What We Studied

Literature and Poetry

We finished reading Nim’s Island and then had a movie night on Friday. The book was pretty good; a slim adventure story. And the movie actually held up. Decent! For a related art project, Arthur had to make his own island map. It’s a little hard to read in places, but he made sure to label everything.

• Nim’s Island by Wendy Orr

• Rainbow Soup by Brian P. Cleary (poems)

• Sea Sheep by Eric Seltzer (Arthur read)

Math

We are officially done with Singapore Math 2! We’re not going to move into 3 until August. Until then, we will be doing some review, catching up on Khan Academy, studying coding again, playing math games, and probably doing a unit on nature math (golden ratio; Fibonacci).

Social Studies

We are back into the American Revolution covering female patriots (Rebecca Stillwell Willets was Arthur’s favroite), spies (love the Culper Ring!), and life during the war.

• Fight for Freedom: The American Revolutionary War by Benson Bobrick

• Great Women of the American Revolution by Brianna Hall

• Founding Mothers: Remembering the Ladies by Cokie Roberts

• Patriots and Petticoats: Heroines of the American Revolution by Shirley Raye Redmond

• If You were a Kid During the American Revoluion by Wil Mara

• Life During the Revolutionary War by Bonnie Hinman

• Revolutionary Rogues: John André and Benedict Arnold by Selene Castrovilla

• A Spy Called James by Anne Rockwell

• Anna Strong by Sarah Glenn Marsh

• The Scarlet Stockings Spy by Trinka Hakes Noble

Science

See Unit Theme

Art

Nothing formal

Music

We started our big unit on American Folk Music! I’m super excited about this one. We started with a short random documentary I found from the 1970s. It’s dated, but does an amazing job of tracing a few folk songs from England to today. From there, we did a few days with Woody Guthrie (not Arthur’s favorite). On the way back from the Treetops, we listened to a Smithsonian compilation album of Children’s Folk Music. They actually really enjoyed it! There is hope!

• Passing the Music Down by Sarah Sullivan

• This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie

Unit Theme

Continuing with oceans! We will be in this unit for the entire month of May. This week we studied coral reefs, the open ocean, and the deep. We watched a great episode of Blue Planet about coral seas and an episode of NOVA about Reef Rescue.

• One Night in the Coral Sea by Sneed B. Collard III

• Nat Geo Kids: Coral Reefs

• Coral Reefs by Precious McKenzie

• Coral Reefs by Gail Gibbons

• Nat Geo Kids: Ocean Animals

• Ocean Anatomy by Julia Rothman (I really need to just buy this one!)

• DK Ocean

• Water Sings Blue: Ocean Poems by Karen Coombs

• W is for Waves by Marie and Roland Smith

• Seashells: More Than a Home by Melissa Stewart

• Deep in the ocean by Lucie Brunelliere

• The Deep, Deep Ocean by John Woodward

• Into the Deep by Annika Siems

• Deep Oceans by Ellen Labrecqu

• Exploring the Deep Dark Sea by Gail Gibbons

• Otis and Will Discover the Deep: The Record-setting Dive of the Bathysphere by Barb Rosenstock

• Down Down Down by Steve Jenkins

• Journey into the Deep by Rebecca L. Johnson

Misc. - Random picture books read Lots of ocean themed reading for nighttime.

• The Mermaid by Jan Brett

• Sandy Feet! Whose Feet? Footprints at the Shore by Susan Wood

• A Fish Out of Water by Helen Palmer

• Field Trip to the Ocean Deep by John Hare

• Ocean Animals from Head to Tail by Stacey Roderick

• Little Turtle and the Changing Sea by Becky Davies

• The Specific Ocean by Kyo Maclear

• Gone Fishing: Ocean Life by the Numbers by David McLimans

• Dive In: Swim with Sea Creatures at Their Actual Size by Roxie Munro

• The Nice Dream Truck by Beth Ferry

• Love is by Diane Adams

• Over int he Ocean in a Coral Reef by Marianne Berkes

• Red by Michael Hall

• Hello Ocean by Pam Muñoz Ryan

• The Little Fish that Got Away by Bernadine Cook

Highs

• Our trip to Arbor Day Farm and the Treetops Village on Friday was delightful! It wasn’t too busy even with a few school groups. The weather was cooler but sunny. And the forest was in bloom! We did all the things and wore ourselves out. I even jumped on the trampoline (and fell over a few times). Lots of fun was had!

Lows

• No one showed up to our park playdate on Tuesday. The boys had fun playing at the playground by themselves, but it would have been nice to have some friends. We cut our park trip a little short and I took them to Build-a-Bear to make a new stuffie. (I was planning on going there something this month, but hadn’t told the boys beforehand.) Arthur built a Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon and Quentin made a Chase from Paw Patrol. The day was salvaged but still a bit sad.

Next Week

We are starting a new read aloud (The One and Only Bob!), playing some math games, and doing some review. We will be continuing with the Revolution, the ocean, and folk music. Plus we have a park playdate schedule and a field trip day to find all the Bees of the Heartland down in the Auburn area.

Next up on the TBR pile: