Here’s our 3rd grade schedule:

8am (10 min) Salute flag, weather & calendar (Meg is in charge of going online or watching the morning news and finding the weather.  We have a really cool interactive chart this year which she can use to log precipitation, track hurricanes, and keep weekly data in graph form).

8:10am (20 min) Current Events (We started this class last year with the election coverage, and have kept it up.  I also subscribe to 2 children’s news magazines – on secular and one Christian – comparing the two is interesting).

8:30am (45 min) History (We’re using Bob Jones Press curriculum which is a christian based curriculum.

9:15am ( 30 min) Math (We use Math U See.  In this program, she watches a DVD with Mr. Steve the math guy who teaches her the lesson after which she has workbook pages to complete.  After 6 workbook pages, she has a test page; if she scores well, she moves on, but if she scores poorly we review the lesson until she understands it.  I don’t pre-schedule this class in my lesson book, I just write in what she completes as she completes it, therefore she can move at her own pace.  After math class she takes a 5 minute break)

9:50am (30 min) Music / Spanish (M,W & F she has music class – again, we’re using Bob Jones.  In addition, she’s in dance class on Saturdays. On T & TH she has Spanish class.  I’m using a variety of materials for Spanish – nothing formal, I just want her to get comfortable with the language.)

10:20am (30 min) Art / Bible (M,W & F is art class – I’m using a book by Evan-Moor which teaches children many different forms of art, this year we’ll also incorporate trips to art museums too.  For Bible class, we’ll be going through each book of the Bible – this will take 2 years to complete.  Another 5 minute break follows this class).

11:40am (15 min) – Spelling (I’m using Evan – Moor grade 4 spelling workbook)

11:55am (25 minutes) – Reading (I’m using a reading curriculum used by the Baltimore County schools – we’ll see how it goes.  This class is followed by lunch which is 30 minutes long).

12:50pm (15 min) – writing (poetry, stories, letters, journal and so on).

1:05pm (15 min) – grammar (nouns, using proper punctuation and so on).

1:20pm (15 min) – penmanship (she’ll be copying Bible verses & poetry).

1:35pm (25 min)- Physical Education / Home Economics (for physical education she’s in soccer, and I have a homeschool physical education book that teaches her all kinds of different sports.  In home economics we’ll continue from last year our study in basic things around the house, such as cooking, sewing and so on.  In addition, I’ll use this class to go through a book about health and safety).

And there you have it – our daily schedule. 

We’ll start off with the school calendar.

First Day of School – August 31

Labor Day / Beach Tuesday – September  8

Columbus Day – October 12

Papa’s Birthday – October 20

Mama’s Birthday – November 12

Thanksgiving Break – November 26^th & 27^th

Megan’s Birthday – November 30^th

Christmas Vacation – December 21^st – January 8^th

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday – January 18^th

President’s Day – February 15^th

Easter Vacation – April 2^nd – 9^th

Last Day of School – May 7^th

Quarter 1 – August 31^st – October 23^rd

Quarter 2 – October 26^th – December 18^th

Quarter 3 – January 11^th – March 5^th

Quarter 4 – March 8^th – May 7^th

Inevitably something will change during the school year, but this is our guideline.  Life has a way of happening, unexpected company, unexpected field trip opportunities, and so on.  But as long as we stick close to our plan, it works out.  As details get worked out, I’ll post them. 

Megan will be going to New Jersey to visit Aunts, uncles, cousins and Grandma for one last vacation before summer ends.  While she’s gone I’ll be redoing the homeschool room — can’t WAIT.

no more teachers dirty looks.

When the teacher rings the bell,

“Hooray, it’s summer!” I shall yell!

Normally we would go until Friday, but tomorrow we’re going to the aquarium for an end of the year field trip celebration with Grandma Sandy.  So, without further adieu, I’ll post the final grades.

Math – 92 B – keep in mind that’s she’s now in a 3rd grade math book, so I’m pleased with her final grade.  She’s done a terrific job and this new math program (Math-I-See) has been FANTASTIC.

Language Arts – 95 A

Science and History had no grades – we did unit studies, but as promised, I gave her no quizzes, no tests, no reports and no homework.  We had fun, and learned a lot about oceanography and the Revolutionary war.

Over the summer, we’ll be doing lapbooks, art projects and I have a couple of workbooks she’ll be working in – mostly to keep her skills peaked.

We start our traditional “Beach day” this coming Tuesday … summer has arrived and I’m glad. 

My husband was born and raised in the Philippines.  His family was poor when he was small, and his mother and father worked hard to change that.  They were  industrious, thrifty and hard workers.  When My husband was 15 or so, his mother came to the United States and worked hard and saved money.  She was here for a whole year when she finally had saved enough to buy a house, so she sent for the rest of the family – my father in law, my husband and a brother and a sister.  Two siblings were left in the Philippines because they were already married.  Imagine how hard that must have been on my husbands parents, to say goodbye.   Imagine how brave my mother in law was to move 9,000 miles away from her home, in a country where her language wasn’t spoken, and how hard she would have had to work to save up for a house, in merely a years time.  They’re now retired, and have provided well for all their children.  They can enjoy the fruits of their labor, and travel back and forth between the two countries visiting kids and grandkids and someday soon hopefully, great grandkids.

We’ve been blessed with the opportunity to visit the Philippines twice.  The first time was when Megan was a toddler, back in 2003.  What an amazing experience.  Imho, I believe every American should travel to a 3rd world country at least once … I daresay they’d stop griping about America, that’s for sure.  But I digress.   We were able to go again this year at Christmas time and spent 4 weeks with family and friends.  We stayed at his brothers house and his sisters house at different times during the visit.  His sister’s home is the home they grew up in.  A stoes throw from the Visyan Sea on the Island of Negros Oriental, my daughter stayed in the same house as her father, 9,000 miles away from our home, here in Maryland.  We swam in the sea on the same beach her Papa, aunts and uncles used to play on, and she was held and hugged by my husband’s yaya (nanny).   She also got to meet her many cousins, our neices and nefews and after being there for a whole month she came to love them.  Before our departure, we welcomed a new member of the family, Baby Ryle, my eldest brother in law’s 4th child.  Needless to say, saying goodbye was a teary, heartbreaking event.  Megan cried.  I cried.  My sister in law cried.  My nieces cried.

It’s been 5 months since we’ve been home, but thanks to modern technology, we get to talk often through email, IM’s, web cams, inexpensive phone rates and facebook.  This morning, we were heading into the classroom to start school when I noticed that my niece was online on facebook, and although I don’t remember which one of IM’d first, we started chatting.  Megan hopped onto the other computer and she and her cousin (Manang Rosheil) played “Pet Society” through facebook and got to chat.  A few moments later my other niece hopped on and we were all chatting.  Think about it … we’re here in Maryland in the same room on two different computers chatting away and playing online games with family 9,000 miles away, and both of them about 40 miles away from each other.   The time difference is opposit here, and as we were headed into our day, they were ending theirs.  Just as as we’re heading to our summer vacation and have aonly a few days left, they’re heading OUT of their summer vacation and have a short time until school starts.  They chatted for more than an hour, and then the girls were sleepy and had to go to bed.   If Megan were in a school outside of home, she would have missed that wonderful opportunity to visit and connect with her cousins, but instead we just started school about an hour late AND she got to “socialize” with loved one.

It’s a most awesome thing, imho.

1) The obvious step – choose a topic.  This last marking period I created 2 unit studies – one for the revolutionary war and one for oceanography – both very broad topics, which brings me to step number …

2) You need to narrow your topic down.  Find an objective.   Create an objective by determining what you’re going to study exactly.  For example, for my oceanography unit study my objective for Megan was ~> “student will be able to give detail about life in the ocean, and the different habitats according to the depth, as well as identify the layers and animals that live there.”

3) Resources can be astronomical in price, but in order not to break the bank (and if you’re homeschooling, you’re probably a one income family) you need to look where the resources are free, or at the very least at little cost.  The first obvious resource is the Internet.  The Library is extremely useful, as well as local museums or other community outreach programs.

4) Determine how long you plan to spend on the unit study.  A week?  2 weeks?  a month? an entire marking period?

5) This is where the other subjects come in.  What other supplemental activities will you have?  For oceanography we started the very first day talking about the book of Genesis and how all life began in the sea and spent the first day reading through the creation of the world.  Biblical studies – check.  As for history, we looked at how people viewed the ocean back in the early days of exploration and how the men traveling with Columbus begged him to turn back for fear they would fall off the Earth because they believed it was flat.  For math, we talked about the tides, and the depth of the ocean as well as the pressure in the deeper parts of the ocean.  For science, we looked at specific animals, and learned about them in detail, finishing it off with language arts in a report (or rather, several mini reports).  Arts and crafts came into the mix when she created a lapbook to show off all she had learned.  We took field trips to a couple museums and an aquarium to see a real life tide pool that she got to touch and interact with.

6) The most important thing — have fun!  Be flexible!  Take your child’s lead and adjust the course when need be.  If you find your child isn’t learning it the way you though he or she would, look at it and find out what you need to fix it.  I’ve found that if my daughter and I are going head to head, it’s usually MY head that’s gotten in the way of her learning, so I need to step back and change what I’M doing.  As long as you keep your objective in mind, you’ll get the task accomplished.

Hope this helps.  Happy Homeschooling!

In my classroom, I have one little girl to consider.  The following week instead of moving onto a new unit, I retaught the dinosaur unit.  We did different projects, read different books and took a trip to a local dinosaur museum and when I gave her another unit test(different from the first, and in fact harder becasue we learned even more things the 2nd week) and she received an A, becasue she understood the unit.  I was confident she’d learned and understood what I had given her and therefore felt confident that she could handle a new unit the following week.

In the same way, when she excels in an area we can go with it.  She reads all the time, and reads very well for her age.  She writes sentences very well, writes poetry, short stories, and she understands the different parts of a sentence, phonics, grammar, can use a dictionary and an encyclopedia and loves writing book reports.  I can let her go with it and take it as far as I can without holding her back.  Who in their right mind would say “okay, you’re learning too fast – slow down” ?  If I get something for her and I see that it’s not developmentally appropriate, with becasue it’s too hard or too easy I try something else.  I take her lead.  She finished her history book for 2nd grade back in March, so I asked her what topic she wanted to learn and she said The Revolutionary War.  I bought a CD online with all kinds of stuff (age appropriate – it was for 3rd grade) – and it was BORING and Meg hated it.  So, I bought a different book for the 4th – 6th grades and she LOVES it.  It’s her favorite subject – next to math.

So tell me — am I pushing or following her lead?  Do we hold the bar too high, or high enough for them to find within themselves the best that they can be, while walking right there beside them every step of the way?

My daughter can be anything she wants to be.  A stay at home mom, or the president of the United States – or both – and I tell her that everyday.   In the same way, I’m doing my best to give her the tools she needs to make her dreams come true.  Yes, I hold the bar high and so far, she’s met the challenge every step of the way, and will herself push it even higher – so who am I do hold her back?

You go, girl. 

Our review went very well.  The lady we met with was very supportive of homeschooling and very impressed with Meg’s work and my organization.  She sent a really nice letter, confirming that we indeed passed our evaluation and she wrote that she “commends us both on a fantastic year” and wished us “much continued success”.  She also advised that I not put her into school at all and just homeschool through high school – which floored me because that’s the first time I’ve heard that from a reviewer.

So, all is well, and we have just 2 weeks to go … it’s been a great year with lots of trips and we’ve gotten a lot accomplished. I’m pleased. 

I’m very excited.

I’ve begun compiling 3rd grade resources, and have found that in some areas, Meg is on a 4th grade level.  For every area of Language Arts (reading, spelling, writing, grammar & phonics), I’ve gotten  her 4th grade materials because to be honest, she’d be bored to tears with 3rd grade material.  In addition to a reading comprehension workbook, I’ll also assign book reports to be completed once a week.  I also have a writing prompts journal that she’ll write in a few times a week.  I purchased a daily map skills practice journal along with math, history and science will be for the 3rd grade level, but I’ll use additional resources in addition at the 4th grade level.  Spanish, I’ll keep at the 3rd grade level, and adjust as she’s ready.  Math too, but mid year next year, she’ll be ready for the 4th grade level (since we started at level 3 mid year, this year).  Art and music will be on the 3rd grade level.

I plan to use Bob Jones Press for the majority of my curriculum and will be purchasing it soon. Handwriting, I may purchase this workbook.  But then, I may just have her write Bible Verses, becasue I think I have enough handwriting supplies … we’ll see.  I also purchased a really neat homeschool physical education book which I look forward to diving into.  For Biblical studies I bought a book which will take us through all 66 books of the Bible, which I’ll looking forward to doing as well.  We may take 2 years to do that.  It’s for grade 2 – 5, so it’ll still be developmentally appropriate in grade 4.  I looked, but was unable to find it online for a link.

Of course, the standard What your 3rd Grader need to Know is also sitting there, waiting for me as well as What your 4th grader needs to Know.

Our schedule is in it’s planning stages, and looks something like this:

School Starts 8am

Weather and Calendar 10 minutes

Current events 20 minutes

History 45 minutes (5 min break afterwards)

Math 30 minutes

Music 30 minutes (3 x a week)

Spanish 30 minutes (2 times a week)

Art 30 minutes (3 times a week)

Biblical Studies 30 minutes (2 times a week)

Science 45 minutes (5 minute break afterwards)

Spelling 15 minutes

Reading 25 minutes

Lunch/Recess 30 minutes

Writing 15 minutes

Grammar 15 minutes

Penmanship 15 minutes

Gardening 25 minutes (3 x a week)

Home Economics 25 minutes (2 x a week)

2pm dismissal

Well, I think that’s it for now.  She has her final homeschool review for 2nd grade this coming Friday, so after that we’ll start winding down the year.

Seattle, Washington is an absolutely beautiful city, rich with culture, good coffee and a killer aquarium.  Since of topic for the 4th quarter in science is oceanography, we took the opportunity to go and see this fabulous aquarium.  We were in Seattle with my husband on a business trip associated with his job, and had the chance to tag along – so we did!  The first day there, we walked around the downtown area and had dinner at this cozy little hole in the wall in the famous Pikes Place Market which was just a few blocks down the street from our hotel, which was absolutely beautiful.

Early the next morning, we started out to the Seattle Center and rode the elevator to the top of the Space Needle.  We didn’t go tot he restaurant (it was WAY too pricey for our budget), but we did get some coffee and some pastries so we could honestly say “we ate at the top of the Space Needle”.  And WOW, what a view!! After that, we headed to the Science Center where we watched a 3D movie in the huge IMAX theater.  Then, we headed back to the downtown area on the monorail to get something to eat.  Sadao had some work related meetings to attend, so Megan and I hung around the hotel and went into the pool.

Monday – Meg and I went to the Seattle Library which is 11 stories high!  We spent all morning there, and then headed back to the Science Center on the monorail to go to a Museum for children (which is really intended for younger kids) but Meg had fun anyway.  We were really excited to see that  in there cultural section, they had a small play store and a playhouse representing the Philippines, however Megan was disappointed to see that they didn’t have a dirty kitchen, or any pigs and chickens; not even a caribou.  Afterwards, we met up with Sadao and ate at this little Thailand restaurant – the food  delicious!

Tuesday – Meg and I headed south to the Pioneer Square area.  We stopped at a little cafe for breakfast owned by a Korean couple, and Meg decided that it was to be her absolute favorite stop.  The walk to our destination was about a mile, but it barely seemed that far.  Walking in the city is a lot easier than I thought it would be and everyone was really nice – even the homeless people, of which there were plenty.  Honestly, I’ve never met more polite homeless people.  First we stopped at a really cool bookstore (what can I say, we love books), and then we took the 90 minute underground tour, and on our way back we stopped at the Smith Tower and rode the old fashioned elevator to the top.   We made our way back to the hotel and had time for a dip in the pool before we met up with Sadao and his associates for a trip to the aquarium.  The aquarium closes to the public and only those from the convention are allowed in, where they serve drinks and food while we meander around.  They had a fantastic tide pool, which was hands on.  Megan LOVED it.  One of the women asked her if she was on vacation and my little whippersnapper answered “well, we homeschool so Mama turns everything into a field trip.  I’ll probably have to write a report on this when we get home.”  I cracked up.  It was fantastic though, becsaue she got to touch everything, and everyone from engineers to veterinarians were there to coach her and teach her – totally one on one.  This is our 4th year attending, so pretty much everyone knows Megan and were happy to see her again.  It’s a fantastic group of people, and we’re blessed to be able to be a part of it.

Wednesday – our last day in Seattle.  Megan and I wandered around Pikes Market which is HUGE, and came back to the hotel for some r & r in the pool and at the freeway park before the banquet in the evening which closes out yet another fantastic convention. From what I understand, next year will be in Texas.  Yee-haw!

Thursday we left to come home and Friday we pretty much slept.