Homeschool: Grade 3, Term 2 (2019-2020)

In the Charlotte Mason world, I call the "grade" Sophie is in "Form 1A." But in trusty American talk, she is in third grade. This was our second term for third grade.

  

As mentioned in this post, these are the subjects we cover in a term:

Bible

Poetry

Math 

Reading

Copywork

History

Geography

Natural History

Literature

Physical Education

Music Appreciation

Art Appreciation

Spanish

Singing

Recitation

Drawing

Handicrafts/work

We use the scheduling cards from A Delectable Education to schedule each of these subjects into our week, some being just once a week, and some being every day, some being 10 minutes, and some being 20.

Here is what we feasted on in Term 2:

Bible: We read from the actual Bible text, and we are reading through Joshua/Judges and Luke this year. We covered Judges 2-7 and Luke 7-12. We read roughly 10-20 verses a day, seeking to cover one whole "episode" but not (typically) an entire chapter in a day. We alternated days between Judges and Luke, and we didn't read all passages in Judges.

Poetry: We choose one poet to focus on each term, and for term three, we focused on Langston Hughes. We read Langston Hughes' Poetry for Young People. Reading black poetry was new for us, and it brought up a lot of good discussions. We read poetry every day, so we read poems by Langston Hughes 3 times a week, and on the other days, we read from A Child’s Book of Poems and Mother Goose by Gyo Fujikawa. 

Math: We continued to us Charlotte Mason Elementary Arithmetic Book 2. This book can easily be used for 2nd and 3rd grade, though it's always most important to go at a child's pace and be where they actually are at in understanding. There are plans for the rest of this series to come out in the next couple years. We finished this book this term- before the next book is out, unfortunately. We just continued on with multiplication tables and problems. We covered multiplication from numbers 7-10 this term, as well as 10s, 100s, and 1000s. We also began short division.

Reading: We no longer have a specific time for this in our school day. She reads on her own time, though. 

Copywork: For copywork, Sophie typically copies two lines of poetry or from a book. The goal is to visualize each word before writing it so that she can write the whole word from memory. This helps her learn to not only be a good writer but also a good speller! Sophie also has started dictation- where she looks at a short passage for a few minutes, to make sure she knows all of the words, and then I read it and she writes it out, ensuring to have correct spelling and punctuation. 

History: This year, we are covering American history from 1700-1800. I used Liberty or Death by Betsy Maestro as our spine for the term. For biography supplements, we used the following books:

- Remember the Ladies: A Story about Abigail Adams by Jeri Chase Ferris
- They Called her Molly Pitcher by Anne Rockwell
- Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates (historical fiction)

Geography: We have two days that we do geography. One day is more for learning about physical geography and the general workings of the world (this is like "pre-map" work, because a child needs to understand these things before grasping a map or globe). The other day we have begun learning about specific areas of geography. We are learning this year about different countries around the world. 

Day 1 Book: Elementary Geography by Charlotte Mason. We only did Lessons 34 and 35 from this book this term.

Day 2 Books: - Our Big World by Barrows, Parker, and Sorensen. This term, we studied different countries in Asia as well as the South Pacific islands with the book Getting to Know the South Pacific by Charles Joy. This is an old textbook, so I've had to update a few things, but not too much. I love how it covers details about the land, resources, and people. They just don't make geography textbooks like this anymore.

Natural History: For Natural History, I choose two books that we will spend the whole term using, and then we have a special studies topic for the term (and sometimes two special studies), and I choose several books to cover that topic.

Book 1: Wildlife in the Arctic by Mary Adrian (*my girls loved this one!)

Book 2: A Walk in the Boreal Forest by Rebecca Johnson

Special Studies Books: 

Our special study was seasons and the arctic animals, and we used these books:

- Crinkleroot's Nature Almanac by Jim Arnsoky

- Frozen Wild by Jim Arnosky

Literature: We sure do love literature! We have two days of literature.
Day 1: We are reading Pilgrim's Progress (which is spread out over two years) (We finished this book this term.)
Day 2: Mythology- currently reading Tales of Troy and Greece by Andrew Lang. This is a retelling of The Odyssey. Sophie loves it, but I don't believe I will use this book as early with my other daughters. It would be for the advanced student or the child who loves any and every book.

Physical Education (Drill/Dance/Play): We did some swedish drill, some exercises, and a lot of free play.

Music Appreciation: We studied Mozart this term. We read Mozart, The Wonder Boy by Opal Wheeler. We listened to String Serenade No. 13, Requiem Fantastic, Piano Sonata No. 11, Rondo Alla Turca, Clarinet Quintet in A Major, Symphony No. 31 in C, 12 variation of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Piano Sonata No. 16, Fantasia in d minor, Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor, Wiegenlied, Overture. (My girls especially love Rousseau's piano performances.)

Art Appreciation: We studied Raphael. We again used the artist packets from Simply Charlotte Mason... they are great! The picture quality is incredible, and I love that they come with information on the artist and each picture. We studied Sistine Madonna, School of Athens, St. George and the Dragon, Small Cowper Madonna, An Allegory ("Vision of a Knight"), Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Ezekiel's Vision, and La Donna Valeta.

Spanish: We use took a complete break from Spanish this term. It wasn't intentional, but as I am not fluent, I needed the break this term.

Singing: We learned and sang the following songs over the term:

- Patriotic Song: "Waltzing Matilda"

- Hymn: "Simple Gifts" (Quaker hymn)

- Folksong: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
- Solfa: We used Solfa Sofa and went through Unit 2. We really like how she has her lessons set up, and my girls enjoy doing the printables that she has available each week.

Recitation: We do recitation three times a week. The purpose of recitation is not memorization (though, that often happens over the term!); the purpose is to be able to read something beautifully. Sometimes we each read a line and share the recitation, and sometimes Sophie does it all on her own. This term, we did the following:

- Religious: Brother Sun and Sister Moon
- Verses: Psalm 34:1-9, Luke 8:22-25, Luke 9:23-27

- Poems: Langston Hughes' "In Time of Silver Rain" and "I Dream a World" (Brielle, Grade 1, did "Poor Rover" and "Dreams")

Drawing: This term, we mostly veered away from using this time as Charlotte Mason would have. I was influenced by Waldorf pedagogy this year and began keeping a book for each of them where they can color and paint the things they are learning in literature. Sophie has one for Tales of Troy and Greece and Narnia and Brielle has one for fables and fairy tales.

Handicrafts/Work: The girls worked on Christmas gifts this term, and then we did clay modeling. 

Brielle is in first grade this year. While we didn't do everything the same as we did with big sister Sophie, we have a general same outline. As I learn and grow as both a person and as an educator, I find better books or different ways of teaching things... sometimes because of a better grasp on the way Charlotte Mason actually taught the subject and sometimes because I'm dipping into other pedagogies that have beautiful insight as well. Brielle is a different person than her big sister too, and I keep that in mind. However, I'm not going to write out all that we did since I have already blogged before about year 1. You can look at the pictures below to see what books we used (sometimes only parts of the books... it looks like a huge stack, I know!). And you can click on this link to read the full posts of what I have done in past years/terms with Sophie: Homeschool Archives.