3rd Grade Planning Thread 2020-2021

[happynurse]

Does anyone else having planning for 3rd grade underway? I'm pretty much finished and have everything purchased and on the shelves.

Bible/Geography/Science : MFW ECC along with Journey Into Africa

Language Arts: Rod & Staff English 3, Spelling Power, Pentime 3, IEW's All Things Fun and Fascinating

Math: Horizons 3, Singapore CWP 2

Foreign Language: Prima Latina (we'll try again, he wasn't ready in 2nd)

Typing: Mavis Beacon's Keyboarding for kids

Extras: Baseball in the spring, beginning piano, looking into tae-kwon-do

 

Anyone else care to share what you're planning for your third grader?

 

 

 

[happynurse]

9 hours ago, square_25 said:

Hmmmm, fun thread! I have an accelerated 2nd grader and she's unschooled in lots of subjects, though, so I don't know how this'll look. 

Math: Continue with algebra. Review division and learn long division. Go over combinatorics and do prime factorization. 

Reading: Introduce her to some classics: maybe some easy Dickens or Jane Austen or something like that. 

Writing: Continue writing on self-motivated projects, possibly ones related to content. Make sure some projects include longer writing, since she wrote something extremely long this year, and as a result we've started talking about paragraphs, outlining, and general organization principles. 

Grammar: Buy some MCT books and read them together. 

Science: Work some science into our weekly schedule (right now, she just reads Horrible Science books, talks about chemistry with DH, and does some demonstrations with him on the weekend.) Make sure we have some dedicated building time lots of days, since building things seems to be her passion. 

Foreign language: Make sure we speak Russian at least an hour a day (right now, it's more like half an hour.) Maybe start reading books out loud to her. 

History: Make a history class related to Greek Myths for her. She asked for one, and I'm pretty weak on history in general and Greek history in particular, so this'll take work :-). 

Cooking: Keep working on having her make her own lunches and cutting things. Progress to making things with heat. 

Handcrafting: Make some larger sewing and crocheting projects. 

Physical education: Spend tons of time outside, take swimming and gymnastics. 

Music: continue with piano lessons and daily 45 minutes of practice. 

Hmmm, this looks pretty good, actually! More than I thought it'd be :P. Realistically, we spend the most time on the 3R's and on music, but that works for us! 

 

 

Whoa! That is advanced! Algebra? We're just trying not to drown with multiplication around here! Ha!

[Noreen Claire]

handwriting: Zaner-Bloser 3

grammar: First Language Lessons 3

writing: No idea what to do here - he *loathes* narrations and will only begrudgingly do copy work; we are getting nowhere in WWE2. It's not too hard, he just doesn't like it. So, we may try again with WWE (either 2 or 3), I have MP Intro to Composition, or we could try WWE-type methods across science/literature/history. (This kid has been known to dictate entire books to either of his grandmothers, and type his own books on the computer. He just won't do narrations for me!)

spelling: Spelling Workout C

math & logic: Beast Academy 3, books from LivingMath U2, MindBenders/BalanceBenders/Math Analogies/etc.

history: SOTW2 / read alouds from LivingMath U2

literature: read-alouds from the WTM recommendations (to go along with SOTW2), plenty of read alouds, audiobooks 

science: astronomy/earth science (WTM recommendations)

foreign language: Little Latin Readers. I am considering Saturday Portuguese school for DS10, DS7, and DS5.

misc: This kid need plenty of unstructured time for following his own rabbit trails -- he pulls random nonfiction books off of DH's shelves and reads until he either doesn't understand anymore or gets bored; he's self-teaching Python, BBC Micro:Bit, and Raspberry Pi, etc. What he really needs is an organized physical activity, but his social anxiety won't let him join teams.

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

Math: Singapore Math 3

Language Arts: AAS 3, Rod & Staff English, Dictation Day by Day, something more for writing, lots of read alouds and books for him to read

History/Geography: Our United States of America

Science: not sure, maybe half of Harcourt Science 4, hands-on projects with his 5th grade brother

Spanish: continue La Clase Divertida with siblings

Religion: Bible, Catechim, saint stories

Other: Mindbenders, lots of Snap Circuits, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi projects with his 5th grade brother

Edited January 22, 2020 by Lisa in the UP of MI

[Momto6inIN]

Just starting to plan, but most of the stuff is what has worked for her older siblings.

