Second Quarter into Third

So I guess I took the second quarter off from blogging. That just means I have some catching up to do. So let me summarize:

Quarter 2

In Math we have continued working through the Total Math 4th grade workbook. I teach the concepts and I use Scholastic Study Jams to reinforce the lessons. You can find the link at the right under "My Favorites". We've gone from the beginning of the year which was a review of basic operations to fractions including adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators. We also compared and reduced fractions as well as working with mixed numbers. From there we ventured into decimals, graphs, ordered pairs and probability. Next we tackled measurement focusing on length, perimeter and area with both metric and English systems. We finished up with Volume.

Quarter 3
Well start this next quarter with a review of time and money. I will also be incorporating videos in this last quarter. I discovered Cerebellum and stocked up on some great videos to support our entire curriculum for the rest of the year. Once again, you'll find a link for Cerebellum on the right.

We are really almost done with fourth grade math. We probably only have about two weeks left. Afterwards, we'll review and maybe even take some practice tests, but then its on to fifth grade!

Quarter 2
In Social Studies we spent the bulk of the quarter studying the Middle Ages. We had a great time with it and I highly recommend the book we used as our travel guide called Knights and Castles by Avery Hart & Paul Mantell. It's filled with history and activities. I'll have to come back to share pictures of the Four Alls Wes made or the Feast we created. We also used kidspast.com (link on the right) for additional information. We finished up by studying Spanish explorers to the southwestern region of the United States.

Quarter 3
We will begin this quarter by studying westward expansion and the Mexican/American War. I found some great videos particularly in the social studies area at Cerebellum and I am going to have this part of our day be video driven. Of course we'll support this with conversation and other classroom resources. I don't have any projects in mind yet, but I'll think of something. Perhaps we can incorporate some of our history knowledge into our poetry section in Language Arts.

Quarter 2
In Language Arts we finished our Vocabulary book and started parts of speech and some reading success exercises. Wes read Janitor's Boy by Andrew Clements throughout the quarter taking notes each day. We continued our fluency work and in writing we covered How To and Personal Narratives.

Quarter 3
We'll start off this quarter with our first big book report on the Janitor's Boy. Wes will follow a rubric and go through the process of drafting, revision and publishing. This will be our main focus for the first couple weeks and then we'll head into poetry. As the year goes on, I'm placing more and more emphasis on reading comprehension and independent study skills.

Quarter 2
In science we studied weather and plants and animals.

Quarter 3
We are moving into magnets, circuits and electricity. I still have some planning to do for this subject, but I have a couple new resources that I think will help. I'll have to elaborate when I have more of a plan.

Well that kind of catches us up on the core subjects. We've also added a morning workout to our day and I'd like to bring piano lessons back into our routine. We continue to work our way through a study of the world's religions as part of our social studies and we start each day with a following directions warm up.

So that's a wrap for now. I'll try to post some fun pictures soon and maybe type up a couple of Wes's writing assignments for posterity.

Patayan Inspired Intaglio ~ An Art Project

As Wes and I have been working our way through the different ancient people that are part of the 4th grade curriculum here, we have been incorporating art projects. This week we have learned about the Patayan people. Among the things we learned is that the Patayan left behind amazing intaglios. Here's a great article we found: America’s Nazca lines We decided to make intaglios of our own. The project was a lot of fun and very easy to do. So for all of you art teachers or arty moms, we'd like to share:

This is Westen's Intaglio. He wanted to see how many different symbols he could make. We gathered inspiration from a little book we have called Easy Field Guide To Rock Art Symbols of the Southwest.

I couldn't resist getting in on the fun. I made a big person and a little person who seem to be celebrating the sun and their thriving corn crop as the lizards dance by.

This was a very easy project to put together. We just cut out pieces of cardboard from a box. We used our hands to coat one side of the cardboard generously with regular white craft glue like Elmer's. Then we covered the cardboard with black craft sand that you can buy in most craft stores. Then we just let it dry in the sun. To create our intaglios which actually means "incised designs", we used the wood end of a small paint brush. The brush end came in handy to remove loose sand or we just blew on it. We had a really good time with this one so we wanted to share!

Pueblo ~ Paper Model Project

This week we have been talking about the Sinagua of the Sunset Crater region. It was time to build a pueblo representing their later structures rather than their earlier pit houses.

You can find this paper model and many more at my favorite publishing house: Dover Publications. Whenever you walk into a museum shop, you can bet a large percent of the literature and activity books have been published by Dover. Their prices are great. You can buy paperback books in so many genres for discount prices. It's a super resource for anyone and an awesome educational site. I'll add it to my favorites list for your convenience.

Oh, one more thing. You can get on an email list for free samples. Weekly you'll receive clip art, coloring pages, shorts stories and more!

Sculpture Photographs ~ Pit House & Cliff Dwelling

I like posting pictures here at Indie Teach as a way to preserve our work and time together. Over the past two weeks we have begun our section on Native American Cultures. So far we have talked about the Mogollon People and the Anasazi. Those both of these peoples lived in different sorts of dwellings throughout the span of their time. We have chosen one representation to recreate in sculptural form.

Pit House



Cliff Dwelling

We created the Pit House while discussing the Mogollon People. It was a great way to review what we learned. "What kind of food might be in their house?" "Tools?" You get the idea. The Cliff Dwelling served the same purpose in our education about the Anasazi. We have quite a few more cultures on our list. For each one we will erect a home and in the end, they will come together to be a village of Native American Peoples and a visual reminder of all that we have learned.

By the way, in the interest of sharing, here is a link to a wonderful YouTube video of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park.

Weeks 1 & 2 (2009/2010)

Well the first week of school is behind us and the second is about to begin. It's always a good feeling to get past that first week. It takes time for our bodies and minds to adjust to the new expectations.

I feel terrific about our start this year. We've really jumped in with both feet and have covered a lot of good ground. I've been really pleased with our fluency practice. (I listed our resource materials in the last post.) I noticed a great deal of improvement in Wes just from Monday to friday using the program. I think he's going to get a lot out of it.

History was our biggest emotional struggle. I'm definitely pushing Wes to think harder and be more independent. He's not sure how he feels about this yet, I can tell. He's so capable and I'm not asking anything of him that he cannot reasonably do. I'm really emphasizing research. When he doesn't know what a word means, I hand him a dictionary. We have spent our first week learning about 8 prehistoric groups of peoples, and this week we will be turning our research into a paragraph about each one.

I've also added religious studies one day a week. I decided this after Wes asked me, "What does B.C. stand for?" We are going to be studying so many different civilizations this year, that it only makes sense to understand their beliefs and how they influenced their actions. So I've picked up one more book: The Kids Book of World Religions by Jennifer Glossop. You can find it on Amazon. It has a world map showing the dominant religions in each region. It discusses 15 major religions and also includes indigenous groups. I think it will help us greatly in our study of different cultures.

This week we will be moving forward with all of our studies. Math is still reviewing 4th grade concepts. I predict we'll be moving on to 5th grade by mid second quarter. In Science we are studying the environment and world processes. This week we will do a project using recycled materials that we've been saving. As a matter of fact. All of our art this year will be made from recycled materials!

This week in Vocab we'll be reviewing homophones. We will also be talking about major and minor characters as we read our fiction. I guess I haven't shared what we are reading. It's actually The Complete Tales of Winnie The Pooh by A.A. Milne. This might sound young, but as a video game player, one of Wes's favorite games is Kingdom Hearts. This game features characters from Disney. This has reignited an interest in the Hundred Acre Woods. The stories, as written in their original form, are a good age appropriate read. It's even a bit challenging at times since the language is less modern and the phrasing unfamiliar. It's also interestingly written in an omniscient point of view with the reader becoming Christopher Robin and the narrator speaking directly to the reader. After we read, we put on the old Disney videos and watch what we have just read. This has been very fun and Wes has already started wanting to ready further each day so he can watch the video longer. When you have a child that has not always liked reading, it's pretty awesome when they start asking, "Can I read just one more page?"

So I guess this teacher is ready for the week ahead and ready to call it a night!

2009/2010 Schedule and Resources

Well it's day 3 of the new school year and we've jumped right into the learning. I've already revised my schedule once and it will probably happen again, but here it is as it now stands. The times are loosely set. A guide more than a hard fast rule, however we do try to stick to a good schedule.

9:00-9:15 Following Directions ~ This is a warm-up activity using a publication by Creative Teaching Press. The book is called Following Directions and it is written for 3rd and 4th grade. I think following written and oral directions while doing fun activities is a good way to warm up the brain and begin to focus on the day.

9:15-9:30 Reading Fluency ~ This is a reading activity where the focus is on fluency. The text includes an audio CD and 20 lessons. We are spending about 1.5 weeks per lesson to really work on our fluency. I think this is a good morning activity as well. It's very independent and it also helps to warm up the brain for a day of learning. The program is published by Shell Education and is called Increasing Fluency With High Frequency Word Phrases.

9:30-10:30 (M,T,W & F) History and Social Studies ~ There's a lot in the curriculum this year, everything from learning about your home state to prehistoric peoples and early civilization. (Thurs) We will study religion as it is pretty hard to study civilization without it. This will not be about what we believe as a family, but religious studies in general and how it relates to the groups of people we study.

10:30-10:45 Snack Time

10:45-11:00 Fiction Reading

11:00-11:30 Math ~ We covered nearly all of the 4th grade concepts last year. We are using Total Math published by American Education Publishing to review and then we will move on to 5th grade math.

11:30-12:00 Vocabulary ~ We are using Sylvan's Vocabulary Success for 4th grade to increase our vocabulary and study word concepts and grammer.

12:00-1:00 Lunch and Play Time

1:00-1:30 (M,T,W) Science (TH) Literary Elements ~ main idea, plot, conflict, etc. (F) Review ~ We will spend this time going over all of what we have covered during the week.

If you are wondering where writing comes in, we will be using our history topics and our fiction reading to work on our note taking and writing. For example, right now we are studying prehistoric peoples. We have created a time line and are using two sources to gather facts about the different groups. From there I'll have Wes write one paragraph about each group. Then we will write an introduction and conclusion. Then we'll type it into the computer and then edit it before printing a final draft. Wes won't even realize it until he's almost finished that he's written his first big paper. Then we can go back and discuss all of the steps we went through. We will explore other forms of writing as well using similar strategies.

We also have some new resources in the classroom. A gorgeous laminated timeline that begins 5,000 yrs BC and goes all the way to present day. I found it at Learning Through History. We also have a new Scholastic Encyclopedia, The New Way Things Work, The Clear and Simple Thesaurus Dictionary (love this!) and One Million Things - A Visual Encyclopedia

Week 6 ( Feb. 10-13 )

Another short week this week. We seem to be having several of those in a row, but sometimes things just can't be helped. Wes and I are making the most of our time.

This week we are starting an exciting new section in our science studies. We are studying plant anatomy and how plants grow. We've read three books. One book, What's Alive? by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld, talked about what determines whether something is alive or not alive. Afterwards Wes spent time outside identifying 6 living and 6 non-living things. He drew pictures of them on individual cards and colored and labeled them. Then he turned this collection into a poster with one half representing the Alive and the other the Not Alive things.


Going backwards, we started the entire section by reading Oh Say Can You Seed which is part of The Cat in the Hat's Learning Library collection. It's actually full of information as well as beloved characters. Finally, today Wes read A Tree Is a Plant by Clyde Robert Bulla. This goes into detail about the life cycle of an apple tree. We also started our big Bean Sprout Project.


We have three different kinds of beans started, mung, broccoli and lentil. Wes picked the beans. We tried to pick three that looked different as seeds. Wes is keeping logs of all our our scientific data and as the week goes on, we will be learning more about these kinds of seeds in particular as well as charting and comparing their individual progress.

