Thumper's First Week of School

Thumper had a great first week of 3rd grade!

We started August 11th this year....a week later than usual.  For the rest of August, we will be schooling for 4 days a week....taking our Friday's off!  We have some friends that haven't started back to public school yet and Friday's give a great opportunity to get together with them before summer is over!

For the month of August, Thumper will be working on First Language Lessons Level 3, Essentials in Writing grade 3, Logic of English Cursive writing, All About Spelling Level 3 (Please see my student workbook pages I made for this), Math Mammoth/Saxon 3, Spanish, and reading with Mosdos Press Opal & selected books in his book basket.  You can check out his yearly curriculum on the 2014-2015 Page!  In September, we will incorporate the rest of our subjects, like science & history, and I'll post here about that then.  

This year Thumper has requested his own work space.  We set up our phone station by the fireplace in the living room for him and he absolutely loves his area. He truly works better knowing he has his OWN space and not just the kitchen table.  It's not big by no means, but it's his! 

I was unsure of how Mosdos Press would be for Thumper.  The stories are pretty long, or longer than what he is use to reading in one sitting.  He impressed me by the fact that he just wanted to keep reading on!!  Mosdos Press Opal was a hit!  Below are some pictures of the inside of his book, the Eyes On sheet I created, workbook page, and a craft he made to go along with his story of the week.  We are planning to use Mosdos reading 4 days a week throughout the year.  He will pick books from his basket or shelf for silent reading and to read aloud to me!  He picked some of the sweetest books to start with for August.  These books were read by both of his sisters when they were about his age.  They are called The Lighthouse Family by Cynthia Rylant.  There are four books in the series.....I can't seem to locate "The Storm"......

We used Mod Podge & colorful tissue paper to decorate his jar, which was a craft to go along with his story.

Turned out beautiful!

First Language Lessons 3 is a continuation of Levels 1-2.  I made worksheets last year to go along with Level 2 and I am somewhat happy that I don't have to create those again this year!  But, I may make some study sheets as we learn more if I feel it is necessary.  I will post them if I do!

We are gearing up for our second week of school starting tomorrow.  I will post here more next week about All About Spelling showing how we use our student workbooks!  We did hand our board this year on the wall where I can lift it off to move to the living room near Thumper's workspace area.

Essentials in Writing worked well with Thumper last year.  He didn't have much trouble at all with it.  He is not use to writing a whole lot but we are going to work on that this year.  He will also finish the last half of Writing With Ease Level 2 in the second semester.