Math - MM 3 and Reflex Math for fact fluency Monday thru Thursday - Hands on Math Projects book and Mind Benders puzzles on Fridays

Language - continue AAS, finish Easy Grammar 2, IEW's All Things Fun & Fascinating, write a letter to someone once a month, reading from a book list for 30 min each day, HWT Cursive

Music - learn the recorder from her sister, beginning singing lessons at church

Art - Geography through Art

Logic - Building Thinking Skills 1

Science - homegrown units covering the different things that God created in the order He created them - so starting with sound & light, then moving to water & air, then the earth, then the seas, then cells and plants, then astronomy, then water creatures (we'll continue the other topics in 4th thru 6th) - I'm using Science in the Beginning as a spine, but then going into much more depth for each unit - This has involved a LOT of planning and research and organization!

History/Geography - First half of US History using America's Story as a spine with lots of books and Liberty's Kids videos and whatnot thrown in, also some Indiana history and a Beginning Map Skills workbook - we might listen to SotW 3 in the car sometimes to get more of the world history perspective, but will concentrate on the US

She'll also do beginner speech at our speech and debate club and a once a week PE class. Probably towards the end of 3rd grade I'll have her take the ITBS test, just for some exposure to taking tests.

[lulalu]

Just starting to plan this month. We will just keep going with what we have found works. 

Math: Finish Miquon, Gattegno finish book 2 start book 4. I pick and choose what from Miquon and Gattegno we do each day. And we play lots of games and use RightStart games too. 

Reading: CLE 3rd grade (maybe, a whole year is a lot I really have cut a lot out of the 2nd this year so I can't decide if I want this or if it is just busy work), just the novels from MP (but maybe a guide or 2).

Writing: Writing Strands 3, and copywork, narration, dictation done by me. 

Spelling: Dictation Day by Day, R&S 3

English: I have FLL 3 over here already, but I wasn't enjoying FLL 2 much. So I think I may try R&S 3 next year. We will be adding in some storytelling work each week too, to practice public speaking skills. 

History: VP MA R&R

Bible: VP 

Science: R&S 3 or Memoria Press Mammals

Literature: Reading aloud Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales probably one a week, this we will use narrations with. And lots of read alouds. 

GSWL

We already have a modern language we are still working on. We will be doing a private tutor again for the school year for reading, writing, and speaking. 

Extras: Foriegn Language tutor, chess, R&S music, piano lessons, family devotions, memory work, and logic games. 

Doing CLE Bible 3 like a Sunday School program once a week. It will take longer than a school year to finish this way. But we need something to feel like Sunday School. 

I wanted to do swimming lessons, but pools are closed. Still need to find something to get the body moving each week. 

 

Edited July 28, 2020 by lulalu

[purpleowl]

My middle one will be in 3rd grade this fall. A lot of this is just continuing on or doing the next thing from what she's doing this year.

• Reading: mom-selected books.
• Computer skills: coding (Scratch); typing (Typing Instructor). 
• Math: AOPS Prealgebra.
• History: K12 Human Odyssey, volume 2 (possibly finishing up volume 1 first...not sure if we'll get through all of it this year).
• Science: the topic will be physics, but I haven't yet started looking at options for resources.
• Writing: Writing & Rhetoric, books 7-8.
• Latin: Big Book of Lively Latin 2 (continuing from this year).
• Russian: Russian Step by Step (continuing from this year).
• Grammar: if we do grammar, it'll be Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind at about half-pace. But we may continue the "grammar break" we've been on this year.

She'll also continue with piano lessons and children's choir. 

[purpleowl]

1 hour ago, mms said:

How do you like this series? My older son is my first non-heritage speaker, so we are doing Russian as a foreign language. Trying to find resources to keep an eye on as possibilities.

It suits our needs well, I think. I am learning along with her; she begged me for an additional language and then picked one I have zero experience with, lol. It is VERY slow and incremental. Right now the vocabulary we've learned is mainly nouns, introduced with each letter of the alphabet. We're only in book 1 currently. I use the teacher book, student workbook, and audio files. I think there are a couple other resources that I did not get. DD loves it and is enjoying it very much. 

[Xahm]

My third grader will be doing SOTW3 with all of us, along with BFSU and Mystery Science and read alouds. She'll continue on with Beast Academy. We're on level 3 now, so she'll finish that if we're haven't yet, then go to 4. As helpful, we'll take breaks using Math Mammoth as well as extensions with other materials. She'll do The Good and the Beautiful handwriting, some dictation, 4 level analysis of sentences, and some writing across the curriculum. She reads like crazy, so she'll keep doing a mix of what she chooses and what I choose.

[Fawnmoscato]

History: Build Your Library 3

Math: Math Mammoth 4

English and Grammar: First Language Lessons 3, BYL, and Brave Writer. 

Science: BYL 3/Chemistry

Extras: Gymnastics, snowboarding class, and piano

[Sensoryspirals]

AND EDITING NOW.... 6/3/20 LOL

There’s a chance I’ll totally flip this up and change everything... but right now I’ve settled on:

Math: 

Math Mammoth 3, finishing Beast 2, and TGaTB Math 3

 

Grammar:

Growing with Grammar

 

Lit:

Mosdos Opal

Balto Novel-Ties

My Fathers Dragon Novel-Ties

 

Writing:

LWT Building Writers B/C/D 

IEW People and Places in Community

 

Spelling and Vocab:

Steck-Vaugn Spelling

Wordly Wise 3000, 1/2 of book 2 and 3

 

Handwriting:

TGaTB Handwriting

 

Science: Blossom and Root Science 3

Geography: Evan Moor Daily Geo, and Evan Moor US

History: Blossom and Root American

Extras: piano, art history/art with his incredible art teacher, swim

 

Book Basket with books from the MBTP 7-9 and 8-10 levels

 

Edited June 3, 2020 by Sensoryspirals
changed my whole curriculum choices around

[Winter]

This has been a frustrating few years with Calvert changing and becoming unusable, having to find new curriculums once and now again. Hoping to come up with some other ideas for language arts, social studies, language and health. One thing I noticed is a lot of people don't have any health curriculum. My state requires one every year so we picked up a generic worksheet pack for it but would like something a little deeper, I think.

Math: Math In Focus 3

Language Arts: TBD. Was on Moving Beyond The Page this year but was unimpressed with it so looking into other options. Will likely include MacMillan worksheets and Daily Reading Comprehension Worksheets.

History/Geography: Story of The World + Looking for good social studies curriculum

Science: Real Science Odyssey: Chemistry 1

Language: TBD

Health: TBD

Other: Music Production, Piano, Syntorial Sound Design Class, Windows OS 101, small course on using the internet, possibly looking into some coding class material, Minecraft Workshops.

[Moncha]

I haven't bought anything yet but for now the plan is:

Bible/Science/Lit/Geography/Art/: MFW ECC, with lots of great books and my own list thrown in too. 

Math: BJU 3

Language Arts: LLfT 3, Finish AAR 3 and possibly do 4 (we're getting testing done for possible dyslexia next month unless the pandemic interferes), AAS 2 maybe 3, we're finishing up HWOT Cursive Kickoff and I don't know if I should do another workbook of cursive or just have him start writing in cursive more and monitor his form closely. 

Other: Mind Benders, Balance Benders, Analogies ... if we finish these we'll move on to Building Thinking Skills 1

Swimming and biking with dad.

We're doing our own beginner piano book now... possibly do Hoffman or ?, if we can find and afford a teacher we may do lessons,

Basic Spanish books, soldering, documentaries

[Janeway]

I think we are still finding our way. We will finish what we have of TGTB LA 2 next year. We will do Singapore Math 3A and 3B (US Edition). Once done with TGTB LA 2 though, I am unsure if we will do TGTB LA 3. I will decide when the time comes. Older child LOVES it, but not positive how it is going with my rising 3rd grader. Story of the World 2 and not sure about science. 

[LauraBeth475]

Math - Starting Strayer-Upton, supplementing with Beast Academy

LA - continuing on to CLE grade 2

Science - Probably giving up on a formal curriculum and making a list of topics I want to cover with library books and NOVA

History - SOTW 3, plus the first half of the American History for American Girls class I wrote for her sisters a few years ago.

Latin - Song School (maybe, tbh)

Reading - Seton Phonics and Usborne Reading

Religion - Something to cover saints and Bible - our CCD uses the Baltimore Catechism

Okay, this looks decent and not worthy of the panicking I did this morning

[Momof3]

So far looks like...

Bible: we all read a passage and discuss together. This year we covered several epistles and Luke. Next year I'd like to do Acts and Revelation.

Math: Math Mammoth 3... We need to shore up subtraction facts to 20 with flashcards this summer. And will continue a lot of skip counting to prep for multiplication.

Reading: Mix of books I select for him based on interest. He's not my strongest reader. Goal is to enjoy some good books together and increase fluency.

Grammar: MCT Grammar Island, Sentence Island, and Practice Island. Will be first introduction to grammar for him, and I don't feel the need to finish all of this. Keeping it light, fun, and interesting.

Spelling: AAS level 3 (he's almost finished with this) and level 4

Writing: Pretty much just writing sentences by dictation for AAS

Science: Chemistry with the rest of us using Answers in Genesis, encyclopedias, other books and various experiments. Will delve into other topics as interests arise. He's one of my science kids.

History: SOTW4, continue our study of US presidents

Geography: probably Middle East and Africa

Logic books & games, memory work, art, piano, Spanish vocab and convos, coding, photography, and whatever else he's interested in for extras. Otherwise just Legos. 🙂

 

[lwest]

DD7- will be turning 8 this summer. She is my stubborn child. She loves reading and will often finish chapter books in a day or two.

Bible: Tapestry of Grace

History/Geography: Tapestry of Grace

Science: Undecided. We just got some honeybees so I'm thinking about just getting a bunch of books for her to delve into and also study the bees in the hive. We might also do astronomy as her younger brother loves space and we could do this together.

Language Arts: Michael Clay Thompson Island level for Grammar, Poetry, Vocabular, and Literature (along with a book list I have for her). Writing & Rhetoric for writing. Spelling Wisdom for spelling/copywork/dictation. Zaner-Bloser 3 for cursive. IEW Poetry Memorization level 2.

Math: We will use Math-U-See Gamma with Beast Academy 2. 

P.E.: Figure skating (if everything opens back up) and swimming lessons, maybe homeschool gym time.

French: Duolingo

Art: Artistic Pursuits, TOG projects, Nature Friend art tutorials

Extra: Choir, Burning Cargo for typing, MP Greek Alphabet, MindBenders, cooking/baking, sewing, and I'm still debating about using Simply Charlotte Mason Enrichment Studies for some of this.

Goodness, this sounds like a lot. I fall in love with the idea of specific curriculum and cannot figure out what/if to drop.

[Seeking Squirrels]

I'm feeling lost planning this coming year. This year both kids (5th and 2nd) did a hybrid program that was two full days each week. They did a lot of hands-on stuff and a lot of science and history. So I didn't cover those subjects at home bc after those days plus a half-day co-op we had only 2.5 days at home. That left us with the more boring things and took some fun out of it. I have no idea what that hybrid program will look like in the fall but I want to get back to doing more at home than just math and LA. 

Math: Continue Beast Academy and MathFactsPro. 

Langauge arts: I'm considering using Lightning Lit 3. Plus AAS 2 and using the dictation in that to work on handwriting. 

Science: ? I used to use RSO with oldest at this age. I have Life, Earth & Space, Physics, and Bio2 (which I *think* I'm going to do with oldest). IDK I'm not totally feeling RSO right now but I don't know what to do if not this. 

History: also ???? She did some ancients in 1st but not a lot, we take 1st pretty light. At their hybrid school they studied Russia and Age of Invention before shutdown. We haven't really done anything since. 

I feel like I'm just checking boxes right now, none of this feels exciting. 😕 

[Cake and Pi]

My DS#3 will be a third grader this fall. He's an outlier, but since I shared on the grade level threads for all my other kids, I'd feel pretty weird excluding him. 

Math: AoPS Online class
Science: Davidson Explore class
ELA: Royal Fireworks Online MCT class
Social Studies/History: Tagging along with DS 10 studying prehistory & ancients, probably using a mix of History Quest, Human Odyssey, and Big History Project, plus a side focus on world religions using the Usborne Encyclopedia of World Religions
Other: KiwiCo Tinker Crate subscription, Code Combat, mindfulness and social/emotional games and books with DS 6

[*Jessica*]

I can’t believe I haven’t planned O’s 3rd grade year yet!  She’s a third child, with two teenage siblings who I planned pretty extensively for.  I was just finishing up their plans when the pandemic began, and I got busy reading articles and watching press conferences, then as spring and summer arrived I got busy with outdoors projects.  I need to write up IHIPs and it occurred to me that I never planned anything for her!  Thankfully we’ve always homeschooled so I have plenty of resources without needing to buy anything.  I’m too tired to start tonight, but I’m replying to remind myself to do it and post it tomorrow.  

[Janeway]

LA: TGTB LA, Zaner-Bloser handwriting, Spelling Workout

Math: probably Singapore. But she doesn't like it much, but I never liked the levels before 3A. still considering changing

History: lots of books focusing on US History

Science: Mystery Science, and a variety of other things

Latin: Classical Academic Press

Extras: not sure yet, she has tried a lot and nothing is really sticking. We will seek out more things to try.

[KeriJ]

Finally done planning!

Math:  CLE 3

LA:  Pentime handwriting, Spelling Workout, R&S English, stack of books

History:  Eggleston, Stories of Great Americans

Science:  Abeka 3 

Geography: Paddle to the Sea, Draw the World, Seterra

Family studies:  Modern history booklist, Our Consitution Rocks, SCM enrichment

Piano

Edited July 18, 2020 by KeriJ

[NataliaMusk]

Math: Beast Academy 4 online. By far his favorite thing to do. 

Language arts: Winning with Writing and Growing with Grammar. Simple and to the point. I keep going back and forth on having a dedicated spelling curriculum as well... I'll probably get Soaring with Spelling just in case. It gets done in 10 minutes anyways.

Science: Nancy Larson 3. Another favorite that we're not changing, and I love that it's scripted because science was never my thing. This is 3 times a week. We always add on tons of books. We liked Magic School Bus before but I think he's at that age he'll really enjoy the Horrible Science books so I got him the set as well. 

History: SOTW ancients audiobook version while he paints and does the workbook. I want to do this 2x a week when we don't have science, so I need to figure out a plan. Adding lots of fun of books as well, Greek Myths and Egyptian Treasures audiobooks by Jim Weiss sound great, and I'm hoping he might want to read the Percy Jackson books too. 

Sports: This would be his fourth year of surfing lessons and I had plans on getting him Snuba lessons too but with everything going on I'm pretty sure that's not gonna happen this year. But I'm considering upgrading his bike to a mountain bike so maybe we can focus on riding our bikes more for some nice, social distancing exercise. 

Extras: Coding and robotics. He works on his Mindstorms robot everyday. He also works on Minecraft coding a lot. Python coding books as well.

Edited July 28, 2020 by NataliaMusk

[Mbelle]

I'm finally getting around to this.  This is our 3rd time doing third grade, so it is somewhat easier and I don't really have any angst other than wondering where my energy will come from.

Lit---MP Lit (we will pick and choose questions and most will be done orally)

LA---CLE 3 

Writing--IEW All Things Fun and Fascinating (doing MP 3rd grade schedule)

Spelling--AAS or Apples and Pears ..I have both

Cursive--Zaner Bloser and whatever Abeka cursive I still have 

Math--Horizons 3 and a few Kumon 3 word problems

History--Story of the World 3, MP States and Capitals with the corresponding read alouds

Bible--MP Christian Studies 1

Read Alouds--one of the Sonlight list--probably B or B+C

German--not totally sure here but probably watch Nico's Weg from DW Lernen and find a A1 text.  If Getting Started with German comes out we will see what that is like too.  This may become our language instead of latin. 

Latin--I feel nostalgic about Prima Latina and my other 2 kids did this, so we may casually go through it.  One of my older kids did MPOA through Fourth Form.  I just am not sure I want to do that much latin again.   This might be it for latin.

Edited July 27, 2020 by Mbelle