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Hi fellow HODies! I'm sharing some extra-special pictures this time. I got to do school with Carrie's sons this week - as well as with mine, and we had a blast together!

Little Hearts for His Glory:
We read about the Charter Oak in History Stories for Children. This famous oak tree had a large hole in it that housed the hidden charter, keeping it safe for 2 years. Here Carrie's son and my son are tossing their "charters" into the Charter Oak Tree (the overturned tub). They loved moving the masking tape line back further and further as they got better and better at tossing the charter into the tree! This was great fun that went on long after school was over for the day.


Bigger Hearts for His Glory:
Shaw, Carrie's 8 yo son, read Edison's biography and did this science experiment. He had to guess why our lights turn off when we turn the light switch, and why the button on the flashlight causes light to go on and off. Smart little cookie guessed "because the circuit is open when the light is off, and pushing the light switch or the flashlight button causes the circuit to be closed which causes the light to turn on". That was BEFORE we did the science experiment! I guess that's why Carrie writes the curriculum - she sure knows how to teach her sons!!! Then we took apart the flashlight and talked about it.


Bigger Hearts for His Glory:
We are finishing this week, and here is my son showing his timeline. He LOVED making that timeline, and I think he did a really neat job of it too! He has enjoyed history so much this year. He told me sadly today, "This is my last reading in my red history book this year. I'm kinda going to miss this, Mom!" Ahhh, the power of reading history from living books!
Also, my middle son doing LHFHG said during my older son's narration today, "I love your narrations, Wyatt! It's just like getting to hear all of the best parts of the story all over again!" We're definitely ending school on a happy note.


R & S English:
I just had to take a picture of Cole, Carrie's oldest son showing his grammar he did for the day. He's just an amazing kid, inside and out. He wrote the most wonderful written narration for me titled "Misinformation" for his history that day. He even had "recaps" and "conclusions" - I can't wait to start teaching written narrations in Preparing... next year. Carrie just knows how to break it down into steps that make it simple.


Here is a great side benefit to doing HOD programs... leftover time to enjoy being kids! Time to play, imagine, and create... and time to picnic outside on a beautiful day! Here are Cole, Shaw, and Grey (Carrie's sons), with Wyatt and Riley (my sons) enjoying each other's company and a picnic.


I also had to share a picture of Carrie's youngest son, Beau, and my youngest son, Emmett - I just couldn't leave them out! Here they are sharing their food from tray to tray - a common practice they enjoy! Future LHTH users here!



God bless all of your journeys with HOD - God has certainly blessed us with a fantastic year!

In Christ,
Julie

Awesome pictures!
Thanks for sharing them!

Julie - I LOVE your post!!!! Cousins are sooooo important, and they will grow up having such a strong bond. Your families are beautiful!

Julie-Thanks so much for a wonderful glimpse into two sisters' lives! I love all the family moments, and I know you guys cherish them. We live in NY, my brother and his family in CA, and my husband's brother in AL; very spread out and visits are rare. We do enjoy each other when we can though!

On that note, ladies, I want you to know I will not be on the boards much, if at all, in the next several weeks. We leave on Saturday on an unexpected, but very welcome, flight out to CA to visit with my brother and his family! DH bought tickets for me and the kids as a Mother's Day gift for me. My parents are already out there in their RV. The kids and I will be traveling back here to NY with them when they leave CA...not sure when that will be!

We are so very excited about the trip though! We will continue to do Beyond...with ds10 joining in because he is officially done with his 'other' curriculum! We will be reading another portion of his curriculum though, as it has to do with exploration, and is a great lead-in to Bigger..I think, which is what we will be doing for our next school year...hopefully to begin sometime in July. And, I plan to do a mini state-study on each state we travel through on our journey. I know that sounds like a lot of work...and we don't normally add to Carrie's guide. However, we will be in an RV with 3 adults and 3 children for many hours each day. Though some of those days will be spent exploring new things, I fully expect to have plenty of time to get in our reading, schooling, as well as a lot of card games, and drawing, etc. We want to stay busy when we're trapped in the vehicle!

I would appreciate your prayers for a wonderful family time, that God will keep us from missing Daddy too much(he can't get away that long, obviously), and for our safety. Also, hubby leaves Saturday for a week-long trip to Spain with work, so prayers for his safety too, please! Can you believe he was lamenting the fact that he can't go with us?! I mean, really? I love my brother, his family, and the kids...but I would not be complaining about going to Spain! I'm teasing, he wasn't complaining and he's very excited. I know he'll just miss us.

I will be sure to take lots of pictures and post some here when we return. I'll have to do a major 'catch up on our last weeks of HOD' post! I'll miss you ladies...have a fun last few weeks!

Wendy

Wendy, that sounds like so much fun! We will miss you, but look forward to hearing all about your trip! Is you dh going to post his journey on your blog like he did last time? I really enjoyed his commentary and his pictures, and hope to see some of Spain!

Have a great trip and I will be praying for safe travels for your whole family.
Mel

Mel,

I think he plans to do that, if he has time. He will get to Spain by Sunday morning, so he's hoping to have at least a little time Sunday to explore Madrid. I'm sure he'll take pictures, and if he can't post them while he's there, he'll definitely do it upon his return...so keep checking the Blog. I also plan to keep up to date when possible, but I do expect it to be less often than normal.

So, how are you feeling? How much longer are your kids gone? How long 'til you can be in contact with dh again? I'm still praying for you, that it will get easier each day!

Well my week has been so so. For whatever reason I am just disenchanted with school and my son has been fighting with me about it. So we only did two days this week. Once we got started we had good days it was just the getting going process. Bryce did have fun building Lincoln's cabin with pretzels - then again activities are always more fun when PopPop gets to help.

Today was a great day - although not a HOD day it was inspired by HOD.

I knew I needed to do a sctructured activity today as we are leaving this afternoon to go camping and the boys are very excited. This is what we did.

I started with reading a story from A Child's Book of Virtues then I had Bryce Read The Salamander Room. Then he did an oral narration which was okay but not great. Then I decided to see what he would do with doing a written narration. I didn't think this would go any where seeing as he is only five but I wanted him to do some writing. This is what he wrote. "Thee (three) Salamanders got intoo a house. Brian made a forest in his bed room. He let bugs and bullfrogs and birds into his bedroom."

I was very impressed. Basically he told me the sentence then wrote it. He asked if he needed to put a period after words which were the end of his sentences. I spelled house and Brian for him and Salamander was on the paper. I also helped him sound out forest and bird. Other then that he wrote all the words on his own and spelled them correctly. He actually did better figuring out what to put in the written narration then doing an oral narration.

Then the fun began. I had a huge sheet of white paper that we put outside and painted our own Salamander Room. The boys had so much fun for this. To help with the trees I traced each of the boys twice then they went to town painting. I will try to post a picture next week. The camera is already packed someplace in the van.

I am so glad that the extra books are listed with the emergent readers. That Carrie has reminded me through the art projects that they can be fun, meaningful and really not that bad to do or clean up. I am also glad that I had the courage to try something different. Now I feel ready to get back to Little Hearts next week and start unit 31. I am almost there. I think part of my problem is I want to be done with Little Hearts because I am excited to start Beyond. But I know I should finish one before starting the other.

Julie - It looks like you had a great week with yours and Carrie's boys. I am sure your house has been a busy one.

Just finished unit 26 today.

I am so ready to be done school!
We finished our 180 days on 5/14 and if it would just warm up, I'd call it "summer!"
I hate that we haven't finished the curriculum, but I knew we would not. I think what I will do is just concentrate on the History and Bible sections and do two a day once the weather finally affords us that summer feeling. I know that isn't exactly what Charlotte Mason would recommend... but it is still better than not finishing the book, right?

THIS WEEK - we went on a field trip for the Underground RR. It was outstanding. It was over my son's head [just 7 y.o. and I went] but he behaved well and picked up on some of it. It was so good.



I loved sharing the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance with my son. And I improvised and made my own craft to go with the fruits of the Spirit! We drew a tree, colored in fruit, labelled it and had an example of something he could do for each thing to grow the fruit!

Julie - I have LOVED hearing about your learning in Bigger! Even though I already thought that it looked great, you've convinced me that we're going to make so many incredible memories while learning! Thanks for a peek at your lives! I loved your pictures of this week with Carrie's boys, too. I bet they love getting to be together! My sister has 3 boys...and we LOVE getting together, even though it's very crazy at times. She lives in Atlanta, GA now though... We're looking forward to more cousins in the future from other family members...

Wendy - It sounds like you're in for an adventure! I hope that all goes well for you and you really get to enjoy your family!

Thanks for all you hve to share ladies!
Kathleen

This last week was such a great ending to the year, and I'm glad you liked hearing about it! A picture is worth a thousand words, isn't it?

Melanie - I'm still praying for you and hoping you are soon able to hang up your "astronaut" gloves, as Kathleen would say (I know you have a wonderful sense of humor gals... or I wouldn't say that!)

Kathleen - It IS crazy with 7 boys around the house, but not as crazy as it used to be when Beau and Emmett were really little babies. Cousins are such a gift to be cherished. My other nieces and nephews are in TX though, so I know how those of you feel about not having your children's cousins living closer (though in some cases... this could be a blessing too!).

inHistiming - I am going to MISS you! Your words of wisdom are a staple on this board. Can't that big RV make a little room for your laptop and be parked near an Internet cafe - at least some of the time? What will we do without you?!? Alas, I guess we will need to make do. Please return as soon as possible though - and be sure to take advantage of this much deserved vacation too! I have just prayed for you, your dh, and family, and I hope you have a wonderful time!

momof2n2 - Summer is just around the corner, and that is always a time of renewal, which we all need! I pray for that refreshing of our spirits for you, for me, and for all homeschooling moms.

mom2boys...- I'm glad you had an HOD-inspired week, and thanks for being here!

In Christ,
Julie

well, HOOOOORAY!!! my hubby found my USB cord for my camera! now i can post pictures of our trip and stuff!

not that it has anything to do with school this week

i posted on my homeschool blog today about the Discover America book series, what beautiful books! I'm requesting the "A is for America" one so we can celebrate this patriotic swing through May-July (Headmistress's Office link in my siggy)

we're slowly getting back into the school swing also...it's very easy to get back into using HOD

we're going to review with Beyond the past three weeks of spelling/reading words while we move on in the actual lessons....i think having so much time out of reading set my boy back a tad...and my younger one just is not ready to start Reading Lesson yet...so we'll take that much more slowly than i was hoping, but that's okay!

have a blessed week!

Gosh Julie, that was an awesome post. I love your back yard!!! It must be nice to have family. We have none. Looks like you had a wonderful week though. For someone who has no family and only 1 girl....all those boys?!!! I'd be napping! LOL! Carrie is lucky that you do this while she's gone.

Ladies,

I loved reading all of your posts today when I got back from the airport after our convention in North Carolina. It made my heart glad to see the pictures of my own kiddos in my3son's post, since I missed out on my kiddos doing the last day in "Bigger Hearts..."!

We still have our standardized testing left this week, but it is a wonderful feeling to close up another "school year". I can honestly say we have loved doing "Bigger..." and "Little Hearts..." and are so looking forward to continuing on with "Little Hearts..." in the fall and doing "Preparing..." too! The excitement in me is building as the "Preparing..." guide is coming together so well.

Thanks to each of you for sharing with all of us at HOD!

Blessings,
Carrie

annaz wrote:Gosh Julie, that was an awesome post. I love your back yard!!! It must be nice to have family. We have none. Looks like you had a wonderful week though. For someone who has no family and only 1 girl....all those boys?!!! I'd be napping! LOL! Carrie is lucky that you do this while she's gone.

Ann -
Your words just lifted me up - thanks! Our backyard in town used to be itty-bitty, so our move to the country with more space has been nice. We always joke that it looks like we just moved our house from town out here to the country though, because our former house in town and our house now in the country are both white and over 100 years old - they could be twins!

All those boys are busy, and I do believe I am going to try to take a nap today. Carrie and I help one another out a lot - I don't know what I'd do without her. She always does school with my older sons when I take my baby to his helmet appointments. I wish that you had family near you, but can we sub in ourselves as your family? I think I'd love one more sister! Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

In Christ,
Julie