We are in a math transition right now. We will be starting the study of weights and measures.

I'm going to try to push on through to the end of the cursive alphabet this week and then we'll move on to writing words.

In language arts, we are beginning to study verbs. I plan to spend a fair amount of time with this part of speech and really grow Westen's understanding of verb forms.

Our Piano lesson went well today. We are learning how to approach the process better. I'm a little rusty as a music teacher.

Week 1 ( Jan 6-9 ) Beg at mid year 3rd Grade/Resources

Beginning each day at 9:00am

Wes likes having a morning routine and I think it will help us "get in the groove" so to speak. Each morning will start with Wes doing the appropriate day's Daily Math from the Evan-Moor Grade 3 Daily Math Practice workbook. It's five review questions a day and we will check answers to right away so he will start the day with a positive reinforcement. Also, any questions in which he needs help will show me the areas we need to review.

(Concept 1 for 3rd quarter math is Number Sense: Understand and apply numbers, ways of representing numbers the relationships among numbers and different number systems.)

This week we will focus on reading whole numbers, place value, putting them in order, <>, and expanded notation

Begin with Place Value Video from Study Jams

Use blackboard or paper to make our own place value chart

Use popsicle sticks or toothpicks to make numbers

Resource 1: pages 10-12 Math to Know Teacher's Resource Book

Resource 2: Scholastic Success with Math Workbook pages 5-7,9

Resource 3: Skill Sharpeners Math Grade 3 pages 9,11,24,35,63

Science: Begin Space Unit with Solar System Book and Coloring pages.

Social Studies: Begin unit on Mexico. Read first few pages of book on Mexico. Study and Label Map. Learn spanish numbers to ten and play dominos

My Schedule Outline

There is a part of me that would enjoy expounding further my thoughts and feelings about school. I've had years to develop my personal theories about what is ailing in education today and ideas about possible cures. I'm sure I won't be able to resist the need to release some of this from time to time, but that is not what I want to focus on. I want to focus on my son, his education and his future.

I'm starting from the very beginning here. Wes still has a couple days left in this school quarter. He does not know yet that I plan to start teaching him at home next quarter. My husband and I plan to sit our two sons down and talk it over as a family. We have decided to wait until the end of this grading period to discuss it, not only with our kids, but with the school and Wes's teacher. We don't want this decision to color the rest of the time we are in school.

Meanwhile, I have been busy preparing myself. I have spent time researching on line and looking through bookstores. The bottom line is that there is a lot of information out there and you just have to sift through it and make choices. The great thing about it is that the choices you make are specifically with your child in mind. I'm going to share my selections with you, but please know that they are Wes specific and based on what I believe will work for us. I'm also keeping my mind open to change in case some of my initial ideas don't pan out.

One of the things I wanted was a good resource for knowing what is generally covered or recommended at the third grade level. I'm not looking for a ready made curriculum, I just want to be on top of what is taught in each subject. I like what Scholastic offers the best. It's very detailed and clearly presented. I like the idea of having this bookmarked just as a guide post reference.

The next thing I looked for was actual materials. On the web I liked looking through Amazon as much as any place else. One of the nice features Amazon offers is a look inside the books. It's the next best thing to actually flipping through them in person. As brick and mortar stores go, Barnes and Noble has a very well stocked education section. I wish I had gone there first to tell you the truth. You just can't beat the hands on and the ability to compare the materials that the different companies offer.

Looking through the workbooks in person had a profound impact on me. Sitting on the shelf under third grade math there were easily five choices. You pick up one and it looks very no frills problem solving. Another has a test prep feel to it. Right next to these you can find an option that covers the exact same material, but what? It has color, puzzles, pictures and characters. It has a personality. I take a moment to mourn the fact that if my school did something as simple as choose the book on the right instead of the one on the left, I might not be standing here.

I think my posts are tending to run a bit long, so I'm going to leave off here today, but I'll continue on with what books I have chosen and the schedule I have in mind. Whenever I feel passionately about something, I can go on and on.