What’s in the Workbox Wednesday 3rd Grade

Good morning! I’ve been posting our workboxes again, and now it’s time for a 3rd grade What’s in the Workbox Wednesday post! For those of you who missed it, you can check out my 2014 Curriculum post to see more details.

Today we’re taking a quick look at Tinker Bell’s workboxes today, and as I said above she’s a 3rd grader this year. What? When did that happen? I remember when she went in to 1st grade and I thought to myself…she’s waaaaay tooooo little to be going into 1st grade!

Sigh…

 

 

 

Drawer #1: Supplies, Daily Schedule, & Bible

1) Like everyone else, her top drawer houses our expandable drawer organizer and it holds all of the pencils, glue, erasers, scissors, and things she uses on a daily basis. It hangs on the drawer sides, so it can slide back and forth out of the way which is a nice feature. It also expands/contracts to fit most drawer sizes.

2) This drawer also holds our Picture Smart Bible student notebook, which is going great so far. This curriculum is great for elementary aged students. We do this as a group with my kindergartener, 3rd grader, 5th, and 6th grader. For the kindergartener she is just coloring in my teacher pages, but the others have the traceable pages in their spiral notebook. You can read more about how we use this program here.

3) It also has her weekly assignment printout. I get a lot of questions on this, and it’s just a report from www.homeschooltracker.com that I print and spiral bind for them. Granted a few things change over the year, so you might prefer to print this out on a weekly basis, but for the most part it works to help us keep track of our daily workload.

 

Drawer #2: Math

This drawer houses all of our math stuff. Tinker Bell is using Math U See Gamma this year, so she has the student workbook, test booklet, and DVD. I pull out her worksheet each day and lay it on top of the workbooks so she knows what to do. Although Math U See has plenty of word problems each day, I wanted them to have a little more practice, so like the others, she is also doing a worksheet from the Evan-Moor Daily Word Problems 3 booklet. (You can’t see it in the photo, they workbooks are stacked on top of each other.)

 

Drawer #3: Spelling, Phonics, & Handwriting

1) Spelling: For spelling this year All About Spelling Level 3 . I keep the teacher’s manual for All About Spelling stacked underneath so you can’t see it, but when she gets to her spelling drawer, she pulls it out and we do the lesson.

2) Handwriting: Tinker Bell is working on BJU Handwriting 3 this year. She worked on cursive last year starting mid-year, so this year the 3rd grade handwriting is more review and practice writing in cursive for her.

3) English: This year Tinker Bell is using the Abeka Language 3. I get a lot of questions on this, and truthfully we’re using this with her because I already had it. So far it is fine, though she will switch o BJU Press English next year.  For the Language program I purchase the Language 3 Workbook and Test book. I also already had the Language 3 Homeschool Curriculum (i.e. Teacher’s Manual) so we use that for her lessons.

 

Drawer #4: Vocabulary & History

1) Vocabulary: This year we’re using using Vocabulary Workshop. Tinker bell is in level “green” which correlates to 3rd grade.

2) History: We are using The Middle Ages unit from Homeschooling in the Woods this year. I’m so excited to be doing something fun and hands on since we’ve previously been using Abeka. Don’t get me wrong, Abeka is perfectly fine, it’s just not that exciting. So it’s nice to be going with something new this year. I’ll have a more formal review of what we think of this curriculum coming up, but you can read about how we organize and use it all in my Homeschool in the Woods post.

 

Drawer #5: Reading & History

Drawer 5 is kind of a catch drawer because all of the little projects we’re working on pile up in there somehow. It’s clean right now because it’s the start of the year, but it houses our art lapbooks, any Classical Literature books she’s reading and that lapbook, and any other little projects we have going on.

2) Read & Think Skill Sheets: Tinker keeps her reading and Read & Comprehend Skill Sheets 3 under the reading book. At the end of each week they do a test from these. They’re quick 5 minute reading comprehension drills that not only help with test taking, but also improve comprehension.

2) The panda notebook is our Colorado Unit Study that we’re just finishing up. We had some left over from last year.

3) Writing: One thing that didn’t make it in the photo again for some reason is her Institute for Excellence in Writing binder. We are using this daily and so she normally keeps it in this bottom drawer.

 

Here are some other things that Tinker Bell is doing this year, but that aren’t stored in her workboxes:

 

• Art: World’s Greatest Artists 2 and See the Light Art DVDs
• P.E.: Family Time Fitness
• Robotics: LEGO Education We’re continuing with our co-op group and the Simple Mechanisms set this year.
• Science: Abeka Science 5 & one of my scientist units if we can fit it in!
• Typing: Typing Instructor Platinum (CD Version) 

 

And that’s it for Tinker Bell’s 3rd grade boxes this year.  YAY!