The homeschool curriculum choices blog posts are great, but what I really want to know is what families thought AFTER they used the curriculum they chose! I will be sharing a series of posts with you; evaluating our choices in each grade level and our group subjects.
Next, 3rd grade! Here’s a reminder of the original 3rd Grade Curriculum Choices post.
3rd grade is the year when school gets a little more intense, and it was also the year K’s gymnastics training schedule got more intense. Thankfully we were able to find a new groove after we moved and he did most of his individual schoolwork on 2 days each week! He did some subjects every day {math was an everyday subject} but the intense individual schooling happened on Tuesday and Thursday when he was home most of the day from the gym.
Below I will give a small review of each subject, if you have more specific questions about anything, just leave me a comment and I will do my best to answer!
Spelling ~ All About Spelling
This curriculum works well for him. We finished level 2 {left over from the previous year} and 3 this year. One big change we made this year was doing his lessons with the board on the table like this, instead of upright. For some reason, this really helped him and he was much easier to work with after this change. We will be continuing on with All About Spelling Level 4 next year.
Grammar ~ Growing with Grammar 2 and First Language Lessons 1
Both were great fits for him, I am really pleased with the choices I made. We will be continuing on with both programs for 4th grade. I chose to use FLL level 1 with him because he has some auditory processing delays and I wanted a solid oral program. I was really slack with grammar in the early grades with him, so I needed to back up a bit.
He completed Growing with Grammar level 2 which was a good level for him. This is more of a workbook format, which he greatly prefers. I loved both.
Vocabulary ~ Vocabulary Connections C
The animals made it bearable. This wasn’t his favorite subject, but he didn’t dislike it as much as his brother did. He worked with Daddy on this one after we moved, and it was a good fit for him. He needs some extra work with comprehension and thinking skills, which this provides along with vocabulary development. I haven’t decided if I will order the next level for him yet, I am researching other options right now {looking at Wordly Wise 3000 Online, & Spectrum Vocabulary 4 so far}.
Writing ~ Write Shop D
Again, I was a slacker with writing. We did 4 lessons, and he enjoyed all but the actual writing part – ha ha! I like the curriculum and we plan to complete it this coming school year.
Science ~ Apologia Exploring Creation with Botany
My best friend taught him with her son for the first half of the year before we moved. He loved it! I have no interest in teaching science at all and although I love Apologia, the elementary series looks overwhelming to me. Thankfully my friend loved teaching it to our boys!
Once we moved, I wanted him to continue with basic science reading, so we got out Pac’s old 3rd grade science book and Daddy read to him a few times per week. This worked well.
Math ~ Teaching Textbooks 4 & Life of Fred
Both of these were great fits for Krash. Teaching Textbooks was a great fit BUT we realized mid-year that he really benefited from Daddy teaching him the lesson from the manual prior to going to the computer. So, that’s what we do. He needs the interaction prior to the computer teaching.
Life of Fred was a nice solid oral review, which he needs. He completed books A-D with us reading to him. We will continue if we decide to purchase more, it’s a cost issue.
Reading
At the beginning of the year I had him read aloud to me daily to practice fluency. We used PacMan’s old Calvert readers from 3rd grade. He also read chapter books on his own, and I let him choose them.
We enjoyed reading Smiling Hill Farm together.
Want to see more of 3rd grade in action? Browse through our wrap-up posts, they are listed in order here and there’s a section for each of my kids in each post.
- The First 6 Weeks Wrap-Up
- Monthly Wrap-Up January 2015
- Monthly Wrap-Up February 2015
- Monthly Wrap-Up March 2015
- Monthly Wrap-Up April 2015
Stay tuned, I will be sharing our year-end review for Kindergarten and our All Together subjects. I will also be sharing our curriculum choices for 8th grade, 4th grade, 1st grade and All Together subjects.
We already shared our 7th Grade Year-End Review here.
