Homeschool Fall Break: We Caught Up!

What We Studied

Originally I had scheduled our Fall Break week for this past week. I knew we would get behind on curriculum because of sickness or unexpected disruptions. Thankfully it happened because of the second reason not the first. That meant that we ended up taking this week to catch up on some subjects and do a bit of fill in. The kids had no idea that I scrapped their break week. (To be fair, we have had our share of break days throughout the fall.)

Literature and Poetry

Continuing with our reading of Race to the Sun. We are a bit behind due to lots of random things, but we’re really enjoying the story and will finish soon. We also covered a few picture book studies for our fall theme.

• Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
• Hidden City: Poems of Urban Wildlife by Sarah Grace Tuttle
• I and You and Don’t Forget Who: What is a Pronoun by Brian P. Cleary
• When I was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant
• Piggie Pie by Margie Palatini
• The Adventures of Beekle by Dan Santat

Math

We’re still working through Unit 3 about multiplication and division. We’ll be staying here for another few weeks to gain some mastery. We also read a few math related picture books, including starting the Sir Cumference series.

• Singapore Math Common Core Edition 3A
• The Wing Brothers: Carnival de Math by Ethan Long
• Sir Cumference and the First Round Table by

Social Studies

This week was all about the Magna Carta.

• DK Timelines of Everyone
• When on Earth
• DK History
• A Medieval Feast by Aliki
• A Medieval Cathedral by Fiona MacDonald
• The Magna Carta: Cornerstone of the Constitution by Roberta Baxter

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 packet work and some random building projects.

Science and STEAM Coop

Continuing with our Dinosaur unit from Blossom and Root! We covered the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian Periods.

• Everything Awesome About Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Beasts by Mike Lowery
• The Story of Life: Evolution by Katie Scott
• Life: The First Four Billion Years by Martin Jenkins
• When the Whales Walked and Other Incredibly Evolutionary Journeys by Dougal Dixon
• Prehistoric: Before the Dinosaurs by David West
• DK Prehistoric
• Prehistoric by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

Art/Music

Nothing this week

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. We also continued a big unit on transportation.

ELA

• Once Upon an Alphabet by Oliver Jeffers
• My “q” Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure
• Quentin Quokka’s by Barbara deRubertis
• My “r” Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure
• Rosie Raccoon’s Rock and Roll Raft by Barbara deRubertis
• The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle
• Quick as a Cricket by Dan and Audrey Woods

Math

Other

• Awesome Ambulances by Tony Mitton
• Flash the Little Fire Engine by Pam Calvert
• Emergency Vehicles by Melissa Abramovitz
• Patrolling Police Cars by Tony Mitton
• Dial 9-1-1! by Charles Ghigna
• A Fire Truck Named Red by Randall de Sève
• Emergency Monster Squad by Dave Horowitz
• Counting Cars
• All Kinds of Cars by Carl Johanson
• The Gingerbread Man Loose on the Fire Truck by Laura Murray
• Bunnies on the Bus by Philip Ardagh
• Let’s Build by Julie M. Fenner
• Diggers by Amy Johnson
• Mighty, Mighty Construction Site by Sherry Dusky Rinker
• Let’s Go on a Digger by Rosalyn Albert
• Trucks Galore by Peter Stein
• The Digger and the Flower by Joseph Kuefler
• The Mixed-Up Truck by Stephen Savage
• Truck, Truck, Goose by Tammi Sauer

Field Trip

One last trip to Vala’s for the season! We arrived right when they opened, met up with friends, and spent 6 1/2 hours there! So much fun. Each of the boys picked one thing that they could not miss (bouncy pillows for Quentin and the corn pit for Arthur). Plus, we grabbed a few pumpkins and some cookies on the way out. Another successful season at one of my favorite places.

Documentary Selection

I have carved out a one hour time block each week to watch a documentary related to our studies. We didn’t actually watch anything this week, but made up for it by all the PBS Eons videos for our dinosaur unit.

Misc. - Random picture books read

• One Leaf, Two Leaves, Count with Me by John Micklos Jr.
• Yellow Time by Lauren Stringer
• Never Ask a Dinosaur to Dinner by Gareth Edwards
• Leaves by David Ezra Stein

Highs and Low

• We loved our fist trip to Vala’s, but were so sad that it was our last one of the season. I might just buy season passes next year. I just love going and that would allow us to do a few mornings instead of three marathon days. And maybe we could go at night with J one time like on a Wednesday or something.

Next Week

• Continuing to read Race to the Sun
• Moving to Cahokia and the Ancient Puebloans for history
• Mastering multiplication and division
• Moving forward in time for the Dinosaur Unit
• Covering dinosaurs for coop! (We’re hosting!)

Next up on the TBR pile: