Week in Review Feb. 20-24

[moedertje]

We had a great first week with Beyond. We are doing 4 days a week school and ds loved all his new subjects. He beamed every time I pulled out his History book and said, "I love that big history book", (Pioneers and Patriots). He was thrilled to do his science experiments, loved his poetry and can't wait to recite it to the family next week.

Ds did excellent with his copy work. He did 2 lines of the poem each day! For the illustration this week, I had him draw the picture on the front of his Day 4 Spelling book.

Spelling went great! I worked on teaching him how to study spelling and he did not miss one of the words all week! We love easy beginnings, they are encouraging.

By day 2 he asked if we were going to read his "Peter Rabbit" books, from LHFHG, so explained that Squanto took the place of those and that we would do more books like that. He was satisfied and has been enjoying Squanto. He had a very hard time doing the activity: asking Squanto a question.
It was so cute as he asked me first if Squanto was still alive, where he lived and how he could ask him a question... I explained to him that we were pretending and I actually had him ask his Teddy Bear a question, pretending it was Squanto.. He thought it very strange to have to ask a question he could not get answered to a person in a book. He is such a perceiver and so factual! His question was: "Squanto, are you scared?" and he looked at me like, well we will never get the answer, but I did what you asked!!!

Math was a little bit tricky for ds this week, he was suffering from allergies and coughing alot.. Pollen count is outrageous here and we have all been itching our eyes, sneezing etc. So his concentration was a little less and we were adding bigger numbers. I had to remind myself that it is not for mastery!

I have not taken pictures during school as this takes up extra time and it makes the days unnecessarily stressful for me.
Loving Beyond

[moedertje]

LHTH Unit 26

Dd is most excited to do school and missed school very much while on vacation. She was looking for crafts and writing her letters and even wanted to read to us. Today she was sitting and picked up a "Dick and Jane" book and started sounding out words. I co-read with her and she read 2 little stories. We use TRL and she is on lesson 5. She understands how to sound out words and is doing 1-2 pages a day.
She has enjoyed doing her color pages and asks to copy the color word. We don't have magazines, so we use a sticker book she has and she pages through and finds the color she needs. Because of a little pre-school book we used last year, she is able to read most of the color words by sight, so it helps her feel special that she can read as everyone else in our home is able to read now except her.

We moved on to doing skip counting by 4's this week. and she did pretty good. I love the little extension activity to tell a story that goes with the picture...
This week she made 4 shepherds staffs for the parable of the shepherd who lost 1 sheep and went after it and this was her story: A Shepherd takes care of his sheep. I drew a shepherd staff. Oh, said the shepherd I found my baby sheep.

We also made a banquet after reading the parable of the rich man whose friends did not come and ended up going to the high ways and the by-ways to invite the lame, the blind, the poor, and the needy. She and brother played for hours with the set up after they were done with school.

For the letter U we did unicycles and umbrella's that she colored. We did the path gray as we had some paint left over from our craft of the young man who left his fathers house and spend all his inheritance.

We did a craft to show the path the young man took in the parable. She had to paint rocks on a rectangular paper and string yarn around the edges.

All in all a fabulous week once again with LHTH

[moedertje]

Preparing Hearts Unit 13, (after a long break due to many distractions)

Ds was thrilled to start up and worked very diligently. He was able to finish most days before lunch and this was a blessing to both of us.
"Grandpa's Box" is a favorite and ds was beside himself from excitement that we were starting up with this wonderful book again and I was rejoicing with him . He has done great with his oral narration. Much improvement in telling detail and in the order of the happenings in the story.
He loved his science experiment, that had him imitate what a dinosaur egg would have felt like. He did good noticing the detail that the vinegar foamed and drew it in his experiment. He did it all on his own as I was working with my other ds.

On his science questions, he is making strides in finding the answers in the text and making a connection with the Bible text.

For his independent history he had to copy his scripture and make a decorative border, he choose not to illustrate as that was an option... He did a great job as he is my least artistic child, but has grown so much, because of the way HOD helps me to teach him.

Math has been going very well. We are at the end of 3A and not rushing it at all. We are adding money and he got it! PTL
I had him work on his History Project on his own, being available, but not interfering since he was doing his secret message. He loved doing this. I highlighted some details for him so he would not miss them and he did very well. When his message disappeared again he was a bit sad, so I told him that it's actually great that it disappears again in case it would get in the wrong hands and he smiled. He might write his best friend a message he said (they also do HOD and they are a few units ahead of us)

A great start and we are both very encouraged, if his asthma can stay at bay, Lord willing, with the very high pollen count, we can go at it a fresh on Monday.

[creativemommy]

We've had a really busy past two weeks doing school and beginning our spring co-op semester.

This post covers Units 6 and 7 (Days 1-4) in Bigger and LHFHG.
http://ourlittlethinkers.blogspot.com/2 ... ch-up.html


This post covers two projects we did on Friday...
http://ourlittlethinkers.blogspot.com/2 ... estry.html

[my3sons]

Julie, I look forward to your reviews each week! Thank you for all that you share. We are so excited to start Rev to Rev in a few weeks!

Oh...and that pic of Wyatt at the computer makes him look SO grown up! I am noticing that in Bryce too. They are really turning into young men, aren't they? Bryce's voice is deepening, he has acne on his face...he is taller than me! I am not ready for all of this!

Thanks, Rebecca! Wyatt DOES look so grown-up, and I am certain Bryce is looking different too! It is amazing how much our dc change in these years. I'm thankful for the check-in, as it keeps me snapping pictures and taking more notice of the changes I may have otherwise not noticed. I hope you have a super start to RevtoRev - we are really enjoying our time in it!

In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Julie, I really enjoyed reading about your boys' homeschooling week. It sounds and looks like they had such an enjoyable week, filled with lots of learning.

I am looking forward to next week when I can start posting in the weekly check-in.

By the way. I also was thinking Wyatt looked so grown-up. They change so much in the tweens and early teens. My son grew over 7 inches in a little over a year. He is inches taller then me...AND wears a mens size 10 in shoes. Time surely passes by quickly.

Thanks, aspenskies! We really did have a great week, and Wyatt is growing more and more every day, it seems. He is beginning to look like a young man, and starting to act like one as well. He is my right hand man when my dh travels. I truly don't know what I would do without him. I often think God gave me Wyatt knowing I'd need him by my side when my dh couldn't be. Wyatt is such a blessing to me. It sounds like your ds is growing, growing, growing into a young man too! I bet it is different when dc pass us in height, and size 10 men's shoes is pretty big already! It sounds like your ds will be tall. Wyatt is 5' 3'' now, and wears size 9 men's shoes. I keep thinking he'll stop growing soon, but he just keeps on going up and up. Time does pass so quickly - we are so blessed to have this time with our sons as they grow more and more into the men they will someday be. Thanks for your kind words here, and may God continue to bless us with our sons!

In Christ,
Julie

[Heidi in AK]

You all are in the middle of a night of sleep.

Here's my update! http://heidihovan.blogspot.com/#!/2012/ ... lhfhg.html

[LynnH]

Here is week 24 of RTR. HOD continues to be a blessing in our home. http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2012/02 ... 22012.html