Laying Out the Year II

My plans for the year are complete and that feels like such a relief.  The last of my school materials arrived yesterday, leaving the rest of this month for lesson preparations.  While Enki provided nearly everything a teacher needed for each grade--games, movement work, music, poetry, tongue twisters, stories, example drawings, and the like--that's not the case for other options.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, honestly.  I am finding more and more materials from a Waldorf background that will support my efforts here at home.  With all that in mind, here are some materials for Willow's third grade.

We completed Willow's standardized test in July and it was a lengthy endeavor.  The experience and the results gave me lots of food for thought regarding her progress in the previous year, along with areas that need focus as we move forward.  I ordered a test that was slightly ahead of where she was in school and was largely pleased with the outcome.  Spelling was one area that needed some help, but she did well considering we had never worked with it directly.  With that in mind, I bought a spelling book, Spelling by Hand, and I'm looking forward to using it.  I'll have to report back with how I feel about it.

Willow will participate in the circle time with Roan and Laurel, and we'll work in active math, along with some games for her age range from Games Children Play.  Games like "Mother, May I?" will help everyone with following directions and taking turns being in charge.  We'll review and learn more multiplication tables using the ideas from Active Arithmetic!  The upside, I think, of having children in different grades is that there is plenty of opportunity for reawakening old materials and strengthening weak spots.

Housebuilding for Children and The Bee Book are some of the titles that will touch on the practical life work of grade three.  The Bee Book will be a read aloud story for everyone to hear as part of nature stories.  We read the first chapter this past week and everyone enjoyed it.  We don't have big construction plans, but we may take on some small projects over the year.  It's still good for us all to read a little about carpentry now, even if we take it up more seriously during a future third grade experience.

Willow's reading skills have really grown over the Summer, and she's now able to read chapter books on her own.  We'll still continue with reading aloud from Hay for My Ox and the readers like Lazy Jack. I have some other books in mind, if we would like more work in this area and I'll have to write about them as they come up.  I'm really enjoying keeping a record of things in this space.

Music for third grade will include Willow's ongoing piano lessons with my grandmother, along with her work on the soprano recorder.  We'll continue with the Enki songs, learning more with two hands.  She plays tunes that have been a familiar part of her schooling through the years, so they are fairly easy to pick up.  The recorder has been taught by ear, though she is also learning to read music in her piano lessons.  We'll also sing songs from The Waldorf Song Book.  We've not done much with singing outside of movement work, so this will be a different experience for her. 

Poetry is also suggested, so we'll be learning seasonal poems throughout the year.  There are infinitely many choices, but we'll likely stick with some poetry books that we already own.  In the Light of a Child may have verses that fill that need, from time to time.  We'll work with alliterative verses as part of Roan's grade one work, so that should fit them both.  I'll have to share our poems from time to time. 

It sounds like a lot when I type it all up!  When I wrote it down on the calendar pages, it was less overwhelming.  Subjects like Native Americans, math, and language arts are taken up in main lesson blocks, but the rest of these are sprinkled over the year in very manageable bits.  There are times to review, take up new pursuits, and choose what suits one's fancy.  Knowing how efficient homeschooling is, I'm looking forward to putting it all together.

See part one here.