OLD HOMESCHOOLERS NEVER DIE . . . THEY JUST WRITE CURRICULUM


"Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants."

Deuteronomy 32:2

Courses of Study

To view the Course of Study for each grade level, you can click on the "Course of Study" label
or "Search This Blog" for the specific grade level you wish to see.
To date, I have courses of study completed for kindergarten through fourth grades.

Newsletter Articles

In 2013 the Lord started me producing a newsletter for the homeschool group we are a part of. Every other month I write an article on a topic the Lord has put on my heart. I've decided to add these articles to this blog. I hope you will find encouragement through some of my ramblings. You can click on the label "Newsletter" to find the articles.

Monday, April 28

Third Grade, Bible, Set Two

Hymns:
  • O, Joyous Easter Morning
  • The Easter Song
  • Tell Me the Stories of Jesus
  • At Calvary
  • Christ Returneth
Bible Memory:
  • Psalm 121 -- I have set this up the same way as in Set One, only the shape is mountains
  • We reviewed one previously learned passage each week with Verse Strips.
Bible Study:
  • I was able to download for free part of The Resurrection from  Grapevine Studies. This takes you from the Passover to the Ascension reading Bible passages and drawing stick figures to illustrate about 70 scenes. I bought K. a nice sketch book to do the drawings in.
Catechism:
  • Learned #32, 33, 34
  • Reviewed previous
Easter Activities:
  • Another free download I have is "49 Activities and Practices for Lent". We tried to do three each week.
Prayer:
  • Countries/Peoples
    • Bangladesh
    • Beja
    • Bhutan
    • Bijago
    • Bulgaria
Read-Aloud
  • God and a Boy Named Joe by Ethel Barrett
The Princess and the Kiss
  • Lesson 17 in Life Lessons -- love comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith; we want to make friends that we can serve the Lord with so we can "stir up love and good works" in each other.

Third Grade, Math, Set Two

We continued with Bedtime Math (almost) everyday.

We spent four days on lesson four of Professor Pig. This lesson teaches how to break numbers into 5's for adding and to find 10's when adding. We played the games from this lesson, and from the previous lessons.

We started playing the games in Family Math by Stenmark, Thompson, and Cossey. Each Friday we played a different game. The game we have enjoyed most is Target Addition. This game consists of a grid 5 squares by 5 squares. The bottom row of squares all have the number 1 in them. The next row up is 2, the next row is 3, then 4, then 5. One player picks a number between 25 and 55. Then players take turns putting a token on numbers until the "picked number" is reached. The person who puts the last token on is the winner. The first day we played this three times -- K. won all three games. I have only won twice in all the games we've played. This game is good for addition practice and strategy.

I purchased the book, Teaching Math with Favorite Picture Books by Hechtman and Ellermeyer. It has 28 books and hands-on activities to use to teach math. The four books we did during this set are listed here:
  • The Quilt Story by Tony Johnston
  • Billy's Button by William Accorsi
  • Caps for Sale  by Esphyr Slobodkina
  • The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns
  • Ed Emberley's Picture Pie by Ed Emberley
To go along with The Greedy Triangle, I found some work sheets on-line that dealt with angles -- right, acute, or obtuse.

I used Picture Pie to introduce our week of fractions. Then we started working through a workbook on fractions. This is just a part of a book that I was able to download for free. It is from www.aplustutorsoft.com. We did four lessons of review, then introduced equivalent fractions, along with some games from Fabulous Fractions (Fraction Strips and Fraction Match).

For the last week of Set Two, I wrote five addition problems and five subtraction problems on 3 x 5 cards. The addition were 3 numbers up to 10,000 place. The subtraction were also up to 10,000 place. After K. solved the problems, I cut the answers off and we:
  • put them in numerical order
  • told what the number would be if it was 10 more/10 less, etc.
  • place value; told what numeral was in the ______ place
  • compared the numbers using < and >
  • grouped them by even and odd
  • rounded to the nearest ten, hundred, and thousand
  • introduced the expanded form; 382 = 300 + 80 + 2

Third Grade, Reading, Set Two

We read the book, The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt. There were a some activities in Games with Books that went along with the story.

I picked a short story from Read for the Fun of It and made some of the props for it. We worked on learning to tell the story and completing the props.

Third Grade, Grammar, Set Two

We completed the second chapter of Painless Junior Grammar, on nouns, pronouns, and adjectives. At the end of the chapter there was a project -- to learn about the history of roller coasters and write a report. The report was to include the names of roller coasters (proper nouns) and descriptions of them (adjectives). Below is a list of books we got from the library.

Roller Coasters:
  • Roller Coasters by Dana Meachen Rau
  • Roller Coasters by Lynn M. Stone
  • Roller Coasters by Gil Chandler
  • Roller Coaster by Marla Frazee -- story about a girl's first ride
  • Incredible Inventions Poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins -- I like to add poetry whenever I can

Third Grade, Writing, Set Two

We are continuing with learning the lower case cursive letters. In Set One, cursive seemed to be really hard for K., but now she is doing much better and really enjoying it. We did an activity all but one week.

Writing Project
The goal of the writing project during this set was for K. to write the ending of a fairy tale. Below is the process we went through to get to that point. We took two weeks to accomplish step 1 and two weeks for step 2. We only worked on this one day a week.
  1. I read an entire fairy tale to K. (The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood) and we filled out a work page with the
    • Protagonist
    • Antagonist
    • Setting
    • Problem
    • Events
    • Solution
    • Supporting Characters
  2. I read most of a fairy tale to K. (A Gift from the Heart) -- enough so she could fill out everything except the "solution".
  3. K. wrote her ending to the fairy tale.
  4. I read the ending from the book.

Third Grade, Spelling, Set Two

I discovered the activities I was creating for K.'s climbers, although fun, were not really helping her learn to spell the word and were taking a lot of time to make. So, I have changed tactics. When I give her the pretest, I write her climbers on the page for her to copy. Then I have her put dots between the syllables and we talk about what the word means. On another day, I write the word in large letters on a scrap sheet of paper. We observe things about the word, such as:
  • patterns of letters; did you know that "imitate" has a VCVCVCV pattern, and the first two vowels are "i" and the last two consonants are "t"?
  • find smaller words in the word; "use" in "amusement"
  • see if we can make at least 10 words (with 3+ letters) from the letters of a word; "resurrection" -- sure, rest, ties, cure, etc.
She will also trace the word with her finger and write it in cursive. This method seems to be helping K. learn to spell the words.

Third Grade, Science, Set Two

We are enjoying reading the Nature Friend magazines. K. really enjoys finding books at the library about animals. Here are pictures of her first two projects.

 
This is a poster she did about dolphins. She wrote a report, drew a picture, and found some pictures to print.

 
One week during Set Two, K. picked up a book about the difference between lizards and salamanders. On her own, she began writing a report, so I suggested she use this subject for her second project. She completed the report, did a Venn diagram, made this diorama of their habitats, and labeled a diagram of a lizard's body.

Third Grade, History, Set Two

We finished reading George Washington's World. Here are books we read to learn more:
  • Eli Whitney: Great Inventor by Jean Lee Latham -- this is a Discovery Biography and is written in a manner that is interesting to children and adults. I would consider this a "living book".
  • The Inventions of Eli Whitney by Holly Cefrey -- I had K. read this on her own. It does not cover his life in the detail of the book by Ms. Latham, but just has snippets accompanying illustrations.
  • Aunt Clara Brown: Official Pioneer by Linda Lowery -- the time period of this book is 1859 - 1885, so technically we should not have read it yet. This is an "On My Own Biography", so it was written for children. In it you learn about pioneers and how black people were treated.
  • Has a Cow Saved Your Life? by Deborah Underwood -- about Edward Jenner and how he developed the smallpox vaccine. This book is interesting and informative with lots of illustrations. It also discusses the scientific method.
  • Robert Fulton by Lola M. Schaefer -- this is a very simple book. It has black and white illustrations and basic information presented in simple terms. We read this book first, then read other books to learn more details.
  • Watt Got You Started, Mr. Fulton? by Robert Quackenbush -- from the illustrations this looks like a very interesting book, but after reading a few pages, we put it away because, to me, it was boring.
  • What's So Great About...? Robert Fulton by Jim Whiting -- this book is written in an interesting way with many illustrations and it filled in a lot of details.
  • Documents of Freedom by Gwenyth Swain -- we read the portion about the Bill of Rights.
  • Understanding the U.S. Constitution by Sally Senzell Isaacs -- we didn't actually use this book because we had read a few books about the constitution and it didn't have detailed information about the Bill of Rights like the above book did.
  • Almost to Freedom by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson -- a story told by a doll about the Underground Railroad.
  • The Cherokee by Emilie U. Lepthien -- this is in the "True Book" series. It is well written for children and covers a wide variety of topics, including The Cherokee Nation, Sequoyah, Broken Treaties, and The Trail of Tears.
  • Sequoyah by James Rumford -- a children's book about why and how Sequoyah developed a written language for the Cherokee.
  • My Easy-to-Read True Book of Pioneers by Mabel Harmer -- covers pioneers from Daniel Boone to the completion of the transcontinental railroad (about 100 years). It includes subjects such as, How They Traveled, Dangers on the Way, Pioneer Homes, and Pioneer Children.
Books we didn't get to:
  • If you Lived with the Cherokee by Peter and Connie Roop
  • Robert Fulton: The Steamboat Man by Carin T. Ford
  • The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone by James Cross Giblin
  • Native American Migration by Tracee Sioux
In our notebook of 50 States, we completed through state #16, Tennessee, which joined the Union in 1796. We are adding pages about the presidents to this book. Inserting them at the correct time when they first became president. We will probably add other things, like the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition, etc.

Third Grade, Fine Arts, Set Two

Fairy Tales from other countries:
  • The Wooden Sword by Ann Redisch Stampler -- a Jewish folktale from Afghanistan
  • What's So Funny, Ketu? by Verna Aardema -- a folktale from Africa
  • Wisdom Stories by Mary Joslin -- stories from various countries that show the strength and frailty of human nature and consequences of foolish choices.
We started working on drawing a picture of whales. This is a drawing project in a Nature Friend. We didn't finish, so we will continue working on it in Set Three.

We made the birthday and anniversary cards. I picked up Ed Emberley's Great Thumbprint Drawing Book at the library. It is great fun, very creative, and allowed both K. and I to make very cute cards!