What We Studied
We are back to our originally schedule curriculum plan and managed to have two outings plus coop. It was a full week, but I feel really good about our routine and what we covered.
Literature and Poetry
We finished with our reading of Race to the Sun early in the week. I loved the story and it definitely held Arthur’s attention throughout. We will be reading more from that imprint soon. After Race to the Sun, we started reading Japanese folktales in anticipation of next week’s history curriculum. We also covered a few picture book studies for our fall theme.
Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
K is for Kabuki by Gloria Whelan and Jenny Nolan
The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks by Katherine Paterson
The Boy Who Drew Cats by Margaret Hodges
The Boy from the Dragon Palace by Margaret Read MacDonald
Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano
Math
We’re still working through Unit 3 about multiplication and division. I think we have one more week with Unit 3-4 before we move on to measurement.
Singapore Math Common Core Edition 3A
Primarily Logic
Social Studies
This week was all about the Mongols. Crash Course and John Green have been teasing the Mongols for the entirety of their World History series. We finally got to that episode! Arthur is loving going around dramatically pausing and then saying “The Mongols.” We also went a bit past Genghis Kahn to talk about Kublai Khan and Marco Polo.
DK Timelines of Everyone
DK Timelines of Everything
When on Earth
DK History
Explorers
The Mongol Empire from Britannica
Genghis Khan by Li Jian
Marco Polo by Demi
Kublai Khan: The Emperor of Everything by Kathleen Krull
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 independent reading.
Science and STEAM Coop
We’re still covering the dinosaurs! This week was all about the Triassic Period. We have about three weeks left in our personal coverage. But this was the last week that coop was covering the dinosaurs. Next week, we move on to Health.
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
Prehistoric by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
DK Where on Earth? Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Life
Dinosaurium by Chris Wormell and Lily Murray
In Search of Dinosaurs by Dougal Dixon
Dinothesaurus by Douglas Florian
When the Whales Walked by
National Geographic Kids: Dinosaurs
DK Dinosaur
DK Eyewitness Dinosaur
Sink Your Teeth
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 had a light week in regards to the other subjects, but still managed to work on some new skills, including cutting!
ELA
Once Upon an Alphabet by Oliver Jeffers
My “u” Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure
Umma Ungka’s Unusual Umbrella by Barbara deRubertis
My “v” Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure
Victor Vicuna’s Volcano Vacation by Barbara deRubertis
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
Math
Other
Poem-Mobiles by Patrick Lewis and Douglas Florian
Field Trip
We had two outings this week. On Tuesday, we had a good old-fashioned playdate with some our coop friends. Now that the parks are not really a good option, we are hoping to add in a few playdates throughout the winter. Then on Friday, we drove to Lincoln to visit Morrill Hall and see some actual dinosaur fossils. We love that museum so much! We ended up spending almost 4 hours exploring. Extra fun: the discovery room in the basement was finally reopened. Lots of fun was had!
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
Busy Builders, Busy Week by Jean Reidy
Choo Choo Clickety-Clack by Margaret Mayo
Trash Truck by Max Keane
Sail Away by Donald Crews
Five Trucks by Brian Floca
The Leaves Fall All Around
Leaf Jumpers by Carole Berger
Cement Mixer’s ABC by Sherry Duskey Rinker
Little Excavator by Anna Dewdney
Go, Girls, Go! by Frances Gilbert
Flying by Donald Crews
Keeping the City Going by Brian Floca
Truck by Donald Crews
Fall Leaves by Don L. Curry
High
Field trip to Morrill Hall was definitely a highlight! We could spend all day in that museum, but eventually our parking ran out and we needed food. We’ll be back in a few months for sure.
Low
Nothing really
Next Week
Continuing to read Japanese Folktales
Moving to medieval Japan for history
Mastering multiplication and division
Moving forward in time for the Dinosaur Unit to the Jurassic Period!
Attending coop for our health theme
Getting vaccinated!!!! Both boys are starting the series on Wednesday. I feel so relieved!
Next up on the TBR pile:
