Preparing Hearts Units 2-3

In Unit 2 we studied Noah's Ark. Ellie's second History Project was a rainbow. We mixed the primary colors of red, yellow and blue to get the secondary colors orange, green, purple and indigo. She loves to paint so this was a favorite project!

In Unit 3 we studied the Ice Age and her History Project was cave art. We used a crumpled up paper bag to draw and paint a bull and a woolly mammoth. The other day was beautiful so we sat outside for our reading.

With our new curriculum, Ellie is starting to learn cursive letters. She has been so excited that she learned to write her name in cursive. She has been practicing it a lot! :-)

Preparing Hearts Unit 1

Ellie is doing a great job in 3rd grade! Her first History Project was a shield of faith. We researched what a coat of arms is and she made symbols of faith and colored them on the coat of arms to make a shield.
We have been learning about the ice age and learning Psalm 1 and poems from Robert Louis Stevenson. Each day we draw something or she writes a paragraph about what we are studying. We have drawn many animals, Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel. She learns 3 new vocabulary words a week from her reading. She writes the definition, a sentence and draws a picture. Then, she files them in alphabetical order.

Ellie's work has always been project and mastery based which means she has to write about what she is learning or do a project to show what she has learned. In subjects such as math and english, we do the problem or question until she gets it right and understands it. Most of her subjects are still like that and daily work in math and english is still mastery based but this year we started grading Ellie's math and english tests. She has gotten all A's!!

Each week Ellie does a Science Notebook entry. We have been reading about the animals and plants on the Arctic Tundra. This week Ellie had to draw, color and label a mammal, bird, fish, amphibian, (vertebrates), and an invertebrate, protist, menora, and plant.

Ellie Graduated 2nd Grade and Started the 3rd Grade Curriculum! 4-16-2012

Ellie finished Bigger Hearts for His Glory (2nd Grade) on April 13th, 2012. We went out as a family for a donut (that is what Ellie wanted for her treat) and then to the YMCA to swim and Ellie had fun at the Kid Zone (like a McDonald's Playplace).

We started Preparing Hearts for His Glory (3rd Grade) on April 16th. In our curriculum we "Learn through History". We read stories about historical characters and all of the things we do in history, science, poetry, & Bible correspond to the stories we are reading.

Here are some of the things she will be doing in each subject:
Science: notebooking (writing or drawing about what she learned & putting it in a notebook), answering questions about what she reads, doing experiments with experiment logs.(writing down her guess, the procedure and conclusion.)
History: Independent History writing and drawing, History Projects (Shield of Faith, Painting a Rainbow, Cave Art Painting, working with clay and much more!), Researching, Geography, Vocabulary, & a Timeline.
Reading: Each book we read, Ellie will be doing a project to describe it and writing assignments as we read
English: She will be learning about Grammar and Writing (She will learn to write Game Instructions, A Friendly Letter,A Persuasive Essay, A Story, Book Report, Poem, Research Report, & a Compare/Contrast Essay)
Math: She will be learning the rest of her multiplication and division facts and much more!
Bible: We will be studying and learning the Psalms.
Handwriting: She is learning cursive.
Poetry: We will be studying and learning the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson.

We are excited about this new curriculum. We are starting early so we don't have as many days to do next year. I am going to try and remember to take pictures of her projects and the things she does each week so I can share them!

Ellie has also been taking swimming lessons and is doing really well! She wants to take dance this summer and will also be in a sports camp and a theater camp. We have pool passes so we are also looking forward to spending a lot of time at the pool! We will finish school the last week in May to take the summer off. Then we start back the third week of August.