What We Studied

Another week of lots of holiday fun and changes to our schedule. But it’s okay. I love December and want to soak in all the fun while we still can!

Literature and Poetry

We kept at reading The Wind in the Willows. I’m not sure Arthur really loves it, but I’m enjoying his writing style. It sounds lovely when read out loud. We’ve only got one chapter left to read (reading today) and then we’re on to our next selection.

• The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

• A Snowflake Fell: Poems About Winter by Laura Whipple

• Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet (Picture Book Study)

• The Secret History of Hot Chocolate by Stephen Krensky

Math

More review, puzzles, and wrap-up. I decided to hold off starting 3B until January. Until then, we are continuing our logic puzzle book and lots of math games.

• Singapore Math Common Core Edition 3A

• Primarily Logic

Social Studies

This week was all about Medieval Plague and Cathedrals! I do love infectious diseases, but we kept it light for Arthur.

• DK Timelines of Everyone

• When on Earth

• DK History

• DK Timelines of Everything

• The Plague by Lawrence Andrews

• History Smashers: Plagues and Pandemics by Kate Messner

• Chanticleer and the Fox by Barbara Cooney

• The Canterbury Tales adapted by Barbara Cohen

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 ended up watching a lot of Eons to cover most of the Cenozoic.

• 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

• DK Dinsoaur

• DK Where on Earth? Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Creatures

• Prehistoric by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

• Dinosaurium by Chris Wormell and Lily Murray

For Coop, we had our Robots and Engineering second week. The big kids finished their hydraulic crane builds and Arthur got to take one home! The little kids made scribble bots and played around with some other robots Ms. Heather had. Next week, is our last coop meeting of the semester and I’m teaching circuits to the little kids. We did a bit of wrap-up Robots packet at home to end the week.

• Rosie Revere Engineer by Andrea Beaty

• Robots, Robots, Everywhere! by Sue Fliess

• Nat Geo Kids: Robots by Melissa Stewart - Read and Packet

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. Quentin and I read a lot of books, did some alphabet review, and completed a few math packets. We also played a decent number of dice games and board games.

ELA

Math

Other

Field Trip

On Wednesday, I randomly grabbed the library pass for The Durham Museum to check out the exhibits. We also got see Santa while we were there and did a scavenger hunt to find all the elves hidden in the museum.

Friday was our official coop field trip at DoSpace. We got a great tour of the facility and then the kids explored two different robots. Our tour guide and teacher was great with the kids and really engaged them throughout. Now that we have a membership card, we definitely need to go back and check out some of the games and programs. Maybe January we can put some class on our calendar.

Documentary Selection

I have carved out a one hour time block each week to watch a documentary related to our studies. We actually did watch a NOVA episode about the great cathedrals of Europe. I learned a lot about various engineering obstacles and our modern exploration of them. Really fascinating episode. We also watched some more PBS Eons videos about the Cenozoic.

24 Days of Christmas Books - It’s become a tradition. I wrap packages of holiday books for each day of December until Christmas. We have a great group of books this year!

• Comet, the Unstoppable Reindeer by Jim Benton

• A Polar Story in the Snow by Mac Barnett

• Snow by Sam Usher

• The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett

• Gingerbread Friends by Jan Brett

• Snow is Fun by Steve Henry

• Little Fox in the Snow by Jonathan London

• Good Night, Reindeer by Denise Brennan-Nelson

• How Santa Really Works by Alan Snow

• Snow Friends by Margery Cuyler

• A Chick n Pug Christmas by Jennifer Sattler

• Mouse's Night Before Christmas by Tracey Corderoy

• The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst

• The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers by Lisa Campbell Ernst

• Last Stop on the Reindeer Express by Maudie Powell-Tuck

• The Christmas Eve Tree by Delia Huddy

• Martin MacGregor's Snowman by Lisa Broadie Cook

• What the Dinosaurs Did the Night Before Christmas by Refe and Susan Tuma

• Hurry, Santa! by Tomie dePaola

• One Wild Christmas by Nicholas Oldland

• Vegetables in Holiday Underwear by Jared Chapman

• T. rex at Swan Lake by Lisa Carrier and Lenore Hart

High

• On Tuesday, we hosted three coop families for a board game day. The kids split into groups and played a variety of board games for about an hour before abandoning them for free play. it was a lovely morning.

• We also went to see the Werner Park Lights on Wednesday night. It was lovely!

Low

• Nothing really. We had a good week!

Next Week

• Finishing The Wind in the Willows and Starting Scary Stories for Young Foxes: In the City

• Covering the Hundred Years’ War for history

• Reviewing our math concepts

• Finishing our Dinosaur videos

• Covering circuits for coop

• Having a park playdate, going to see a movie, and potentially going on a small hike through the bare woods

Next up on the TBR pile: