I somehow managed to not take a single picture of homeschooling this week. I have pictures of our advent activities, just not our regular school stuff. Oh well…

What We Studied

Another week of anatomy, coding, and Greece! We’re taking it easy this month and not pushing the curriculum too far. Plus we have all those fun advent activities to fit in! With the end of this week, we are officially done with the fall semester.

Literature and Poetry

We finished Book 4 and almost Book 5 of Tales from the Odyssey. I’m hoping to finish reading this one before Christmas, but we might be cutting it really close.

• Tales from the Odyssey Part 2 by Mary Pope Osborne

Math

Instead of continuing Singapore Math, we switched over and started learning about computer science. We are slowing working through the second Ruby book. We’ll be continuing this unit into January. (Arthur has also been doing daily math pages to keep up his arithmetic skills.)

• Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding by Linda Liukas

Social Studies

History was all about Greece. We wrapped up our study of Greece with the Macedonians on Friday. Arthur really enjoyed learning about the Greeks. We watched a great NOVA episode about Archimedes.

• How People Lived in Ancient Greece by Colin Hynson

• Eyewitness: Ancient Greece

• Ancients in Their Own Words: Ancient Greece by Michael Kerrigan

• Ancient Greece: Voyages Through Time by Peter Ackroyd

• Great Leaders and Thinkers of Ancient Greece by Megan Cooley Peterson

• Socrates by Jim Whitting

• Gods and Goddesses by Danielle Smith-Llera

• What Did the Greeks Do for Me by Patrick Catel

Science

Science until Christmas is all about anatomy and physiology. This week we covered the cardiovascular system. respiratory system, and nervous system.

• Eyewitness: Human Body

• My Amazing Body Machine by Robert Winston

• The Magic School Bus Has a Heart

• Organs! by Nancy Winslow Parker

• The Brain is Kind of a Big Deal by Nick Seluk

• The Doctor with an Eye for Eyes by Julia Finley Mosca

Art

No formal art lessons this month, but we are doing a variety of projects related to the season and to our other subjects. This week Arthur did

Music

Our composer this week was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. I love all of has ballets so we did a bit of a deeper dive into Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker. I found some great picture books based on the ballets and we eventually watched a ballet version of The Nutcracker on Friday night.

• Swan Lake retold by Ji-yeong Lee

• The Nutcracker retold by Bo-geum Cha

• Waltz of the Snowflakes by Elly Mackay

• The Nutcracker Comes to America by Chris Barton

Unit Theme

Our unit theme until Christmas is holidays around the world. We did some random holiday activities this week. Plus, we are doing an advent (see my Christmas Bucket List post) that is all holiday themed. Finally, I wrapped the 24 days of Christmas books again this year to enjoy. The boys love opening a package of two books every night. I got some new ones from the library along with some old favorites (both borrowed and owned).

24 Days of Books

• If You Take a Mouse to the Movies by Laura Numeroff

• How to Catch an Elf by Adam Wallace

• Sammy Claws by Lucy Rowland and Paula Bowles

• One Wild Christmas by Nicholas Oldland

• The Nutcracker by Grace Maccarone

• It’s Christmas! by Tracey Corderoy

• Jingle Bells by Rosie Greening

• The Twelve Days of Christmas by Kate Toms

• Christmas City by Michael Garland

• Wintercake by Lynne Rae Perkins

• The Christmas Crocodile by Bonny Becker

• Little Bear’s Special Friend by Claire Freedman

• The Littlest Elf by Brandi Dougherty

• The Littlest Reindeer by Brandi Dougherty

Misc. - Random picture books read

• Dragon’s Fat Cat by Dav Pilkey

• There’s a Dinosaur on the 13th Floor by Wade Bradford

• Never Follow a Dinosaur by Alex Latimer

• Thomas the Tank Engine: Thomas and the Beanstalk

• Merry Christmas Peppa

• Chicks by Sandra Horning

• Finding Christmas by Lezlie Evans

• A Christmas Sweater for Nina by Cecilia Heikkila

Highs

• I can’t believe that we have finished a semester of homeschooling. Accomplishments!

• I’m loving the easy pace of this holiday season.

Lows

• We didn’t quite finish Tales of the Odyssey yet. We’ll continue so we can finish, but I wanted a clean break.

Next Week

We are going to continue with our holiday activities and do a bit of literature and math. I hope to finish Tales from the Odyssey before Christmas Day. We’re going to take a few days off after Christmas to be very lazy. But I am making a small New Year’s unit to break up the time. I’m planning to start the spring semester on January 10th.

Next up on the TBR pile: