Figuring out how to start this post is like my experience in picking curriculum!

You know that feeling you get when you have so many different options, but you get choice paralysis? That’s a frequent occurrence for me during my summers when I’m researching, analyzing, and choosing curriculum for the upcoming year. I’m pretty sure everyone experiences this.

As a matter of fact, am I the only Homeschooling Mama that secretly wishes that someday there will be an actual brick and mortar store that has all the different curricula out there to choose from? How nice would it be to go to a store and be able to flip through the many different options out there; instead of looking at the couple-page sample found on the internet, purchase it, and then hope for the best.

So, which is the best curriculum for a 3rd grader?

Ultimately, I can’t answer that question for you. You know your child best; you know what they will connect with. For example, a lot of people rave about The Good and the Beautiful; and it is a wonderful curriculum; we did it last year. But, my girls just didn’t connect with it; there wasn’t much retaining that happened, and so we made a switch this year.

Sometimes, you’ll begin a curriculum and absolutely hate it, and so you’ll go in search of something else. So the answer to what is the best curriculum for any age is: The best curriculum you can get is the curriculum you and your children connect to.

So with that being said, here are our picks for Miss J (who is going into third grade).

Language Arts

This year we are trying out Bravewriter’s Dart Bundle ,their Dart program is for ages 8-10 and also comes with a writing program called Partnership Writing. I plan to assign some writing assignments from the Partnership Writing Program, along with some book reports, and writing projects of my own devising.

We are almost done with the first Dart book in this year’s lineup (they change every year), and I can already tell that this is a pretty good fit for us at this point in our educational journey. The first book being read is called Painting the Game by Patricia MacLachlan.

How do I know this is going to be a good fit for us? My girls don’t care about sports; they are dance and music enthusiasts through and through. This book is about a girl named Lucy. Her father is a pitcher in the minor leagues, and Lucy loves everything about baseball. Now, before this book, my girls didn’t care a wink about baseball; but now…. they are researching baseball teams, they want to know about the different positions in baseball, how a catcher stays in that crazy crouch position for so long, etc.

You know a book is good, when it ignites curiosity and makes the reader care about something they never really cared about before.

Now, the Bravewriter curriculum comes with some suggested grammar lessons, activities, etc. but I prefer to be a bit more thorough in the Language Arts department. So, I purchased a few more additions to go along with the Bravewriter Curriculum.

For grammar I purchased the Fix It! Grammar Level 1 book from IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing).

Dart does come with some words that they suggest the student knows how to spell, but I don’t feel that’s thorough enough; so what I do is I give Miss J a pre-test on the Dart words for the week, and any words that she misses I add to her spelling list for the week. Her other spelling words come from the Evan-Moor Building Spelling Skills workbook that I purchased on Amazon.

I also like to build my girl’s vocabularies, and so I got the Evan-Moor A Word a Day for Grade 3 workbook.

I also have my girls starting their day journaling with these One Question a Day Journal for Kids books. The writing here isn’t a long entry, it’s just a quick question to get their brains thinking. They write 1-2 sentences in response to that day’s journal prompt; and yes, I do require the sentence to be complete sentences.

Along with the Dart curriculum, I will be using the Read Aloud Revival Premium suggested family book guides and rabbit trail guides. RAR, as it’s community calls it, has a lot of past books that you can choose from; but every season there is a chapter book that comes with a family guide, plus a picture book for each month in that season.

I am super excited for this fall because we will be doing The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. I’ve been wanting to do book with my kids for awhile, and the moment I saw Sarah Mackenzie had put it in the line up for this year, I knew we’d be following along with the RAR community.

The three suggested picture books for the fall season are:

• September: Painting Wonder by Katie Wray Schon

• October: If You Find a Leaf by Aimée Sicuro

• November: Knight Owl by Christopher Denise

Math

Last year we did Saxon Math, and even though I love how thorough Saxon Math is, it was a little bland for my kiddos. They also felt a lot of anxiety over the pressure to memorize math facts along with the daily timed math tests. I even went so far as to stop timing the math fact sheet and to reduce the amount of the problems my kids needed to do, but it didn’t help, the moment they saw that paper come out the tears started.

So, this year we are trying out Math with Confidence; and I’ve liked it so far. It’s been a good option for Miss J because she thinks she needs to know the answers off of the top of her head, and if she doesn’t then she says she doesn’t understand how to do it. Math with Confidence makes math fun. The lesson usually includes some sort of game or a fun, geared towards kids approach at teaching a new concept. It also focuses on really paying attention to the information given, which has been a little bit of a struggle for Miss J since she wants to complete her work as quickly as possible.

History

As I said in a previous post, this year we are doing Little School of Smith’s American Girl History; and I am SO excited! History has always been a favorite subject for me, and that love affair happened when I received American Girl’s Samantha Parkington doll for Christmas when I was 8 years old. I remember EVERYTHING about that Christmas; the soft glow of the Christmas lights from the tree, the shape of the box she came in, Bing Crosby crooning in the background, and the smell of homemade hot cocoa simmering on the stove.

Samantha became my prized possession. I loved reading her books and learning about the Victorian Era. It was like entering a different, but simpler world. A world where polite manners and etiquette mattered, along with exquisite clothing and elegant upswept hair-do’s; but it was also a world of change, when women took the world stage with the Women’s Suffrage movement.

When my husband and I sat down with the History options for this year, I proposed the idea to make it a bit more personal by letting each girls peruse the American Girl Dolls and choose a doll (which he agreed to).

Miss J decided she wanted Rebecca Rubin, a historical fiction Jewish girl that immigrated to the United States from Russia; whose time is set in 1914 New York.

When choosing the American Girl History Bundle, from Little School of Smith’s, I told the girls that I would make sure their dolls were incorporated into the curriculum. So, seeing as how Rebecca is not in the bundle I purchased, I also grabbed the Little School of Smith’s Plan Your Own American Girl Study Unit Guide.

We get to begin these units in September, and we’ll be starting with the Colonial Era’s doll, Felicity Merriman, from 1774. At the end of September/beginning of October I’ll post a review/suggestions blog on how the Felicity Unit went.

Science

As of right now, I am not worrying about teaching Science. The girls will be attending a co-op that is supposed to be covering Science. We’ll see how that goes, if I feel they need a more in-depth Science experience, then I have purchased the Sonlight Science Package A to do with the girls.

Art

As for Art, I usually pull from everywhere. I will google and find art projects that correspond with what we’re learning in other topics, or I’ll even pull art projects from the Art for Kid’s Hub on youtube, or a watercolor project from Lily and Thistle. I have their Nature’s Art Club, but they also have an ‘Art Makes Me Smart-Around the World’ course that I’ve read wonderful things about and plan to purchase it in the future.

Also, when we have some spare time, I will be pulling Art lessons from the Evan-Moor How to Teach Children Art book.

Physical Education

Miss J loves to dance. So for her physical movement, she is on a competition dance team that practices 2 times a week for 6-7 hours. We have her practice her routines, acro, and flexibility at home on the other 3 school days that she doesn’t have movement.

In the winter when the girls are more wiggly because we can’t go outside as often, I will throw on a Grow With Jo dance exercise from YouTube, where the girls have really been vibing with K Pop Demon Hunters on Netflix, I know they’re going to be so excited about this particular video that you can find here, and, to be honest, I’m excited too!

Where Miss J will be nine soon, I decided we should probably start talking about the early signs of body changes. So I purchased the American Girl The Care and Keeping of You 1 book. This book is perfect for her age; it doesn’t get into the real nitty gritty of puberty that usually make people cringe when they’re mentioned. What it does talk about is the early development that happens when you reach puberty, but it also talks about how to start taking proper care of your skin, hair, etc. It also goes over diet (how to eat healthy, serving amounts of each food group per day), exercise, and sleep. I feel it’s really important to instill those good, healthy habits early on, so I’m really excited to start going over this book with her.

And that wraps up my 3rd grade curriculum choices for our 2025-2026 school year! If you have any questions about the curriculum I’ve chosen, feel free to leave me a comment down below! Until next time…..

—Mindee

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