What We Studied

We wrapped up our fall semester in a great place. We managed to cover a ton of material while engaging in so many activities and fun outings. We are so ready for a bit of a break before diving back in in January.

Literature and Poetry

Arthur is primarily using Hearth and Story G5 for his language arts this year. We finished our next read aloud and moved on. It’s another featured book from Hearth & Story G5. We are really enjoying that program. From there, we started our next read aloud from our own shelves. I had picked up a literature unit about the book to guide our reading. We’ll be taking the book to Indiana to finish. We also covered more grammar and extra language arts assignments.

• Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins

• The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

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 finished 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. From there, we picked up another Tim Collins book to read in tandem with our dinosaur unit. We finished that one and then will be diving into a classic.

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

• Poetry: Dinothesaurus: Prehistoric Poems and Paintings by Douglas Florian

• Wishtree by Katherine Applegate

• The Long-Lost Secret Diary of the World’s Worst Dinosaur Hunter by Tim Collins

• The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis

Math

Arthur is using Singapore’s Math in Focus Course 1. Effectively this is Singapore’s 6th grade math text. Arthur finished the first book of the course. We spent some time doing a bit of math review and catching up before starting the next book in January..

• Math in Focus Course 1 Book A

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

• Primarily Logic

Social Studies

Arthur is using Curiosity Chronicles Early Modern History Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 this year. We wrapped up Volume 1. We’ll be starting Volume 2 in January.

• Curiosity Chronicles Early Modern History Vol. 1

• DK History

• DK Timelines of Everything

• DK Timelines of Everyone

• DK A Child Through Time

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 Hundred Years’ War.

• 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

• Joan of Arc by Demi

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 and spring semester courses, 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...

• 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 the Mesozoic Era. Lots of fun stuff in there.

• RSO Earth and Environment

• DK First Earth Encyclopedia

• DK Dinosaur

• DK Where 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

• Dinosaurs: Fact and Fable by Seymour Simon

• 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

• Barnum's Bones: How Barnum Brown Discovered the Most Famous Dinosaur in the World by Tracey Fern

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

• Mary Anning and the Sea Dragon by Jeannine Atkins

• The Fossil Whisperer: How Wendy Sloboda Discovered a Dinosaur by Helaine Becker

• A Dinosaur Named Ruth: How Ruth Mason Discovered Fossils in Her Own Backyard by Julia Lyon

• Dragon Bones: The Fantastic Fossil Discoveries of Mary Anning by Sarah Glenn Marsh

• Prehistoric: Dinosaurs, Megalodons, and Other Fascinating Creatures of the Deep Past by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

Academic Co-op

We finished the fall semester. For math, the student finished the semester with a personal budget project. It was difficult, but the kids made it through. For biology, they finished their anatomy and physiology section. Next semester, they will be covering evolution and ecology. For civics, the kids presented their active citizenship biographies and posters. We also did a big review of the entire class.

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 visual styles.

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 finished the next section of the book covering Deep Soul. We listened to Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Marvin Gaye, and The Staple Sisters.

• Music Lab: We Rock!

• DK Music and How it Works

• DK The Arts

Field Trip/Activities

We attended our first Homeschool in the Hills session at Hitchcock Hills. The subject was art and nature. It was absolutely freezing on that day, but we powered through. The actual outside section was only about 15 minutes. I thought the program was interesting. Q was not on board. Arthur enjoyed himself. We’re scheduled for their January and March sessions also.

High

We got to see the reindeer at Mulhall’s after a car repair estimate. Seeing actual live reindeers are one of the highlights of the season for me.

Low

The drive to Indiana was not fun. The wind gusts and crazy drivers made it much more stressful.

Next Week - Taking a few weeks off for the holidays.

Next up on the TBR pile: