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.

Westen's Aztec Temple ~ Schedule Updates

We just finished studying the Aztecs. Wes chose a golden temple for his clay dwelling project.

Well, we are three weeks away from the end of our first quarter. It's kind of wild to think of most of the school children being on their 3rd day of the year. I have to say, I love this year round schedule our school district follows. Those long breaks between quarters go a long way to keep your brain fresh and to fend off scholastic burn out!

In the way of an update:

Math - We just completed a section on division finishing up with long division with double digit divisors and remainders; the works. I think we are both glad to be moving on. LOL! Long division is not one of Wes's favorite things. Now we are entering a unit on averaging so we haven't completely escaped division. Next we will be headed for geometry. Yea!

History - We are working our way through the list of cultures that the fourth graders are slated to study. We just started with the Sinagua of Northern AZ and still have the Patayan, Salado, Inca, and Maya to go. Needless to say, we only have enough time to get a small sense of the life these people led. We are keeping a time line as we go in addition to our clay dwellings. We are also making a poster page of each group on which we write all the interesting tidbits we can find. We will also take at least one more field trip to the Basha Museum of Native American Arts (I'm not sure if that is the actual name). At some point this year I would also like to go to the Heard Museum.

Vocabulary - We are currently studying prefixes. Wes is a happy camper this week because the prefixes are uni-, bi-, and tri- which are already familiar to him. Who doesn't like an easy week?

Science - We've been studying the environment and the earth's processes. Tomorrow we'll look at floods. We have also been saving recyclables for art projects.

Religion - Currently studying Judaism

Reading and Language Arts - Just finished up our section n fables although we will still read a few more tales of Native American Folklore. This week we made cards for the Grandparents as this Sunday is Grandparents Day. I don't even know if the Grandparents know about Grandparents Day, but they are about to find out! Fluency is still going really well. It's become a nice part of the morning routine and practically runs itself. We started a new work of fiction this week and are enjoying the story so far. We need to get a little more into the book before we can really start to discuss some of the literary elements. Of the literary elements that 4th graders are meant to learn, we've covered over half already. Now it's just a matter of reinforcing the concepts in the work we do.

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

End of Third Grade ~ Beginning of Fourth

If you scroll through this blog, you will notice that my posts kind of fell off at the end of the third grade year. This is more due to my Spring fever than our lack of activity at school. Third grade ended with us maintaining our schedule and reviewing materials from throughout the year. We also combined all of our friendly letters into one last grand edition of our newspaper the Indie Press.

Wes made great strides in the second half of the third grade. We held onto our schedule, but as the year drew to a close, I would often let him pick the order of our subjects. He surprised me with his choices, reading over music for instance. As I now look over the curriculum for the coming year, I realize the we have already covered much of the math concepts. I will keep Wes moving forward as that is his favorite subject, but we will perhaps concentrate our heaviest efforts in Language Arts. I am already seeing a path in which we can combine our comprehension, research and writing skills with our social studies and science subject matter.

Mostly, this message is to serve as closure and the completion of our third grade posting. I am now busy collecting materials and forming our curriculum based on our school district and the national standards. Some of the things typically covered the fourth grade year are already favorites for Wes like US geography and state history. This is a kid who, two years ago, could recite the states and their capitals in the order in which they were admitted into the union!

Week 4 ( Jan 26-30 )

Happy Birthday Westen!

So of course our recipe of the week this week is Birthday Cake! Westen decided he wanted chocolate and vanilla because even though chocolate is his favorite, his brother likes vanilla. Inside this yummy chocolate cake is a middle layer of vanilla. Wes helped with all the baking. His favorite part is cracking the eggs and working the blender. He also chose the bundt cake pan and the decorations. My contribution was the homemade chocolate frosting. It turned out yummy!

In academic news:

Math - We have been doing some very challenging work this week with Fractions, Improper Fractions and Mixed numbers. In addition to brushing up on his long division, Wes has mastered turning improper fractions into mixed numbers and vice versa. I'm so proud of him! Tomorrow we'll take it a little easier with multiplication and division review and then we'll move on to factors and multiples.

Language Arts - We've added a daily Q.A.C.C. or "Quack!" as we like to call it, to our routine. Q. is for question of the day, A. is for answer (Wes responds with one good sentence), C. is for comment (I reply and also make suggestions to make his sentence stronger) and the second C. is for correct (Wes rewrites his sentence based on my comments) I try to keep the Q.A.C.C. fun and relevant to his interests.

We are also going back and reviewing (I'm assuming they've been taught to him at some point) parts of speech. I think the key to eventually having strong writing skills is to really know the fundamentals of language. That might make me a little old school, but there it is. This week it's nouns and proper nouns. I've been incorporating my new activity folders (like centers). We focused on writing sentences with all three types of nouns (person, place, thing) to make good descriptive sentences. Used Draw and Write activity folder. I plan to continue with nouns through the end of this week adding plurals and possessives. Wes is a great speller so I don't need to spend to much time here.

We are also still reading our chapter book, Geronimo Stilton and The Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye. Wes is enjoying the story. We are focusing of not taking mid sentence "vacations" and being more fluid.

We've also incorporated a Daily Language Book by the same company who makes the Daily Math. Wes responds well to the format.

So we've kicked Language Arts up a notch. I'm still easing our way back into writing. Public school made writing such a chore. We are still decompressing. We are, however, going great with our cursive lessons. We've covered A through N.

Science - Last Friday we made Milky Ways as an end of the week art project. This week we will end our planetary studies with a trip to the Science Museum. It's also his birthday treat. Next we will be studying plants. Afterward, we'll rotate back into Social Studies.

Extras - We are still studying Piano and Keyboarding and this week we will publish Vol. 4 of our newspaper, the Indie Press.

Getting Started - Our Weekly Schedule

One more day before school begins and I'm getting myself all geared up.  I have everything I need as far as materials go and now I just want to write a few things down.  I've developed a rough outline for our week.  Mostly it's so I don't have moments when I'm wondering what I want to do next.  I like having a mental outline and Wes tends to be the same way.  Once again, I'm looking to achieve structure with wiggle room.  Nothing to rigid.  Here goes:

Monday - math, science, break/snack time, banking, pick recipe, shop and food prep, photograph meal, story board

Tuesday - math, science, break/snack time, recipe write up, computer menu, cursive, social studies, story board

Wednesday - math, science, break/snack time, piano, vocabulary/grammar, Reading Series, story board

Thursday - math, science, break/snack time, keyboarding, Newspaper Review

Friday - math, science, break/snack time, educational games, field trips, social studies activities

So as you can see, each day will begin with math and science.  This will give us structure and will also serve us in other ways.  It will naturally become his non-fiction reading and comprehension.  The reason I don't have reading listed everyday is because it will be a regular part of doing all of the subjects.  I have also found a fiction series that we will use whenever we have down time or on it's given day.  Writing will also be a natural part of the other activities.  In particular, science will give us ample opportunity to write and hypothesize.  I am intentionally steering away from the "read this paragraph/answer these questions" format that is used by the school.  I want Wes to stop thinking of reading and writing as unhappy work and start to realize that they are just part of doing.

Monday may be our most unique day and also the day that incorporates things necessary in running our home.  Banking is how we will do our practical hands on money math.  I bought a cash box and have started it off with a set amount of money.  We will use this money for our outings during the month and incidentals.  It will also be used to pay out allowances.  Each of my sons have a "bank account" (envelope in the cash box).  Wes will be in charge.  He will count the money to make sure it's all there.  He will keep track of receipts.  At the end of the month he will figure out how much money we need to add to the bank to bring it back up to its set amount.  The boys will also earn 3% interest on the money that they keep in the bank. Wes will learn how to calculate the interest earned.  It will be hands on money managing.

Monday is also recipe day.  One of my ideas to keep writing and reading fun is to keep a recipe box and start building up a menu.  When we have enough recipes we like, we can publish our menu and open up a restaurant.  Wes can cook, serve meals and even write up reviews.  Cooking, besides being an important life skill, is a great way to reinforce math concepts.  It helps you learn how to think on your feet and strengthen fine motor skills.  We will also do our shopping on Monday.  Wes will help cook dinner each Monday night to test out the chosen recipe.  We will take a picture of our finished dish that we can later use on our Menu.  

Story Board.  At the end of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we will post what we have studied on our story board.  This is a large bulletin board on an easel.  The purpose of our story board is to give us a visual reminder of what we are learning and an easy way to review our materials.  The story board will be used to put together our Newspaper on Thursdays.

Tuesday will start with math and science and then Wes will write up the recipe from the night before and file it in our own school recipe box.  If the recipe passed our taste test, Wes will type it into a file on the computer where we will start to compile information for our menu.  This will also give us practice is different forms of writing.  We will need to use lots of juicy adjectives!

Tuesday will also be cursive learning day.  I have a workbook that he will used to learn his letters and how to join them and we will learn some each week.  We will also introduce our social studies subject on Tuesday.  We will be studying other cultures and history.  I plan to cover all of the basic subjects covered by my school districts curriculum as well as others.

Wednesday, in addition to math and science, we will be studying a vocabulary and grammar concepts and focusing more on our reading.  We'll also have a piano lesson or explore music in some other way.

Thurdays will start with math and science as always and then we will publish our Newspaper.  I have purchased legal size paper so that we can fold it over to look like a newspaper when we are done.  We will look at real papers to incorporate some of their elements, but our paper will be a mixed media work of art.  Things can come right off the story board and be pasted onto the paper.  We will write short articles about each of our topics of the week and so on.  It will be our way of reviewing all that we've learned in a creative way as well as working on our writing and organizational skills.  

Friday will start with delivering our Newspaper to Dad during coffee time and relaying all that we are learning.  Then on to math and maybe science.  This will be our lighter day when we will play educational games that coincide with our subject matter.  It will be our day to take field trips or do crafts that relate to our social studies topic.  

So that is basically our week.  We will focus on holidays when they come along and recognize major events.  Future posts will include more detail about what we are actually studying and I'll take some pictures to share.  I will also do a post on what materials I'm using.  

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.