Week In Review Jan 30 - Feb 3, 2012

[KristinBeth]

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!

[KristinBeth]

We finished Unit 15 in LHFHG - it's going by so fast! http://www.broomandcrown.com/2012/02/we ... it-15.html - both girls were so cute doing a math activity in the backyard this week!

Reaching the end of this unit, we finished one of the R&S workbooks and will move on to Finding The Answers next week. I looked at the beginning of the Do It Carefully workbook we just finished, where dd5 had to "X" a correct answer, and the end of the book, where she had to "X" a correct answer, and I saw much improvement in her "X". Fine motor skills are a big challenge so this was exciting to see a little improvement. I showed her (and explained the word 'improvement', and she was very proud).

[Mom4Him]

Just catching everyone up a bit in my two first graders using Beyond!! We just finished Unit 21! What a joy!
http://ourfamilyforhisglory.blogspot.co ... rites.html

Kristin- your "little Indians" are just precious!!!
Jessica

[KristinNitz]

Just another great week using HOD. We are doing Bigger and just finished unit 17 so here is out update with lots of photos too!
http://nutbugs.com/heart-of-dakota-bigg ... 17-update/

[my3sons]

Little Hearts for His Glory:
Bon Appetit`! This week was one yummy week in LHFHG. All 3 of our dc loved the creations Emmett made, and Emmett loved making them! We read about the golden calf the Israelites made, and how Moses crushed the gold into a powder and had them drink it with water as a punishment. Emmett was so saddened by the Israelites making an idol. He kept looking at the picture of the golden calf in the Family Time Bible and saying sadly, "They made an idol. Ohhh, why did they do that?" The follow-up activity was such fun for Emmett. He made his peanut butter concoction, fashioned it into a golden calf, and then everyone enjoyed eating it. I had him tell the story of the Israelites as we ate it, and though it was only about a 3 sentence oral narration of it, it hit all the highpoints.


Emmett learned about the different types of soil in science, and he made layers in a clear glass of the rocky undersoil (chocolate chips), topsoil (crushed graham crackers), and decaying layer on top (corn flakes cereal). MMMM! All of the boys enjoyed eating Emmett's project!


For Wyatt's playtime with Emmett, they donned some aprons and made pink lemonade for everyone to go with our "soil" treat. They used Emmett's little play blender (that actually works) to blend the water and lemonade and poured it for all of us. I thought it was funny they put tape on their faces to be goatees and mustaches, and wrote "Bon Appetite" on our glasses. Too cute - I love how HOD just makes even free play time more fun and purposeful!


Emmett's Bible verse this week was, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. This is the first and greatest commandment...". Here he is saying and somberly holding up one finger for the "first" and greatest commandment part ...


In Singapore Math Emmett is learning to compare two numbers. He LOVED the activity of me hiding two different colors and amounts of unifix cubes, him finding one color, me finding the other, and us stacking each color to compare them. THe lining up of 1:1 correspondence helped him see which tower had more and how many more. I like how the proper terminology is taught already too - "5 is greater than 3. 5 is 2 more than 3. 3 is 2 less than 5." He learned a lot in these fun activities this week


We finished Reddy Fox this week. Emmett was sad Granny and Reddy had to move homes, but he also loved being in on the author's secret that they had moved. He liked knowing this before Farmer Brown's Boy, Bowser the Hound, and the other forest animals knew it. I love how Thorton Burgess writes that way, as if we are in on a secret no one else knows for awhile, and we are just dying to tell everybody else in the book, but sit on the edge of our seat as the story unfolds until the rest of the characters are in on it too. Here he wrote where he lives as a follow-up to the reading (it should have been "in" instead of "at" but oh well) ...


Loved our week - hope you did too!
In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Preparing Hearts for His Glory:
Riley's been checking out the night sky lately with deep interest. He's been loving his study on the constellations! His oral narrations have been surprisingly full of the right constellation names (they are a handful to remember), and he animatedly likes to retell what he's read. It is just plain fun to listen to him narrate. His little constellations book is turning out so well too...


This week we read about Augustus Caesar in history. Riley was surprised to learn that the month of August is named after him. He couldn't believe Caesar's friends betrayed him, especially one of his best friends. We had a good talk about how friends do let us down sometimes, and that Jesus is our only one true friend that never lets us down, as His love for us is perfect. Riley's written narrations have come along nicely. He now is able to write with the specific names/events that are important in a reading, in a good sequence, with a good length. HOORAY!


Riley's history project was such fun. He made coins like those in the time of Caesar, and a satchel to carry them in. He first researched them on the Internet (which BTW, he is getting better and better at skimming, and clicking on the blued out portions he needs to answer his research questions)...


For the satchel, he dipped a coffee filter in coffee to antique it, punched holes in the perimeter, wove yarn in and out of the holes, and cinched it tight, tying a knot at the top. His precious coins are inside the satchel. He LOVED this entire project...


For vocabulary, Riley loves to take t-i-m-e to make lovely cards. I decided to have him make just 2 cards and let him make them as lovely as he wants, so that he is not rushed and enjoys them, while still learning the necessary skills that go along with making them. He has gotten quite adept at using the dictionary. It used to take him quite awhile to find the words, but now he flips right to them. I think it is all the great training he had in this skill in BHFHG shining through!


We really enjoyed our creative writing in PHFHG this week. We read Robert Louis Stevenson's poem about the moon, and then Riley wrote his own descriptive paragraph of the sun. He used RLS's poem as a model for adding personification to the sun. I thought it was really funny that as I was reading Emmett's Reddy Fox book later out loud to Emmett, Riley popped up and said, "Mom, that author just used personification of the sun too!" It said, "Jolly red Mr. Sun had a smiling face as he greeted the day...". Love the connections HOD has dc making that aren't even planned sometimes! Anyway, here is our planning on the markerboard we did together, and Riley's descriptive paragraph about the sun, giving it personification.


Riley has never met a microphone he didn't love. This week we were treated to quite a few poems being read aloud, though the guide suggests one, he just goes nuts about this and wants to do more. I had to laugh when Emmett (our 4 yo) shouted out, "Hey, read the 'My Shadow' one, Riley, that's my favorite!"


I had each of the boys say their Bible memory verses into the microphone this week too. Two loved it, one didn't - two out of three isn't bad, right? I let my oldest (the one not thrilled with the microphone) just say it without it partway through. The two littles though LOVED the microphone. I snapped a picture of the highlighted verses Riley memorized for his passage in PHFHG - it really is quite something he has memorized all of them. I am so glad my dc are memorizing Scripture - what a blessing it is to hear them say them!


In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Revival to Revolution:
It is hard to believe we are about 2/3 of the way through RevtoRev! Time has literally flown by. Wyatt is learning so much this year, and I am loving our time together. We are enjoying RevtoRev so much. One of my favorite times is our meeting "checkpoint" time. This is a time when we come together to go through the work Wyatt has done and enjoy the follow-ups together that are planned in the guide. He has hot tea with lemon and sugar, and I have butter toffee coffee. He shows me his work, and we discuss the questions in the guide, or go through whatever is part of the box's plans. We look at the paintings, the primary source documents, and/or the poetry (depending on what day of the plans we are on), and we talk about them using the guide as a guide. He reads his written narrations aloud, and we fix them together, though there is not much "fixing" these days - the editing tips and written narrations tips have worked wonders in his narrations over the years with HOD. I like to read the key ideas aloud at the end of each box too, just as a neat concise summation. We just thoroughly enjoy this time together.

This week Wyatt's History Student Notebook was especially lovely. He worked very hard on his "Draw and Write Through History" sketches and coloring, and they turned out so well. I like how he is able to do much of his work right within the beautiful notebooking pages. It is nice to pull out these History Notebooks when grandparents come over, or even just to look back through them together with our own family. Progress is so evident. Not to mention it is a visual journey through history - so neat.


Wyatt studied 3 different ways people took to travel to California for the Gold Rush this week. He studied the Oregon-CA Trail, the Panama Shortcut, and Around Cape Horn. Each of these routes were perilous for different reasons. He was surprised to learn how many people died on these journeys. His history project was so creative and original - love this about HOD projects. He made 3 envelopes, one for each way to CA, and in each envelope there were the dangers of that specific route. For example, for the Panama Shortcut, there were steaming jungles, dead horses, malaria, yellow fever, crocodiles, jaguars, etc. Each path had its own envelope with its own unique set of dangers. Then, we got to travel the routes, and see if we survived. I would have made a poor traveler, I never made it on any of the routes! Wyatt made it on 1 of them. This was such a fun project, and one that will be remembered for a long time.


Wyatt has memorized 26 verses from Hebrews 11 now! It is amazing to me he is able to do this, and yet all of his past practice in this with HOD have worked together to hone his memorization skills. He is doing it! The Hebrews study Wyatt is doing along with this by Evelyn Wheeler for his Bible Quiet Time is really helping him understand what he is memorizing, and he really is learning to look at these amazing people from the Bible as true heroes of the faith.


Wyatt has had some laughs reading Dame Shirley's letters she wrote. We have had some laughs discussing them! Imagine being the lone woman in a mining camp - yikes! You'd have to have a sense of humor to survive. The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed has been another great read for Wyatt, and has given us excellent discussion material. I love to hear his oral narrations about this book, as well as his oral narrations on the inventors. This week he read about Gutenberg, and could not believe that his partner stole his printing press from him. It is amazing how many great inventors did not get much wealth nor much credit for their inventions until after their death. Wyatt is LOVING his DITHOR book now too - Sir Malcolm... It is full of so many opportunities for us to talk about Godly character qualities - I am so thankful DITHOR plans these Godly lessons for us, and I try to take the lead and share my faith and life lessons as much as I can - it is humbling.

I just have to say that our time together is so important right now, as my ds is nearing his teenage years. I am very thankful we are close, and I think it is due in many ways to the way we are able to approach homeschooling together. He feels like we are partnering in this learning journey, and he likes taking the lead on some things. I feel it honors his maturity and age. He feels all grown up, and yet I am leading the things that he needs to be led on still. I just love this balance - this respect and recognition of my ds growing up and needing - wanting - to take more personal responsibility for his schooling. He feels so good about his school, and I do too. What a wonderful week in RevtoRev! Hope you had a good one too!

In Christ,
Julie

[andreamichele13]

Julie,

I LOVE reading your updates and blogs! My son is going to be doing RTR next year and this just makes me even more excited!!!

Andrea

[LynnH]

Here is the link to our week in RTR http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2012/02 ... 02012.html

[Carrie]

Ladies,

I loved reading about your weeks. It spurs me on with teaching my own kiddos too as we have a sophomore in high school (Yikes!), a 7th grader doing Rev2Rev (who is just a week or two behind Wyatt), a 3rd grader who is about 6 weeks away from finishing Bigger, and a 5 year old doing LHFHG at half-speed. We are also in the midst of teaching our little 5 year old how to read using The Reading Lesson, and he loves it so much. He begs for the Giggle Bunny every day.

Blessings,
Carrie

[Molly]

Well, finally I have started a blog tracking our HOD journey. This is a post covering our first two weeks of Preparing, but I will be doing one once a week from here on in. http://thejoyoflearningtogether.blogspo ... -4212.html

[my3sons]

Julie,

I LOVE reading your updates and blogs! My son is going to be doing RTR next year and this just makes me even more excited!!!

Andrea

Thanks, Andrea! I really enjoy the week-in-reviews. They give me the chance to really focus on the gains and joys within each week of homeschooling! I'm glad you are getting excited to do RTR next year - I think you will love it!

In Christ,
Julie

[Heidi in AK]

If you recall, I posted several weeks ago about significant struggles we had at the time with Shana doing school. Due to divine intervention, things are MUCH better. God has cleaned house and we have GREAT news to report for our week!!!

Please read both my blog entries!

http://heidihovan.blogspot.com/2012/02/ ... yable.html

http://heidihovan.blogspot.com/2012/02/ ... 10-11.html

[Heidi in AK]

We finished Unit 15 in LHFHG - it's going by so fast! http://www.broomandcrown.com/2012/02/we ... it-15.html - both girls were so cute doing a math activity in the backyard this week!

Reaching the end of this unit, we finished one of the R&S workbooks and will move on to Finding The Answers next week. I looked at the beginning of the Do It Carefully workbook we just finished, where dd5 had to "X" a correct answer, and the end of the book, where she had to "X" a correct answer, and I saw much improvement in her "X". Fine motor skills are a big challenge so this was exciting to see a little improvement. I showed her (and explained the word 'improvement', and she was very proud).

Kristin, this is great! I like workbooks for this reason! Also, we're right along with you! Shana's progressing, slowly, in her fine motor skills. So happy for you!