What We Studied

We had a big week full of snow and jazz!

Literature and Poetry

We made progress with our read aloud and covered a few literature studies and Arthur read alouds.

• Just Beyond the Very Very Far North by Dan Bar-el

• A Snowflake Fell compiled by Laura Whipple

• Little Penguins New Friend by Tadgh Bentley (Arthur read aloud)

Math

We continued working through Singapore Math 2A not quite finishing Unit 2 yet.

Social Studies

We had a slow history month, but did cover the Roman Republic.

• Ancients in Their Own Words: Roman

• The Ancient Romans by Cohn

• The Ancient Romans by Shuter

• Ancient Rome by Mack

• Eyewitness Ancient Rome

• The Genius of the Romans by

• You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Roman Soldier by David Stewart

We also did a mini unit on Groundhog Day on Tuesday. Arthur loved reading the books and recording the various groundhog’s predictions.

• Groundhog Day by Julie Murray

• Grumpy Groundhog by Maureen Wright

• Groundhog’s Day Off by Robb Pearlman

• Gregory’s Shadow by Don Freeman

• Groundhog’s Runaway Shadow by David Biedrzycki

Science

Nothing formal, but we did so a decent amount of science with the Winter Unit Theme.

Art

We spent all of Saturday morning doing various winter themed crafts. We covered our big picture window with the completed projects!

Music

My favorite unit so far in homeschooling! I created a whole jazz unit for the month of February. Every week we are covering between 4 and 10 jazz artists. I have a giant stack of picture books featuring various artists and lots of music pieces notated. This is going to be a great month!

• Jazz Music History by Kenny Abdo

• Jazz by Walter Dean Myers (poems)

• Welcome to Jazz by Carolyn Sloan

• Jazz ABZ by Wynton Marsalis

• How Jelly Roll Morton Invented Jazz by Jonah Winter

• Just a Lucky So and So by Lesa Cline-Ransome

• When Louis Armstrong Taught Me Scat by Muriel Harris Weinstein

• Born to Swing by Mara Rocklife

• Jazz Age Josephine by Jonah Winter

Unit Theme

We finished penguins and our general winter theme this week. To wrap up everything, we watched two great Magic School Bus episodes about winter. Plus we did an experiment to see what liquids would freeze when places outside on the ~20 degree weather. Arthur got 4 out of the 6 predictions correct.

• My Penguin Osbert by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel

• Poles Apart by Jeanne Willis

• Polar Bear Island by Lindsay Bonilla

• Virgil and Owen Stick Together by Paulette Bogan

• Glaciers by Larry Dane Brimner

• Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

• Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson

• Brownie Groundhog and the Wintry Surprise by Susan Blackaby

• The Story of Snow by Mark Cassino

• Freddie the Farting Snowman by Jane Bexley

• Lucy Tries Short Track by Lisa Bowes

• The Wildlife Winter Games by Richard Turner

Misc. - Random picture books read

• Winter Waits by Lynn Plourde

• Tracks in the Snow by Wong Herbert Yee

• First Snow by Bomi Park

• Crash, Splash, and Moo by Bob Shea

• A Day So Gray by Marie Lamba

• The Snow Day by Komako Sakai

• Once Upon a Winter Day by Liza Woodruff

• A Winter Walk by Lynne Barasch

• One Mitten by Kristine O’Connell George

• Whale Snow by Debby Dahl Edwardson

• Snowy Farm by Calvin Shaw

• Penguin and Moose by Hannah C Hall

• White Snow Bright Snow by Alvin Tressalt

• When the Snow is Deeper Than My Books are Tall by Jean Reidy

• My Footprints by Bao Phi

• Winter is the Warmest Season by Lauren Stringer

• Kate Mim-Mim: Little Kate Riding Hood

• How to Build a Snow Bear by Eric Pinder

• Chapter Two is Missing by Josh Lieb

Highs

• Saturday craft morning was a great success! It was a bit of work on my part, but pulling supplies and ideas earlier in the week made it less stressful than I anticipated. I’m thinking of making this a weekly or biweekly event.

• Even though we didn’t do any field trips, we did manage to make it to the library. Love that place so much!

Lows

• We were going to head to the zoo on Thursday or Friday, but snow and a drop in temperatures squashed that plan.

• We had a bit of a regression with screen time this week. We need to find a better system…

Next Week

We should finish our read aloud Wednesday or Thursday and have another lined up. We’re hoping to cover the rest of Unit 2 and Unit 3 for math. Continuing with our jazz unit through the 1930s and 1940s. And our theme is split between Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day.

Next up on the TBR pile: