What We Studied

(See my Low later on to explain the title of this post.) In general, we flew through a ton of curriculum. In fact, I’m getting a little concern that we are going to run out of our current curriculum choices soon. I may need to pull some unit studies and extra stuff to throw in soon.

Literature and Poetry

We ended up only getting about 60% of the way through the coop book club selection before we gave up. It just did not work for us at all! In fact, it didn’t work for any of our book club families, so we were in good company. We picked up the next selection and thankfully it is so much better right away.

• Argos by Ralph Hardy

• The Strangers by Margaret Peterson Haddix

We finished with our read aloud. As next week is a Flex Week, we are actually going to take a break before tackling Shakespeare.

• Nat Geo Book of Nature Poetry

• Poetry for Young People: Emily Dickinson

• The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis

Quentin focused on reading animal stories from around the world. I’m trying to line them up with our continents as we move across the world. We started the next in the Pooh series and will be sprinkling in the stories when we don’t have a country specific book.

• Nat Geo Book of Animal Poetry

• A World Full of Animal Stories by Angela McAllister

• Around the World in 80 Days by Saviour Pirotta

• The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne

Math

For both boys, we have scheduled math for three days a week. One day is focused on logic, games, puzzles, and special projects. The two other days are focused on covering the main math curriculum (Singapore 4A and 4B for Arthur and Singapore 1A and 1B for Quentin). Arthur finished 4B last week. We will be taking a break and doing a review course before moving onto 5A. Quentin is close to finishing 1A and we are planning on jumping right into 1B afterwards.

• Logic Liftoff (Arthur)

• Lollipop Logic Book 2 (Quentin)

• Singapore 1A

Social Studies

Arthur continued his large study of United States history using a combination of Build Your Library Level 5 and History Quest United States History.

• A Kid’s Guide to Native American History by Yvonne Wakim Dennis

• An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

• We were There Too by Philip Hoose

• Words that Built a Nation

• History Quest: U.S. History

• A Different Mirror

• DK American History Visual Encyclopedia

• Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans by Kadir Nelson

• Nat Geo Our Country’s Presidents

• What the Eagle Sees

• A is for Abigail: F for First Ladies

• Smart About the First Ladies

• Race to Chimney Rock by Jesse Wiley

Quentin continued his study of the world with Build Your Library Level 0. We started Africa and covered North Africa.

• Nat Geo Beginner’s World Atlas

• DK Countries of the World

• DK Children Just Like Me

• DK Children Just Like Me: A School Like Mine

• Africa by Mel Friedman

• Africa is Not a Country by Margy Burns Knight and Mark Melnicove

• A Visit to Grandad: An African ABC by Sade Fadipe & Shedrach Ayalomeh

• Nelson Mandela’s Favorite African Folktales

• Jaha and Jamil Went Down the Hill: An African Mother Goose by Virginia Kroll

• The Storyteller by Evan Turk

• Follow Me Around Egypt by Wiley Blevins

• Living in Egypt by Chloe Perkins

• The Arabic Quilt by Aya Khalil

Arthur Independent Time

We are working on following a checklist in a planner for weekly independent work. There’s usually some math workbook pages, an ELA packet, weekly writing prompts (1-2 times a week), independent reading time, and a special creative project. There has been many drawing projects lately.

Science

Arthur is focusing on Physics this year. We are covering the text and related videos at home and then joining friends for experiments and extra projects. Our joint science class was cancelled due to sickness with the other family. We covered electromagnetism at home and watched a few episodes of Bill Nye: The Science Guy.

• RSO Physics

• The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way by Joy Hakim

• The Way Things Work Now

Quentin will be focusing on animal science with BYL Level 0. We continued watching a new documentary series called Magic of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It’s a behind the scenes look at caring for the animals at the park. Each episode is less than 30 minutes, so it’s a perfect length for Q.

• Nat Geo Wild Animal Atlas

• DK Animal

• Lonely Planet: The Animal Book

• The Tarantula in My Purse by Jean Craighead George

• The Amazing African Alphabet by Kristina Jones

STEAM Coop

Both groups continued the Engineering Challenge. The big kids made straw towers. It was a heated competition right until the end. The oldest group will be doing a different challenge each week. The youngest kiddos made a marble run with toilet paper rolls.

Art/Music/Crafts/Cooking/Documentary

We’re planning one doing on art project and one cooking project each week as well as picking a composer or musician to listen to and enjoy.

Field Trip

No field trip this week.

High

• We had our first Nature Explorers meeting at Hummel Park this week. It was super cold, but the kids had fun exploring with friends.

Low

• Construction began on our nearby main street and caused some massive issues. No big deal, but then random no parking signs appeared all up and down my street. No parking 24/7 until October 30th. Um what!?!?! I was supposed to host coop on Thursday, but people would have to park on street. I had to scramble and we switched to another’s house, but I was very upset. Thankfully by the end of this week, they clarified the signs. There is now no parking on the north side of my street, but we can still park on the south side. So coop is now back at our house for next week.

Next Week

• Flex Week! We are catching up on some units and adding more games, outings, and documentaries.

Next up on the TBR pile: