Homeschool Third Grade {Curriculum Picks}

Every new grade level we encounter feels BIG. I remember clearly how intimidating kindergarten felt when my oldest hit that milestone. Now third grade is up, and I am shocked my firstborn is out of the K-2 bracket altogether! We’ve got an exciting year on tap, though! A lot of staples, and a few special requests from the Third Grader himself.

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Read Alouds

It’s no surprise that our homeschool’s foundation is books! We love to read (obviously) and not only do we learn about basically everything through read alouds, we also bond in the process. So many hours of our homeschool occur on the couch, snuggled under blankets, reading a book. (You can read here about how we use the space in our smallish home to homeschool: Homeschooling Without a Homeschool Room.)

Every subject area listed below will have read alouds attached to them, from history to science to math. Follow along on Instagram to keep up with our current read alouds, or subscribe to the blog to read our seasonal updates of chapter books completed (you can our list of favorite read alouds from the previous year here.)

Independent Reading

After completing the All About Reading program (which we LOVE and I’m continuing with my 1st grader- read my FULL review here), my 3rd grader is a strong reader. He will continue to read to his brother and me daily, a chapter a day, from a high interest book (we’ll layer in Magic Tree House and Ranger in Time books that correspond with our history time period and some others at his request).

Aside from daily oral reading, he will read independently often. I’d like to encourage him to stick with a book through to the end (he seems to jump around from book to book), so I’ll be using the Bookshelf Journal Page from Fiddlesticks’ Etsy shop. In his notebook, he will share a narration of a chapter once per week. (I highly recommend the book Know and Tell: The Art of Narration for all about implementing narration in your homeschool!)

Math

We’ll continue with our hands-on math program, Right Start Math. I love the solid foundations that my kids are shoring up through this curriculum! We have used this for 4 years now and couldn’t be happier. It’s teacher-intensive, but focuses on manipulatives and games; I’m able to overlap games with both kids, and we save those for one day a week (Friday!) for a gameschool day. It works great for us! I have lots more to say about this curriculum, so I have a whole separate post about it, with lots of links to their methodology/research.

Handwriting & Typing

Last year my son begged to learn cursive, inspired by the cursive journal entries in his beloved My Side of the Mountain series. We’ll continue working on those skills with a workbook from The Good and the Beautiful, one page from the Prima Latina Copybook per week (see below about Latin), and copywork homework assigned from our co-op. (Tracing board pictured below from Nature’s Markers.)

While I’m working on lessons with my younger son, he will work on typing skills using the Key Power program from Learning Without Tears.

Language: Latin and Spelling

Gotta admit, I’m surprised Latin is on my 3rd grade list… but, my third grader requested it! “Mom, I think it’s about time I learned to translate,” he said one August afternoon. “Translate what?” I asked. “Latin.” I took 3 years of Latin in high school, and I’m grateful for that foundation. The Latin course we have selected (Prima Latina) has an emphasis on grammar, so I’ve decided to go this route (we used First Language Lessons for grade 1&2- strong foundations!). We’ve completed the first few lessons of Prima Latina already and are pleased. I highly recommend the video lessons (with which, I don’t think the Teacher’s Guide is necessary personally). *This is a Christian curriculum with teaching of prayers. (The 6yo little brother loves to remind us to say, oremus, “let us pray,” at family prayers!)

For spelling we will continue the All About Spelling program. Just about 15 minutes a day with this incredibly thorough program has yielded amazing results for my struggling speller. We started the program when he had completed All About Reading, and it’s essentially the same program in reverse– encoding rather than decoding. It’s scripted and open-and-go, which I really appreciate! (They also have a one year guarantee!)

History

With our co-op, we follow Story of the World which is a 4 year cycle through history from ancient through modern times. I love the story books. They are written in such an engaging way that keeps everyone interested. We’ll explore deeper with picture books and make entries into our History Timeline, but otherwise I’m keeping this subject simple this year. History Timeline Notebook from School Nest.

Science

For the fall term, science will be explored through our weekly nature co-op. We’ve been meeting with a small group of families for the past two years, and we’ll continue this year. It’s a treasured time of our week when the kids enjoy time to play and explore in nature with a short lesson shared by the moms each week. We’ll be using Scouting for Wild Ones this year, and we are PUMPED! The lessons are laid out simply, with engaging, easy activities. I’ll keep you updated on IG how it goes! The author states that the goal of this particular scheme of scouting to first teach the children to notice, and then to marvel at the world around them through lessons in observation, animal, stalking, and tracking. Later, scouts will develop more complex skills like compass work, knot tying, making camp, and weather predictions. I wrote a whole post about this!

I also have my eyes on a few experiment books at my library. I’ll share more if we give them a try!

Geography

I detailed how we study geography in this post. Nothing has changed there– we’ll continue to study regions using Kathy Troxel’s songs to memorize country locations, read On Mission magazine as applicable, and read folktales and stories from the region as well (I’ll use Give Your Child the World for book ideas, along with an old fashioned library catalog search). We aim for one region every 3-4 weeks.

Beauty: Art, Music, Handicrafts

These areas are so easily pushed aside, but they’re some of the most precious parts of homeschooling! This year much of the formal instruction in these areas will come through our co-op. At home, I’ll be keeping us accountable with a weekly Poetry Teatime, and handicrafts on Thursday afternoons. I know if these are set in the weekly rhythm, my kids will make sure I don’t miss them!

For Poetry Teatime, you can read more about how we do that at this post. It’s a time my kids beg for! We’ve been making time for tea and poetry for five years now. 🙂

I am once again relying on the gorgeous guides from Rooted Childhood for direction on handicraft projects (we’ve cycled through them for years now and always pull out something a little different as my kids’ attention spans and skills grow).

We use our Sabbath rhythm to accomplish a lot of spiritual components of our family life. This is a part of our weekly rhythm that’s dear to us, so I wrote a whole post about it! We use this time to fill our children’s hearts with the beauty of the Lord, through hymns, catechism, gratitude/praise, and art study. Check out the post for the details.

PHEW! What a roundup! I am always nervous to type these up. I fear it looks intimidating or super “impressive”…. I don’t feel that we are impressive at all. We spend a whole lot of time pursuing free/open ended play, allowing lots of time for “boredom,” (i.e. creativity potential!).

Reminder: My homeschool isn’t your homeschool 🙂 

I’d like to close with a reminder that my homeschool shouldn’t look like your homeschool. These elements have been great fits for my home, and for my particular children. The beauty of homeschooling is the FREEDOM we have to design a schooling experience that matches our learners and our teaching styles as well. I hope this post has served as an inspiration and starting point if you’re searching for ideas. Feel free to reach out to me if I can help you in any way!

To read about our daily schedule and rhythm of how this actually looks on a “typical” (hahaha!) day, check out my post here.