Preparing Hearts for His Glory:
Riley is a mover and a shaker who is constantly on the go. He is starting to develop his own style of narrating, and no surprise, it's quite an active method. I decided to let him kind of pace as he tells it, and he has taken that idea and run with it, adding gestures, facial expressions, and voice changes to his oral narrations that actually seem to enhance his retellings. This is an improvement from his former movements during oral narrations, which largely had nothing to do with what he was saying and only acted as a hindrance to the listener (a.k.a. me
) because they were distracting (i.e. twirling around or balancing on one foot for a short spell before hopping to balance on the other foot
). I just had to snap some pictures of his science oral narration to share Riley's active way of narrating. In the first picture he is "the crab" constellation, which you can see in the top right hand of the book I am holding...
In the second picture he is "the archer" constellation...
Another favorite way for Riley to narrate is the Storytime's oral narration which has him becoming the person and retelling it from first person point of view, saying "I" as he retells it. He is really good at this type of narration! He "became" Eli in "Fountain of Life" and really retold the reading with clarity and emotion. The next day, he was doing an oral narration for Reading about History's "Grandpa's Box", and he naturally began telling it in first person from Mark's point of view. He realized this halfway through and switched to third person. Following Charlotte Mason's advice of just listening attentively with encouragement and a lively look upon my face, I told him after he was done that he had done a very good job, and that it was just fine to tell the narration from a first person point of view, as long as you kept doing it for the whole narration.
He beamed - he likes to narrate this way the best.
Riley's creative side is coming out with so many of the activities in PHFHG. He loves to design, sketch, label, and hang his timeline pictures. It is such fun to see his timeline growing! He is learning so much from expressing his creativity within the creation of a timeline. He likes to look at it as it grows, and I like that every time he looks at it, it's like a mini-review of what he's learned.
Poetry reading provides yet another way for Riley to get into his learning. He loves to read it with certain moods, raising and lowering his voice, and speeding up or slowing down the pace as befitting to the poem...
"Little Miriam" has been a great book that Riley is reading for his independent history. The oral narrations have been neat to hear, and he has loved coloring the pictures that accompany it...
Riley's history project involved painting, which is always a hit. I like the short segments of hands-on learning that the history project provides each day, and they have been so varied, each week feels like a fresh, new, fun creation to create.
We are nearing the end of our DITHOR Folk Tale genre. "Buffalo Bill" has been such a treat to read! It appealed to Riley because it is full of daring adventures and tall tale-like stories. He loves it! He compared his DITHOR character, Buffalo Bill, to one of his free reading characters in a Chuck Black book, Prince Rowan. He did a great job! It is fun to have one ds in DITHOR 2/3 and another in 6/7/8. You can see the exciting growth dc make between the levels by looking at my Revival to Revolution post I did on Wyatt's venn diagram, which shows the upper level of this skill.
This week was also the week for my dc to make their index cards for Godly character traits we have been studying. Riley shared he struggles with truthfulness sometimes. He confessed he has not been doing all of his morning routine he is supposed to (i.e. not washing his face, combing his hair, etc. - I thought he was looking a little disheveled!
). I thanked him for confessing this and told him that sometimes the things we have to do everyday grow tiresome to do, but they still need to be done, so - it's best to do them as quickly as possible rather than drag them out (Riley is always the last one down each morning). I suggested he try doing all of his body check chart as quickly and efficiently as possible, and I'd time him so he could see how long it took. He was excited to try this, even though it was the middle of the day. I timed him, and it took one minute. He couldn't believe it! He made a goal to be the "one minute man" each morning with his body check. We stuck with this theme for his other 2 goals. He second goal was to be the "do it right guy" when Dad and I ask him to do something. His third goal was to be the "General of the Lord's army" to spend more personal time with God. He put his card up on his mirror in his room, and he's excited to be that kind of person. I love that DITHOR is giving us a wonderful chance to teach Godly character and talk about important things when we need to...
Riley's creative writing with his RLS Poetry continues to be a favorite part of his day. "The Sun's Travels" provided a great model for Riley to write his own night sky poem. He chose to write about the night sky we see at our Fourth of July celebration. We have this at our house every year out in the country, and we do a bunch of fireworks. The cousins and grandparents come, and it's a great family time. Here is his poem...
Fourth of July
I saw the glory of light in my eyes,
While the colors flashed in the night skies,
I felt my sparkler blowing out,
While I twirled and and ran about.
My ears rang as I heard the bang,
as fireworks shone all around,
I smelled the smoke and the fizz of the pop,
and the smell of ashes on the treetop.
What a good week!
In Christ,
Julie
so we didnt do any school for close to 6 weeks. It was amazing how we could just pick up right where we left off, without a bunch of preparing or review! Love HOD! 
,but he always struggles with change.I know the work is not too hard.So anything I can do to make the lessons more fun ,is good. I also have been lighting a candle for handwriting.My sister who is a teacher suggested this.Peppermint is supposed to aid concentration .