3rd Grade Recap and Review of our Homemade Charlotte Mason Plans

I had so much planned for my son's third-grade year!!! Here is what worked, what didn't, what I changed on the fly and how this is all going to affect next year's plans.

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Overall, most subjects went according to plan. But it was an exhausting year for me. With a new baby born a few months before we started lessons and two children doing lessons instead of one, I really had to learn a lot about juggling lots of differing needs at the same time.

My expectations were too high! Too high about how easy it would be to switch between so many lessons with two children and so many interruptions. Too high about how much everyone would love everything. And too high about how easy it would be to really step up my oversight of how the kids would spend some of their afternoon hours--basically I wanted to institute afternoon occupations and I wanted it to be easy and didn't understand how draining it would be for me to have so little personal downtime in the afternoon.

Throughout the year I did a lot of tweaking and a lot of contemplating. A lot of things clicked for me when I listened to the A Delectable Education podcast episode When the Feast is Too Much which was very encouraging. I realized that some of the "extra" things we do as a family need to be taken into account when planning what we do and don't do in our lesson time. Stay tuned for how next year is going to look a little differently.

Confession time--This was the first year we were subject to the homeschooling laws in our state so it was the first time we had to count our homeschooling days. Even though I planned out 36 weeks of homeschool lessons, which would have equaled the mandated 180 days, I was also able to count other days that we did field trips or other educational activities. So we hit 180 days way before we were finished the lessons I had planned before I gave birth. I meant to finish our lessons strong . . . but I didn't!

We did take an hour a day to finish up several books that we were in the middle of, but then we just stopped. No end of term exams, no 12-week term, nothing. We just fizzled out into an early summer break at the beginning of May. So you may notice a lot of books that we didn't get to or didn't finish!

So, on to the recap!

Bible Lessons

I read narrative portions of Genesis and Matthew to Peter and John who took turns narrating. Then we continued with Exodus and Luke, which we have not finished yet but will pick up in the fall. We started using an online version of the King James Version. I have heard so many reasons why this is the translation to use, but after using it for most of a year, I am not convinced. We began using a different translation that I also don't particularly love, but the kids seemed to get much more out of reading it. Our Bible lessons will continue to evolve next year and beyond.

Language Arts: Reading/Literature, Spelling, Copywork/Handwriting, Recitation

Reading/Literature (3x20min/week , oral narration after each reading)

Peter read and narrated the following titles:
American Tall Tales by Adrien Stoutenburg [$3.99 on Thriftbooks]
Johnny Tremain by Esther Hoskins Forbes [$1 book sale find!]
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome [$1 book sale find!]
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson [.25 book sale find!]

He also started The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett [Library] but didn't finish it.

Peter enjoyed all of the books. Kidnapped  was not his favorite for quite a while, but once he got used to the language he did enjoy it. He said American Tall Tales was his favorite.

Peter is a very strong reader but I know he would benefit from more practice reading aloud. I'm hopeful that I can do a better job next year with requiring more of it.

Spelling (3x10min/week)

All About Spelling Level 3

I had thought we would finish this book and start the next level, but we didn't. We got so close to finishing level 3, but I didn't have the heart to keep pushing it when our school year sort of petered out at the end. This program is still working very well for my son. He really retains all of the spelling rules and generally spells words correctly if he has learned the applicable rules.

Copywork/Handwriting (4x10min/week)

Peter finished My Book of Writing Words: Learning about Consonants and Vowels (Kumon Workbooks) and then switched solely to copying selections from our poems and passages. Eventually, I decided to choose our copywork from Spelling Wisdom. I like the selections and I appreciate how the spelling has been standardized and Americanized when appropriate.

Peter's ability to write in cursive has dramatically improved over the year. He can now easily write something in cursive even without seeing an example. He chose to write his thank you notes, as well as his other writing in cursive most of the time.

Recitation (3x10min/week)

Each 6-week half term he worked on reciting beautifully (often memorizing) 2 poems and 1 passage.

We continued to perform our recitation pieces at our low-key family poetry teas during our break weeks. It was positively lovely every single time. Peter definitely improved in his performance over the year.

Poetry (Listen to the same poem read aloud every day for a week at morning time)

We did focus on a different poet each term:

• Emily Dickenson
• Walter de la Mare
• Alfred Lord Tennyson

I think we all loved Walter de la Mare the most!

Latin and Greek Roots (daily at morning time)

We had used these English from the Roots Up Flashcards at morning time for a few years and I planned to continue with them. However, I realized that none of us was retaining what we were learning and they didn't seem to fit in the big picture of our homeschool so I dropped them before we barely started them for the year.

During the year, I learned more about Talkbox.mom and by term 3 we had finally started a modern language. It was not something that I thought I was ever going to be able to handle, but so far we have enjoyed learning our first box of German words and phrases as a family. Peter especially enjoyed learning and practicing his German.

Social Studies: History and Geography

History (3x30min/week, oral narration after each reading, plus related mapwork that I keyed to the readings)

Peter read from the following books as planned:

• Poor Richard by James Daugherty [$12.67 on Amazon with a coupon]
• Struggle for a Continent: The French and Indian Wars, 1690-1760 by Albert Marrin [$4.19 on Thriftbooks]
• The Story of the Boston Tea Party by Mary Kay Phelan [$1 book sale find!] 
• American Revolution Landmark Book by Bruce Bliven Jr. [$4.35 new on Amazon]
• The Shot Heard Round the Worlds: The Battles of Lexington and Concord by Nancy Whitelaw [$1 book sale find!] 
• The boys of '76 by Charles Carelton Coffin [free online]
• Give Us Liberty! the Story of the Declaration of Independence by Helen Stone Peterson [$1 book sale find!] 
• When Washington Crossed the Delaware: A Wintertime Story for Young Patriots by Lynne Cheney and Peter M. Fiore [Library] 
• Drums at Saratoga by Lisa Banim [$1 book sale find!] 
• Washington at Valley Forge by Russell Freedman [Library]   

The only planned history book he didn't get to was Shh! We're Writing the Constitution which I ended up reading during morning time. I also had him stop reading from The boys of '76 after the first term as it was taking too much time and he was struggling with it.

Overall, Peter rose to the challenge I put before him for history. He learned a lot and he gave good narrations. However, I assigned too much reading that was too hard. It was too much to get through during the time we had allotted. I also expected him to add to maps before each reading session and it made things too hectic. He learned so much! But I was a bit of wreck trying to keep us all moving in the right direction. I will be dialing it back next year so we can get a lot more by reading less.

Geography (3x10min/week, oral narration after each reading, plus related mapwork that I keyed to the readings)

• Marco Polo: His Travels and Adventures by George Makepeace Towle [Printed Ambleside Online's free version]
• The Guyot Geographical Reader and Primer: A Series of Journeys Round the World By Arnold Henry Guyot [free online]

Our geography plans worked well. As I have learned more about the way Charlotte Mason did geography, I will be altering our way of doing geography next year. But this year went well. We finished the North American section of the Guyot Reader and will probably pick it up again the year after next.

Mathematics: Math, Number, Geometry

Math (4x30min/week, dictated narration after each lesson which I record in our math notebook (we use one of these)

I had planned on doing Beast Academy 4 times a week, work with Cuisenaire rods once a week and geometry once a week. We started out that way, but then by term 2, I dropped the Cuisenaire rods and by term 3, we were doing geometry in Beast Academy and it was working so well that when I retooled our schedule to add a German, I dropped geometry all together. So although I had planned on completing Beast Academy 4B-4D, we were actually able to complete those along with 5A.

This curriculum is still impressing me daily and it is still working wonderfully for my math-loving son.

Number (1x25min/week, dictated narration after each lesson which I record in a math notebook)

We worked through Gattegno's Mathematics Textbook 1 using Cuisenaire rods until I felt that we weren't getting as much out of it anymore. 

Geometry (1x10min/week, dictated narration after each lesson which I record in a math notebook)

We started using Khan Academy's geometry topics but I didn't love doing it like this because there was no drawing of figures. We switched to using Mammoth Math's (I won it in a giveaway!) 7th-grade geometry which was very challenging but had a lot of constructing angles and arcs. We dropped it when we got to more geometry in Beast Academy.

