Help with 3rd Grade

[mathmarm]

Hey Ladies, how much is too much? I'm worried that what I am planning for 3rd grade feels like it's too much, and things will get lost in the shuffle or we'll get burned out. Currently for 3rd Grade we want to include the following subjects:

Music
Painting
Physical Education
Handicrafts
Drawing
Math
Literature
Writing
French
History
Science
Geography
Philosophy

The thing is I don't know what to cut.

Anyone care to help me pare down the list?

[SilverMoon]

Off the top of my head...

I'd blend a bit of geography into your history, or decide if it's a history year or a geography year. The only time I do both is when it's tied to history, like the maps in the SOTW activity guide. 

Handicrafts, painting, music, and drawing could be put in the "after school hobby" category. I might gather good supplies and leave them where the kids can access them in free time. If you really want it in the schedule I'd choose one of these at a time. You could rotate them every month or so, but I wouldn't do anymore than one in focused study at a time. 

PE could be a family lifestyle rather than a subject. Take nature walks, hikes, etc. Or try an extracurricular dance class, martial arts, etc instead. (My son takes ballet, which is pretty easy to do with social distance rules.)

Having done some kid philosophy books, unless that's a strong interest from the kid I'd wait a couple years. They get more into it around that logic stage transition. If there is a strong interest this could be good table talk. One big question over meals with everyone, for example.

That would leave:
math
science
history or geography
English (lit/writing)
French
one fine art at a time
extra family activity or an extracurricular class 

[Kiara.I]

They all look fun. What about working the schedule so it fits? Take one day a week to work on handicrafts, painting and philosophy, for instance, and do the more typical academics on the other four days?

[mathmarm]

Music
Painting
Physical Education*
Penmanship (left this out accidentally the first time)
Handicrafts
Drawing
Math
Literature
Writing
French
History
Science
Geography
Philosophy*

Physical Education, includes health, anatomy and nutrition in addition to athletics and exercises. We don't want to cut that as we feel those are all really important for him to receive consistently.
I think we may forgo Geography this year. He is pretty adapt at physical and political geography so we may just do geography 1x a week to keep it fresh, but instead work through something systematic for history.

If we use Philisophy for Children which is literature based then I'm comfortable cutting "Literature".

I'm trying to decide what to do with Drawing and Painting. He said he wants to keep going in Drawing (we'd planned to switch focus to Painting) so I'm hunting up some more books for drawing. So, we may do an Intro to Painting this Summer and then go to 1x a week during the school year.

After discussing it with Hubby further, we're tempted to postpone formal Science another year. He reads very widely and we often do little demonstrations and explorations with him where there is interest. Since our time is more limited, we feel that it's important to prioritize actual skills over interesting (but arbitrary) content in the early years.

So, we've pared the list down tentatively to:

Music
Physical Education*
Handicrafts
Drawing*
Painting*
Math
Writing*
Penmanship**
French*
History*
Philosophy*

I feel like this is the year to really invest in French, so it should receive daily attention.  Based on the questions and comments he makes, this is a good year to begin systematic and coherent History.

We are all really satisfied with Writing and want to continue at least through the end of level E. We'll probably do RaW through the summer as well which will put us in a good place for flexibility in the schedule.

Penmanship takes about 15 minutes a day, so I think it'll be easy to fit it in and keep it there. He loves to write.

I'm considering alternating Handicrafts and Math for a semester, then that may keep our days from feeling overwhelming. I'll play with the schedule a bit these next few days to see if I can hit upon something that looks workable.

[LauraClark]

It doesn't seem like too much just from a list-have you tried writing down the amount of time you expect each to take? For example, you have painting, drawing, and handicrafts, but on my list that would just be classified as "art" which we do for about an hour a week (sometimes a bit more).

[Sarah0000]

Rotate. Do a unit on drawing then switch to painting then switch to handicrafts as interest waxes and wanes.

Math, writing, PE, and maybe music (if child loves it) should be near-daily. Everything else can be rotated or mixed with the other stuff. 

[mathmarm]

 

47 minutes ago, LauraClark said:

It doesn't seem like too much just from a list-have you tried writing down the amount of time you expect each to take? For example, you have painting, drawing, and handicrafts, but on my list that would just be classified as "art" which we do for about an hour a week (sometimes a bit more).

That won't work because Drawing is a core subject in our elementary years. We want our kids to become skilled in drawing so we use curriculum to teach it systematically and require daily practice. He's reached a good foundation in Drawing so we'd planned to replace Drawing with Painting, but Jr. wants to keep doing Drawing. We'll do Painting this summer and if Jr. likes it then we Hubby says we could just alternate the days that we do Drawing and Painting. If Jr. doesn't take to painting then we'll jut postpone Painting until later.

I'm rethinking Spencerian Penmanship. Might it be better to start it summer after 3rd grade? Currently he writes in cursive for most subjects and his cursive is consistent and legible.

Hour 1:
15 minutes Philosophy
30 minutes Drawing 3 days (or Painting 2 days)
15 minutes French Review

Hour 2:
30 minutes Writing
35 minutes Physical Education

Hour 3:
20 minutes Math
40 minutes French

Hour 4:
20 minutes History
45 Minutes Music

That fits in everything but Handicrafts, which we may just do a few times a week.  We've really enjoyed Paper Sloyd and I think that it'll be beneficial to keep going with Making things from paper or other materials. I'll try and keep some things strewn to inspire him.

Music
Physical Education*
Handicrafts
Drawing*
Painting*
Math
Writing*
Penmanship**  -- Might hold off on Spencerian until Summer before 4th grade?
French*
History*
Philosophy*

[Paige]

11 hours ago, mathmarm said:

Hey Ladies, how much is too much? I'm worried that what I am planning for 3rd grade feels like it's too much, and things will get lost in the shuffle or we'll get burned out. Currently for 3rd Grade we want to include the following subjects:

Music
Painting
Physical Education
Handicrafts
Drawing
Math
Literature
Writing
French
History
Science
Geography
Philosophy

The thing is I don't know what to cut.

Anyone care to help me pare down the list?

It sounds like too much to me. I'd break it down like this:

Art 

Language Arts

Math

Science

Social Studies (History/Geography)

French

PE- extracurricular

(Philosophy- stick it into Lit- read and discuss)

There's an opportunity cost to everything and for 3rd grade, I think you have diminishing returns when the schedule is too full and spread out.

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by Paige

[Lori D.]

Rather than cutting any of the things you want to do, what about grouping your subjects:

Core Subjects (daily)
- Math
- Literature
- Writing
- Penmanship
- French

Alternating Subjects (do one subject one day, do the other subject the next day)
- Science
- History/Geography

Unit Subjects (focus on one for 9 weeks, then a different one for 9 weeks, etc.)
- Music
- Painting
- Drawing
- Philosophy

Informal Subjects (not scheduled; done more casually when you all feel like it, after school/weekends/summers)
- PE
- handicrafts


Or, if Music is learning an instrument Drawing is required daily, then make that the 5th core subject and then have 3 subjects in the "unit subjects" and spend 6 weeks on each in the fall semester, and then another 6 weeks on each in the spring semester.

If you need PE to be more regular, then sign up for a sport or a class, which also gets you out of the house and interacting with other students.

ETA #1
Grouping subjects might also work well with your tentative schedule above:

Hour 1 = Language Arts (Reading, Writing, Penmanship)
Hour 2 = Drawing + French
Hour 3 = Math + Music
Hour 4 = alternate Science/History + unit elective (Philosophy or Painting or Geography)

extracurriculars:
- PE -- as biking/walking/other solo activity, or outside the home sport, or family physical activity
- handicrafts

ETA #2
I'll just add that scheduling depends a lot on the student. Some don't learn well with each day split up into many little bites, and each bite covering a totally different topic.

Also, trying to work in so MANY elective type subjects at this age might end up taking away from what you really want to get solid in the elementary grades, which is reading, writing, and math, plus if you wanting the student to have life-long exposure to playing an instrument or learning a foreign language.

Just a few thoughts, FWIW. 😉

Edited March 17, 2021 by Lori D.

[LauraClark]

5 hours ago, mathmarm said:

 

That won't work because Drawing is a core subject in our elementary years. We want our kids to become skilled in drawing so we use curriculum to teach it systematically and require daily practice. He's reached a good foundation in Drawing so we'd planned to replace Drawing with Painting, but Jr. wants to keep doing Drawing. We'll do Painting this summer and if Jr. likes it then we Hubby says we could just alternate the days that we do Drawing and Painting. If Jr. doesn't take to painting then we'll jut postpone Painting until later.

Gotcha. I'm intrigued: are you doing a particular curriculum for drawing or just drawing items each day. I had read a book on early 1900's schooling and was surprised at how much drawing was incorporated in their schooling.

[Ausmumof3]

I don’t think it sounds like too much but I think it will depend how you set it up.  We group subjects into blocks - so we would have an hour of math (at that age I might group math and music assuming music means music practice not music appreciation) and hour of literature and writing type topics.  Foreign language goes in that hour as well - very short daily practice.  Then we would tackle one of the other big subjects each day - science, history, geography, drawing and philosophy.  For handicrafts I’d work on having the stuff available and having the kids work on their choice independently in the afternoon.  Anything extra would go in a Morning Basket or Loop Schedule type arrangement - we might not hit them every week but we’d keep rotating through and some would get hit and some wouldn’t.  

[mathmarm]

5 hours ago, LauraClark said:

Gotcha. I'm intrigued: are you doing a particular curriculum for drawing or just drawing items each day. I had read a book on early 1900's schooling and was surprised at how much drawing was incorporated in their schooling.

We use a commercial program called The Drawing Textbook and combine it with a vintage series called New Ausburg Drawing for our actual drawing class,

We will have spent around 2.5 years to work through all 37 lessons in The Drawing Textbook by the time we finish it and it is definitely worth it IMO.

[Not_a_Number]

17 hours ago, LauraClark said:

Gotcha. I'm intrigued: are you doing a particular curriculum for drawing or just drawing items each day. I had read a book on early 1900's schooling and was surprised at how much drawing was incorporated in their schooling.

I remember being struck by that when I read old British fiction — much sketching is described!! Also, a big focus on music and languages, at least for women. 

[Josh Blade]

If you are allotting time to every item you wrote down every day then it can be a lot, but more likely some of it is mixed together and some of it happens through everyday life. We cover basically the same stuff you do (Spanish instead of French) + typing and coding. Geography/History can be pretty well mixed/rotated. We do Science 2x and History 2x per week (for the most part), so those are pretty much a shared slot. Literature and writing go hand in hand as a general English curriculum. Painting/Handicrafts/Drawing show up in our history/science/geography pretty regularly, but the kids also do this kind of stuff just for fun unless you are wanting to really get into teaching techniques for getting better at these things. Our kids like to draw/paint just for fun in 'non school' time and like using the various learn to draw books. Philosophy just kind of gets brought up in every day life discussions (at a 3rd grade level at least). PE is just making sure the kids play outside sometimes with friends instead of just sitting in front of screens + extra curriculars like ballet/gymnastics. 

 

The only three things we do literally every day are English/Math/Piano. Everything else is rotated in to fill out the schedule or integrated into every day life. So whether it's 'too' much is more about how much time you're spending on everything rather than an issue of having a lot of topics (which helps lead to a well rounded education imo).

Edited March 18, 2021 by Josh Blade

[PeterPan]

On 3/17/2021 at 11:18 PM, mathmarm said:

We use a commercial program called The Drawing Textbook and combine it with a vintage series called New Ausburg Drawing for our actual drawing class,

We will have spent around 2.5 years to work through all 37 lessons in The Drawing Textbook by the time we finish it and it is definitely worth it IMO.

Is this Bruce McIntyre's book or something different?

[PeterPan]

On 3/17/2021 at 5:07 PM, LauraClark said:

surprised at how much drawing was incorporated in their schooling.

Drawing develops visual motor integration and would lead to the nice handwriting characteristic of that time. My ds is the inverse, with very poor VMI and dysgraphia. So we've spent quite a bit of time this year working on drawing with grids/dots, working through a series. His handwriting has improved noticeably. 

[mathmarm]

1 minute ago, PeterPan said:

Is this Bruce McIntyre's book or something different?

Yes, we use The Drawing Textbook by Bruce McIntyre. I highly recommend it for families that want to really learn to draw together. His essay about Drawing vs Art really spoke to me. We combined it with The New Augsburg series and I think they work great. We're planning to continue with some more drawing books by Bruce McIntyre and repeat Augsburg 3 and 4 one more time, before continuing further with Augsburg books.

As a matter of fact, it's been decided that we'll do a short intro to Painting  when we finish The Drawing Textbook but for 3rd grade, we'll continue to focus only on Drawing. That gets around the need to rotate drawing and painting.  Our main goal for drawing is for the kids to become proficient at realistically recreating what they see/saw as well as being able to draw from their imagination with confidence. Using the resources from Mr. McIntyre and Mr. Augsburg, I think we're well on our way to achieving that goal and it doesn't make sense to veer from a path that has proven itself for the sake or Random Exposure For The Sake of Exposure.

Drawing has been a valuable and important part of our kids early elementary education. We use drawing across the curriculum in science and history he may do copy work of various diagrams or illustrations. In geography he draws world maps highlighting different features--so one world map may include the desert regions, or mountain ranges, another might include rivers, or political boundaries (ie modern countries). In Language arts he may be tasked with illustrating a scene from  a novel or illustrating something for his narrative writing. We also draw things from around the home and our environment. He loves to draw and wants to continue with drawing.

Music = Piano Lessons + Daily Practice, so that's not something that I can put in a rotation, but it won't start until June.

Writing, we're on track to complete RaW D in late April, so we're thinking of detouring and doing something else for writing instead of continuing immediately to RaW Level E and Level F because we want him to get more experience in writing across the curriculum. I purchased some workbooks on Paragraphs and Essays that I'm going to take a look at. I also have teacher manuals for Step Up to Writing and The Writing Revolution that I'm considering.

Writing is probably where I'm experiencing the most angst with planning right now.

French we're hunting for as many viable resources as possible. We want to take a communicative path for French. He's so eager to communicate in French. I'd like to get him speaking and understanding spoken French this year and maybe next year hire someone to teach him to read properly in French. I feel like we've used all the viable CD + book options that we could find already and at this point, we'll actually benefit from bringing in a screen. Maybe.

Science is going to continue to be an At Hubby's Will subject for 3rd grade. Hubby has been running science and it's going really well. I don't see any reason to rock the boat. Jr. reads tons of science books and Hubby usually comes up with some interesting science demonstration that they do a couple of times a week.

Geography is not going to be a subject this year--instead we'll do whatever geography is included in the history program we decide on. Our priority this year is a Chronological World History program and since he has a strong geographical knowledge base already, he should be enriched, not confused by old maps. Worst case scenario is we skip the map work if it's not a good fit for him.

 

 

[keirin]

I'm sure I'm saying exactly what someone else has said above, but I'd group some of those into units and rotate them throughout the year. This reminds me a bit of my twins second grade year. Here is what we did:

Loop Schedule:

Philosophy

Logic Games/Chess

Music

Art

Old Testament

We spent approximately 6 weeks on each of those topics, though some went a bit longer and others a bit shorter.

For what it's worth, we used Philosophy for Children and this website to structure those weeks:

https://www.prindleinstitute.org/teaching-children-philosophy/

If you'd like a copy of what I did, I have plans I could share. I wrote them up in a Google doc at the time.