Tag: 3rd grade

Display Boards for whole family learning

Tracy

whole family learning | hands-on learning | Tapestry of Grace

We’ve had so much fun with display boards recently that I just had to give you a peek at the action. As part of our Tapestry of Grace curriculum, we’ve been learning about the cultures and people of ancient Palestine during the time of King Saul, King David, and King Solomon. I love doing as much of our learning together as we can, so I assigned both of the older kids this display board project for their writing assignment. Immediately, they were all on board.

Preparation for the Display Boards

My preparation, overall, wasn’t bad. I printed off the Teacher Notes from our curriculum and highlighted the portions for them to read through for the writing part of the assignment, picked some images to print from Google images, and picked up some display board supplies at our local supply store. Each child picked their board, including Littlest, my preschooler. He wanted in on the action, and I figured getting him his own poster board would keep him from “participating” in the other kids’ projects in ways they would not prefer.

Directions for the Display Boards

We chose four cultures that had the most information available: Canaanites, Hittites, Philistines, and Phoenicians. And I gave them 3 weeks to work on it.

whole family learning | hands-on learning | Tapestry of Grace | display boards

For my fifth grader, I assigned a paragraph for each culture. Other than providing his materials and showing him a few sample projects, I really did not do much more for him. He likes his independence.

For my third grader, I only required a couple of sentences for each culture. Because of her skill level and dyslexia, I helped her quite a bit more. I read the information to her rather than have her read it, and she used a new favorite app of ours to write her sentences. (Dyslexia Aid allows her to speak her sentence into the app, and it gives her the text for her to copy into her projects.)

whole family learning | hands-on learning | Tapestry of Grace | display boards

dyslexia app | dyslexia aids for writing

For my preschooler, I gave him permission to use any left-over photos the big kids were not using. He got his glue stick and scissors and went to town. I love it! The red scribbles are his map of Palestine.

whole family learning | hands-on learning | Tapestry of Grace | display boards | preschool

In Love with Display Boards

Seriously, we are in love with display boards, and I keep asking myself why I haven’t tried this sooner. My daughter has already asked about a hundred times if she can make another one. And it was an easy way to incorporate everyone at their own skill levels, interacting with the same information, which after all, is why I love Tapestry of Grace to begin with. I love whole family learning, and I love getting to put that learning on display.

2016 Third Grade Curriculum

Tracy

3rd grade homeschool curriculum | homeschooling dyslexiaI’m excited for this year for so many reasons, but I’m especially excited for Middlest’s third grade year. We’ve had some major discoveries and improvements with diet/behavior over the last year and were beginning to see the fruits of that at the tale-end of second grade. I’m also eager to see her dyslexia improve with some of the curriculum changes and adjustments we’ve made. In one sense, I can’t wait to see what she is capable of now that her body is healthy and functioning well and all the pieces are in place. Here’s what’s in store for Middlest for the third grade.

Core resources:

Extras:

Middlest was only a toddler the last time we studied Ancient History. Even so, she remembers many of her favorite book titles from that study and several of our projects. That’s one of my favorite aspects of Tapestry of Grace specifically and whole-family learning in general. She is excited about getting to read her favorites on her own this time, to her little brother. I’m excited about seeing her understanding deepen this time around with new books and projects.

Writing and spelling related activities are ones that I help her with quite a bit, partly because of her difficulties with these and partly because of the anxiety her dyslexia causes her. This topic could probably be a post of it’s own, but I’ll keep it short. At this stage, I frequently allow her to “write” orally while I act as her scribe. Sometimes, she will use these narrations as copywork, copying her own words that I wrote down (with all correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation). Other times, I will use a sentence or so as dictation, having her copy down her own words as I read them back to her. Later this year, we will be working toward the writing “process” of having her write her own thoughts with all their imperfections and then editing it together before she writes or types the final copy.

I’m loving this set-up for her third grade year. It feels like the perfect fit, and I can’t wait to watch her thrive.

Check out our curriculum for preschool and 5th grade, too.