heartofdakota.com

Ok Girls,

What was YOUR week Like?

You can post:

a- A picture
b- A blog Link
c- A written synopsis
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Hope everyone had a great week and has a relaxing weekend ahead of them!

Post for Olivia, LHFHG and Caden BHFHG
http://mycrazybutjoyfulandblessedadvent ... ecaps.html

Post for Carter, LHTH
http://mycrazybutjoyfulandblessedadvent ... arter.html

Revival to Revolution:
What a good week we had with RevtoRev this week! I was reading my ds's written narration today, and thinking back to how very far he has come in this skill since he first began it in PHFHG. My middle ds has just started PHFHG, and so it is fresh in my mind how we begin to train dc to write good written narrations. The progress has been slow but steady through the years. I think the variety of excellent living books and different types of writing programs have really helped Wyatt develop his his own style of writing written narrations. The editing tips in the Appendix of the guides have also slowly but steadily helped him to become a more careful writer, as well as a good editor. I am just having quite a bit of fun reading his written narrations at this point! It is an encouragement to me as I am starting back over teaching written narrations to my middle ds right now. Anyway, here is Wyatt's written narration for this week within his RevtoRev Student Notebook. It is in the bottom left box...


Science is such fun for Wyatt, and I feel so good that he is doing experiments every week with different physical science things he has built himself. It really is quite motivating to him to do the experiments, as he put everything together himself. He likes the immediate feedback if he got things right or not on the computer as well. His answers in his EE Student Book have improved tenfold when I told him he needed to use the words in the chapter titles in his answers. Here he is with his latest project...


Creative writing has Wyatt drawing upon all that he has learned in previous years. I really am enjoying this time together, and I love the Christian focus of writing for God's glory, in a way that is not so narrow that it excludes writing creatively. Wyatt had to come up with 10 topics to write about, and a plot sentence for each. He came up with them quite quickly, and I especially liked the plot sentence idea, as it gave him the opportunity to really focus on which part of the event he wanted to tell about in detail...


"Who Is God, and Can I Really Know Him?" has Wyatt and I discussing some important foundations of faith. I love how RevtoRev has us do this book. We each put a sticky note under a sentence that struck us within each section of reading, and then share why we chose that one. It has been a window into Wyatt's thinking, and I like what I am seeing. The Journal time has been a nice way to read his thoughts as well. I'm glad it is saved for special thoughts, rather than used all of the time. I have done many devotionals in my lifetime already, and I have to say that the ones that had me answer a lot of questions in writing for small segments of reading became somewhat tedious and stole some of my joy at doing the devotional. I am thankful that HOD has us responding to "Who Is God..." in a variety of ways, through reading, discussing, looking up Scriptures, and journaling. It is a great balance both of us are enjoying! Here Wyatt is writing in his journal...


Those are just a few of the highlights this week, but we are really enjoying all of RevtoRev. I don't know of many boys that are Wyatt's age that are enjoying school this much. It really is neat to see. I hope you all had a good week too!

In Christ,
Julie

Preparing Hearts for His Glory:
Riley was able to make a cartouche of Hepsheptut this week, and he worked so hard on it! He made the dough, etched it like cuneiform writing, painted it, and worked brown into the etchings. It looks pretty authentic, though my picture doesn't do it justice.


When it came time for Riley to make his timeline picture, he knew just how to draw his cuneiform writing picture...


It has been fun seeing Riley's timeline grow, and he thinks it's neat to see big brother's old timeline from having done PHFHG years back hanging next to his...


I think all of the years of reading classic poetry has made Riley's first endeavor with creative writing using poetry as a model a success! He LOVES it! It has been fun to see what he comes up with, and he likes to challenge himself to rhyme like Robert Louis Stevenson does...


Drawing is something Riley has always enjoyed and been fairly good at, but I have not taken the time to show him any real tips about how to draw with detail. I am so thankful that "Draw and Write Through History" is doing this for him. Having drawing broken down into manageable steps has really helped Riley approach drawing in segments that he can do well. He likes how PHFHG usually has him drawing and coloring on separate days, as he can focus on each of those steps fully. Here is Riley's mummy...


