Planning for 3rd grade boy.

[Daisy]

Does this look right for a very wiggly writing-phobic third grade boy?

 

Math - Singapore & BJU (BJU is supplement)

History - SOTW vol. 2 with activity book.

Science - Apologia Astronomy w/notebook, fun kits, & WTM recommended earth science reading.

Bible - CLP workbook

 

Language Arts:

Grammar - R&S English 3

Spelling - AAS finish 2 & 3 (currently flying through 1. I just started it & wanted to make sure we covered it from the beginning)

Cursive - Cheerful cursive

Writing - notebooking in history/science, write letters

Reading - keep a reading response journal (copywork, illustrations). He is easily reading chapter books.

 

I think what I'm most concerned about is he is a really reluctant writer. As in, though he can do copywork, he still agonizes over every letter in spelling and writing sentences.

 

Should I add in a specific writing program like WWE? And if so, should I start with #2 since he would never be able to do the dictation in #3?

 

Or is the above without WWE going to be sufficient to build his writing skills? It hard for me to know because he struggles so much more than my daughter did at that age.

 

Attached is a sample of his current ability to do composition. He turned 8 about 2 weeks ago and is in 2nd grade. This sample was written entirely by him but he asked my help almost non-stop with spelling.

Edited February 16, 2010 by Daisy

[Just Robyn]

Regarding writing - you could have him do a rough draft first. Tell him he needs to try to spell it himself for the rough draft, then you'll help him correct it for the final draft. Then he has to try himself once, but knows he'll have a chance to revise and get help if needed.

 

Also - I LOVE his story! It was very fuuny. :D

[brownie]

I like WWE because it has them write 'orally'. We also use spelling power which allows them to do most of their work orally or pretend to write the word in the air, etc...

 

DS1st/2nd is writing phobic and I finally gave up and told him to write whatever he wants to fill 5 pages in his journal. I don't correct it, critique it, or even necessarily look at it. He still groans but does it, is very silly about it, but at least he's feeling more positive about writing than previously.

 

Brownie

[kls126s]

Attached is a sample of his current ability to do composition. He turned 8 about 2 weeks ago and is in 2nd grade. This sample was written entirely by him but he asked my help almost non-stop with spelling.

 

A side comment - I love his creativity! The aliens stole the rocket to run their bbq...:laugh:

[kalanamak]

Does this look right for a very wiggly writing-phobic third grade boy?

 

Should I add in a specific writing program like WWE? And if so, should I start with #2 since he would never be able to do the dictation in #3?

 

Or is the above without WWE going to be sufficient to build his writing skills?.

 

Mine isn't "very", just plain wiggly writing-phobic. We are finding WWE rather painless, but we do it many times a week.

 

Personally, and I know I'm speaking as a mother of an only, so take this with a grain of salt, I'd work on spelling and ease of writing before expecting a lot. Imagine learning to skate...and at the same time learn which way is right and left, and the traffic rules, all at the same time. So, we work on a lot of fine motor skills (lots of pencil coloring) and spelling via SWR type instruction. Our WWE is a year "behind". HTH.

[Daisy]

That does help and is what I was thinking of doing with him.

 

He lives for history and science.

 

Thanks everyone. I think I'm going to order WWE 2 (now) and see how the rest of the year goes with it.

 

I think I need more structure, too. He's wiggly and I'm busy trying to work with his sister also. Makes for a bad combo sometimes.

 

I think the narration in WWE will help him also.

[Ummto4]

Daisy, your son is just like my 2nd grade son.

 

I read somewhere in this board that Susan advocated a certain approach to build the writing stamina. Okay, I don't know where the link is, it's certainly in this website. BAsically, she suggests to do a few writing scattered throughout the day or the week, but the writing should be short.

 

I can ask my son to write 2 x4 sentences writing a day, and sometimes more.

So, for example, I can dictate him 4 sentences for our spelling lesson in the morning. Then, mid day, I can ask him to summarize his history lesson in 3-4 sentences.

OTher day, I might ask him to do 3 sentences for his handwriting/cursive practice, and 4-5 sentences for his creative writing course (I buy this gentle creative writing course because he wants it).

Everyday, he also does his math workbook.

For other assignment calling for handwriting, either I write/type things down or we do it orally.

 

PS: we don't do WWE, but we use its principle across the board. For instance, we do narration across the board (history, science, literature). For dictation, we use spelling plus dictation, and for summarization skill, I just ask my son to summarize what he learns and write those.

Edited February 16, 2010 by mom2moon2

[ondreeuh]

My 8 yr old is in "3rd" grade but in terms of LA he's definitely in 2nd grade skill-wise (and that's being generous).

 

I love your son's spaceship story! It's very cute and well organized. It also shows that his spelling and writing can be done separately. Keep working on your spelling program, but absolutely help him with his composition. I like the idea of doing a rough draft and working together to correct the spelling on the final draft - if he has learned the rule that applies, try to get him to fix it himself, but otherwise show him.

 

My son is still learning how to construct a solid sentence, so our work is more narrowly focused on spelling and grammar. The curricula we use have many opportunities to write answers to questions, and that gives us plenty of practice using the grammar and spelling that we are learning. I'm not familiar with R&S English but doesn't it include grammar and writing? Maybe that would be enough for him at this time, and once he is comfortable writing sentences then you can worry about the next step.

[Homemama2]

You might want to think about the WWE strong Fundamentals (rather than the workbook). I bought the workbook level 2 this year thinking it would save me time, but I ended up ditching it and just doing it out of the reading we were already doing. We already were doing narrations (so I didn't want to do extra ones), we were already doing alot of dictation with AAS, and copywork was easy enough to pull from our current readalouds (for ex. this last week I had him do copywork from Seabird and Pagoo and WInd in the Willows). Just another idea, some people probably would much rather have the workbook.:001_smile:

[Daisy]

Thank you. I know we just need to keep plugging away. Guess I'm discouraged by the pace of progress. We need a handwriting revolution! LOL.

[JudoMom]

That does help and is what I was thinking of doing with him.

 

He lives for history and science.

 

Thanks everyone. I think I'm going to order WWE 2 (now) and see how the rest of the year goes with it.

 

I think I need more structure, too. He's wiggly and I'm busy trying to work with his sister also. Makes for a bad combo sometimes.

 

I think the narration in WWE will help him also.

 

I love WWE.

 

But the real reason I'm posting is to tell you I love your son's story. Those aliens have got to eat!

[RootAnn]

My oldest is a few months older than your ds and also very writing-phobic. (We say she's allergic to pencils.) We worked through many weeks of WWE2 workbook and we love the literature selections. However, I found that using SOTW 2 & what we are doing for religion, we get plenty of work in narrations & dictation.

 

If you find WWE2 workbook is too much for him in addition to everything else, I'd encourage you to do the narration portion of SOTW aloud and have him work on copying & eventually writing (from his own mental dictation) his narrations (one sentence at a time - working up to two or three sentences). (We write them on the back of the maps for that chapter, but you could easily do it in a separate notebook.)

 

I did finally break down & order the WWE - Strong Fundamentals text when I realized doing WWE2 on top of what we were already doing was overkill for us at this stage.

 

I loved the story! (And hang in there on the handwriting. My oldest had a handwriting revolution this year with cursive.)