Third Year Coming Together - History

The last three weeks I spent a great time with my mom, who lives in Aruba. She's been such an inspiration to me for her commitment and dedication to my development and education. She was always and continues to be a born teacher, and I strive to emulate her in this regard.

As she got wheeled away and I realized our time together this year was over, I knew I would have to focus on my plans for the coming Fall. So much has happened in the last month that it was a whirlwind, and to say I haven't had a lot of time to think about Fall is an understatement.

Finally, the time is here. Being all gung ho and trying to hold myself back 5 years ago when Boy was only two, I started putting hours into planning and got to Third Year (my fancy, Harry Potter inspired way of saying Third Grade). I can hardly believe Third Year is.. here. I'm grateful for all the work I put in before. All I had to do was tweak and change some to American History, as I choose to go that path instead of SOTW 3.

The reason I'm not going with SOTW 3 is so I can focus on (and learn!) American History. The following are the resources I'm going with for History:

American History Stories by Mara Pratt, Volumes I-IV (spine)
The American Story by Jennifer Armstrong (co-spine)
DK Smithsonian Children's Encyclopedia of American History

and lots of living books!

For projects and activities, we're doing

Interactive 3D Maps: American History

Complete Book of US History

Tools of Native Americans

The plan is to listen to Librivox' American History Stories (Volumes 1 and 2 are available I believe), then have Boy read the chapter as well. They are relatively short chapters that lend themselves well to digestion and narration. Afterwards, I will have Boy write down important names, dates, places, and events. We'll discuss and read the appropriate section in the Encyclopedia, and Boy can narrate orally. These are part of Day 1's activities.

Day 2 should consist of a corresponding American Story passage, Interactive 3D Maps project, an activity from Tools of Native Americans, and the corresponding section in Complete Book of US History. If no activity, Boy can write down his narration and/or do a dictation.

Science Choices

For Third Year I feel I have to scale down the planning. I decided to go with a textbook, critical thinking style science program instead of BFSU. As much as I love BFSU (Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding), I feel I need to take a break from major planning and focus on History, which I'm planning all this year by myself - no SOTW, would you believe it. I also have a baby I want to spend with instead :)

Which program am I going to use for Third Year? Singapore Science, My Pals Are Here 3/4. I have the textbooks, activity books, Homework and Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) books. To have extra information, skills and answers at hand I'm also seriously considering the Teacher's Manual. It's $80, but I can buy it used for less. This program looks solid and rigorous, quite fun, and fulfills my most important requirement: it promotes scientific inquiry and critical thinking.

The other reason I'm not doing BFSU 2 is that it looks like BFSU jumps in difficulty, and I feel Boy has to solidify some knowledge before going to the next level. Singapore Science seems to cover, especially with its chapters on Diversity and Cycles, the material I would like for us to review and solidify.

I want to go back to BFSU (Volume 2 this time) after this coming experimental year of trying out Singapore Science. Boy will be in 4th Year by then, and more likely to be able to handle the BFSU 2 then.

What if Boy ends up liking Singapore and wants to forego BFSU? I say we can always try to combine and expand first, and if Boy is thriving with Singapore and doesn't care for BFSU after that, we can forge ahead with just Singapore. I still love BFSU and can and will use with my two daughters.