Science: Natural History, Special Studies, Nature Notebooking

Natural History (3x10min/week, oral narration after each reading)

Peter read from the following books, but he didn't finish Secrets of the Woods which he did not like!

• Eyes No Eyes,  by Arabella Buckley (1-2 chapter/week) [Internet Archive illustrated edition]
• Term 1: Squirrel's and Other Fur Bearers By John Burroughs [free online MANY places, I'm using Google's free illustrated edition]
• Term 2: African Critters by Robert Haas [$3.99 on Thriftbooks] & North: The Amazing Story of Arctic Migration by Nick Dowson and Patrick Benson [already owned gifted book]
• Term 3: Secrets of the Woods by William J. Long, illustrated ebook available on Google Books [$9 vintage edition book sale find]

Special Studies (1x20min/week, oral narration after each reading)

I chose the following topics for the year using the rotation found on Sabbath Mood Homeschool :

Term 1: Wildflowers and Seeds / Birds and Spiders
Term 2: Shells and Marine Life / Birds at the Seashore [in preparation for a few weeks at the beach]
Term 3: Wildflowers and Trees / Insects

Although it wasn't in my original plans, I decided to combine the boys and read books on these topics to them because I often found the same books that I thought would work for both of them.

I occasionally prepared object lessons based on things I thought we would be able to observe. The ones I prepared were VERY successful. But it is so hard for me to know what we are going to see. However, I have learned that it works best for me when I don't just read the Handbook of Nature Study to prepare. I am more successful by also watching youtube videos.

Nature Notebooking (daily entries, weekly entries, nature watercolor drawings)

My son is responsible for noticing something from nature and dictating a line or two to my husband or me to write into his nature notebook daily. We still miss a few days a month and that is perfectly fine for us. We do this all year round, 7 days a week. This year he took it upon himself to write some of his entries. His entries also became much more detailed over the course of the year.

During weeks where we have lessons, I allotted time for him to make a drawing and either write notes about the drawing or dictate to me to write them. This is not a favorite activity. But I think we all love looking back at what he has created.

Morning Time

As planned, I selected many living science and natural history books as part of our morning time. These titles are not narrated. I am actually going to put all of our special study reading in morning time next year. Everyone in the family is benefiting from these studies. We all have so much to learn.

Wild + Free Nature Group

New for us this year, we participated in a weekly year-round nature meetup at a rural property. The group includes several homeschool families as well as several families with preschool-aged children who intend to homeschool. This was a great way to keep me accountable to weekly half-days in nature . . . even in pouring rain or freezing temps.

Peter doesn't love to spend time outside as much as his siblings. However, he mostly enjoyed our time at our nature group. His bigger outdoor passions include hiking and camping. He has been going on longer (8 miles+) hikes with his father on a regular basis and we have been able to camp several times this year, including while on vacation in Florida.

A note on our nature progress:

This was the first year that I was wowed by my kids' nature knowledge being beyond my own. On a nature walk with a naturalist, my kids were identifying tree after tree that I could not have identified. Even my four-year-old was able to notice a small flower and then pick it out of the wildflower guide even though I had missed it myself. I certainly don't say this to brag, but rather to say that these practices of reading nature lore, nature notebooking, and spending free time in nature make a big difference over the years.

Art and Music: Watercolor, Handicrafts, Singing, Artist Study, Composer Study, Music

Watercolor drawing (2x20min/week)

We did do watercolor drawing 1-2 times a week all year. It was still a drag. It was still not as fun as it should be. It was hard for me to participate myself while holding a crying baby. I wasn't as patient and sensitive as I needed to be. Nevertheless, Peter's drawings did improve and mature and were a lovely addition to his nature notebook. We also did some other drawing practice, which he enjoyed more than watercolor.

I think if other subjects had been less intense/busy, there might have been a better attitude for this subject. We'll see how we do next year.

Handicrafts (2x30min/week)

This year we planned to do:

Term 1: Sloyd using Paper Sloyd: A Handbook for Primary Grades by Ednah Anne Rich

Term 2: Finished up Sloyd gifts for Christmas, then embroidering using this kit.

Term 3: Sewing using Sewing School: 21 Sewing Projects Kids Will Love to Make by Andria Lisle

In Term 2, we actually dabbled in lots of different yarn arts, including lucet weaving, knitting, and the beginnings of crochet. 

