What We Studied

More of our week was spent in your usual flow with school, co-op, and activities. I think that we ended the week in a really good place, I did implement a more intentional independent work task list to help the boys get on a good track and move quickly. Looking forward to February.

Literature and Poetry

Arthur is primarily using Hearth and Story G5 for his language arts this year. We dove into a new read aloud and it’s been much better than the last one. As an added bonus it appears in Hearth and Story G5 and as a Build Your Library Lit Bite. And it’s our co-op book selection for this month. We also covered more grammar and extra language arts assignments.

• Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

• The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat

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 got deeper into The Hobbit and are really enjoying it. Q is definitely liking it more than our last one.

• Poetry: Alphabestiary selected by Jane Yolen

• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

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. From there, we’re pivoting to coordinate planes. I am really am liking how Singapore spends a lot of time on what the equations are actually telling us vs just jumping into solving.

• 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. Arthur moved onto the section about Australia and New Zealand. We really enjoyed this detour to place that often doesn’t get covered in history texts.

• Curiosity Chronicles Early Modern History Vol. 1

• DK History

• DK Timelines of Everything

• DK Timelines of Everyone

• DK A Child Through Time

• Birrarung Wilam: A Story from Aboriginal Australia by Aunty Joy Murphy and Andrew Kelly

• Welcome To Country: A Traditional Aboriginal Ceremony by Aunty Joy Murphy

• Australia and Oceania: True Books: Geography: Continents by Mel Friedman

• You Wouldn’t Want to Be an 18th-Century British Convict!: A Trip to Australia You’d Rather Not Take by Meredith Costain

• Sun Mother Wakes the World by Diane Wolkstein

• Indigenous Australian Cultures by Mary Colson

• Great Barrier Reef by Martha London

• Uluru: Australia's Aboriginal Heart by Caroline Arnold

• Land of the Long White Cloud: Maori Myths, Tales and Legends by Kiri Te Kanawa and Michael Foreman

• New Zealand by Alicia Klepeis

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 two Indian Empires.

• 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 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. We did read some chapters from our Story of Science to keep up.

• RSO Biology 1

• Story of Science Vol. 3 by Joy Hakim

• Amazing Evolution: The Journey of Life by Anna Claybourne

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 moved on to lessons about galaxies, solar systems, and our sun. We are also still watching the PBS Eons videos here and there.

• RSO Earth and Environment

• DK First Earth Encyclopedia

• RSO Asttonomy 1

• DK Eyewitness Astronomy

• DK Space

• DK First Space Encyclopedia

• DK Eyewitness The Planets

• The Stuff Between the Stars: How Vera Rubin Discovered Most of the Universe by Sandra Nickel

• Solar System By the Numbers by Steve Jenkins

• Professor Astro Cat's Frontiers of Space by Dominic Walliman and Ben Newman

• The Book of Big Science Ideas by Freya Hardy

• Sun: One in a Billion by Stacy McAnulty

• 13 Planets: The Latest View of the Solar System by David A. Aguilar

• The Planets by Gail Gibbons

Academic Co-op

Another week of co-op and one our absent families rejoined us. So exciting to have them back with us! Arthur had a good day learning about neurotransmitters (expansion of week 1), food webs, and drawing techniques. For writer’s workshop, the kids did their first conference. It’s a learning process, but I’m really pleased by how they handled it. Q and I figured out a way to still do our read aloud and poetry. I feel like both boys accomplished so much in those four hours.

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.

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 two artists: Pattie Smith and The Replacements. The boys were not huge fans of those artists, but it is always good to expand our musical horizons.

• Music Lab: We Rock!

• DK Music and How it Works

• DK The Arts

Field Trip/Activities

We attended board game club on Friday afternoon . It was a bit of a rough start (Arthur’s besties were not there), both boys settled in and played some games with other kids. I had a lovely time chatting with old, middle, and new homeschool friends. We will definitely be attending next month’s meeting.

High

Wednesday we restarted our Joslyn Art Explorers visits. The kids had a great time exploring color this month. And we visited one of the galleries that we haven’t gotten back into since the museum opened. I think we have now visited all of the galleries at least once. Love our art museum visits.

Low

Q ended up having a bit of an emotional time after board game club and we had to have a big conversation afterwards. It was a bit rough. But we made it through.

Next Week

• Continuing our current reads

• Moving forward with math lessons

• Traveling to Revolutionary France (A) and China (Q) for history

• Exploring the rocky planets for Q’s science

• Listening to Talking Heads

• Playing at an indoor playground to get our wiggles out

• Heading back to the dentist, thankfully this time for the kids’ cleaning appointments and not anything about me

Next up on the TBR pile: