometimes I wish I didn’t live in the city. But I know God called us here.”
For reading he read “The Waterfall” and we explored the story in many ways. He continues to do well with comprehension, although I did notice the questions and depth of what is required of him is shaking him up a bit! 
Science is a favorite this year, for both of us. We studied living things, focusing on plants. It was fun to get out his Flowers & Plants Lapbook and relearn things we already spent lots of time on a few years ago!
Geography is coming SO easy for him, our USA PowerPoints have really helped. He is an awesome map reader ;-).
We have decided to stop Mythology, his instructional supervisor with our cyber charter school said this is fine-as it is optional. He can learn about it later, it just doesn’t feel right to me now for him…way to graphic for what we are comfortable with.
We are both loving the Famous Americans book! During this school period we have studied these people: Nathan Hale, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson.
He completed his assessments which I send into our cyber school. He is tested in each subject, which gives me a great picture of where he is at with everything we have covered. I am not allowed to look or talk to him while he takes the tests, but of course I peek when I prep them for sending. He did really well, scoring perfectly on several items{spelling, math, science, SS, geography, phonics}. He had to write complete sentence answers for some questions that were really thought provoking and struggled with those a bit. I think that section really caught him off guard as he is used to multiple choice or one word answers!
See more Out of the Zone posts all about teaching Pac Man here!
