Year 3 Curriculum Picks for Luke (2023-2024)

A list of our curriculum picks for my eldest son who will be on Year 3 (or Grade 3) this year. This list is Classical + Charlotte Mason inspired.

A FEW NOTES BEFORE WE BEGIN:

The first question people ask when I share my curriculum picks was how did I come up with this list? Well, in a nutshell, lots of research and reading. This means, going back and forth reviews online.

But eventually, I’ve narrowed it down to trusting the recommendations of Ambleside Online and our current homeschool provider, Living Learning Homeschool. Both are CM inspired. But since we do Classical as well, I tweaked and added other books mostly from The Well Trained Mind. (See related post: How We Homeschool Classical + CM)

Take note that this list is custom made to fit my son’s current skills, interests and sensitivity. I placed notes on some of the categories to explain.

See previous years’ picks here: Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2.

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BIBLE & THEOLOGY:

• Bible: Exodus and Luke
• Go through other stories in the Bible together with his younger brother using the book The Biggest Story Bible Storybook

CHARACTER:

• Laying Down the Rails for Children

GRAMMAR:

• First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind Level 3

*No reading or writing curriculum. Instead, these skills are honed through reading his books for literature and by doing copywork sheets daily.

LITERATURE:

• Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by E. Nesbit
  • Much Ado About Nothing
  • Taming of the Shrew
  • Merchant of Venice
• The Heroes by Charles Kingsley
• A Little Princess
• Little Women
• The Hobbit

Free Reading:
(Books he will need to read, but no narration is required)

• Pinocchio 
• Door in the Wall (We didn’t finish last year)
• Swallows and Amazons
• My Side of the Mountain
• The Borrowers (Book 1)

* I carefully chose these literature picks based on my son’s sensitivities. For example, Pinocchio was supposed to be for his first year, but he was really terrified of it. I think Year 3 is the perfect year for him to handle that story. Also, Little Women and The Hobbit are usually for older years but he has browsed through the books (and I read to him a chapter of each) and he was captivated. So we are doing those 2 this year.

POETRY

• William Blake

MATH

• Dimensions Math Level 3 (3A and 3B)

SCIENCE & NATURE STUDY

• God’s Design for the Physical World (doing only parts of it and not completely)
• A Drop of Water
• Bee People by Margaret Morley
• A First Look at Philippine Birds and Flowers
• Supplements:
  • Big Book of Science Experiments by Jan van Cleave
  • A Kid’s Guide to the Periodic Table
  • The Elements

* Luke requested for more focus on experiments this year and if we could learn about physics and chemistry. I honestly didn’t expect to work on those topics until he was a bit older. So as compromise, I told him that we can go through them as an overview. And yes, more experiments haha.

FILIPINO

• Wikahon A & B
• Various Filipino picture books

SOCIAL STUDIES

• Story of the World 3
• Philippine History in Stories by Conrado Benitez

CHINESE

• I’ve given up teaching him Mandarin, so I’m enrolling him with a Chinese tutor hahaha.
• Duolingo (I just leave him to do the lessons on his own!)

BIOGRAPHIES

• Trial and Triumph (select passages only)
• Michelangelo by Diane Stanley
• In the Days of Queen Elizabeth by Eva March Tappan
• Rizal’s Own Story of His Life
• Thirty Famous Stories Retold

GEOGRAPHY

• Marco Polo by George Towle
• Supplements:
  • Home Geography by CC Long
  • Charlotte Mason’s Elementary Geography

ART

• Michelangelo
• Edgar Degas
• Claude Monet
• Local Artists
• Others tentative: I usually introduce many other artists regularly but I plan to focus on these more.

MUSIC

• Franz Schubert by Opal Wheeler (Didn’t finish last year)
• Tchaikovsky Nutcracker Ballet by Opal Wheeler