When Wyatt was given the opportunity to start a new intensive therapy this month, I had to rethink my whole plan for school. The new therapy is fantastic and definitely worth it, but it also reduces the instructional days down to three. As homeschoolers though, we can do this without missing anything, and this flexibility is just so perfect with Wyatt’s life.
However, having to rethink things actually took us on a wonderful new adventure together we wouldn’t have had. Instead of following his regular science curriculum, we have spent the month studying penguins, all the different types, where they live (Wyatt LOVES his new globe his grandma got him for Christmas), just everything penguin. So far my favorite penguin is the Little Blue Penguin; Wyatt’s favorite so far, he says, is the Chinstrap.
Penguins have even waddled their way into our reading! Our read aloud is Eve of the Emperor Penguins, part of the Magic Tree House series, and we are having fun reading it together in the middle of the day. It’s a nice little break in between subjects.
Art however, has dominated for fun this month. I created a Monet in the Winter Unit Study for Wyatt, and seriously, it has been awesome. Not to toot my own horn or anything. So far we have done in depth looks at Train in the Snow, and Sandviken Village in the Snow, but we have also looked at and discussed a few others, including The Magpie and The Road to Giverny in Winter. Next week our final art project and in depth study will be on Skaters at Giverny, and I am looking forward to it, but I will also be sad when we are done!
For Wyatt’s Train in the Snow study, we read Claude Monet: The Painter Who Stopped the Trains, and then Wyatt and Billy worked on a version of it together using oil pastels. I knew I wanted to include this one because Wyatt loves trains; Monet painted trains because his 8 year old son loved trains too! Billy helped with the form of the train and the rest was Wyatt. I love how industrial it turned out!
Next up for our in depth look, we studied Sandviken Village in the Snow. I love this painting, I think it is absolutely beautiful and tranquil and cozy. I had something a bit different in mind for Wyatt to do with this one….
I think it turned out so beautiful! It took us a heck of a long time to do together, but it was a very pleasant and fun way for us to spend a snowy, very cold afternoon. We had hot chocolate, and just cut and glued and planned. Wyatt loved this project more than I can express, and was so excited to show his dad when Billy got home from work. He did not like pulling the cotton ball apart to make wispy snow and gluing it down though, so I had to do that for him. It was just too sticky and weird feeling. He picked the locations for the pictures himself, with the exception of the bridge which I guided him to put into the correct placement to match the painting. Then we built a riser so that the diorama would be staggered in height, and I love the effect!
This section includes affiliate links. If you were to purchase something I would make a small commission to help support my family (and my son’s art habit!)
Resource Round Up:
I am excited to say that one of the Unit Studies we used was the one that I created!
Monet in Winter by Fox and Firth (me!)
Penguin Unit Study by Educating in the Wild
Eve of the Emperor Penguin Unit Study by McMarie
Traveling the States by The Waldock Way
And.. a few photos of Wyatt working hard at therapy!
I need to start thinking about February!!
Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.. 
I just love your village that you two created. It’s fabulous. Well done — what a remarkable project. I love that you are studying Monet (you can tell a Monet by the way he paints hay!). And the penguins are a good lesson, too. I think he’s getting a wonderful education. Well done, Erin.
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Thank you Jeanie! We had so much fun building it together. I ALMOST included his winter haystacks in this unit- that series is beautiful but I wasn’t sure about Wyatt’s reaction to it. Next up is Matisse!
And thank you again Jeanie!
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Very busy month!
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It’s been busy but fun!
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This is so fantastic. You have me really missing homeschooling. I LOVE the village!
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I love homeschooling so much! I love the time with my son, watching his joy, exploring new topics with him.. just all of it. It is always so cool to meet other homeschool moms, whether they are still homeschooling or not, because you guys get it! 🙂 And thank you!!
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You’re having a lot of fun with homeschooling! It looks challenging but always creative and interesting! I just posted a review of a book about penguins, too, a bout teens who travel to northen Canada to try to see penguins and the northern lights.
Harvee at https://bookdilettante.blogspot.com/
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Thanks Harvee! I will have to pop over and look , that book sounds amazing!
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That diorama!!! I love it and the 3-D aspect of it. I had a student who had this strange aversion to the way things felt. We were making salt dough maps, and he just couldn’t handle the feel of it…just about tossed his cookies! I forget what else we made later that year, and I’d totally forgotten about the salt dough. He had the same reaction. I felt horrible as I should have remembered.
Aren’t Magic Tree House books wonderful? I used to read them myself! I learned a lot from them. I used them for my students with learning disabilities when I was a spec ed teacher. Then, when I was a gen ed teacher, I encouraged all of my students to read them which had the added benefit of taking the onus off the kiddos who struggled to read them but were trying.
We couldn’t do penguins in fourth grade because third grade had a huge unit on them. I love penguins, and they are my second favorite animals at the zoo with the seals being my favorite!
Have a fabulous week, Erin!
https://marshainthemiddle.com/
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I can be that way with how things feel too! Just some stuff gives me the heebie-jeebies – I absolutely can’t stand to have stuff on my hands. Apparently Wyatt is going to be similar. Lol.
I love the Magic Tree House books! They are so perfect for introducing topics, to make things more interesting, and are simple. They are awesome.
Penguins are super cute!!! We had so much fun watching them yesterday.
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I have a friend, Lori Hamm, who just returned from a trip to Antarctica. She has some cool photos of penguins on her FB page. Here’s one little video: https://www.facebook.com/100007729638458/videos/2570862916425870/
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That is fantastic!!! Thank you for sharing! What an amazing trip to take!
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Your projects are fabulous. You are amazing really
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That is so kind of you! You made me smile! Thank you. 🙂
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Great read
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That sounds like such a wonderful winter unity study! We studied penguins one winter too (and we read/listened to the entire Magic Treehouse book series… well, until my boys aged out of them anyway; I think they kept publishing them beyond our years but there were a lot of them). That winter art scene is beautiful.
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Thank you Joanne!
That penguin unit was so fun. It was definitely a unit that I also learned from. I didn’t know all those types of penguins!
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