Homeschool W5: Ready for a Calm Week

What We Studied

A strange week. I had everything planned out and then our plans on Thursday and Friday drastically changed. It really threw me off a bit.

Literature and Poetry

Arthur continued reading the Percy Jackson series with The Lightning Thief. We kept reading and have really gotten into the story. Beyond the actual literature, we are working on some basic grammar skills and starting our writing journey. He also continued his Super Secret Notebook from Blossom & Root. And finally, we finished the next coop book club selection.

• The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
• A Child’s Introduction to Greek Mythology
• Poetry for Young People: American Poetry
• Reading Explorer: Intro
• The Last Human by Lee Bacon

Quentin continued reading a new selection. I think that he finally got into the story more. His reading comprehension answers have gotten more correct. He also worked on some basic grammar.

• Sing a Song of Seasons
• The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

Math

Arthur started Singapore 5A. The book starts with some basic place value review but very quickly moves to multiples, factors, and primes. We are definitely going to slow down our math lessons a bit to make sure that Arthur achieves mastery. We also continued our next logic book.

• Singapore Common Core 5A
• Orbiting with Logic

Quentin continued working toward the end of Singapore 1B with a review on time. I’m still debating if we should take a small review break after finishing 1B and before beginning 2A. We also continued our logic book.

• Lollipop Logic Book 3
• Singapore Common Core 1B

Social Studies

Arthur jumped back into BYL 6 and History Quest: US History starting at the beginning of the Civil War. He finished the war. We’ll be taking a break for our Flex Week before moving on Reconstruction. We’ll be sprinkling in various historical fiction readers to reinforce the time periods.

• DK American History
• We were There Too! Young People in US History
• Two Miserable Presidents by Steve Sheinkin
• Words that Build a Nation
• Heart and Soul
• Nat Geo Our Country’s Presidents

Quentin moved onto the Neolithic time period and focused on the agricultural revolution. We even watched a great NOVA documentary about Stonehenge.

• 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
• Peter Kent’s City Across Time
• The Secrets of Stonehenge by Mick Manning and Britt Granstrom

Science

Arthur is embarking upon RSO Chemistry this year. We will be doing the experiment portions with a group of coop friends. That portion starts today. This week we covered Unit 1 with a basic focus on chemistry. The text was super boring, but thankfully I found some good short videos to reenforce the ideas and spark some interest. I found a really good one detailing the chemistry involved in baking cookies. For the Story of Science, we learned about Tycho Brahe.

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

Quentin continued RSO Life with a lesson about classification systems focusing on the animal kingdom. I actually found the sorting mat pieces I had made for Arthur years ago. Good on me for keeping them and actually knowing where I put them!

• RSO Life
• DK Oversimple Biology

STEAM Coop

Coop was cancelled this week due to terrible air quality. We have too many families with medical issues. Unfortunately that means that out of the first five week of coop, we have cancelled twice. Not excited about this turn of events. On a better note, we might have found an indoor location for the winter.

Art/Music/Crafts/Cooking/Documentary

Another week that I actually fit in art and music! I am on a roll! We covered the music of Erik Satie, a very eccentric composer, but one we have heard a lot as background music. We also covered the colorful art of Alma Thomas. Both of the boys really got into her pieces more than previous weeks.

• DK Music and How it Works
• DK The Arts
• 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
• We are Artists by Kari Herbert
• Ablaze with Color: A Story of Painter Alma Thomas by Jeanne Walker Harvey

Field Trip

On Tuesday, we traveled over to Iowa for a guided field trip at the Hitchcock Center. The kids learned about monarch butterflies and specifically Monarch Watch. Then we attempted to find some monarchs for tagging. We found a few, but were unable to actually catch any. Still it was great day out in nature.

High

(Reluctant high) Because coop was cancelled on Thursday, we had more time in our week. We ended up spending the entirety of Thursday morning shopping for birthday party supplies, coop supplies, chemistry class supplies, and fall service project donation items. I had been stressing a bit about how to fit all this in and not do the shopping on the weekend (I hate shopping on the weekends). Our impromptu cancelling gave us the opportunity to get it all done (well mostly) in one outing.

Low

I kind of ran out of steam by the end of the week. Because our nature hike was cancelled, we ended up schooling Friday morning and then for the afternoon, I just took the kids to the park. They had been begging for some outside scootering time, so it worked out. I was just very tired by that point.

Next Week - Will be a Flex Week. It’s our chance to catchup on things we delayed and take a breath from big planning

• Finishing Percy Jackson and Starting Echo Mountain
• Finishing The One and Only Ivan and Starting a Zoey and Sassafras book
• Reviewing for Math
• Watching a Documentary or two
• Playing a board game or two
• Hosting the first Chemistry Class
• Lots of coop related activities

Next up on the TBR pile: