What We Studied

We managed to cover a lot of ground in a week shortened by two field trips.

Literature and Poetry

We started another read about this week. The original language arts curriculum did not have enough read alouds for how fast we actually read in this house. So I ended up adding about 7 more to the list. This one is one of the Rick Riordan imprints for Disney and features Navajo character and myths. This will fit in nicely with our history unit on Cahokia and the Ancient Puebloans in two weeks.

• Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

• Hidden City: Poems of Urban Wildlife by Sarah Grace Tuttle

• 10 Minutes a Day Spelling

Math

We’re still working through Unit 3 about multiplication and division. We’ll be staying here for another few weeks to gain some mastery.

• Singapore Math Common Core Edition 3A

• Peg + Cat: The Big Dog Problem by Jennifer Oxley and Billy Aronson

• Peg + Cat: The Pirate Problem by Jennifer Oxley and Billy Aronson

• Peg + Cat: The Race Car Problem by Jennifer Oxley and Billy Aronson

Social Studies

We covered The Crusades for world history this week. Not the nicest of topics, but it was important for Medieval History.

• DK Timelines of Everyone

• When on Earth

• DK History

• DK Castles and Knights

• DK Eyewitness Knight

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

Science and STEAM Coop

We finally started our big dinosaur unit. I bought the Blossom and Root Prehistoric Unit to give us a basis. From there, we are accelerating a few weeks and slowing down for a few weeks.

• D is for Dinosaur: A Prehistoric Alphabet by Todd Chapman and Lita Judge

• Dinosaurs! by Gail Gibbons

• Dinosaur Tracks by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

• The Street Beneath My Feet by Charlotte Guillain

• Fossils by Ann O. Squire

• Everything Awesome About Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Beasts by Mike Lowery

• The Story of Life: Evolution by Katie Scott

• Life: The First Four Billion Years by Martin Jenkins

• Grandmother Fish: A Child’s First Book of Evolution by Jonathan Tweet

• Annabelle and Aiden in The Story of Life by J.R. Becker

• When the Whales Walked and Other Incredibly Evolutionary Journeys by Dougal Dixon

• Prehistoric: Before the Dinosaurs by David West

• DK Prehistoric

• Prehistoric by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

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. For ELA, we continued our big overview of the alphabet. We covered more counting and some basic math concepts as well as simple map skills. And we had some puzzles to round out the week. We also started a big unit on transportation.

ELA

• Once Upon an Alphabet by Oliver Jeffers

• My “o” Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure

• Oliver Otter’s Own Office by Barbara deRubertis

• My “p” Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure

• Polly Porcupine’s Painting Prizes by Barbara deRubertis

Math

Other

• Let’s Go ABC! Things that Go, from A to Z by Rhonda Gowler Greene

• On the Move

• Fast and Slow by Britta Teckentrup

• Little Kids First Big Book of Things that Go by Karen de Seve

• Calling All Cars by Sue Fliess and Sarah Beise

• Two Tough Trucks Get Lost by Corey Rosen Schwartz

• Muddy, Mud, Bud by Patricia Lakin

• Toot Toot Zoom by Phyllis Root

• Trucks Roll by George Ella Lyon

• Tow Truck Joe by June Sobel

• Trucks Zooming By by Pamela Jane

• Trucks Go by Steve Light

• Go! Go! Go! Stop! by Charise Mericle Harper

• Twinkle Twinkle Little Car by Kate Dopirak

Field Trip

We had two great field trips this week. On Tuesday, we headed to Arbor Day Farm for a guided field trip about animals and the forest. After the guided portion, all the kids had a ton of fun playing and exploring. On Friday, we headed to The Durham Museum for a transportation theme tour. We learned about moving to Omaha, homes throughout the ages, and train travel. The kids loved hanging out the various train cars and learning the various parts.

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.

Misc. - Random picture books read

• Letter Town by Darren Farrell

• Leif and the Fall by Allison Sweet Grant and Adam Grant

• Nothing Fits a Dinosaur by Jonathan Fenske

• Fall Leaves Fun by Martha E.H. Rustad

• Windows by Julia Denos

• It’s So Quiet by Sherri Duskey Rinker

• Monster Hug by David Ezra Stein

• Ty the Dinosaur and the Substitute Teacher by Marcus Tallberg and Jill C. Faulkner

• There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro

• Gus, the Dinosaur Bus by Julia Liu

• Dinosaur Roar! by Paul Strickland

• Lucky Leaf by Kevin O’Malley

• Leaves! Leaves! Leaves! by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace

• Zero is the Leaves on the Tree by Betsy Franco

• Regina is NOT a Little Dinosaur by Andrea Zulli

• In the Leaves by Huy Voun Lee

Highs

• Not exactly a high point as it’s not much fun, but we did get our flu shots taken care of this week. One big thing checked off my list.

Lows

• All of our activities made us so incredibly tired this week.

Next Week

• Continuing to read Race to the Sun

• Covering the Magna Carta and Robin Hood

• Mastering multiplication and division

• Moving forward in time for the Dinosaur Unit

• Visiting Vala’s one last time for the season

Next up on the TBR pile: