2nd Quarter Wrap Up 2020: Together
Like most of the world, being on mostly locked down status we have not taken any school related field trips this quarter. We did manage to travel to North Carolina over Memorial Weekend to see some family. Then once the number of people in a group number was raised, we were able to visit with my family that is only a little over an hour away in here in Virginia. With the current state of things any field trips we had planned on taking to D.C. or the surrounding area this year are now no longer going to happen while we remain in Virginia until possibly September. School has been our focus and getting in as much outdoor time as possible. We have added water guns and a sprinkler to our outdoor toys, as well as setting up our tent and allowing the girls to have a few overnight “camping” adventures. Our biggest news, which we announced on Instagram and Facebook mid-May is that we are expecting another student in our home school in December. I will be having baby number three (whom we affectionately call Baby L) sometime around Christmas.
Our lunch time read alouds have continued. I have mostly been reading from the read alouds from Thumper’s Core A until the end of this quarter, where I think I will shift to reading the extra read alouds I brought along with us this time and add Thumper’s read alouds back into her schedule as I have run out of extra read alouds for her. This quarte I have read aloud to them Winnie the Pooh (we actually listened to this one from Audible since it was free and I have a hard time reading Pooh aloud), A single Grain of Rice, Grandma’s Attic, Least of All, The Apple and the Arrow, and Adventure with Waffles from Core A. We did throw in listening to the Magical Misfits 3, which we have been waiting on from Libby (our library’s audio book platform). Before the end of the quarter I began reading to them The Summer of the Monkeys, which was a favorite of mine as well as hubby’s from childhood.
In science we continued with studying about classify matter, then talking about solutions and ended this book by studying food chemistry. We picked up the second book “Atoms and Molecules” and so far, we have studied the basics of chemistry, atoms, the periodic table and gone into the blending of elements to end the quarter. We altered our science weeks by study more United States Geography and we have covered Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland and ended with South Carolina. The girls really enjoy getting out the big map, and I am pleasantly surprised at how well they are managing the east coast states when we discuss bordering states.
Our supplemental Saturdays continue to be the highlight of the week most weeks for the girls (especially since they have not had any field trips to look forward to this quarter). In music we have been learning about orchestras, and the different instrument families. We have also learned about rhythm and the sound of forte and piano (loud and soft) in music. When we entered the second lesson of our ALS curriculum, we were faced with learning things we had not ever learned in our years of practicing. So, lesson to is taking a little more time to work through, which we have not minded. We have learned the verbs of be, along with and the best way to describe the rest of our vocabulary is we have learned a lot of adjectives for people. We have been reviewing every week, and the girls remember and are catching on better than I had hoped, and better than even I remember sometimes. For art we have had a mix between things from our curriculum book and various arts/crafts projects that I have around. We of course took some time to make some Easter baskets for our neighboring co-workers of Hubby’s, Mother’s Day cards to send to grandmas, and Father’s Day cards to send to grandpas and for Daddy-o. We have learned a lot about proportion and perspective in art. We have also now begun the artist study portion of our curriculum and we have studied Paul Klee and his “Twittering Machine” and Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”, this quarter.
Next quarter we will still be in Virginia with Hubby’s work. The girls and I will be looking to go back to Wisconsin sometime in the beginning of September as my appointments for Baby L will begin to increase at that point. We will stop off in Indiana on our way home to see both of my parents before making the trip the rest of the way homeward to Wisconsin.