Written Narrations will be something we keep working on throughout the year. I am pleased to see some progress already, and Riley instinctively seems to write more neatly on written narrations, as if they are special. I am so thankful that PHFHG gives excellent guidance on this. The rereading of just a segment of the history on his own, the guided questions, the sentence starter for the beginning, and the contemplating the big ideas and writing them one sentence at a time have been so very helpful. I am also seeing Riley's oral narrations improve, though we continue to work on a "smoother" delivery.

In Christ,
Julie

Little Hearts for His Glory:
We officially finished LHTH and started LHFHG half-speed this week. I was wondering how Emmett would do listening to "Reading about History" especially, but he did well! There is certainly room for improvement, but then that is why we are going half-speed. He has only done 1 full day of LHFHG, but it went well. I didn't have to get anything ready to start LHFHG. I just got up that morning, grabbed the LHFHG tub, and started teaching. I love how easy HOD makes prepping for me.

Emmett was quite excited to start his "red" guide ...


He especially loved the Fingerplay, and I was glad he got to wiggle and jump around so he could sit better after it. I also liked how the Fingerplay already has him naming the 7 continents. What a genius way to learn the continent's names at a young age! Emmett also especially enjoyed "Reddy Fox", and immediately picked up on the fact that he might be a bit sly.

Math was a hit - snacks were involved, so he already has the opinion that math is GREAT! He also loves to glue, so the paper where he traced the numbers 1-5 and glued the proper number of cereal pieces next to each was fun...


I pulled out the Ticonderoga pencils and the pencil gripper, and so we are starting to work on proper pencil grip. He does fairly well with it, but the gripper is helping him with the placement of his 3rd finger especially. Here he is doing his "Do It Carefully", which was actually pretty tough. It had him try to find 2 matching objects within the row, and they were not all so easy. It was a good critical thinking exercise for him...


We are off and running with LHFHG, and are having fun already! His phonics is going great, though I have to remind myself to be PATIENT, not a quality that comes naturally to me, I'm afraid. It is both fun and a bit frustrating to go back and teach beginning reading and writing skills from the ground up. On the one hand, it's fun because it's neat to see dc begin to write or to read, but on the other hand, it's frustrating because I am used to my older dc just being able to do these things well. I love the balance teaching different guides gives me within my day. It's neat to go from teaching one child to read, to teaching another child to properly identify point of view and mood within their reading. It's neat to go from teaching one child how to write letters, to teaching another child how to write lengthy written narrations. Both bring joys and struggles, but both have me feeling very, very glad I am my dc's teacher. I hope you all had a wonderful week as well!

In Christ,
Julie

Hello ladies, looks you had another productive week.

After a very trying day with dd5 , I wasn't in the mood to write a blog post so it's just a short summary here.

This week we were in Unit 5 of Little Hearts. The girls learned about the Israelites wandering in the desert, receiving manna and quail to sustain them. They made their own quail, following the step-by-step paper quailplane instructions in the guide. Here's my little one who is not doing her own program right now (will do LHTH next year) but likes to do everything big sister does, working diligently on her quail. "I'm going to put eyes ALL OVER my quail"


Big sister practiced flying hers. Not bad!


Handwriting included the letter 'q', so there was also quail coloring. My 5 year old (who hates to color, and it shows in the way she does it really fast to get it done) made sure she put the right colors in the right places for her Gambel's quail, which we have in our area.


We also worked on sorting items by attribute. Here, big sister sorting her items, then helping little sister.



We also learned about the 10 Commandments and the golden calf. The girls made their own out of play dough, as we didn't have the food ingredients to make the edible ones.

What do you do with an idol? Smash it, of course!


Big sister is doing great in all of her subjects, and despite being "nervous" talking about storytime, she loves all her subjects...with the exception of fine motor/handwriting. We all have a subject we just have to "get through" though, don't we? I know I did.

Here is the link to our week with RTR http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2011/11 ... 03111.html. Like Julie's son Wyatt, I really don't know of any boy my sons age that likes school the way he does.