What We Studied

We have officially started our second year of homeschooling. This year, I have added Quentin into the mix. We’re still trying to find a balance of together and separate subjects while adding in our STEAM coop, field trips and the usual errands.

Literature and Poetry

We started reading The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum in alignment the Blossom and Root 2nd Grade Language Arts curriculum. The curriculum doesn’t actual start with The Wizard of Oz, but I reordered everything to align closer to our history this year. We also started a new book of poems, a spelling curriculum, and some random grammar pages.

• The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

• I Invited a Dragon to Dinner

Math

We spent the week doing a bit of math review and math games. Monday was all about shapes and playing with tangrams. On Wednesday, we focused on time. Quentin joined us for part of the big math review. He especially loved playing with tangrams.

• Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh

• If You were a Quadrilateral by Molly Blaisdell

• About Time: A First Look at time and Clocks by Bruce Koscielniak

Social Studies

Instead of starting our big history curriculum, we focused on a review of map skills and talks about where we live this week. We also dove into the concept of a city and did some city planning projects.

• Got Geography! poems

• Follow that Map by Sheri Tan (Arthur read)

• Cities: Discover How They Work by Kathleen M. Reilly

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 some packet work and a creative project. He made shadow puppets for The Wizard of Oz. Hopefully we can use those next week to act out various scenes from the book.

Science and STEAM Coop

We officially started our STEAM coop this week with a theme of Math in Nature! Definitely a learning curve, but I think we had a great first meeting. The older kid group had five kids and the younger kid group had five kids. I taught the little kids and we focused on spirals and the Fibonacci sequence. We made spirals on our boards and in the grass using found objects. We used Fibonacci boxes to make an art project. The kids lasted about an hour before they were done. The older kids did a more in depth exploration of Fibonacci and his sequence. Arthur joined the big kids and loved the lesson! According to the teacher, he was a great student and asked some great questions. I think it went really well! Afterward, the kids played at the playground until it go too hot. We will be continuing the theme into next week and I will once again be teaching the younger group.

• Nature Math by Penny Dowdy

• Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature by Sarah C. Campbell

• Math Art + Drawing Games for Kids by Karyn Tripp

• STEM Quest: Fabulous Figure and Cool Calculations by Colin Stuart

• Shapes in Math, Science, and Nature by Catherine Sheldrick Ross

• Math Lab for Kids by Rebecca Rapoprt and J.A. Yoder

• Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman

• Math Everywhere Get in Shape: Two-Dimensional and Three-Dimensional Shapes by Rob Colson

Art/Music

None 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. After giving Q a PreK assessment, I am going to have to accelerate the curriculum. He only missed a few questions and is probably closer to a Kindergarten curriculum than PreK. We are going to condense the letter work to one semester instead of one year and add in phonics. I’m debating about how to accelerate the math portion. He might start Singapore Math 1 in October or so. For this week, I focused on getting him used to the idea of school time. We review the alphabet and counting while also playing some games and working on map skills.

ELA

• R is for Rocket by Tad Hills

• Those Darn Squirrels by Adam Rubin

• Alphamals by Graham Carter

• I Spy Letters by Jean Marzollo

• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault

Math

• Richard Scarry’s Best Counting Book Ever

• Counting by Joanna Brundle

• It’s About Time by Stuart J. Murphy

Other

• High Five magazine volume

• August by K.C. Kelley and Bob Ostrom

Field Trip

Our field trip this week was another visit to the zoo. We got to visit the newly opened aviary as well as stopping at the splash pad. Before leaving, we stopped into the theater and the boys got to participate in the lesson about how the zoo trains animals. Q was super excited to see the dog they used. It got really hot so we didn’t stay super late, but it was fun.

Documentary Selection

I have carved out a one hour time block each week to watch a documentary related to our studies. This week, we picked a seemingly random NOVA episode about the alphabet, but in reality, I thought it would be a good starting point as we are reviewing the alphabet with Quentin and it connects to a lot of ancient history Arthur studied last year.

• NOVA S47 E11: A to Z The First Alphabet

Misc. - Random picture books read

• 1001 Creatures by Laura Merz translated by Emily Jeremiah

• Numbers Everywhere by Linda Leopold Strauss

• Old MacDonald Had a Boat by Steve Goetz

• Pajama Pirates by Andrew Kramer

• 10 Reasons to Love an Elephant by Catherine Barr

• Iguanodon by Lucia Raatma

• Giant Pandas by Jill Anderson

• The Z was Zapped by Chris Van Allsburg

Highs

• We loved our first STEAM coop meeting! Hoping to keep up the excitement and momentum.

• We skipped out on Friday morning and did a splash pad visit. We had a friend join us and it was nice for the boys to have some socialization time.

Lows

• Both boys had a few meltdowns throughout the week. Our break (most of July) was probably a bit too long and the boys had trouble making the transition. Hopefully we get over this small hiccup.

Next Week

We’re still going to take it a bit easier next week. I’ve decided to plan for half weeks through the month of August. I want to get in as much outdoor time while the weather holds. We’re just going to keep plugging along and see where we get next week. I am hoping to take a bit more of a relaxed and flexible approach this semester.

Next up on the TBR pile: