What We Studied

Back to our normally schedule program. We managed to fit in a decent amount of school work along with a few activities with friends. Trying to make the most of the weeks leading up to our Christmas break.

Literature and Poetry

Arthur is primarily using Hearth and Story G5 for his language arts this year. We started another read aloud this week. Only got through part 1, but we’re moving along. It’s another featured book from Hearth & Story G5. We are really enjoying that program. We also covered more grammar and extra language arts assignments. We also finished our main poetry collection.

• Poetry for Young People: Carl Sandburg

• Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins

Quentin is primarily using Blossom & Root G1 for his language arts this year. We will pull some elements from Build Your Library Level 2 and random books that we have around the house. We started our next selection. I really love everything Katherine Applegate has put out and Wishtree is no exception. It’s a quiet story, but one with lots of thinking points and emotion.

• Poetry: Dinosaur Dinner (with a Slice of Alligator Pie) by Dennis Lee

• Wishtree by Katherine Applegate

Math

Arthur is using Singapore’s Math in Focus Course 1. Effectively this is Singapore’s 6th grade math text. Arthur started the chapter on Algebraic Expression. It’s easing us in, in a very systematic way. Loving this curriculum right now.

• Math in Focus Course 1 Book A

Quentin is using Singapore’s Primary Mathematics Common Core edition 2B and 3A. We finished our Financial Literacy G2 book. I’m not going to start on Singapore 3B until January, so we are focusing on review and mastery until then.

• Primarily Logic

• EM Financial Literacy G2

Social Studies

Arthur is using Curiosity Chronicles Early Modern History Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 this year. We wrapped up Volume 1 with a section about the Seven Years War. A bit of a review from U.S. History, but we also learned about the Carnatic Wars in India.

• Curiosity Chronicles Early Modern History Vol. 1

• DK History

• DK Timelines of Everything

• DK Timelines of Everyone

• DK A Child Through Time

• Struggle for a Continent: The French and Indian Wars by Betsy Maestro

• Now & Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin by Gene Barretta

• Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by His Good Mouse Amos by Robert Lawson

• The Salem Witch Trials: An Interactive History Adventure by Matt Doeden

• The Salem Witch Trials: An Unsolved Mystery from History by Jane Yolen and Heidi E. Stample

• The Salem Witch Trials (Graphic History) by Michael J. Martin

Quentin is using History Quest Middle Times with Build Your Library Level 2 as his main history curriculum. This week we covered a chapter about the Black Death.

• History Quest Middle Times

• DK When on Earth?

• DK History

• DK Timelines of Everything

• DK Timelines of Everyone

• DK A Child Through Time

• Kingfisher Atlas of the Medieval World

• DK Explorers

Science

Arthur is using RSO Biology 1 this year has the main science text. Our academic coop will also be using RSO Biology 1 as a basis for the fall semester course, so we will be just supplementing at home. We will also be doing some of Blossom & Root’s Book Seeds and various other small units in between. Arthur covered a few body systems at co-op. At home, we read a bit chapter in our Story of Science about the years leading up to World War II.

• RSO Biology 1

• Story of Science Vol. 3 by Joy Hakim

Quentin is using RSO Earth & Environment and RSO Astronomy 1 as a base. Of course, we have a ton of extra science resources laying around the house. And I will be hosting some one-off science exploration days that align with the units. We switched gears slightly to tackle Blossom and Root’s Prehistory Unit. We covered the wonders about What is a Dinosaur and the Triassic Era. Lots of fun stuff in there.

• RSO Earth and Environment

• DK First Earth Encyclopedia

• DK Dinosaur

• DK When on Earth? Dinosaurs

• DK Eyewitness Dinosaur

• The Story of Life: Evolution by Katie Scott

• Life: The First Four Billions Years by Martin Jenkins

• Stones and Bones: Fossils and the Stories They Tell by Rob Wilshaw

• When the Whales Walked by Dougal Dixon

• Everything Awesome About Dinosaurs an Other Prehistoric Beasts! by Mike Lowery

• Dinothesaurus: Prehistoric Poems and Paintings by Douglas Florian x4

• How the Dinosaur Got to the Museum by Jessie Hartland

• Dinosaurs by the Numbers by Steve Jenkins

• Dinosaur Feathers by Dennis Nolan

• Fossil by Fossil: Comparing Dinosaur Bones by Sara Levine

• Dinosaurs: Fact and Fable by Seymour Simon

• I am NOT a Dinosaur by Will Lach

• Bone Wars: The True Story of an Epic Battle to Find Dinosaur Fossils by Jane Kurtz

• Prehistoric by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

• Nat Geo Kids Dinosaur Atlas

• Dinosaurium by Chris Wormell and Lily Murray

• The Colorful World of Dinosaurs by Matt Sewell

Academic Co-op

For math, Arthur and the few students there on Thursday took a trip around the world to celebrate the holiday season. They worked together to make purchase decisions for each leg of the trip while staying in budget. For biology, they covered two more body systems. I had to emergency teach civics due to illness and we learned about social movements and collective action. The kids were given an assignment to do a bio and protest sign based on a living activist. Arthur got Greta Thunberg. Only one more week for the fall semester!

Art and Music

Art will be very sporadic this year, but we do have some fun excursions planned. And I will incorporate art projects into a lot of other subjects and unit studies. We covered a Harbor + Sprout module about math and art.

For music, we are using Music Lab: We Rock! as our spine. Each week we will be learning about a different rock musician and focus on a particular song. I have also created Spotify playlists so we can listen on the go. We moved into the next section of the book covering Deep Soul. We listened to Ray Charles and Solomon Burke.

• Music Lab: We Rock!

• DK Music and How it Works

• DK The Arts

Field Trip/Activities

We got to see A Christmas Story musical at The Rose Theatre on Friday. Love that we can access the student tickets price to see some great live theater. It was a big performance almost 2 1/2 hours long with an intermission, but we loved it.

High

Because I had an errand to get done, a friend took the boys to board game club at Coffee Alley. I met them there after my errand. They got some great socialization time with friends, and so did I. Plus they make good coffee. Loved it!

Low

Nothing really. It was a good week!

Next Week

• Completing our read alouds

• Reviewing math for Q

• Finishing 1A Math book for A

• Covering the Hundred Years’ War (Q)

• Learning about the Jurassic and Cretaceous Eras (Q)

• Wrapping up the fall semester of academic co-op

• Seeing Act II of The Nutcracker ballet at the Orpheum (another student ticket show!)

Next up on the TBR pile: