Week in Review 10/25 - 10/29

[Tree House Academy]

Ok Girls,

What was YOUR week Like?

You can post:

a- A picture
b- A blog Link
c- A written synopsis
d- Your favorite memory
e- Anything you want that shares your HOD excitement!

Important Note: If you are linking us to your blog, please make sure it's not just a general link, but to your specific post of HOD. That way if someone reads through these a year from now they can find your share without needing to hunt!

[Tree House Academy]

We have had an amazing week with Beyond! Big brother was out of town visiting his dad, so little one and I got caught up on Beyond (over the weekend) and then started fresh with Unit 10 this Monday. We went through days 1-4 Monday-today. Then, tonight, ds7 decided to do tomorrow's school. We got out the guide and just did an extra day. He loved it! And now, he can have a free day tomorrow . We had been considering a field trip and now we can take one!

We started the week studying about little Francis who almost blew up the Mayflower with his mischief!



And this is a picture my ds drew of the Mayflower...just because he wanted to! we are really enjoying our study about the Pilgrims!



Ds7 is doing a beautiful job on his spelling tests. He is really enjoying learning how to spell this way. I can't wait until he is ready to start dictation!



This is an experiment we did yesterday where ds made the ocean floor, slide, shelf, and the bay and then sailed his aluminum foil boat to see why the Pilgrims had to check the depth of the bay before they chose where to settle. Here is his boat getting stuck in the more shallow water. (We had to do this in a bowl...the sink was way too big and we just didn't have enough play dough).



Here is his copywork for the week. I think he did a great job and i was proud of him for keeping the poetry artwork simple. We both really loved this poem. It is so simple, yet so meaningful!



We did one more project that we enjoyed, but I was not able to get pictures today. We started it a bit late in the day and the sun did not shine in good enough to make the "rain" happen. I will add pictures of it as soon as we can re-do the project this weekend. My little guy is adamant that we will put it out tomorrow morning and make it work! LOL

UPDATE: Here it is! It worked perfectly!

[birchbark]

We just finished unit 7 of CTC! Here is DS making his breastplate with little brother watching. The air-dry clay worked great this time, and he painted it with his watercolors, which also worked fine.

Today in math he had just a review page in the textbook, so we tried something new and he worked out the problems with a dry-erase marker on the windows. He thought this was great! "Mom! Don't make me skip any problems!" Okay.

[birchbark]

I was amazed at his watercolor this week. He did it all while I was gone. I have one of those picture frames from Target that are hinged for frequently rotating children's artwork in the playroom. So in it went.

[Tree House Academy]

His watercolor was AMAZING! I love the addition of the fence. It is truly beautiful!

[my3sons]

RTR:
We all enjoyed this week's History Project. Wyatt is becoming quite adept in the kitchen, and this is largely due to his independent history projects he's done over the years in HOD. He made the most scrumptious cookies! I have decided they are my favorite, and he can make them anytime he wishes. They are almond flavored, and they were ohhh so good. He made them all by himself (though my other sons just HAD to watch ), and the cookies are neon colored with food coloring. He is making them for Christmas to give to his cousins, he already decided. They'll be green and red then though. He read the poem about Cid, as we dined on his cookies. He read it with lots of emotion, and we enjoyed the cookies as we listened.


Wyatt also memorized his Emily Dickinson poem and shared it ample times as we sat around the fireplace listening. If you read my other post on the Main Board about me wanting a little more of the "Putney Farm" kind of nights in our home, you'll know that this was especially a happy occurrence for me. I was pleasantly surprised my ds doing Bigger Hearts shared his poem "Philosophy" impromptu as well! He knew the whole thing by heart and shared it with us just off the cuff. He hadn't even practiced memorizing it. I guess the copywork and all those great HOD poetry activities he did in BHFHG just made it memorable!

Science was especially fun this week! Wyatt did an experiment by layering and mixing 5 different liquids of varying densities to model Jupiter's layers. He thought it was really neat! He has been in awe of God's Creation of the planets, and he's constantly sharing facts he's learned that he finds amazing with us.


I had Wyatt recite all of the verses he knows from Phil. 1 for my dh this week. So far, he knows 9! My dh was impressed. Wyatt really enjoys the Phil. 1 CD, and if he gets stuck saying part of the verse, I can hear him hum the tune, and then he knows it. The CD has been a great memory aid for him. This is kind of funny - My little 3 yo Emmett shares a room with Wyatt. Wyatt does his Bible Study in his room first thing in the morning before he gets up, so Emmett hears Wyatt sing each day. Each morning I hear Emmett chiming in and singing along with Wyatt as best he can. "Grace and peace to you, from God, our Father. Grace and peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ", he sings over and over. He even sings it when he's playing! I love that our dc are hiding God's word in their heart.

I learned a new way to do decimals in Singapore math this week. I cannot believe how much faster it is than the way I learned to add and subtract decimals on paper. Wyatt is super fast at decimals, accurate in his answers - and he's doing it all mentally. I felt silly when he asked me if it was right, and I was still scratching it out on paper saying, "Ughhh, give me a minute to figure it out!" So, I learned it the Singapore way, and now I'm pretty fast at it too (though I dare say Wyatt still has me beat) - a little pride swallowing, as I've always felt good at math. We are loving the Singapore way of teaching math, as well as the R & S English way of teaching grammar. It makes my job as teacher pretty easy. I hope you had a great week too!

In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Bigger Hearts... half-speed:
I really noticed an improvement in Riley's oral narrations this week. The plans had me model it for him again, and then on another day we passed the "I Need a Little Help" card back and forth and took turns narrating. We talked about telling all you know about each specific event in the story, and a lightbulb went on. He began doing just that, and my what a better narration he gave! I really appreciate HOD's tips for teaching/modeling narrating. They do help it click. Riley is LOVING "Understood Betsy", which we are reading for Storytime. It is fun to listen to his narrations about it.

In science, Riley really got into his notebooking of birds' feathers. He drew them carefully, and colored them slowly, doing his very best. I think he did such a nice job!


For poetry, Riley illustrated his poem, and it became all about the glitter glue! Oh my, it's everywhere - in the clouds, on the 3-wheeler, by the sidewalk - he went nuts with it. They are cheap though - in fact, I think they are quite a find. I found them at Walmart, and they are the best glitter glue I've found. They come out easily at a steady amount with no burst of air bubbles. Riley has been enjoying them.


Riley started multiplication in math this week. He gets it - hooray! We've been keeping math half-speed, redoing the hands-on lesson twice, and splitting the written assignment over 2 days. This has been the perfect pacing right now for Riley. He is getting his addition facts down well, and he understands multiplication is like repeated addition. Here he is multiplying the eggs in each bird's nest:


Riley missed his dictation today, and that was tough on him. He's on 46 and has only missed 2, and since he misses them so rarely I think he finds it extra hard when he does. I told him that if he was perfect 100% of the time, it would probably mean he was not accurately placed, and that his older brother missed some in his dictation throughout the year too. This made him feel better, though he has a hard time getting over it. I'm so glad we are homeschooling, as the reality of imperfection is hard to accept sometimes, but it is such an important lesson to learn! It is what teaches us humility, and also what proves time and time again we need a Savior. Perfection is something only Christ attained here on earth. I'm thankful we get to talk through these character issues together. It is a blessing to have real time each day to do so. We had a good week, and I'm very happy with Riley's work in Bigger Hearts!

In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Little Hands to Heaven:
Emmett has turned the corner with his gluing and cutting - hooray! He is beginning to have a sense of direction, some fine motor strength, and a bit more perseverance for the task at hand. He does well with straight line cutting, but not with curves, and so-so with corners. I'm just so relieved he can cut at all! I have to work on my patience with skills such as these, and remind myself my older boys needed a lot of help with them too.

One of Emmett's favorite activities this week was fingerpainting his "L's". I wrote the "L's" in marker for the first row, put dots for him to connect to make the "L's" for the second row, and he just free painted the "L's" in the third row. He did really well with it, and he loved the feel of the fingerpaints!


We read about Absalom's hair getting stuck in the tree this week in his Bible, and he wanted to act it out again and again. I told him we got to act it out that day, and he said, "Oh goodie! You be Joab, and I'll be Absalom!" I would have been anything he wanted me to be, I was just thrilled he knew their names! This is a true feat for 3 yo's, and a happy sign of beginning reading comprehension. Here he is being Absalom riding his mule:


He liked cutting his yarn for Abasalom's hair, and ordering the cut pieces from largest to smallest. He wanted my help gluing the pieces on the tree though - for a boy who loves to get dirty, he sure doesn't like the sticky feeling of liquid glue on his fingers. Here he is showing both of his papers:


Today Emmett had to follow 3 directions to make symbols on his paper to tell the story we read. He did quite well with this! At the start of this skill at the beginning of the year, he truly had no idea what I was trying to have him do. His favorite line used to be, "Oh, okay, Mama. You'd be good at doing that!" Now, he hardly wants me to help him. Here he is with his story picture, and he insisted on a second picture with Riley with his "pretty picture":


What a happy week!
In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Rebecca - how fun to just do Beyond up big with your little guy all to yourself! His "Boom" for Frances turned out so cute. His printing on his spelling test, and his drawing of the Mayflower show he is doing so well with his fine motor skills - wow! The science experiment turned out neat too - I remember that one - what fun! I reread the poem "What Are Heavy" from your little guy's copywork. You'll have to tell him Julie on the board loved reading his neat copywork of that poem and seeing his illustration for it - I agree, a simple poem with lots of depth.

Birchbark - your ds's watercolor painting turned out to be lovely! His breastplate for the 12 tribes really is neat too. He worked hard, and it shows! You had such a creative idea to do the math problems on the window - brave girl! Does the marker come right off, really? If so, I may try that. I'm leery as once I got washable crayons for the tub that were supposed to "wipe right off", and let me tell you - they didn't. In fact, I just saw a small red crayon-like looking line still yesterday in the tub, and that was a l-o-n-g time ago they used those. I do clean the tub regularly too - promise! But if dry erase markers come right off the windows, that would be a hoot!

Thanks for sharing your week here - such fun!

In Christ,
Julie

[Mom4Him]

Wow!! What fun to read about everyone's weeks once again!!
Rebecca- what a nice picture of the Mayflower your son drew- & his copy-work looks great- he can be so proud!
Birchbark- I really enjoyed the peek into CTC- his watercolor picture is absolutely beautiful!!
Julie- I always enjoy the pictures of your boys! They are growing so fast. I would LOVE some of those cookies!
(Oh, and I don't know about dry-erase markers on windows- but I know they sell washable window markers- & we love using those!)

Well, after taking some time off for a wonderful vacation & birthday celebrations, we are back at it, & I have finally gotten around to posting about what our little girl has been up to in LHTH (I'll post about the others next week)! Here's the link...
http://ourfamilyforhisglory.blogspot.co ... chool.html

Have a wonderful weekend!

[birchbark]

Does the marker come right off, really?

Ours came off fine! And I can't take credit for the idea; it was another homeschool mom's.

Can't wait for the RTR cookies now! Also loved your son's feathers. Rebecca's "explosion" was cute too.

[LynnH]

Wow what cool pictures this week.
Rebecca I love the your ds's copywork. Very nicely done.
Birchbark-I may also steal the idea for the math problems. We have window markers and those seem to come off ok.
Julie-I always love looking at the pictures of your boys. Wyatt's give me a glimpse of what is to come next year and with Riley and Emmett I get to see the programs we missed.

Here is my blog for this week. http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2010/10 ... 52010.html

[mrskturner]

What an awesome update this week! I love the idea of math on the windows with dry erase markers!!! I tried it this morning and it wipes right off! This is going to be such a hit with my son today for math. Thank you!!!

The pictures are so inspiring! I love all the projects, paintings, copywork, ect...

[Carrie]

Ladies,

What fun to read about your weeks! I can remember doing each of the activities shared, and they are great memories for me! A trip through the weekly check-in is like walking down memory lane for me! Yet, the great part is that I still have many memories to be made and more trips through the guides. Each child is so different, so the activities always have a different twist with a different child. How fun to see how they turn out!

Rebecca,
I loved seeing the cloud appear in your experiment with the colored water and laughed at your Frances Billington. Your kiddos have such neat handwriting and are showing so much progress!

Birchbark,
I enjoyed your son's breastplate. It turned out so well. My son still has his from last year! He loved it! The watercolor painting for this week turned out so well too, definitely worthing of being hung on the wall!

Julie,
Wyatt's cookies turned out great! I hear they were good to eat too! Riley's bird feathers are amazing! What meticulous detail. I smiled about the glitter glue. Honestly, anything Emmett does school-wise is cute, simply because of his B-I-G smile. He's growing up so much.

Mom4Him,
What fun to see Kayla painting her sparkly desert and playing with her red water! We did those activities recently too, and they were a big hit at our house. I must admit that even I am always in awe of God as I read about His plan for Joseph and for Moses. What a big God we serve!

Lynn,
I loved seeing the fall leaf paintings. They were very neat and so timely with our fall weather. The pictures of the slingshot and trying to hit the target were great too. My boys had a terrific time with their slingshots and practiced so much that they got pretty good at using them.

Blessings,
Carrie