What We Studied

We are nearing the end of this year’s school. Okay that’s not true. We school year round, but we are nearing the end of our big curriculum pieces. Then, we will move to some summer units before starting our next curriculum round in August.

Literature and Poetry

Arthur finished his current read aloud and started the next one. We took it a bit easy with our ELA these two weeks. We finished our poetry collection and won’t start a new one until August. He also continued his Super Secret Notebook from Blossom & Root.

My America poem collection
Much Ado About Baseball by Rajani LaRocca
Hidden Figures for Young Readers by Margot Lee Shetterly

Quentin finished his read aloud. It took us a few days, but we got through it eventually. He also worked on his reading and comprehension skills.

Sing a Song of Seasons
Homer Price by Robert McCloskey

Math

Arthur moved through most a unit about angles. We slowed down a bit these past two weeks, but are still on track to finish 5B before the end of May.

Singapore Common Core 5B
Orbiting with Logic

Quentin has moved onto math review and will continue solidifying those skills.

Social Studies

Arthur continued with the 1960s with a focus on the Civil Rights Movement and then the Space Race. We’re inching our way to the present slowly, slowly.

DK American History
We were There Too! Young People in US History
Words that Build a Nation
Heart and Soul
Nat Geo Our Country’s Presidents
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
A Different Mirror for Young People
This is Our Land: A History of American Immigration
DK Timelines of Everything
DK History
March by John Lewis
The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist by Cynthia Levinson
Liberty's Civil Rights Road Trip by Michael W. Waters
Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Boycott Blues: How Rosa Parks Inspired a Nation by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Malcolm X: A Fire Burning Brightly by Walter Dean Myers
Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon by Catherine Thimmesh
Moonbound: Apollo 11 and the Dream of Spaceflight by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm

Quentin finished his History Quest Ancient Times curriculum with a chapter about Arabia. We will be taking a break from our big history curriculum by shifting to geography.

History Quest Early Times
DK When on Earth?
Human Wold
DK History
DK Timelines of Everything
DK A Child Through Time
A History of Western Art
DK Science Year by Year
DK Myths, Legends, and Sacred Stories
Find the Journeys Around the World by David Long
Ancient Worlds
A Journey Through Art by Aaron Rosen
DK Eyewitness Wonders of the World

Science

We got back into chemistry with two weeks of lessons. Only one more to go! Beyond the chemistry, we continued reading our Story of Science. Nearing the end of that book as well.

RSO Chemistry
DK Super Simple Chemistry
Story of Science Vol. 2: Newton at the Center by Joy Hakim
DK The Elements

Quentin finished his RSO Life curriculum with a review of the plant kingdom. We’ll be doing some science pieces here and there and obviously we have coop.

RSO Life
DK Trees, Leaves, Flowers & Seeds
It Starts with a Seed by Laura Knowles
Stems and Trunks by Melanie Waldron
Roots by Melanie Waldron
Muse: Secrets of Trees
We Planted a Tree by Diane Muldrow
What on Earth? Trees by Kevin Warwick
A Seed is Sleepy by Dianna Hutts Aston

STEAM Coop

We had one coop lesson in the rain (the radar lied to me) and one coop lesson indoors due to weather. I was teaching archaeology to the Chatty Cheetahs. Neither one of the boys are in that class, but we needed a teacher and I enjoy the topic. Arthur focused on Environmental Science and Quentin learned about paleontology.

Art/Music/Crafts/Cooking/Documentary

Another two weeks, another couple of documentaries covering topics from our history lessons. Quentin watched one about the ancient city of Petra and one about the Emperor’s Ghost Army (the Terra Cotta Warriors). Arthur watched a great Modern Marvels episode about the Space Shuttle program.

DK Music and How it Works
DK The Arts
DK Art and How It Works
Modern Art Adventures by Maja Pitamic and Jill Laidlaw
13 American Artists Children Should Know
A Child's Introduction to Art
Women in Art by Rachel Ignotofsky
Iconic Composers by Nicholas Csicsko & Emi Ferguson
13 Art Movements Children Should Know
13 Artists Children Should Know
13 Modern Artists Children Should Know
The Story of Paintings by Mick Manning & Brita Granström
Why is Art Full of Naked People? by Susie Hodge

Field Trip

We had a great field trip to Morrill Hall in Lincoln. The museum has been closed for a few months for renovations. There wasn’t a ton of visible changes, but I know that they updated a ton of the internal systems. Still, we had a great guided field trip learning about animals of the prehistoric past. Post field trip, some of our friends and we went to Prehistoric Putt for some mini golf fun.

We also attended another great theater performance. This time, we got to see Charlotte’s Web. Quentin really enjoyed the performance.

High

Our field trip coordinator for coop set up a great guided tour of Ashfall Fossil Beds in Royal. It was absolutely amazing to be guided by one of the one-site paleontologists. We had the place completely to ourselves and it was amazing. Three families and myself decided that three and a half hours of driving to and then three and a half hours of driving back in one day was too much. We decided to book an AirBnB nearby and spent a weekend exploring north central Nebraska. (While there, tornadoes hit Omaha and caused a decent amount of damage. Thankfully none of our coop families suffered any damage.) On Saturday we explored a beautiful state park right on the Missouri River and had lots of fund social time. Sunday, one of the families joined us on a side tour to Sioux City. It was a great weekend.