What We Studied

As we hit May, our school curriculum plan starts to wind down a bit. We are schooling through the summer, but I ease up our big curriculum and focus on smaller units and special activities. This helps us stay on top of a school mindset without the summer slump. But it always allows me to catchup a bit and relax during the summer.

Literature and Poetry

Arthur and I finished our coop book selection. We really enjoyed the book, but didn’t quite realize that this was going to be a series. Hopefully the second book will get realized soon.

• Nat Geo Book of Nature Poetry

• Poetry for Young People: Emily Dickinson

• The Last Shadow Warrior by Sam Subity

Quentin finished our Australia read aloud selection and started on our Antarctica read aloud selection. He’s not sure about how he feels about Mr. Popper’s Penguins, but has gotten better about listening to our read aloud.

• Nat Geo Book of Animal Poetry

• A World Full of Animal Stories by Angela McAllister

• Around the World in 80 Days by Saviour Pirotta

• Audrey of the Outback by Christine Harris

• Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater

• Evan Moor Smart Start Read and Write K

Math

For both boys, we have scheduled math for three days a week. One day is focused on logic, games, puzzles, and special projects. The two other days are focused on covering the main math curriculum (Singapore 4A and 4B for Arthur and Singapore 1A and 1B for Quentin). We finished our financial literacy unit. We’ve been doing a ton of review and leftover lessons this past week.

• Singapore 1B

Social Studies

Arthur continued his large study of United States history using a combination of Build Your Library Level 5 and History Quest United States History. We’re so close to the Civil War! One more week of US History before we take a break for the summer. I decided to run us up all the way to secession before stopping.

• A Kid’s Guide to Native American History by Yvonne Wakim Dennis

• An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

• We were There Too by Philip Hoose

• Words that Built a Nation

• History Quest: U.S. History

• A Different Mirror

• DK American History Visual Encyclopedia

• Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans by Kadir Nelson

• Nat Geo Our Country’s Presidents

• Smart About the First Ladies

• Two Miserable Presidents by Steve Sheinkin

Quentin continued his study of the world with Build Your Library Level 0. Quentin finished with the last continent, Antarctica this week. We’ll be doing a week of review and wrap-up to officially finish BYL Level 0.

• Nat Geo Beginner’s World Atlas

• DK Countries of the World

• DK Children Just Like Me

• DK Children Just Like Me: A School Like Mine

• Sophie Scott Goes South by Alison Lester

Arthur Independent Time

We are working on following a checklist in a planner for weekly independent work. There’s usually some math workbook pages, an ELA packet, weekly writing prompts (1-2 times a week), independent reading time, and a special creative project. There has been many drawing projects lately.

Science

Arthur is focusing on Physics this year. We are covering the text and related videos at home and then joining friends for experiments and extra projects. We covered quantum weirdness with some thought experiments.

• RSO Physics

• The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way by Joy Hakim

• The Way Things Work Now

• My First Book of Quantum Physics by Sheddad Kaid Salah Ferron and Eduard Altarriba

Quentin will be focusing on animal science with BYL Level 0. We finished out our animal science-lite curriculum with the Great Barrier Reef and the ocean around Antarctica.

• Nat Geo Wild Animal Atlas

• DK Animal

• Lonely Planet: The Animal Book

• The Tarantula in My Purse by Jean Craighead George

• Keepers of the Reef by Sharon Wismer

• Getting to Know Our Planet: Great Barrier Reef by Vicky Franchino

• Great Barrier Reef by Martha London

STEAM Coop

The oldest group has moved on to their last theme of the year: Math + Art in Science. The kids played with color and focused on a few projects based on Mondrian’s works. The littles focused on domesticated animals. I actually stepped in to teach the middle kids about the species of animals that we domesticated through history.

Art/Music/Crafts/Cooking/Documentary

We’re planning one doing on art project and one cooking project each week as well as picking a composer or musician to listen to and enjoy. We started watched Into the West, the mini series from early 2000s. I really like how it follows two main families from the 1820s all the way to the 1870s. We get to see how the west changes in that 50 years hitting all the big events. We’ll be continuing for the next few weeks.

Field Trip

Tuesday we visited the farm to learn about the animals. We learned a ton of facts about the animals that Gifford has on its farm. Our favorite part was getting to pet all the animals. I definitely wanted to take home the baby goats.

High and Low

• A cascading failure happened at coop this week. The middles teacher went out sick, then the assistant/substitute, and then the oldest teacher. So we were down two teachers in one week. A friend took over the oldest group and pulled out a great lesson on Mondrian. I stepped in and taught the middles about domestication of animals. All of this happened within 15 hours before coop. It was a few nerve-wracking hours for me trying to make sure that everyone and everything was in place. We pulled it out and the kids had great lessons for the week. But I definitely have some ideas of how we (really me) can avoid the stress next year.

Next Week

• Continuing our current read alouds

• Finally getting to the Civil War (before stopping)

• Wrapping up physics

• Review the world for social studies

• Watching another episode or two of Into the West

• Catching up with our math and language arts packets and random pages

Next up on the TBR pile: