What We Studied

While we didn’t completely stop all schooling, we did take it pretty easy this Christmas break. We did a lot of holiday related activities. Plus, we traveled to and from Indiana to visit a few family members. We are getting back at it today, but easing back in.

Literature and Poetry

We kept reading Scary Stories for Young Foxes: The City, but ultimately didn’t get very far. We were distracted by lots of picture books and the ones the boys got for Christmas. So lots of random reading, but not organized.

• Scary Stories for Young Foxes: The City by Christian McKay Heidicker

Math

We mostly played some math games. Arthur also did some math in his independent packet.

Social Studies

No big unit, but Arthur did complete an entire Map Skills book (Grade 1). It was mostly review, but good practice.

Arthur Independent Time

To allow for one-on-one time with Quentin, I have added an hour of independent work time for Arthur. Each week, he will have a mix of packet work (mostly grammar and math review), independent reading time, and special projects. Many of his projects will be aligned with our literature selections (some taken from B&R Language Arts curriculum) and history. This week, he focused on packet work and some random building projects.

Science and STEAM Coop

No coop obviously. We did continue watching random PBS Eons videos, picking up some of the ones we missed and those set during the last Ice Age.

Art/Music

Nothing this week

Quentin

I have scheduled at least four 1-hour time blocks for one-on-one time with Quentin. I bought Blossom and Root’s Early Years Volume 2 curriculum to use as our base. I love the variety of activities and some of the bigger projects included.

ELA

• High Five issues

Math

Other

• Dinosaur Puzzle Book

Field Trip

Other than just traveling to Indiana, we didn’t really have any field trips. We’ve been laying fairly low due to the pandemic.

Documentary Selection

I have carved out a one hour time block each week to watch a documentary related to our studies. We didn’t actually watch anything this week, but made up for it by all the PBS Eons videos for our dinosaur unit.

24 Days of Christmas Books - It’s become a tradition. I wrap packages of holiday books for each day of December until Christmas. We have a great group of books this year!

• Christmas is Awesome by Sabrina Moyle

• The Last Christmas Tree by Stephen Krensky

• The Crayon's’ Christmas by Drew Daywalt

• Christmas City by Michael Garland

• Goodby Autumn, Hello Winter by Kenard Pak

Picture Books Read

• Freedom Soup by Tami Charles

• Can I Be Your Dog? by Troy Cummings

• Beware of the Crocodile by Martin Jenkins

• No by Claudia Rueda

• No more Cuddles by Jane Chapman

• The Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers

• Give Your Cat a Bath in Five Easy Steps by Nicola Winstanley

• Bear Came Along by Richard T. Morris

• Chez Bob by Bob Shea

• Inside Cat by Brendan Wenzel

High

• Beyond the usual Christmas Eve and Day fun, we loved hosting a Christmas party for the coop before we left. The kids did some art, decorated cookies, played bingo and pin the nose on the reindeer, and did hot chocolate tasting. it was chaotic fun!

Low

• I anticipated that this would happen, but was still thrown off when the boys’ attitudes really fell off a cliff right after Christmas. We had a few really rough days and needed to get back into our school routine.

Next Week

• Traveling to Polynesia for History

• Reading more trickster tales and continuing our read aloud

• Starting 3B for math

• Covering famous Nebraskans and Iowans for coop

• Exploring emotions for health

• Beginning concentrated reading lessons for Quentin

• Discovering Hokusai’s paintings and woodcuts

Next up on the TBR pile: