What We Studied

The entire family came down with that norovirus that’s been going around the country. And let me tell, it was horrible. We had plans for activities and meetings with friends that all had to be cancelled. This did open up the week for more school work and we powered through a ton. Ultimately, we all lost steam on Friday and just took it easy.

Literature and Poetry

Arthur is primarily using Hearth and Story G5 for his language arts this year. We started our next read aloud, a classic that has been on my list for awhile. We’re about halfway through it and I still don’t know what I think about the book. We also covered more grammar and extra language arts assignments.

The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

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 another classic. Q isn’t the biggest fan of C.S. Lewis, but we’re going to proceed through The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe before we move on.

Poetry: Alphabestiary selected by Jane Yolen
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 started the second book of the course, diving back into algebraic equations. We’re starting close so he can catch up on some back-work.

Math in Focus Course 1 Book A

Quentin is using Singapore’s Primary Mathematics Common Core edition 2B and 3A. We moved onto 3A starting slow to easy back into our lessons.

Singapore Primary 3A
Primarily Logic

Social Studies

Arthur is using Curiosity Chronicles Early Modern History Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 this year. We dove into Volume 2 and managed to cover two sections this week because of sickness. We covered Russia under Catherine the Great and Captain Cook’s exploration of the South Pacific and Hawai’i.

Curiosity Chronicles Early Modern History Vol. 1
DK History
DK Timelines of Everything
DK Timelines of Everyone
DK A Child Through Time
Catherine the Great by Elizabeth Raum
A Royal Ride: Catherine the Great's Great Invention by Kristen Fulton
You Wouldn’t Want to Live Without Vaccinations!, by Anne Rooney
Dr. Jenner and the Speckled Monster: The Discovery of the Smallpox Vaccine, by Albert Marrin
The Adventures of Tupaia, by Courtney Sina Meredith
The Shark King, by R. Kikuo Johnson
Famous Lives: Captain Cook, by Rebecca Levene
DK Explorers - James Cook
Butterfly for a King: Saving Hawaii’s Kamehameha Butterflies, by Cindy Trumbore and Susan L. Roth
A True Book: My United States: Hawai’i, by Joanne Mattern
Kamehameha: The Boy Who Became a Warrior King, by Ellie Crowe

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 settlement of Polynesia. Oddly, Q’s history connected with Arthur’s history chapters.

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
Oceania by Martha London

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. Co-op restarts next week, so no biology lesson this week. We did read some chapters from our Story of Science to keep up.

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 officially finished the Prehistory unit this week; although we still have a ton of Eons episodes to watch here and there through the winter.

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
Dragon Bones: The Fantastic Fossil Discoveries of Mary Anning by Sarah Glenn Marsh
My Mastodon by Barbara Lowell and Antonio Marinoni
Thomas Jefferson and the Mammoth Hunt: The True Story of the Quest for America's Biggest Bones by Carrie Clickard
I Used to be a Fish by Tom Sullivan
Sapiens: Our Human Evolution by J.R. Becker and Max Rambaldi
Amazing Evolution: The Journey of Life by Anna Claybourne Pg. 40-43
Mary Leakey: Archaeologist Who Really Dug her Work by Mike Venezia

Academic Co-op

We restart co-op next week.

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 textile 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 onto the next chapter focusing on Punk Rock. We started with my favorite, The Ramones!