Halfway through 3rd Grade

Wow! I have a 3rd and a half grader who is about to turn 9. Crazy!
I’m enjoying our first half of American History and the fun stories we get to read.

In bible we are still working through the New Testament of the Discoverer’s Bible for Girl’s Ministries and doing weekly memory work. She completed Psalm 42 during this unit, it was the longest one she has done and it stretched over our vacation break which made it a little more difficult than the shorter ones.

In history/social studies, we have Children’s Encyclopedia of American History and The Landmark History of the American People for our spines. During this unit we enjoyed a selection of books by Jean Fritz that Hannah really looked forward to. They were: What’s the Big Idea Ben Franklin?, Can’t You Make them Behave King George?, and And Then What Happened Paul Revere?. I had another one called Why Don’t You Get a Horse Sam Adams? that Hannah also read though it wasn’t assigned. We also read a journal type book called The Winter at Valley Forge and had a weekly selection of poetry. Hannah had one mini-report assignment that she did on Ben Franklin. And we do our Timeline and Map on a weekly basis usually.

We primarily read Johnny Tremain as our read aloud this unit, it is the longest book we’ve done together. We did start on a book called Toliver’s Secret last week.

We’ve gotten into a nice routine with Language. We have four lessons of Sequential Spelling a week, one Wordly Wise 1 assignment, one cursive handwriting, one dictation, and one creative writing each week. We usually start the creative assignment on one day, revise it, and rewrite the next. She’s writing very nice paragraphs now. She continues to read well. This unit she read Skippack School, Meet George Washington, Phoebe the Spy, and started The Cabin Faced West.

We continue to lag in science, but I’m planning on doing science through the summer when we aren’t on vacation so I think it will work out fine. We’ve finished Mysteries and Marvels of Nature. And are currently working through Water, Incredible Creatures That Defy Evolution (DVD), and First Encyclopedia of Seas and Oceans. Hannah really likes the Usborne books that have internet links so she can go learn more about subjects she is interested in. I like them because at least the initial links are kid-safe.

Math is still her least favorite subject, though she does ok in it. We work 3 or 4 lessons in Horizons 3 a week. She’s learning more about fractions and division lately.

< Shoveling snow in MN We are pretty happy with our current set of extras. She has piano lesson once a week with daily practice, Girl’s Ministries once a week and sometimes extra activities, and a weekly park play date. We went to the Mayborn museum once this unit with friends. Any day we don’t go out, we spend time outside down by the creek or working on our ‘secret’ hideout. 😉 We had some great vacation travels to Minnesota and Missouri over break and got to spend time with lots of family. For her birthday Hannah got a kitten, so that has been an added responsibility and extracurricular for her.