2023 – Grade 3
Language
Reading:
The start of 2023 saw Emily continue her reading journey with Jeff Kinney and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, after half a dozen Wimpy Kid books a change was needed to keep Emily’s interest up.
As the year progressed we went to see ‘Just’ at Theatre Royal which provided the spark we needed to start reading another popular book series, this time by author Andy Griffiths, though this lasted for exactly 1 book before Dragon Girlz series by Maddy Mara struck a chord with Emily, though she tells me that she wants to continue to read the Just! books later.
2022 saw the breakthrough we needed to get Emily reading fluently, 2023 has seen a fundamental improvement in her speed and accuracy as shown in her NAPLAN reading results.
Spelling:
Now the back has been broken with reading, spelling is the new challenge.
We expected to see some lead time lag between the reading uptick and spelling improvement as the greater volume of words read naturally improves spelling over time.
Games of Hangman, word search, handwritten messages of love from Emily, study ladder exercises & regular messages and at times conversations on the tablet between Emily and her Grand Mothers have all helped improve Emily’s spelling as the year has progressed.
NAPLAN results confirmed that more work was needed, as the year has progressed the gap has closed.
Handwriting:
Handwriting and spelling have both taken second place for the sake of improving Emily’s reading over the years, 2023 has seen remarkable improvement moving from double sized block characters to single line formed cursive.
After the purchase of a cursive font early in the year, we have deployed that so that Emily can practice writing down some of her favourite poetry.
This has rapidly developed her handwriting, spelling, fine motor skills.
MAths
Application of fundamentals has been the name of the game this year, not too much in the way of new material, but absolutely nailing down & mastering most of what Emily will need through her primary school years.
Our preferred speed Maths with dice has seen an upgrade with a 3D printed box and magnetic enclosure made to help make speed maths even speedier.
Emily has been taking her own maths to school and even been helping some of the other children.
Fractions has been an area of major development this year.
Emily has progressed well, moving from a basic comprehension of what fractions represented to being able to convert fractions to decimal, fraction estimation, add, subtract, multiply and divide both proper and improper fractions.
We started the year with question sheets generated by hand, but I soon built some maths spreadsheets to accommodate her rate of learning.
We started with fraction wheels to demonstrate the physical nature of fractions and compared them to the same function as equations, that made something click and it’s been a smooth ride since then.
We utilised Study ladder extensively this year clearing all the grade Maths 5 modules, practiced multiple NAPLAN year 5 Maths tests and I’m confident that we are well on our way to mastering most of what Emily will need in her Primary School years.
2023 has also seen good development in developing Emily’s Maths language skills.
Naming conventions for circles, triangles & geometric shapes are often utilised correctly
Basic algebra, Order of Operations (BODMAS) is locked in and utilised well now,
Short division is very well understood and we have practiced three number Divisors into any size Dividends, including multiple decimal places.
Long Division has not been touched this year, though many of the short division questions we have practiced would probably be presented as Long Division in the school environment.
STEM
Science has been a little stop start this year, the Astronomy has seen a little less action, Robotics and Emily Bot has certainly taken a back seat & the KiwiCo Kits have stopped.
We have however taken on Mark Rober’s Crunch Labs kits that have a greater bent towards Engineering and developing a working knowledge of physical principles.
Robotics club is due to start back up in early 2024 and with it our time developing those skills.
We’ve made a variation of a camera obscura, a light mixer allowing us to make all of the Primary and secondary additive colours (RGB) which led to talking about subtractive colours and how our eyes work, why when you add light together you end up with white light and when you mix paints together you end up with black.
Finally our first Crunch Labs kit was a disc launcher that very cleverly mixed multiple principles together in a single kit to help demonstrate how we turn multiple principles into a machine that does work or solves a problem through multiple steps.
The Microscope has been taken out a few times this year with the highlight being the search for a Tardigrade, we didn’t find one of the hardiest extremophiles on the planet but we did find a Springtail otherwise known as a Snow Flea which was very interesting and lead to some very interesting conversations about life.
(The First picture is what we were looking for, the second is what we found.)
We’ve watched frog spawn grow into tadpoles then frogs & after we seeded our lawn with clover we’ve had honey bees all summer with some interesting sights.
We visited the Festival of Bright Ideas earlier in the year which has lead us to spend some time on Electronics and how those Angry Pixies work their magic.
Fluid dynamics, solar, power generation, potential energy, drones, displacement, robotics, charge differentials prism lenses and a host of other puzzles and intrigues kept us busy for the entire day. We booked for multiple sessions and used them all.
FoBI also steered us towards entering the Tasmanian Model Solar Challenge which we are currently working through right now.
We joined Hydro Tasmania for an afternoon of Electronics fun which was a nice follow up from the Festival of Bright Ideas stall they had, Emily built some simple circuits powered by solar panels.
We still found some time for Robotics and Emily Bot, it’s just been on the back burner with so many other interesting Science & Engineering to get stuck into,
Arts & Craft
It’s been a quiet year on the Arts and Craft front at home, just a few small jewellery projects, a few drawings etc over the year.
Emily still enjoys her craft, but there was a lot of competition for time and craft wasn’t her priority.
Practical LIFE Skills
Kitchen Time, like last year, has been the driver of so many things.
Last year it helped with maths, reading, food science, safety, first aid, life skills, experimentation etc, this year those skills have been reinforced to a point of practical competency.
Once again we’ve played with additive and subtractive weighing techniques, estimations, volume & density, looked at different outcomes from the same ingredients playing with time and temperature.
Emily has been involved in dozens upon dozens of meals this year, taken ownership of certain tasks at her level and after a year of knife work, hot pans and even hotter ovens I think we have ended up with one little nick from a safety peeler of all things and a small burn which stung for an hour or so.
Like last year we baked, fried, kneeded, frozen, smoked, brined & cured so many things. Cured our own Ham & Bacon, made Bread, Quiche, pastas & pizzas, portioned whole Chickens, made fruit bread, ice cream, sushi, casseroles and crumbles.
We also made several different batches of Yogurt from different strains, made milk Kefir as well.
Emily is pretty handy with the tools as well, sorting out a Chinese instruction manual with ease and putting together her own study desk.
She’s practiced her fire setting skills as well and is well versed on fire safety, preventative measures etc.
Along these lines we’ve also practiced our 000 Emergency calls, who to ask for, what information is pertinent etc, memorised my Mobile phone number, done some more first aid and generally worked at developing a level head that is able to mitigate danger by being observant, proactive & well practiced.
Health & Wellbeing
Emily has spent some more time in the pool this year and practiced her survival techniques, learning recovery strokes and achieved a 50 meter unaided recovery swim.
She’s tried her hand at Cricket & Little Athletics where she had a little fun running long jumping and even some shot putting.
She’s walked over the Tasman Bridge with Uncle Ian and Mum, conquered her fears and climbed up a long ladder to see some lovely views on Nan & Pops roof and finally helped Dad fix his back by leading some resistive stretching exercises.
OUT & ABOUT
We’ve been out and about plenty of times again this year.
Added some culture with three shows at the Theatre Royal & saw a youth production of Sound of Music in Huonville.
Been awestruck by the natural wonders all around us when visited Hastings Caves.
Paid our respects to the Men & Women of the Armed Services past & present at Dawn Service and ANZAC day parade.
Spent time camping with Cubs a few times and marched in the Xmas day Parade in Hobart with the scouts.
We’ve fed local horses tasty apples & carrots a few times this year & learnt how to operate a fire hose with some volunteers from the Huonville Fire station.
DOCUMENTS
HESP 2024
NAPLAN 2024 Grade 3
National Literacy Learning Progression
