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What was YOUR week Like?

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We completed Unit 4 of LHFHG this week, even with a visit from the girls' Grandma and Great-Grandma.

http://www.broomandcrown.com/2011/10/we ... nit-4.html

What did you do this week?

Little Hands to Heaven
Emmett is racing to the finish of LHTH, and we have had so much fun together! Painting is one of Emmett's favorite things to do, so I'm glad he gets to do that within LHTH. It always ties nicely to what we have read in history as well, so that is just another way for him to respond to and remember what we have learned. I especially appreciate that the projects are doable - for me, because they use art supplies we have on hand; and for him, because they are written for his skill level so HE can actually do them. Here he is painting the bright light from heaven that shone down upon Saul...


A fun activity we've been doing during the last third or so of LHTH is creating storyboards for Emmett to remember the story by. LHTH has 3-4 directions for Emmett to follow. The directions usually involve skills, such as left and right directionality, the drawing of shapes, etc. For this one, he drew a rectangle on the left side of the paper to represent the Bible, a question mark on the right side of the paper to represent questioning what the Bible means, and some blue waves on the bottom of the paper to represent being baptized. The drawing of this simple storyboard included a lot of skills, and it was a great way for me to point to each symbol and retell the Bible story for the day. I like to do this as a summation of the reading. I pointed to the Bible and reminded him the man in our story was reading the Bible in his chariot. Next, I pointed to the question mark and reminded him the man was a bit confused about what he was reading, and so he asked Philip some questions about the Bible. Last, I pointed to the waves and reminded him that the man then believed in Jesus and was baptized in the river.


We also enjoyed reading about God's angel helping Peter in jail. Emmett loved twisting and taping the tin foil jail bars on his paper. The plans suggested the option of drawing Peter. As I was short on time but I liked this optional idea, I photocopied the picture from his Bible, and Emmett colored it and taped it behind the jail bars. He was so proud of this project, he had to show Daddy when he got home!


What a great week!
In Christ,
Julie

Preparing Hearts for His Glory:
Riley is about a month into PHFHG, and he just keeps on doing better and better. The most helpful time management tool for him has been the timer. It has also helped to plan to add about 10-15 minutes to every suggested time allotment for artistic or creative activities. This has helped him enjoy being creative, while still giving him a time to shoot for. On the days I have not used the timer, his day has gone about an hour or more longer. He is cheerful about using the timer, I just forget to use it sometimes. I am starting to be better about remembering it though, as it sure does make the day go more smoothly. He only needs it for more independent activities. For the things he does with me, I keep him on track.

Riley had LOVED the book "Life in the Great Ice Age". He can hardly wait for me to read it each day. The activities he has gotten to do alongside reading this book have been so neat. He especially liked the cave art painting. He loved this history project from start to finish - crumpling the paper, soaking it in coffee, drying it out, sketching his woolly mammoth and oxen, and painting them. I see it is now proudly displayed in his room, so it was a definite favorite...


Making his map out of playdough, etching in the rivers and seas, filling it with water, and putting in the ice wall was another BIG hit here...


"Draw and Write Through History" is doing so much to help Riley improve his drawing skills. He even added background to this drawing of the Tower of Babel this week...


Riley loves sharing his poetry with his brother, Wyatt, and he loves doing it up big with style... using his microphone. He always begs to share more than 1 poem, and both Wyatt and I usually give in and listening to at least 3 poems instead of 1. He reads them with good expression too, and has really worked on pausing only at punctuation marks (as opposed to at the end of each line). I love that HOD has taught our dc how to properly read poems. Riley is enjoying getting to know Robert Louis Stevenson by reading all of the neat information about his life too...


Both Riley and Wyatt enjoyed their setting activity together within "Drawn into the Heart of Reading" this week. They each chose a setting picture from their books, filled out some questions about how to draw it in their Student Books, and then swapped with each other so the other person had to draw their setting based only on their word description. They loved comparing their final setting drawings to the actual pictures in the books. Here Riley had drawn the setting from "Song of the Trumpet"...


