Hello everyone! We had a very fun week last week in our little homeschool. Some weeks are more book and table weeks, some weeks are more hands on, and last week was a lot more hands on, which we both appreciate and love.

In science (we use Blossom and Root) and this year is all about the wonders of the animal kingdom – from the very tiniest on up. Last week we began discussing invertebrates, specifically octopi, snails, and worms (the curriculum picked for us). I was pretty excited, because, snails. We know I love them. But I opted to leave them out this time since Wyatt and I have covered snails pretty extensively in the past. So we focused on the wonderful octopus and worms. We read books, watched videos, including a Wild Kratts episode about an undersea octopus, filled out Wyatt’s science notebook with facts, and then, crafted one out of pipe cleaners and a foam ball. It was really easy and Wyatt loved it. Also, I felt pretty darn genius for putting it on display in Wyatt’s Catch and Release bucket.

Next we tackled worms! Same deal – read books, worked on Wyatt’s fact notebook, watched some videos, and then the hands on part of the assignment. And thank goodness we had Papa and Grandma on hand to help out! We were building a worm jar together using the instructions in the back of the worms book, and while I mostly set up and helped with layering, Papa had the hard job, handling the worms. Wyatt absolutely would not touch a worm unless Papa handed it to him. It was cracking me up. I mean not that I blamed him, I didn’t want to touch it either. And I didn’t.

We are still working on a few states that we didn’t do last year, and will intermittently do this throughout the year. Since we are reading Paddle-to-the-Sea in Language Arts, I thought it would be a good time to work on Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. We started with Ohio our first week, then moved on into Pennsylvania. We learned some neat things about Pennsylvania, like why the heck it is called the Keystone state, that their state bird the Ruffed Grouse is one tough bird, and that the “birth” of the Hershey factory shares a birthdate with Wyatt (I mean obviously much different years though). We celebrated with some Hershey’s chocolate and wondered if people in Pennsylvania get much fresher chocolate than we do. Does it taste different so close to the source? Maybe we will have to visit one day and answer these hard-hitting questions.

In art, we are still working on Van Gogh! I had planned Van Gogh for the whole month, but we did skip the other week to make our ghost pictures (“Goghst” pictures?) instead. This week we made our version of Crows Over a Wheatfield. I loved doing this one with Wyatt. We used oil pastels and focused on perspective and horizon as part of the lesson. It turned out really cool!

It was a fantastic week of learning, and this week is a little less hands on but that is ok! We still one more Van Gogh to “Gogh” (I just can’t stop) and this week it is The Starry Night.

What We Used:

This section contains Amazon Affiliate links. In addition to the curriculum I am creating for him, we also use curriculum from The Good and the Beautiful, The Waldock Way, and Blossom and Root for phonics, reading, science, and social studies.

Books first!

Wonderful Worms || Snails || Worms || The Artist and Me

This week we move on into New York State (now I think I should play some Billy Joel for Wyatt…who else agrees?), ants, bees, moths, and more Van Gogh!