Questions about 3rd grade lesson plans

[jbflick3]

I just received the third grade lesson plans in beta form. They look great and I'm looking forward to using them next school year.

A few questions:
1) The "Third Grade Recitation" list at the back of the book--is that a compilation of recitation topics that are also in the teacher's manuals or lesson plans for each individual subject? Does it include everything new introduced in each given week? And are those things systematically reviewed somehow within the lesson plans, or is that list there for that purpose, so the teacher can easily review old material?

2) How is review accomplished at your school, both within the school year, and also from one year to the next? Do you find your students retain these things, in general, in subsequent years?

3) Any chance that the final version of these lesson plans will be spiral-bound? (I'm a big fan of spiral-bound books. So much easier to work with!)

Thank you!

Julie

[tanya]

Hi, Julie.

The recitation is a compilation of new material from all subjects. But we also use the drill questions in the back of our study guides for history at the beginning of our history classes. In fact, we have just published flashcards for the Famous Men books and D'Aulaires' Greek Myths that we will be using for review at the beginning of those classes. And the students begin grammar with a recitation of all the grammar rules they have learned. They usually begin Christian Studies with a recitation of the Scripture passages they have memorized, but we also have drill questions in the backs of our Christian Studies guides that we use. We are really big on recitation in the grammar school. We do some review of previous years, but we don't have a lot of time for that which is frustrating.

Our goal is for students to go into the upper school with a good basic knowledge of facts that they can draw from as they begin more advanced studies. We try to take care of basic fact memorization in the grammar school when students can memorize so well.

I did find that students retained what they learned in previous years when I taught. In 6th grade, I reviewed Greek mythology before starting into Greek history, and I was amazed at the students' retention of the gods/goddesses and their roles in mythology. My review didn't take nearly as long as I had planned for, and it had been 3 years since they had had that class.

I think that the curriculum guides will be perfect bound (glued) right now. To get them spiral-bound, I have to print at least 1000, and I won't do that until I am convinced that we aren't going to make changes. We really tweaked them last summer, so I'll wait at least another year before feeling committed enough that the teachers are totally satisfied with them. This is a huge ongoing project, and this is the first year the teachers have taught through the latest edition of the plans. I'm anxious to see what the teachers say at the end of this year!

Regards,

Tanya