Homeschool W12: All About the Dinosaurs!

What We Studied

We are back to our originally schedule curriculum plan and managed to have two outings plus coop. It was a full week, but I feel really good about our routine and what we covered.

Literature and Poetry

We finished with our reading of Race to the Sun early in the week. I loved the story and it definitely held Arthur’s attention throughout. We will be reading more from that imprint soon. After Race to the Sun, we started reading Japanese folktales in anticipation of next week’s history curriculum. We also covered a few picture book studies for our fall theme.

• Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
• K is for Kabuki by Gloria Whelan and Jenny Nolan
• The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks by Katherine Paterson
• The Boy Who Drew Cats by Margaret Hodges
• The Boy from the Dragon Palace by Margaret Read MacDonald
• Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano

Math

We’re still working through Unit 3 about multiplication and division. I think we have one more week with Unit 3-4 before we move on to measurement.

• Singapore Math Common Core Edition 3A
• Primarily Logic

Social Studies

This week was all about the Mongols. Crash Course and John Green have been teasing the Mongols for the entirety of their World History series. We finally got to that episode! Arthur is loving going around dramatically pausing and then saying “The Mongols.” We also went a bit past Genghis Kahn to talk about Kublai Khan and Marco Polo.

• DK Timelines of Everyone
• DK Timelines of Everything
• When on Earth
• DK History
• Explorers
• The Mongol Empire from Britannica
• Genghis Khan by Li Jian
• Marco Polo by Demi
• Kublai Khan: The Emperor of Everything by Kathleen Krull

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 independent reading.

Science and STEAM Coop

We’re still covering the dinosaurs! This week was all about the Triassic Period. We have about three weeks left in our personal coverage. But this was the last week that coop was covering the dinosaurs. Next week, we move on to Health.

• 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
• Prehistoric by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
• DK Where on Earth? Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Life
• Dinosaurium by Chris Wormell and Lily Murray
• In Search of Dinosaurs by Dougal Dixon
• Dinothesaurus by Douglas Florian
• When the Whales Walked by
• National Geographic Kids: Dinosaurs
• DK Dinosaur
• DK Eyewitness Dinosaur
• Sink Your Teeth

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 had a light week in regards to the other subjects, but still managed to work on some new skills, including cutting!

ELA

• Once Upon an Alphabet by Oliver Jeffers
• My “u” Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure
• Umma Ungka’s Unusual Umbrella by Barbara deRubertis
• My “v” Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure
• Victor Vicuna’s Volcano Vacation by Barbara deRubertis
• Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

Math

Other

• Poem-Mobiles by Patrick Lewis and Douglas Florian

Field Trip

We had two outings this week. On Tuesday, we had a good old-fashioned playdate with some our coop friends. Now that the parks are not really a good option, we are hoping to add in a few playdates throughout the winter. Then on Friday, we drove to Lincoln to visit Morrill Hall and see some actual dinosaur fossils. We love that museum so much! We ended up spending almost 4 hours exploring. Extra fun: the discovery room in the basement was finally reopened. Lots of fun was had!

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

• Busy Builders, Busy Week by Jean Reidy
• Choo Choo Clickety-Clack by Margaret Mayo
• Trash Truck by Max Keane
• Sail Away by Donald Crews
• Five Trucks by Brian Floca
• The Leaves Fall All Around
• Leaf Jumpers by Carole Berger
• Cement Mixer’s ABC by Sherry Duskey Rinker
• Little Excavator by Anna Dewdney
• Go, Girls, Go! by Frances Gilbert
• Flying by Donald Crews
• Keeping the City Going by Brian Floca
• Truck by Donald Crews
• Fall Leaves by Don L. Curry

High

• Field trip to Morrill Hall was definitely a highlight! We could spend all day in that museum, but eventually our parking ran out and we needed food. We’ll be back in a few months for sure.

Low

• Nothing really

Next Week

• Continuing to read Japanese Folktales
• Moving to medieval Japan for history
• Mastering multiplication and division
• Moving forward in time for the Dinosaur Unit to the Jurassic Period!
• Attending coop for our health theme
• Getting vaccinated!!!! Both boys are starting the series on Wednesday. I feel so relieved!

Next up on the TBR pile: