What We Studied

The temperatures soared past 100 degrees almost every single day this past week. We even had to cancel coop because of the high heat. And so, we ended up spending basically the entire week indoors at home. We did get out for a few hours on Friday morning, but it soon got too hot and we cut it short. Silver lining: We caught up on all our curriculum.

Literature and Poetry

Arthur started reading the Percy Jackson series with The Lightning Thief. We finished the first section and Arthur called Percy’s parentage very early on in the story. Love that he’s starting to really get foreshadowing and clues dropped by authors. 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 reading the coop book club selection.

• The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

• A Child's Introduction to Greek Mythology: Intro through Gods Galore

• Poetry for Young People: American Poetry

• Reading Explorer: Intro

• Wildoak by CC Harrington

Quentin explored all the books of Doreen Cronin this week. He especially liked the books featuring duck and read a majority of them outloud to me. His reading skills are really coming along. He also worked on some basic grammar.

• Sing a Song of Seasons

• Doreen Cronin books

• Bears Sees Colors by Karma Wilson

• The Crayon Man: The True Story of the Invention of Crayola Crayons by Natascha Biebow

• True Colors: The Story of Crayola by Jesse Burton

• How the Crayons Saved the Unicorn by Monica Sweeney

• Blue Chameleon by Emily Gravett

• Every Color of Light by Hiroshi Osada

• Hidden Animal Colors by Jane Park

• Colors in Nature by Magdalena Konecna

• Every Color by Erin Eitter Kono

• Color the Sky by David Elliott

• The Color Monster by Anna Llenas

• Monsters Love Colors by Mike Austin

• Color Blocked by Ashley Sorenson

Math

Arthur continued his math year with some review packets. We will start his next Singapore book next week or the week after. We’ll see how that goes. We also started our next logic book.

• Orbiting with Logic

Quentin jumped back into Singapore 1B to covering the basics of fractions. I’m still debating if we should take a small review break after finishing 1B and before beginning 2A. I’m still deciding. 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 covered the Battle of Gettysburg this week. 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

• The Not So Boring Letters of Private Nobody by Matthew Landis

• What was the Battle of Gettysburg? by Jim O'Connor

• Heart and Soul

• If You were a Kid During the Civil War by Wil Mara

Quentin moved onto the origins of life on earth into the Paleolithic Period. We also listened to a few podcasts about the beginnings of life and evolution. On Thursday, we snuck in a documentary about the ice age. We also covered cave art as a side lesson to our main history lessons.

• History Quest Early Times

• DK When on Earth?

• It Started with a Big Bang by Floor Bar

• How Did I Get Here? By Philip Bunting

• Life by Martin Jenkins and Grahame Baker-Smith

• Continental Drift by Martin Ince

• Grandmother Fish by Jonathan Tweet

• I Used to be a Fish by Tom Sullivan

• Archaeologists Dig for Clues by Kate Duke

• We Dug Up the World by Alexandra Stewart

• DK Archaeology

• Amazing Archaeologists

• Human Wold

• Our Family Tree by Lisa Westberg Peters

• Evolution Revolution

• A Child's Introduction to Natural History by Heather Alexander

• DK History

• DK Timelines of Everything

• DK A Child Through Time

• The Secret Cave by Emily Arnold McCully

• A History of Western Art

• DK Science Year by Year

• Painters of the Caves by Patricia Lauber

Science

We covered a small nature science lesson on Monday with a focus on trees and reviewing nocturnal animals. Our visit to the Platte River State Park last Friday for their Nightfall Celebration really highlighted our nature science lessons.

• Nature Connection by Clare Walker Leslie

• Hike by Peter Oswald

• One World: 24 Hours on Planet Earth by Nicola Davies

• Can You Hear the Trees Talking? Discovering the Hidden Life of the Forest by Peter Wohlleben

Arthur is embarking upon RSO Chemistry this year. But before we officially start the curriculum, we are covering some basic Chemistry and Science lessons. Once we start the actual book, we will be doing the experiment portions with a group of coop friends. This week we focused on microscopes and the very small.

• RSO Chemistry

• DK Super Simple Chemistry

• Usborne Internet-linked Complete Book of the Microscope

• Out of Sight: Pictures of Hidden Worlds by Seymour Simon

• Cells Up Close by Maria Nelson

• Story of Science Vol. 2: Newton at the Center by Joy Hakim

Quentin continued RSO Life with a lesson about cells. He will also be engaging in various nature science lessons and explorations throughout the year. We did a fun little experiment looking at a chicken egg and labeling the parts.

• RSO Life

• DK Oversimple Biology

STEAM Coop

Coop was cancelled due to the high heat.

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 Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier Saint-George, and the art of Tyree Guyton.

• Swatch by Julia Kenos

• The Science of Song: How and Why We Make Music by Alan Cross, Emme Cross, and Nicole Mortillaro

• A Child's Introduction to the Orchestra by Robert Levine

• DK Music and How it Works

• Before There was Mozart: The Story of Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-George by Lesa Cline-Ransome and James E. Ransome

• DK The Arts

• Why is Art Full of Naked People by Susie Hodge

• 13 Art Movements Chldren Should Know

• Women in Art by Rachel Ignotogsky

• DK Timelines of Everyone

• 13 Women Artists Children Should Know

• 13 Artists Children Should Know

• Modern Art Adventures by Maja Pitamic and Jill Laidlaw

Field Trip

No field trips this week due to the heat

High

On Friday, we had finished all of our curriculum, so we had a board game afternoon. We played a variety of games and sneakily worked on our math skills and strategy. I need to keep this one tap for random afternoons.

Low

The heat made everyone a bit tired and cranky.

Next Week

• Continuing Percy Jackson

• Starting a big chapter book for Q

• Getting close to finishing Singapore 1B (Q)

• Starting Singapore 5A (A)

• Moving into the last stages of the Civil War

• Covering the Neolithic Period

• Admiring colorful art

• Listening to ???

Next up on the TBR pile: