If you try to follow WTM rec's- tell me how your gr.3 day goes

[plain jane]

I want to start off by saying I heart TWTM. It's a great fit for our family, the dc are thriving, and I want to stick with it.

 

I know the book is just a guideline, that SWB had to write a schedule for the publisher, etc. Still... I'm having a bit of a difficult time tweaking my daily schedule to fit it all into an acceptable amount of time each day. I added up all the subjects she recommends, and the approximate times she "suggests" and it came to 7 hours of instruction per day. :001_huh: I guess this is where the whole "guideline" thing comes into play. :tongue_smilie:

 

So far, I'm getting it all done, but quite frankly, I'm starting to feel burnt out- and it's only November!!:glare: I'm trying to figure out where to cut and what, but I'm stuck. What does your grade 3 dc's day look like? What about the week? Where have you cut back from WTM rec's while still feeling that you're following the WTM???

[hscherger]

Here is my 3rd graders day. We do a 4 day/week schedule

 

8:00-8:20 Piano Practice

8:20-8:45 Quarter Mile Math or Mavis Beacon Typing (alternate days)

8:45-9:00 Bible (whole family)

9:00-9:40 Math (Saxon 3 but reallt ready for 5/4)

9:40-10:00 FLL3

10:00-10:20 WWE3

10:20-10:40 Spelling Workout D

10:40-11:00 Prima Latina

11:00-11:30ish Reading for History on T Literature selections on M TH F silently

Break for Lunch and Play

1:00-2:00 History M F (WTM style with Biblioplan added for more AM. History) Science T TH (WTM style)

2:00-2:40 Another math lesson (because it's easy for him and he LOVES it and we want to get to 5/4)

 

He usually has a "fun" book that he is reading as well.

 

I don't know if we are slacking, but it is only about 4 hours of instruction from me and the rest is independent. I make sure he (and the other kids) have plenty of play time.

 

HTH

Edited November 10, 2009 by hscherger

[Quiver0f10]

This is my 3rd graders day:

 

Bible/memory M-F

WWE M-Th

Barton's Reading & Spelling M-F

Winston Grammar M W TH

MUS-2 pages/day and a test of Friday

TOG- M W F

R.E.A.L. Science Chemistry- T TH

He reads a chapter from an easy reader daily and I do a read aloud in ther afternoons.

 

We finish before noon except for his reading and read alouds.

[crowscreek]

We do the same!!

 

We do LA, math, everything else before noon.

 

We do the extras after we eat lunch at @ 12:30.

 

:)

[farmwife]

I understand.

 

8-8:30-Music.

8:30-9-Bible

9-9:30-Bible Worksheet

9:30-10:15-Math

10:15-10:30-handwriting

10:30-11-All-About-Spelling

11:1130-Grammer

11:30-12-WWE

12-12:30-Lunch

12:30-1-Piano Practice

1-2-Break/outside

2-3-Latin

3-4-History/Science

 

A schedule helps tremendously! I need that hour break to decompress! Then I am ready to tackle those last subjects!

 

HTH!

[abbeyej]

I'm not sure how far from strict WTM we've strayed with the younger one at this point...

 

She does math (we do Horizons and a little Singapore) 5 days a week.

 

MWF:

R&S 3 - one lesson, I require most work be written

WWE2 - two "days" at a time, three times a week

SWO D - one full lesson each day, but spelling happens to be very easy for her (and I'm using this mostly to keep her occupied while I teach ds)

SOTW - we read the chapter and I hand her additional reading to do. We do the mapwork from the AG but are inconsistent with the rest of it...

science- we read a section a week from So You Really Want to Learn Science Junior book 1 from Galore Park, and she keeps a notebook for major terms and answering the questions at the end of each section. It's not very WTM-ish, but it works for us.

 

T/Th:

memory work

literature class (just fun stuff)

Minimus Latin

science lab (basic experiments) or art appreciation

 

She reads a lot on her own... She's usually finished by lunch time.

[Colleen in NS]

What does your grade 3 dc's day look like? What about the week? Where have you cut back from WTM rec's while still feeling that you're following the WTM???

 

My grade 3 child:

 

8:30-9:30 piano practice, play with Daddy

9:30-11 play while I work with big brother

11-12:30 I tutor her in:

- math

- grammar

- writing

- Latin

- memory work

- spelling

- cursive

I also write down any history or science reading/mapwork I want her to do after lunch.

1-3 p.m. "naptime" - she finishes any written work like math, grammar diagrams, or Latin exercises, and then reads

3-3:30 she does her corrections, then is free

 

This is Monday to Thursday. Thursday mornings, instead of grammar/Latin/spelling/cursive, we work on a science experiment altogether. Fridays are for her reading aloud to me, writing a letter, or practicing some art skills, as well as going to the library and the pool.

 

How I have cut back is to realize that not everything takes as long as it says in WTM. I also do a lot of the math lessons orally, and most of the grammar lessons orally. I focus on my list of basic skills work in the mornings, and the reading I leave up to her for naptime - she is a good reader now. But I also read aloud to my children in the evenings. I also integrate writing lessons with content work - we use WWE, and use content reading to provide fodder for the writing exercises. So, history/literature/science all get done either in her naptime or when we do writing exercises. I zero in on teaching skills efficiently so that she can have lots of reading time. Her reading material includes history, science, literature, art appreciation, music appreciation, and other things. I try to keep piles of library books on hand most of the time, that have roughly to do with whatever we are going through at the moment.

Edited November 10, 2009 by Colleen in NS

[Jami]

I'm not sure if we're WTMish enough to qualify, but here's what my 3rd graders are doing:

 

Math--Rod and Staff 3

Grammar--Rod and Staff 3

Latin--Latina Christiana

Writing--Classical Writing-Aesop

Spelling--Rod and Staff 4

History--Veritas Greece and Rome cards, Story of the Greeks, Story of the Romans from Nothing New Press, retellings of Odyssey, Illiad and Aeneid, various myths

Literature--Ambleside Year 3

Poetry/Memory Work/Art/Composers/Geography--Ambleside Online and Living Memory

Science--um, whatever books they find on the shelves that interest them, nature hikes in our area, and interesting DVDs or TV shows.

 

And my son takes weekly violin lessons and practices daily.

 

On a good day, things flow like this:

 

We start around 8:30 with math, then they usually do spelling and copywork/handwriting to practice their cursive. Then we do Latin, Grammar, and Classical Writing together. All of those things should take us less than 3 hours. Then we eat lunch and then we do our history and various Ambleside readings. During rest time, they usually do their independent reading.

 

We *rarely* have more than 4 hours of lessons though. Does that help?

[Kate in Arabia]

What does your schedule look like?

 

I'm having a bit of a difficult time tweaking my daily schedule to fit it all into an acceptable amount of time each day.

How are you determining an acceptable amount? Do you have a set amount of time you would like to spend on each subject, or a set amount of work you'd like to accomplish in each subject in a day?

 

For my 3rd grader, I'd say we spend 2-3 hours in the morning covering our core subjects (Arabic, English, math) and 1-2 hours in the afternoon for the remaining subjects (history, science, geography).

[plain jane]

What does your schedule look like?

 

How are you determining an acceptable amount? Do you have a set amount of time you would like to spend on each subject, or a set amount of work you'd like to accomplish in each subject in a day?

 

For my 3rd grader, I'd say we spend 2-3 hours in the morning covering our core subjects (Arabic, English, math) and 1-2 hours in the afternoon for the remaining subjects (history, science, geography).

 

Well, currently we start at 8:30 and we're done all our subjects (with an hour and 15 min worth of breaks) including extra reading for history or science, as well as instrument practice at 3:30- but I think that's a long day for a hs'd grade 3. Some days are shorter, but this has been pretty average lately. I'm not sure what we're doing wrong. :confused:

[s.z.ichigo]

We start with Latin, which takes between 30 mins and an hour.

 

History then takes up to an hour.

 

Math takes between 45 mins and an hour, depending on how pokey she is with her Saxon worksheet. We do this 3x/week out of our 4 day week.

 

Science takes however long science takes.

 

Then we take a break.

 

Latin again, usually a half hour, give or take.

 

Spelling. This doesn't get done every day, though I'm trying.

 

Grammar (one FLL3 lesson) 3x/week

 

Writing

 

Cursive practice if it hasn't gotten late

 

We're pretty laid back, not starting at any particular time. We take a 5 minute break between subjects, and the longer break is between 20 mins and and hour, depending on if we have a meal in there. We probably spend 5-6 hours on actual school work on a typical day. Sometimes we take longer breaks and it's 12 hours between the time we start and the time we finish up.

[Mom-ninja.]

Well, currently we start at 8:30 and we're done all our subjects (with an hour and 15 min worth of breaks) including extra reading for history or science, as well as instrument practice at 3:30- but I think that's a long day for a hs'd grade 3. Some days are shorter, but this has been pretty average lately. I'm not sure what we're doing wrong. :confused:

 

Well, that's about when we end and I'm not getting in everything you do. However, we do have a lot of interruptions with the baby.