We had a super week, and I hope you did too!
In Christ,
Julie

my3sons wrote:Preparing Hearts for His Glory:
Riley is about a month into PHFHG, and he just keeps on doing better and better. The most helpful time management tool for him has been the timer. It has also helped to plan to add about 10-15 minutes to every suggested time allotment for artistic or creative activities. This has helped him enjoy being creative, while still giving him a time to shoot for.

Julie,
Do you consider the notebooking pages an artistic activity? My youngest definitely taking more time than recommended on even the notebooking pgs. I'm sure her handwriting is slower (but also neater ) than my ds' (not that his is bad). I don't know whether I should just allow a little more time automatically and then not worry about it. Any advice would be great. We are have finished week 9 of Bigger, so we're past the 4 weeks of adjustment.

Revival to Revolution:
We've really settled into a good routine now with RevtoRev. Both Wyatt and I know our roles in it, and we both enjoy what we get to do. It works out so well! It's just the right level of independence and teaching time for us, as my ds is growing up before my eyes.

It has been neat to see his History Notebook come together. His timeline is growing, his written narrations are telling the story of history, and the pictures, resources, maps, and artwork he has used within the notebook tie it all together and give him some visual reminders of what he's learned. We've had some good discussions about the paintings he's labeled, thanks to the good guiding questions in RevtoRev (and the Key Ideas, as I am no art expert ). We've also both really enjoyed the Primary Source Documents included in the Student Notebook, as well as the discussion questions in RevtoRev that go along with the documents. There is just something special about reading actual words a person wrote - what a neat glimpse back in history...


The pictures in "George Washington's World" of the outrageous hairstyles ladies wore to champion a cause were very amusing to Wyatt. I told him, "See, and you think I take long to do my hair!" Here he drew his own "toppings" for hair arrangements that commemorated historical events...


The steeple Wyatt drew and the stained glass looking sections he drew and painted around the steeple to signify Paul Revere's ride was another favorite history activity. He ended up having to start his drawing over, as he had not read his directions carefully enough to see that he was to use "watercolor" paper. I gave him the choice of just using what he had (regular paper) and doing the stained glass part with markers instead of paints, but he wanted to do it over and get it right. (Plus he has learned to like watercolor painting thanks to his time in CTC). I was proud of him wanting to do it right!


The classical music study has already made an impact on Wyatt, even though we are only a month in or so. He has asked to listen to it while working, and we have all enjoyed that. Here he is making the stage of instruments for his lapbook...


Wyatt and Riley have found yet another connection in their learning, even though they are doing different guides, as Wyatt is studying classical music, and Riley is reading a DITHOR book about an unlikely character who enjoys classical music. Here is a picture of the setting Wyatt drew based on Riley's description of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart mouse at the piano with Mrs. Honeybee in the book "A Mouse Called Wolf" ...


It was just a really good week this week. We are a few months in to school now, and things are just clicking along. We've changed our schedule around, as it became obvious some changes would be beneficial, but we are really setting into a nice routine now and enjoying our school days so much. We did have an emergency trip to the dentist for 2 of Emmett's teeth to be pulled out (due to him running into Wyatt outside), but even with that trauma, we still had a great week of school. Emmett wouldn't hear of missing his little school either. Anyway, I hope you all had a good week of homeschooling as well!

In Christ,
Julie

We have finished unit 5 in preparing. We have focused on 'A Good Play' by Robert Louis Stevenson. The kids are really enjoying poetry. They are very enthusiastic when it is their turn to write poetry. And this week they responded to the poem in a playful and imaginative way creating their own house boat and plane out of blankets and chairs.

They are also enjoying 'One Small Square: The Cactus Desert'. Their favourite activity this week was beginning to draw their desert scene. My son started our h/s journey not too keen about drawing, but now he takes his time and produces lovely art.

