What We Studied

I thought it would be nice to take Tuesday off and spend some time at the park (it was going to be in the 60s). The kids could play and I could get some random planning work done (and maybe read a bit). We didn’t have a coop field trip scheduled, so I thought it would be perfect. Unfortunately things did not turn out well. The kids were really thrown and complained all day. Wednesday felt like we were trying to get back to normal. So not a great week. We did cover some topics and lessons, but attitudes were not great.

Literature and Poetry

We continued reading some African Folktales this week.

• Nobiah’s Well by Donna W. Guthrie

• Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock by Eric A. Kimmel

• Anansi the Spider by Gerald McDermott

• A Story A Story by Gail E. Haley

• The Best Keeper of Lalibela by Cristina Kessler

• The Lions’s Drum by Steven Gregory

• Clever Tortoise by Francesca Martin

• Dinosaur Dinner (With a Slice of Alligator Pie) by Dennis Lee

Math

We moved onto Unit 5 covering measurement. Mainly the chapter focuses on centimeters, meters, kilometers and inches, feet, yards, and miles. We’ll probably circle back to multiplication and division practice after Unit 5.

• Singapore Math Common Core Edition 3A

• Primarily Logic

Social Studies

This week we learned about the Khmer Empire. Arthur really enjoyed studying the images of Angkor Wat. We followed up out history lesson with a few pictures books about Cambodia.

• DK Timelines of Everyone

• When on Earth

• DK History

• Explorers (Henri Mouhot)

• DK Timelines of Everything

• Judge Rabbit and the Tree Spirit by Lina Mao Wall

• The Last King of Angkor Wat by Graeme Base

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

Continuing with our Dinosaur unit from Blossom and Root! We finally got to the Cretaceous period!

• 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

• 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

• DK Dinosaur

• DK Where on Earth? Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Beasts

• Dinosarium by Chris Wormell

• In Search of Dinosaurs by Dougal Dixon

• The Early Cretaceous

• When Sue Found Sue: Sue Hendrickson Discovers Her T. rex by Toni Buzzeo

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 finished our overview of each letter of the alphabet! We’ll do some whole alphabet review for the rest of the semester before starting phonetics in January. In math, Quentin practiced his skills and worked on a Khan Academy unit about basic geometry. We also talked about the seasons.

ELA

• Once Upon an Alphabet by Oliver Jeffers

• My “xyz” Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure

• Yoko Yak’s Yakety Yakking by Barbara deRubertis

• Zachary Zebra’s Zippity Zooming by Barbara deRubertis

Math

Other

• Smart Start STEM K

Field Trip

No field trip this week, just an ill-fated park visit.

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

• Old Tracks, New Tricks by Jessica Petersen

• Car Wash by Sandra Steen

• Float by Daniel Miyares

• The Big Umbrella by Amy June Bates

• Chicken Frank, Dinosaur by S.K. Wenger

• Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert

• Monster Trucks by Joy Keller

• Snacks on a Train by Kathryn Dennis

• School Bus by Donald Crews

High

• Finally getting to the Cretaceous for dinosaurs. Arthur has been desperately wanting to talk about the Spinosaurus since we start, but they didn’t live until about 70 million years ago. We got there this week!

Low

• The utter failure of Tuesday. It was bad, real bad.

Next Week

• Finishing a few African folktales before start The Wind in the Willows

• Mastering measurements

• Moving forward in time for the Dinosaur Unit

• Making time for lots of reading and some board games

Next up on the TBR pile: