Tour 1 Week 6

 

    We've reached the Jigsaw Puzzle stage of the pandemic.  My dining table has been covered with puzzles in-progress for over a week now. The recent Birthday Boy started it with his new Star Wars Mandalorian puzzle (obviously I bought it because - Baby Yoda). We are re-watching Season 1 and eagerly anticipating Season 2 later this week.  This seemed to start a chain reaction of puzzle-doing and I ended up making a trip to the Dollar Store to pick up a few puzzles for Little Guy, who desperately wanted to be included in all the puzzle-making fun. 

    Because, yes, we had an extensive collection of puzzles that went untouched for months (years?) and now that I finally unloaded them to goodwill everyone is asking me where the puzzles are.

    It's the natural cycle of things when you have kids.  

    We've stayed busy in other ways over the last couple weeks. We ended up extending Week 6 of our homeschool curriculum over two weeks.  There were too many good books to read, side projects to pursue and a bonus re-watching of Hamilton one night. We've been reading and learning about the American Revolution so Hamilton fit nicely with our timeline. 

    Also it's HAMILTON. Personally I don't need an excuse to watch it again. And again. And maybe again. The boys really enjoyed it, too. 

    

        We also joined friends for a trip to the Zoo since we've been studying Zoology for science this year. It was a beautiful day! It was a little more crowded than I had hoped, but we wore masks, stayed away from crowds and used probably every sanitizer station we passed. We also didn't spend more than a few hours there, because I have a pretty low tolerance for walking around looking at animals. And the boys were complaining about being "hot" and "hungry" - since the temperature was actually above 50 degrees and they hadn't eaten in maybe an hour. 

        We've also taken advantage of beautiful weather days with more Pickle Ball, walks to the playground and some kite flying.  

    We haven't improved our Pickle Ball skills at all, but we have fun trying. 

    As for what we've been studying - our history timeline included the Articles of Confederation, the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War, the Constitutional Convention, George Washington as our First President, and Washington D.C. becoming the home of the new government.

    

    Some timely lessons on government were in order - I believe my six year-old now knows more about the three branches of government than many (most?) adults.  We also delved into the Constitution a bit - I found a great book to help with that. 

    

    We read a lot about George Washington and also added a book study using Minn of the Mississippi to our rotation.

    

    Since I knew I wanted to do more Holling C. Holling books this year, I went ahead and splurged on the Geography Through Literature set from Beautiful Feet Books.  The boys really enjoyed using the "fancy" map this week to map Minn's journey as we read the story.  

    

    Our art lesson this week was about perspective and we learned about foreground, middle ground and background while making paper landscapes. 

   Every once in awhile Oldest Boy makes an appearance in our lives. Mainly when he's hungry, but sometimes just to hang out with us.

    

   

     Last week he joined us for a very important event - VOTING! 

    

    I'm pretty sure he's smiling under that mask.  I'm also sure that he took his right and responsibility seriously and made informed choices in line with his values. 

    

 

          Other than our usual homeschooling shenanigans, we've spent time with some of our favorite dog guests recently. 

    Given the Pandemic Situation, we don't know when we'll have time with our furry friends, so we enjoy it when it happens! 

    

        That was our week! Two actually. Here are some resources we used:

Books:

• Catholic Schoolhouse Tour Guide and Art Book
• Sassafras Science Adventures Zoology
• The Interactive Constitution
• Minn of the Mississippi
• George Washington (Venezia)
• George Washington (D'Aulaire)
• George Washington's Teeth (I had no idea they were so horrible!)
• Song of the Swallows
• If You Lived in Colonial Times
• Shhh! We're Writing the Constitution
• George Washington: Young Leader 
• Why Not, Lafayette?
• King George, What Was His Problem? 
• Patrick Henry: Voice of the Revolution
• Where Was Patrick Henry on the 29th of May?
• Revolutionary War on Wednesday (Magic Treehouse)
• Milk from Cow to Carton
• Cows and their Calves
• Are You a Bee?
• You Wouldn't Want to Live Without Bees

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but I think that basically covers it. I forgot to mention that we started learning about farms, cows and bees for science.  Hence the books related to that. 

I hope you're enjoying fall and staying safe!

~ Dori