heartofdakota.com

Ok Girls,

What was YOUR week Like?

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a- A picture
b- A blog Link
c- A written synopsis
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I guess I'm the first one here this week! It's easy to do when you're only doing one guide, and it's for Kindergarten.

We had another fun week with LHFHG - Unit 3. I rambled on about it here:

http://www.broomandcrown.com/2011/10/we ... nit-3.html

Lovely pictures Kristin.

Kristin, one of our fave lessons so far was the 5 senses. We are on Unit 10 of LHFHG and I have to say I am loving it more and more each week. We started History stories for Children this week and I really liked it too. Loving HOD!!

Our week in LHFHG: http://mymimishouse2.blogspot.com/2011/ ... it-10.html
Enjoy!!

So great to hear from everyone and see your great photos! I have a few photos to add this week, unfortunately our week was again filled with illness. Today the last member of my household went on antibiotics also to try and kick this lovely bug that gave my husband walking pneumonia. We are coupling the medicine with lots of prayer that the Lord will restore health to our family!

But in spite of all that we had a pretty good week of school. I was so proud of my 6YO this week because she did all her copywork without grumbling or complaining even once, and I really feel she also did a good job of it. I added in my 4YO doing handwriting practice while she was doing copywork, though I may have to rethink this because the two girls tend to distract one another. Maybe I need to move them across the room instead of letting them work on the same table. But my 4YO is really ready for the beginning letter formation and is excited to do the workbook.

We read in American Pioneers and Patriots about the Pilgrims building their first house at Plymouth. And poor Thomas, who wanted to help or do something big and kept having problems! We also enjoyed making our oil paper window and today making the frame of a wall and reinforcing it.
Here is my 6YO with her spelling words. Her handwriting is neater on lined paper of course, but she loves writing on the white board!
My 6YO is still enjoying reading to her 2 younger sisters, which I have her do during her Emerging Reader time. Then the 6YO and 4YO discuss the answers to the questions. It's a fun time and I'm glad at least part of our reading/story time can include my 2YO. I have discovered that easy readers are great readers for my 2YO (which I never had figured out with the others because we didn't have them around then). Short sentences, easier vocabulary. My 2YO has far surpassed either of her sisters at the same age when it comes to vocabulary and verbal communication. Here is a picture of her doing what she does best, getting into stuff! At least as my sister-in-law commented, she knew what the lip balm was for and didn't use it for anything else! This is actually the girls' lip balm, so what we are working on with the little one is that she should ASK before she goes in and puts it on!
Again, it's great to hear from others about their weeks, and I hope and pray we all are having a great fall!

Revival to Revolution:
Wyatt is enjoying RevtoRev so much! He likes the variety of hands-on history projects. This week, he had to follow directions to fold an origami ship. He then penned the haiku he wrote on its sail...


Wyatt is doing Level 6/7/8 of "Drawn into the Heart of Reading" this year. He completed all of Level 2/3 twice, and Level 4/5 about 1 1/2 times before doing 6/7/8. I am so pleased with his work now. All of the previous skills he learned have helped him be ready for 6/7/8, and he does the Student Book so well, and largely independently, as it is intended. I snapped a picture of one of his Student Book pages here...


We finished the genre Biography, and did the kickoff for Fantasy. It was a blast! As I was working with Riley and Emmett on school, and Wyatt had finished his work early, I let him read through the DITHOR Kickoffs and pick and plan one. He chose pretending to be a famous person, dressing up like him, acting out something famous that would help his audience guess who the person was, and then adding in a fantasy part to the acting out. He did an awesome job of acting out famous people, and having little brothers help. He forgot to add the fantasy part in though, so we all had a laugh about that at the end when I was asking the questions... What makes this a fantasy? Nothing. Hmmmm. I think we forgot something here. And then they talked about what would have made each of the scenes fantasy. We make mistakes sometimes, but I find they are sometimes excellent opportunities for teachable moments. I don't think they'll forget what "fantasy" means now, and I also think Wyatt will read the directions more carefully next time. Here is General George Washington seated upon his horse, retreating from Rhode Island, and encouraging his men...


Daniel Boone, chopping down a tree to forge the Wilderness Trail...


The heroic deeds of Bunker Hill...


John Paul Jones attacking a ship...


General Howe, a redcoat, going to battle...


To add fantasy elements, we talked about George Washington riding into battle on a dinosaur, John Paul Jones driving a race car across the sea to make a fast getaway, General Howe flying away in his space machine to escape battle, etc. This was a fun discussion, and the boys couldn't wait to get their new books for fantasy.

The readings in RevtoRev have really gotten Wyatt's wheels turning. He is really enjoying "George Washington's World", and we got the DVD set of "The American Testimony" for him to watch for fun. He chooses this over any other videos - he's really into it. The "Four American Inventors" and the Exploration Education kit's experiments have really got him thinking about inventions. He wants to try to invent a new type of transportation that uses magnetism and a combination of an automobile and airplane. I love that he's thinking this way - it is how great inventions happen.

As far as R & S English 5, I was wondering how we'd feel about doing it every day, as the last 2 years we did R & S English 4 half-speed. Well, it's been going really, really well. He remembers his answers to his oral review questions so well, and he is clipping along so nicely with it. I think 4 did a super job of getting him ready for the rigor of 5. If I'd looked at 5 years ago, I would have wondered if he'd be ready for it by now. I'm glad I didn't overthink that - it's gone great.

Anyway, another great week of school under our belts, hope you had one too!

In Christ,
Julie

Preparing Hearts for His Glory:
Riley is LOVING PHFHG! He is really ready for it, and I'm so proud of his effort. He needed his entire 1 1/2 years of training in Bigger Hearts to be ready for this level of independence, and now he is just soaring!!! Ladies teaching Bigger Hearts, every teaching moment is so worth it! It totally pays off for years to come. In history, we've been reading about Noah's Ark. My, my, my - those books have beautiful pictures. Here is Riley's rainbow painting that he loved learning to mix paint colors for...


"Draw and Write Through History" has step by step drawings that are doing a lot to teach my little guy how to draw well. Here he did Noah's Ark...


The first time Riley had to answer his 5 science comprehension questions in PHFHG, he did so-so. He needed help in seeing what a good answer looks like, and in using the provided page numbers as a good reference for looking up information. We also talked about putting answers in his own words. This third week into PHFHG, he surprised me by having his answers completely done when it was my turn to work with him (I'd been working with one of our other dc first). He did an awesome job!


Notebooking is something we worked on a lot last year in Bigger Hearts. He needed to learn how to make columns, draw neatly, fill the entire page rather than draw and write itty-bitty, write neatly in an appropriate size, choose vibrant colors, follow directions carefully, etc. Well, all of this work in this skill area has paid off. He did his science notebooking completely independently here, and he did a nice job...


We are enjoying PHFHG so much with one another. Working on a smooth oral narration, continuing to write neatly and legibly, using time well, and answering questions with detailed answers are all things we will continue to work on throughout the year, but I'm very happy with his work overall in school.

In Christ,
Julie

Little Hands to Heaven:
LHTH is coming to a close, and what a wonderful time Emmett and I have had together. He is able to do so much more than he was at the start of LHTH. At age 2, he knew all of his letters, and quite a few sounds, but he needed so much more that LHTH has taught him. He has learned many fine motor skills through the "Hide and Seek" and "Count on Me" pages. He can now track his finger left to right under a line of words and find and mark the "hiding" letters easily. He can also draw smaller things within the provided box in the counting pages, as well as skip count by 2's and 3's. He can color within a sectioned off area, and cut fairly well too. He especially enjoys painting. This week he got to paint and color a fiery circle to represent the disciples receiving the Holy Spirit to go out and spread the Good News...


Emmett has also learned to listen more carefully to history readings. He can answer almost all of the questions correctly now. This week we learned about Jesus coming back to speak with the disciples, and Him showing them His hand and feet. It was a sobering moment for Emmett, as he thought about Jesus taking the nails and dying on the cross for us. I am so thankful our dc hear the story of our Lord and Savior's sacrifice from a young age - he prays differently now - in awe, in reverence more. Even at 4 yo, he understands the magnitude of Jesus dying for our sins...


I started a new part of day for Emmett this week, and it has gone so well. I am going to post about it on the main board, but in a nutshell, it's centers he works through independently. He LOVED it, and it gave me uninterrupted teaching time to work with my other sons. Anyway, what a wonderful week we had with LHTH! I love teaching all my dc, and the variety LHTH gives me in the midst of the heavier teaching necessary for my older dc is just plain fun. I am cherishing every bit of the end of LHTH.

In Christ,
Julie

Here is a link to my blog for the week http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2011/10 ... 01711.html

Week 6 of BIGGER is done. Another fun and interesting week. Here is our post.
http://nutbugs.com/heart-of-dakota-bigg ... -6-update/

We are crawling along in Unit 4 of LHFHG. Please see my post about it. Mommy's trying to break some old habits!

http://heidihovan.blogspot.com/2011/10/ ... -soul.html

Heidi in AK wrote:We are crawling along in Unit 4 of LHFHG. Please see my post about it. Mommy's trying to break some old habits!

Heidi - I enjoyed reading your blog. You obviously have such a love for your dc. Reading your blog made me think back to how I felt after I had our third baby. I was feeling very tired out after our third ds was born, running here and there, whether for errands or for appointments, and my dh began to travel and be gone for long periods of time. It helped me to choose certain days for these. For the past 4 years, I have done all my errands and appointments on the same two afternoons each week. It has helped so much! Because I know beforehand when I will be running errands or making appointments, when I have to make an appointment or set up an errand day, I know right when I will be doing it.

I wonder if it would be helpful to choose a "catch up with friends" day or two each week? Or maybe if it needs to be more flexible and change days due to certain social engagements you'd like to go to, you could just choose 1-2 things to attend each week, making sure to mark your calendar that 2 days are for social engagements, and 3 days are alloted for school? A physical trainer suggested I do this for exercising at home, and it made a big difference for how successful I was in actually exercising. It was just a simple 2 row by 7 column table, with the names of days of the week across the top, a row for me to pencil in a plan for the next 7 days for when I'd exercise and where, and another row under that for me to write what I did. I just made this out 1 week at a time, and it wasn't always the same days or the same routine. I'm not sure why, buy something about writing it down just made it happen more often. Sometimes something would come up, and I'd have to move Monday's exercise to Wednesday (which was going to be a day off), but all in all, I usually exercised 5 times a week then. Come to think of it, I NEED to do this with exercise again pronto! Anyway, I wonder if you could make a 7 day plan, jotting down 3 days' worth of school, and 4 days' worth of whatever else needs/wants to be done, and then see how that goes? That's just an idea you can try out or just forget. I will say that if I don't plan for school (or exercise) to get done, it just doesn't. So you are not alone in this! I hope something here can help!

In Christ,
Julie