But by Term 3 my son had moved on to Sewing School 2. This was a bit problematic because I had never learned to use the sewing machine I bought after getting married almost 15 years ago. So a lot of our time was spent learning to get my machine going, realizing it wasn't working correctly, taking it to a shop together, learning that a gear had irreparably broken, and doing some research to buy another (simpler) model. While visiting family for Easter, we were offered a free "vintage" model. After tuning it up, we now have a working sewing machine. I still have not used it, but Peter has been able to complete several projects (all be it after we had wrapped up our homeschool year) without my hands even touching the machine.

He still doesn't have the confidence to iron without some help because he did burn himself very, very slightly when he tried. So he isn't completely independent, but I'm really proud of where he is getting with his sewing even though it was quite a journey to get there.

Singing (2x10min/week)

I choose folk songs and hymns. I consult Ambleside Online but I do not follow their rotation per se. This year, I selected the following:

The Gypsy Rover
Doxology (Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow)
The Minstrel Boy
If I Had a Hammer
Go Tell Aunt Rhody
Low Bridge--Everybody Down (The Erie Canal)
Let There Be Peace on Earth
Cockles & Mussels (Molly Malone)
Amazing Grace
The Rhyme of the Chivalrous Shark
Hail Holy Queen Enthroned Above (Catholic)
Star of the County Down
Turkey in the Straw
Will the Circle Be Unbroken
Shenandoah

And we learned all but the last three. We will be learning the last 2 next year, but I've dropped Turkey in the Straw completely for now.

I find it hard to learn the words and tune to folk songs, but Peter does not seem to have a problem with it. He loves learning every single verse and I listen to him when I forget the words. It was wonderful to have so many songs to sing while hiking and on the beach or driving in the car. The kids sometimes just sing the songs together when we aren't even around. I keep our printed lyrics in a binder to form our own personal family songbook.

Artist Study (1xweek at morning time)

This year we planned to study:

Term 1: Turner [Picture Study Portfolios from Simply Charlotte Mason, $18.95+shipping]
Term 2: Gainsborough [Picture Study Portfolios from Simply Charlotte Mason, $18.95+shipping]
Term 3: Dali [$3 art book from a Half Priced Books store]

But for Term 3 I caved and bought another Picture Study Portfolio of Mary Cassatt. We all enjoyed Cassatt's pictures and we are excited to plan a trip soon to visit the National Portrait Gallery to see some of her work in person.

My boys were so reluctant when we started picture study a few years ago, but now it is something we all enjoy!

Composer Study (1xweek at morning time)

This year our planned composers/materials were:

• Term 1: George Frideric Handel, Handel at the Court of Kings by Opal Wheeler [$14.75 new]
• Term 2: Nicholas Andreievich Rimsky-Korsakoff, Chapter from Story-Lives of Great Composers by Katherine Little Bakeless [$1 book sale find!]
• Term 3: Frederic Chopin, Chapter from The World's Great Men of Music: Story-Lives of Master Musicians by Harriette Brower (free online)

Each term I picked out pieces to watch on YouTube. That part of the study worked well when we did it. Sometimes the amount of listening doesn't seem like enough to amount to anything. I'm trying to accept that whatever we do is much better than nothing.

Music (7x15min/week)

Peter continued to work on Hoffman Acadamy [Not an affiliate link! We just love Hoffman Academy.] He has recently completed Unit 9 and I continue to see great progress and enjoyment of his piano lessons. I bumped his practice time up to 20 minutes a day and he generally does it happily with no complaints.

Physical Education

This year Peter participated in AYSO Soccer (Fall and Spring), a weekly open swim at the YMCA with other homeschoolers, and summer swimming lessons. He also enjoyed an active lifestyle with hikes, bike rides, roller skating, and walks around town often, especially in spring, summer, and fall. 

Overall Evaluation

We had a very full year with lots of learning within and outside our formal lesson time. Next year, I'm giving myself more permission to plan less-- fewer days of lessons and less reading for each lesson. This way we can continue to do all of the additional learning that we love--like morning time and our outside commitments of our Wild + Free group plus our twice-monthly math games meetup--and still have lots of time for free time, chores, hikes, and more.