What We Studied

I really need to find our groove this fall. I cut back even more to allow for more flexibility. We’ll see how it goes going forward.

Literature and Poetry

We finished reading The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum in alignment the Blossom and Root 2nd Grade Language Arts curriculum. The curriculum doesn’t actual start with The Wizard of Oz, but I reordered everything to align closer to our history this year. I’m really enjoying the spelling curriculum that I bought from The Moffatt Girls on Teachers Pay Teachers. And Arthur has taken to doing one spelling list spread out over the course of the week.

• The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

• The Road to Oz: Twists, Turns, Bumps, and Triumphs int he Life of L. Frank Baum by Kathleen Krull

• I Invited a Dragon to Dinner

Math

We started Singapore Math Common Core 3A this week. We’re shooting for one unit every week or so. Unit 1 is complete!

• Singapore Math Common Core Edition 3A

• Millions, Billions, and trillions: Understanding Big Numbers by David A. Adler

• Mind-Boggling Numbers by Michael J. Rosen

Social Studies

We started History Quest Middle Times this week with Ch. 1 Islamic Innovations. I really loved this chapter. I even learned some things.

• OMAR Finds a Home

• DK Eyewitness: Islam

• DK Timelines of Everyone

• The Arab World Thought of It by Saima S. Hussain

• Looking Back: The World of Islam Before 1700 by Hazel Mary Martell

• Islamic Art & Culture by Nicola Barber

• The Arabian Nights

Arthur Independent Time

To allow for one-on-one time with Quentin, I have added an hour of independent work time for Arthur. Each week, he will have a mix of packet work (mostly grammar and math review), independent reading time, and special projects. Many of his projects will be aligned with our literature selections (some taken from B&R Language Arts curriculum) and history. This week, he focused on some packet work and started his next creative project: Geography of Home book.

Science and STEAM Coop

Photos were taken; not by me as I was teaching. Unfortunately the pictures all had pictures of other people’s kids so I can’t post them on here.

We started our bird theme this week and I taught the older kids. We talked about birds in general and birds of prey specifically. Then we joined the younger kids and dissected owl pellets. I was so proud of the older kids as they assisted the younger kids in their dissection. This week really solidified the idea of mixing up the age groups some weeks. Next week we are continuing the birds theme with beaks and feathers.

• Bird Count by Susan Edwards Richmond

• Robin Where are You? by Harriet Ziefert

• Animal School: What Class are You? by Michael Garland

• The Animal Book by Steve Jenkins

• Nature Files: Animal Groupings by Anita Ganeri

• Carl Linnaeus: Genius of Classification by Margaret J. Anderson

Art/Music

Our music study was cut this week. We just ran out of time and other things got prioritized.

Quentin

I have scheduled at least four 1-hour time blocks for one-on-one time with Quentin. I bought Blossom and Root’s Early Years Volume 2 curriculum to use as our base. I love the variety of activities and some of the bigger projects included. For ELA, we continued our big overview of the alphabet. We covered more counting and some basic math concepts as well as simple map skills. And we had some puzzles to round out the week.

ELA

• Ten Apples Up on Top by Theo LeSieg

• Once Upon an Alphabet by Oliver Jeffers

• The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall

• The Wheels on the Bus

• Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman

Math

• One is Not a Pair by Britta Teckentrup

• No Two Alike by Keith Baker

• Know Your Numbers: Food by Mary Elizabeth Salzmann

• Know Your Numbers: Nature by Mary Elizabeth Salzmann

• Know Your Numbers: Animals by Mary Elizabeth Salzmann

• Know Your Numbers: Toys by Mary Elizabeth Salzmann

Other

• High Five magazine volume

Field Trip

We had a great two event day on Tuesday with our coop friends. In the morning, we visited Heron Haven and explored nature. We saw turtles, frogs, fish, birds, butterflies, and caterpillars. We loved it and will definitely go back soon. In the afternoon, we met some coop friends at the park for playground time and board games. My kids really loved playing with someone else. We’re aiming to schedule two board games days a month.

Documentary Selection

I have carved out a one hour time block each week to watch a documentary related to our studies. This week, we watched a great episode about math.

• NOVA S42 E7: The Great Math Mystery

Misc. - Random picture books read

• Vivi Loves Science by Kimberly Derting

Highs

• Tuesday was so much fun! The boys loved the nature walk and especially loved the board games afternoon.

Lows

• Some things fell by the wayside this week. I’m reconfiguring our schedule for next week to help this out.

Next Week

• Starting The Hobbit

• Moving on to Unit 2 in math.

• Continuing with our birds theme for coop

• Fall of the Byzantine Empire is up next for history.

Next up on the TBR pile: