Third Grade - what son C is doing this fall

First of all, a big shout out and thank you to my parents for this wonderful book they sent C recently. The Boy Who Changed the World, by Andy Andrews, is a story of how four boys' lives intertwine to make a difference in the world, and it's even more wonderful because it's true! The first time I read this book it gave me goosebumps, and I loved reading it out loud to all the children with son C front and center on my lap. Thanks mom and dad!



A couple of weeks ago C finished reading through The Beginner's Bible. This has been his daily reading practice with me for about a year, ever since he finished 100 EZ lessons and had his reading party. He read two stories to me nearly every day, and felt a huge sense of accomplishment when he got to the end! (it was worth TEN leaves on our reading tree!)


I have been including him a bit more in our Tapestry of Grace history studies this year, partly because he's ready for more and partly because so far, Year 1 of Tapestry has lent itself well to doing things all together as a family. Which I love! This was a chart that all the children but Little Man made as we read through the latter part of Exodus. It showed where all the furniture for the Tabernacle was placed and what it was used for.

We both love what he's doing for writing this year. Though I am sold on IEW as a writing program, I am waiting until next year to start C on it. This year he is using this All About Me composition book from Love to Learn. Each of his older siblings has also done this in third grade.


Each page asks a series of questions about the student's life ~ so by the end of the year you have a lovely keepsake of this period in your child's life. On Monday C writes his answers to the questions, a rough draft, in a separate notebook. I am working with him on double spacing in his rough draft notebook, to help prepare him for that requirement when he starts IEW next year.




I correct his rough draft, and on Tuesday he copies the corrected version in his All About Me notebook. On Wednesday he draws a picture to go with his writing, and on Thursday he colors his picture. Each week he has a finished page like this:


It is working out very well, and is a nice segue to writing every day with IEW next year.

He is steadily working on math, and recently went through another lesson that taught how to tell time. He has worked on the minutes before. This time he worked on learning the hours, and how to put the whole thing together in order to read an analog clock. I love how Math U See teaches time, because it's completely visual and logical. The circle of blue blocks are the minutes, that can be skip counted by fives or counted individually. The blocks outside the blue circle are the hours, the one block for one o'clock, the two block for two o'clock, and so on. It was a bit of a struggle at first, but when the light came on it was a wonderful moment! (and I love that I get to see and experience these lightbulb moments myself because we homeschool!)

I have not started C on any formal grammar yet this year, but that is coming in January. All in all, he is having a great third grade year!

Disclaimer

There is a huge tendency among women in general, and homeschool moms in particular, to compare ourselves to others and find ourselves lacking. I can see what another homeschool mom is doing and think, "I should be doing that", or carried to the extreme, "I'm a loser at this and should just put my kids in building school." I know this because I have done it.

BUT.

It is terribly destructive. It takes our eyes off Jesus and fosters discontent and even envy. God has unique plans for each of our families, and we need to focus on the priorities He has given to us, not those He's given to someone else. We answer some day to HIM, not to each other.

If you are a homeschooling mom who uses Tapestry and you don't do unit celebrations, that is okay! If you are a homeschooling mom who doesn't use Tapestry at all, that's fine too! If you don't homeschool but instead trust the education of your children to others, that's great! It grieves me to think there may be those who read about our hands on activities or our unit celebrations and feel inadequate. If that is you, please stop reading my blog.

I'll be honest and tell you a little secret that feeds into our unit celebrations. We have a very difficult time finishing home maintenance projects here at our house. A set of beautiful half finished wooden bunk beds has been sitting in our garage for 6 years now, while our cars are parked in the driveway. There is a hole in my kitchen ceiling, made by an overly enthusiastic Jedi knight, that will probably be there until we sell the house someday and are forced to fix it. My biggest fear in starting our schoolroom expansion project this past summer was, what if we never finish it?

Psychologically, it makes me feel so good to have a unit celebration and mark that 9 week period of study as DONE. There are so many other things in my life that are not done.

My friend Guinever uses the Student Activity Pages that come with Tapestry each and every week. We are hit and miss with those.

My friend Marsha hits English grammar really hard. Us, not so much.

My friend Sally has an immaculate house. She would disagree with that, but she'd be wrong. ;-) She comes here and enjoys our artsy craftsy clutter. I go there and enjoy her nice, clean home.

I have friends who play with their children more than I do with mine. Some who do a much better job at teaching household chores. Some who do bulk cooking.

You get the point.

Can we learn from each other and be inspired and motivated by each other? Of course! This is one of our God given purposes as women, to encourage and mentor one another. But God has wired us all differently, and if we let those differences cause us to envy or doubt our own calling, or focus on our inadequacies rather than the complete adequacy and awesomeness of God, that is WRONG!

So, as I share about things we do in our homeschool, please keep in mind that I am striving to be faithful to what God has called our family to do, as one who will give an account.

And that as long as I am supervising hands on activities, I don't have to dust. :0)

Epiphany

God is so good!

I have been praying about a school related issue for a couple weeks, having to do with the tension between holding our children accountable to complete their work with excellence, and having their content areas of study (history and science) be fun and enjoyable for them.

Our daughter has been at the dialectic level of history for two years and is now starting her third. Our son G is also transitioning to this level. The dialectic level is basically middle school age in cognitive development. At this level in Tapestry of Grace students have several questions to answer each week as they do their history reading. Some of the questions are deeper level ones that require thought and the putting together of information they knew previously with information they just learned. In other words, it's work.

I helped our daughter learn how to answer these two years ago when she first started at this level, as I am doing now with our son G. But since then she has been working mostly on her own. Some weeks the reading is heavier than others, and some weeks there are more questions than others. Some weeks she was still answering questions after youth group on Wed night, in preparation for virtual co-op the next morning. It felt to her like sloughing through a swamp all week long and never quite reaching the other side.

Over the past two years I have watched our daughter learn how to think. But I have also watched her enjoy history less. I became increasingly concerned about this and began to pray and ask God for wisdom in this area. I wasn't really willing to not require answers to these questions, and every student has to realize at some point that they need to do the work because it needs to be done whether they like it or not. But what could I do differently to ensure the best possible chance that she'd enjoy, and maybe even love, history?

As an aside to my fellow TOG moms, our daughter has always loved the hands on aspect of history, and the read alouds, and the other "fun" parts. It has just been since starting the dialectic level and having to answer the questions each week that a cloud has fallen over her previous love of history. And it's hard to watch someone who used to love it begin to resent it! What to do??

I had a long talk with my husband about it on Tuesday night, and woke up Wednesday morning with a plan. God literally gave it to me while I slept!

I told G and G that we were starting a new thing. Each Wed afternoon at 3:00 the three of us will have a history meeting. At this time, all history reading and the answering of questions will STOP. No more is required after our meeting, even if they didn't get them all done. We will discuss all the questions they have not yet been able to answer. I told them that they know a lot more than they think they know, and discussing together will prove this. They are welcome to jot down in outline form any answers that reveal themselves during our discussion, but if they still have blanks on their paper after the meeting that is okay.

In my desire to hold them accountable to their work, I have inadvertently been teaching them that answering every single question on paper is the goal. And that is not the goal! The goal is knowing facts and concepts and making connections in their heads. If I can show them this through the course of a weekly "mini discussion" (before their "big" discussion during virtual co-op) I think they will be encouraged with all they are truly learning and enjoy the process more.

This will also make Wed afternoons and evenings much less stressful, and there is already enough happening on Wednesdays this fall to induce stress! So, it has only been one week, but we had a great time during our discussion this past Wed, and even though they both had a few blanks on their papers, I think they totally got the gist of what our virtual co-op was all about on Thursday morning. After our discussion on Wed, son G said to me "well this is great! I only have to finish my questions and I am completely done with school today!" And I said, "no, you are done." Which got me a glowing smile. :0)

This will work with these particular children because I know they will have been working diligently since the previous Friday to accomplish their daily reading and answer as many questions as possible. If they were slackers I would have to have a different plan.

I share all this for two reasons. One, to show that God cares about even this. I prayed and He answered! Nothing about your school day is too small to bring before the Lord. And two, even a 5 year Tapestry veteran and a 9 year homeschooling veteran can learn new things! (actually, I learn new things every single day!! One thing I love about homeschooling!)

Preparing for School - Weeks of July 18 and 25

The following projects were all cumulative ~ I began them one week on my "Ross day" and finished them all the following week. The timeline notebook on the left is our daughter's that I bought 3 years ago at Rainbow Resource. Our rising 6th grader, son G, has graduated from the wall timeline to having his own notebook timeline, but since the one our daughter uses has been discontinued, I decided to copy hers and make up my own notebook for him. His new timeline notebook is on the right.



Our daughter started her timeline notebook around about the 1500's A.D, so all the pages before that are still blank. I just copied them all onto beige cardstock, and voila! A timeline notebook. The earliest events as recorded in the Bible are left blank as to a date. This is the first page of their notebooks.


I then downloaded and printed out timeline figures from the Tapestry of Grace Year 1 yahoo group. I printed two copies, one for each of our children who keeps a timeline notebook.


Then I filed them in their weekly file (file folders numbered 1-36). Tuesday is normally our timeline day, so when they see the 3 x 5 card in their workbox that says "timeline" they can go get the figures from these files (on my desk) and then cut and glue them into their notebooks.


I also printed out all the lapbook pages and maps for all 4 units of Year 1 and put them in page protectors at the front of the corresponding week in my Tapestry of Grace binder.


I'm so glad the bulk of my annual summer printing is over!!

A Huge School Related Blessing!!!!

For my fellow TOGgers, yes you are seeing correctly......

One of my Tapestry of Grace yahoo group sisters blessed us recently with a complete Year 1 redesign year plan, in binders AND page protectors!!!!! This represents a year's worth of history, literature, geography, worldview, and church history studies (as well as government and philosophy for when we get to high school) and is a $225 value if we were to buy it new. This is a HUGE blessing for us, even though we won't get to year 1 until the fall of 2010. Thank you my sweet TOG sister!!! You have blessed us immeasurably!

And now I must decide if I will be a page protector gal or a non page protector gal.......!