WE looked at Psalm 127: vs 3-4 this week. It reminded us all that children are a blessing from God and it is the parents responsibility to train them up in the Lord. Thankfully we have God's help on this

I have posted photos on my blog: http://www.anne-homeschooladventures.blogspot.com

John'smom wrote:...Do you consider the notebooking pages an artistic activity? My youngest definitely taking more time than recommended on even the notebooking pgs. I'm sure her handwriting is slower (but also neater ) than my ds' (not that his is bad). I don't know whether I should just allow a little more time automatically and then not worry about it. Any advice would be great. We are have finished week 9 of Bigger, so we're past the 4 weeks of adjustment.

I do think of notebooking as an artistic activity, especially if there is drawing or coloring involved. Wyatt always clipped along and finished these types of activities quite quickly, as he has never been very interested in artistic pursuits. But, Riley loves anything related to art, so for him, it helps to tack on an additional 10-15 minutes for these types of activities. I know Carrie has her artistic child (Shaw) do a lot of these types of activities toward the end of the day, so he can take however long he wants for them. This is another way to allow those more artistically inclined dc to take longer to do their projects. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

Hi Everyone! This is my first time checking in with our Week in Review!
We just started using LHFHG 4 weeks ago and loving it! Here is our week in review:
http://bookandyarn.blogspot.com/2011/10 ... 02811.html

Here is our week for Unit 7 in Bigger
http://nutbugs.com/heart-of-dakota-bigg ... -7-update/

This week we did (most of) Unit 12 in Beyond. I'm glad to say we got through all of it, but this week and last week have had some difficulties with our schedule. Probably the problems have been going on longer, but this past two weeks is when its just been really difficult! I posted about it on the main board. Also it didn't help that we had guests Monday and Tuesday, and that my girls just continue to struggle with a (relatively minor, but still nagging) illness. Or maybe its really allergies. Last week we all went on antibiotics and for my older 2 it seemed to help for just a couple of days (but we also had a little bit of warmer weather for those days) and then the coughing, tiredness, started back up again.

We are back into Stories of the Pilgrims, we talked about how 1/2 of the Pilgrims died that first winter, did a fun exercise talking about germs and how they spread, talked about the spring, them building more houses, and relationships with the Indians (Samoset and Squanto visiting, etc). I had checked out a book from the library about that time period, this one turned out to be a journal summary of some of the Pilgrims. It was fun to read that in some of our other reading times.

My DD is starting to struggle more with the spelling lists, so I am thinking maybe its time to switch to list 1 instead of list 2. Some of the words are really hard! I think I read somewhere that List 2 is covered in Bigger also, so she wouldn't miss out on doing those.

On day 4, which we did on Friday, I thought it was really neat that my DD made a little map of the fort at Plymouth. We had to talk about what a fort is, which I think we have talked about with our reading but I think she is grasping it more now that we did that activity.

I'm so thankful for all the things we are learning and doing!

I have very little time...but wanted to say that we had a wonderful week. ds8 finished Unit 12, Day 1 in Bigger while ds12 finished Unit 14, Day 3 in RTR. We are having a great year so far. My older ds is doing RTR 5 days a week and will move on to Rev to Rev at the beginning of April.

I am sorry I am not around as much this year. I am teaching at church twice a week and have so many activities with the kids this year. I am heading up our local homeschool group as well...so time is stretched thin. Even so, HOD makes homeschooling with my harried schedule not only do-able, but enjoyable!! Love & miss you all!

Rebecca

Haven't been on in FOREVER - but because I took the time to take photos and blog our experiment from Preparing, week 6 day 4 I thought I'd share the link with you all

http://dayspringdisciples.blogspot.com/ ... iment.html

Hi ladies, I'm behind a week in posting our recaps so this week is a recap for October 17 -28. It's mostly pictures
I did one post with all the kids combined, LHTH, LHFHG, and BHFHG. We are still having a great time with HOD. Hope everyone had a blessed week and a wonderful week next week too!
http://mycrazybutjoyfulandblessedadvent ... -1028.html

Here is the link to our week with RTR http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2011/10 ... 02411.html