Darcy gave me a perfect reason to link up to all my selections and to chat about why they are working for us (or how we change them up a bit).

Welcome to our Curriculum Closet – my notes are in italics.

Year 3 – Third Grade (Age 7 going on

Math:
Singapore Primary Math 3A and Primary Math 3B along Challenging Word Problems Books 2 and 3 (CWP is sadly going out of print)

I am sticking with the US edition this year because I already had half of the books purchased. I will probably move to the Standards edition next year. I find the pacing of Singapore to be great for my son as he loves his numbers. We don’t stick directly to the Singapore Method of completing the math problems but typically this is not a problem since there is a not a lot of areas where problems must be completed in a specific way.

Science:
R.E.A.L. Science Chemistry

I’ve been using the R.E.A.L. science series for a couple of years. I’ve always enjoyed how hands-on this series can be. And how easily it lends itself to being supported by library resources. I am just as excited to start our Chemistry this year. Our start has been sporadic but that has nothing to do with the curriculum. We’ve already done one of the experiments and learned a little something extra about baby powder versus the non-baby powder we had on hand. Cornstarch in the mix changes the results quite a bit.

History:
History Odyssey Early Modern Level I
Audio of Story of the World Volume 3.

My boys love the Story of the World Audio. In fact they demand we listen to history all the time. I like how History Odyssey combines other things into our history program like using a dictionary to define a word or geography with the maps. But most of all I like how easy it makes it for me to add a bit to fill-out the audio driven history at hour house.

Language Arts:

1. Writing: Spectrum Writing Grade 3
2. Handwriting: HWT Cursive
3. Grammar: Growing with Grammar Grade 3
4. Spelling: Phonetic Zoo
5. Phonics: Phonics Book 2 and Phonics Book 3 from Teacher Created Resources

It looks like I go nuts with Language Arts. Really though I find that all of the above are keeping language arts from being a drudge. Each piece is a small snippets tossed in amongst other things so that the boy doesn’t realize how much time he spends on one subject. I’m very pleased with the addition of Phonetic Zoo this year. It’s slow pacing and focus on learning the spelling words/rules is just right for us. I have a very young third grader which made adding writing in this year a bit of a challenge. Spectrum writing is proving to be a good way to introduce the basics of writing without overwhelming my young (and previously reluctant writer). Growing with Grammar continues to be a program I love for it simplicity and gentle repetition. Can I just say how awesome it is to see my little man diagramming simple sentences without pain or fuss?! Phonics Book 2 and Book 3 are mostly review. It was a requested addition when my older son found my younger sons books. Who am I to refuse him phonics review!  And finally we moved to HWT cursive this year. I wasn’t certain about it because of my boys age but he was motivated. Once again the premise of “a few times the best you can” is working for our house. In fact I expect that my son’s cursive writing will be lovely to see. He’s only a few letters into the book and already his writing is flowing smoothly and neat. My goal of legible handwriting for my sons is in sight!

Year 0 – Kindergarten (Age 5 for almost the whole year!)

Math:
Singapore Earlybird Kindergarten (Book A and Book B)

This boy love workbooks. Thus the colorful pages of his math book draws him like a butterfly. We started with Book A but already I can see that we’ll be speeding him up a bit or adding to some extras to his “to do”. Last year he was often at the table during math doing his own thing and apparently soaking up lots of math related knowledge.

Science:
Unit studies using the Activity Pages from Living Learning Books (Animals, Plants & the Body)

I found the book lists to be great except my library never had any of the recommended books. I’m skipping looking through the book lists and instead just checking out what our library has for each topic!

History:
Following along with History Odyssey Early Modern Level I as able

Language Arts:

1. Handwriting: HWT Printing
2. Phonics: Phonics Book 1 from Teacher Created Resources
3. Reading: Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading

Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading is feeling completely new to me this year since I’m using it in a reference sort of way and making the lessons be very hands on. I am so glad to have previously purchased a great set of magnetic letter tiles as I’m using them a lot here. My youngest is my coloring son. So I chose to use a Phonics Book that had lots of coloring, circling and phonics in it. He’ll often make his pages last extra long by precisely coloring the pictures. And yesterday on a starting consonant page he color coded the letters (B’s were green, P’s were blue etc). Phonics is one of his favorites but I think that’s because of the coloring aspect! I stuck with HWT for my second son too because he’s my lefty.  I wanted something that wouldn’t overwhelm him with repetition which for him equal boredom and that would allow us to focus on proper formation, pencil hold and page tilt. HWT fit that bill for us.

Thanks for visiting!