[MyLittleWonders]

This is what my 3rd grader does:

 

M, T, Th, F:

Math (Miquon)

Spelling (AAS)

Copywork/Narration (CW:Primer)

Penmenship (HWOT)

Reading (HOP)

History/Science (goal: 2 days history/H.O./SOTW, 1 day science)

Latin (SSL with everyone; goal: 2-3 days a week of vocab review)

 

On Wednesdays, we only get to the core subjects (L/A, math) because we have PE just before lunch and then stay at the park to play with friends. Oh, and FLL gets thrown in there somewhere, usually at dinner as we are working our way through FLL 1 with both older boys (and the youngest likes to memorize the poems with his brothers).

 

The "core" takes about 2 hours in the morning; then we do about 1 hour after lunch (on good days :o) for reading, and history/science. We actually talked tonight as a family about tweaking it and adding a "recess" break in the middle of our core subjects to help with attention issues.

[MamaofTwo]

8:00 - 8:15 Bible/Devotional

8:15 - 8:30 Memory Work

8:30 - 8:45 Spelling

8:45 - 9:45 Math

9:45 - 10:00 Break

10:00 - 10:30 Reading

10:30 - 11:30 Shurley Grammar & writing Lesson

11:30 - 12:30 History or Science (depending on the day)

12:30 - 1:30 Lunch (we will often listen to an artist biography or a classical cd)

1:30 - 2:00 Latin

 

On Wednesday we go through 11:30 and then she has an art class.

 

Unfortunately, we are pretty wiped out by lunch so Latin doesn't always get the attention it deserves. We are planning two years to get through Latina Christiana I.

 

She is a voracious reader, so fun reading is easy to get done in the afternoons. We try to do our read-alouds before bed but our schedule this year has made it difficult. We haven't really found our rhythm for that yet.

 

Basically, I try to get the basics done before lunch so there isn't too much guilt if we decide to just play in the afternoon.

[Macrina]

We have a 5 day week, each day looks a little different, and we don't have set times for things, DD likes to pick and choose off her list and do things in different orders different days. We spend about 3-4 hours a day, including "extras" but not including read alouds. We currently do through out the week:

 

 

• Math 5 days a week (about 45-60 min)
  
• LA, including McGuffey, WWE, FLL, vocab, spelling, handwriting) 5 days a week (about 30-45 min)
  
• History (big block on Mondays for 90 min and then touch on it for about 10 min the other 4 days)
  
• Science 5 days a week (average of 20 min a day or 1.5 hr/wk)
  
• Biography studies, DD wanted to expanded her composer and artists study. M is composer, T is author, W is poet and TH is artist study. We study each person once a week for 15 minutes for one month and then switch.
  
• Art- She has a community art class for 90 min on TH
  
• Geography, creative thinking, typing are done throughout the week too, about 30 min each a week.
  

 

We are not doing any language or music right now.

 

This is all the stuff that is getting done on a weekly basis. For us the key is organization- I spend a good deal of time at the beginning of the month requesting all of our library books and then each weekend I set up the whole week in advance, workbox style almost, with copies and supplies of everything we need.

[ubermomto5]

i suppose i am considered a relaxed hser. my third grader does 5 workboxes a day. he's usually done by lunchtime. he reads for about 2 hours too, but i don't count that. we do history twice a week, usually. we do science twice a week, usually. math every day, writing/penmanship every day. we don't do grammar everyday. i decided a long time ago that it was better for my family to do less and enjoy ourselves than try to keep up with an artificially imposed schedule. besides, there are 5 of them and they learn from each other all the time. if you are feeling stressed by keeping up with the work then you are likely passing it on to your child. and i feel that my son needs lot of lego time, basketball time, drawing time which don't fit into a 'schedule'.

[Colleen in NS]

I'm not sure what we're doing wrong. :confused:

 

Maybe if you post some specifics about your day/week, we can help you tweak?

[dcjlkplus3]

We are doing 3rd grade. I think we are following TWTM pretty closely.

On a good day we can get done in 4 hours (that includes short breaks)

First thing, with the exception of reading for fun, we don't do anything on our schedule by time. We do one lesson per subject.

Here is what we do:

SOTW3 4 days a week

WWE3 4 days a week

noeo chemistry 1 4 days a week

CBS bible study

FLL3 3 days a week

cursive handwriting

reading for literature (from SOTW AG)

reading for history (from SOTW AG)

BJU Math 3 5 days a week

Getting Started With Latin 3-5 days a week

Spelling Power 4 days a week

Daily Mental Math 3