Today was our first day back to {home}school! Eli and Maddie started 4rd Grade, and Aiden is a 3rd Grader :)
-------
Year 5! It's hard to believe, but I am grateful for another year of homeschooling. I feel like we are "in deep" at this point haha...I have so many plans for what I want to teach, where I want our schooling to go, and I have us on that trajectory for multiple years in the future. It's mostly exciting, somewhat nerve-wracking, and I just feel so grateful that we get to jump in for another year.
Even with that, I have been "ready" to start for a few weeks...all the curriculum was set, worksheets ready, books in place. But mentally, I probably could have used another couple of weeks before we started. This summer was busy, and I don't necessarily feel rested and ready for a full semester of school. But even getting started this morning, I am grateful for "past me" already doing the prep work so that we could ease into the year. I'm thankful that we have good routines in place, and the kids already know {for the most part} what to expect. I am looking forward to our learning rhythm, and I look forward to seeing another year of growth!
-------
Here's a look at what we have in store for fourth and third grade this year:
Morning Time: This time will remain fairly consistent from previous years:
- Daily hymn- a selected hymn each week from Then Sings My Soul by Robert J. Morgan
- Catechism- we use The New City Catechism for Kids from The Gospel Coalition
- Character Cards- we use the Character Matters Cards from September and Co
- World Prayer- we pray for one country or people group a week from the Window on the World: An Operation World Prayer Resource book.
Bible: We will continue making our way through Foundations of the Bible by Driven by Grace. We will finish Volume 2: Judges to Jesus and then complete the year with Volume 3: Gospels to Revelation. The kids really enjoyed this curriculum last year, so we are looking forward to finishing out the rest of the volumes.
Language Arts:
- Spelling- Eli and Maddie will move to Modern Curriculum Press' Spelling Workout D, and Aiden will start with Spelling Workout C.
- Grammar- We will do grammar twice a week, and we will use First Language Lessons- Level Four from the Well Trained Mind. Aiden is still a rockstar, keeping up with Eli and Maddie!
- Writing- We will continue our daily handwriting practice with Zaner-Bloser Handwriting workbooks. Everyone will continue practicing cursive. We will also start Writing with Ease Level 4 for literature and writing skills. When I first started this program, Level 4 was mapped out for 4th grade. They have since revised the program, but I was able to find a copy for us to finish out our 4th year and hopefully give the kids a solid foundation before we move on to a more skilled program. We're still working on the mechanics of our writing, so here's to a year of more growth!
- Reading- This is the year of reading practice for everyone! We have made it through all of our phonics programs, and now we are just working on comprehension {Maddie} and fluency {Eli and Aiden}.
Family Read Alouds: Over the summer, we started The Green Ember series by S.D. Smith, and the kids have loved it! This year, we also have some more classics lined up:
- The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois
- The Swiss Family Robinson by Robinson Crusoe
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
- The Borrowers by Mary Norton
- Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
- The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
- Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
- The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser
Math: We are continuing with the same curriculum. Eli will be moving forward with Kate Snow's Fourth Grade Math with Confidence, and Maddie and Aiden will complete Third Grade Math with Confidence {which they started last spring}, starting Fourth Grade Math with Confidence next spring.
History: This year, we will continue making our way through The Story of the World Volume 3: Early Modern Times and Our Star-Spangled Story from Notgrass History. Because we worked through both last year, and added unit studies on the Constitution and the Presidency, it slowed our pace down, so we will just keep making our way through. We will continue the unit study on the Presidency, and we will add unit studies on Compassionate Americans, Clever Americans, and Creative Americans. We will end the year with a unity study on the U.S. Civil War {all unit studies are from Delightfully Feasting Press}.
We will be supplementing with the following:
- Usborne Book of World History
- The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia
- The Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World
- Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History
- Relevant library books
And for the unit studies:
- The Constitution Decoded
- Basher Civics: Democracy Rules!
- Basher Basics: U.S. Presidents
- Weird But True: Presidents
- The Presidents Visual Encyclopedia
- We the People and the President
- Scholastic Books of Outstanding Americans
- Two Miserable Presidents
- DK Eyewitness: Civil War
- Relevant library books
We will also have a mixture of read alouds and narration, maps/coloring pages, and activities/crafts.
Geography: We will be doing a U.S. geography study through the National Parks! We will get to learn about the unique culture, historical events, people, and natural wonders of each park, and there are varying activities throughout the study. Delightfully Feasting Press offers 4 volumes to walk through most of the U.S. parks, and I am looking forward to this unique approach to geography.
Science: Science the last couple of years has been a bit of a flop, so I decided to make a complete pivot. Our evaluator recommended Science Shepherd, so we are going to try Introductory Science. It will give us a good base of a lot of different topics, as we decide if this curriculum is going to work for us. I like that all of the kids can do the core curriculum learning together, but then there is a Level A and Level B workbook, so they can split the course work based on their age/grade level. There is a combination of videos, activities/experiments, and review pages. It also leaves room for additional exploration of topics to dive deeper if we want. So here's to a better year in science!
Foreign Language- Latin: We will continue with our Latin curriculum from last year, moving to Latina Christiana from Memoria Press. I plan to use the videos a lot more than we did last year, {instead of just the audio pronunciation}, so I will be interested to see how the kids enjoy having someone else teach them. Maddie loved Latin, mostly because she is excited to have a "base" language to learn more languages later. The boys...not so much haha.
Typing: Eli and Maddie will continue practicing their typing, and I will start Aiden with the same program in the spring {Typing.com}.
-------
Here we go...4th and 3rd grade!
