I've started seriously planning for third grade. (Don't jump on me for being super-organized. This is how I procrastinate: I plan ahead.) Next year I expect Oscar to be a lot more self-directed. The amount of time he has to do his schoolwork will be less tied to the amount of time I have to teach him his schoolwork. So even though my duties vary from day to day, his workload can begin to get more uniform and predictable. So here's what I'm thinking.
Every day six subjects: listening to stories; religion; math; spelling and grammar; Latin; and one other thing
Two days a week that thing is: U. S. history (up to 1810) and U. S. geography
Two days a week that thing is: Medieval world history and world geography
One day a week that thing is: a "minor subject," on each of which there will be nine weeks of study.
Every day I'll assign some composition, dictation, and/or narration, maybe producing a journal; and in the five days of a week I'll cycle that through the five subjects of US history, medieval history, religion, literature, and "minor subject."
The minor subjects will be (1) fine arts; (2) health, specifically human anatomy; (3) "science," which I prefer to call "the study of nature," specifically electricity and circuits; (4) independent literature study (reading of a piece of children's literature and answering questions in a commercially available study guide).
The meat of exposure to literature in third grade is still listening and oral narration, Charlotte Mason style -- this lets me expose him to stories that are far beyond his reading level, and answer complicated questions that are far beyond his writing level -- but it's time for him to begin written composition about what he reads for himself. It won't be a constant presence; I'll spread the books out throughout the year.
I haven't made up my mind about fine arts, whether it should be mostly art-appreciation, mostly art-technique, or some of both. But I have made up my mind to follow my son's learning style when I choose the program this time. Oscar likes workbooks, and Oscar likes steady, progressive learning in which he can see himself gaining in skill and knowledge. It isn't serving us very well anymore to study art in an open-ended, "tell me what you see, tell me what you like about this, make it look the way you want it to look" way. He needs to gain objective knowledge and to develop measurable skills. So I think I'm going to look into art-recognition curricula like Mommy, It's A Renoir!, in which kids learn to identify the artist of a given work, and workbook-style art technique curricula like The Lamb's Book of Art. Dumb names, decent-looking curricula.
I plan to cover American history, health, and nature mainly through library books this year. Medieval history mainly through Story of the World.
If I happen to find a Spanish curriculum that works well for Oscar (Phrase-a-Day Spanish was a good start but has exhausted its usefulness for him), I'll add it a couple of days a week and cut back a bit on the time spent on Latin.
But the real change this coming year is going to be the steadiness from day to day. Up till now Oscar has had a different set of subjects every day, because I had a different amount of time to spend every day. Now I'm going to expect him to work a constant amount even though my schedule changes. I'm going to expect him to read the math lessons himself and come to me if he has questions. I'm going to expect him to get the iPod and listen to his Latin lesson on his own.
This is why I'm thinking about it all now. Because if I want him to begin third grade with that kind of independence, I have to start working for that goal in second grade.
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