heartofdakota.com

What was YOUR week Like?

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A peek into our week with Beyond:
http://mimishouse2005.blogspot.com/2013 ... -18th.html

Have to share our Coral Cup experiment from Unit 21 in Preparing. We always look forward to the edible projects.

Here is our week!



LHTH: Unit 13
LHFHG: Unit 19
Bigger Heart: Unit 21

http://gracefilledhomeschooling.blogspo ... 18-22.html

We got most of school accomplished despite a snowstorm that drew my children outdoors. Plus all the wood splitting and stacking to prepare beforehand.

LHTH Unit 3
Friday, an hour after school was over she asked to do school again. She loves having her school.
LHFHG Unit 10
Just an ordinary week for him, plugging away on TRL and his books.
Bigger Unit 21
This unit was mainly about Andrew Jackson, and ds's statement when he heard that was "I've heard of him!".
We went a bit deeper into the history portion because he just loves it. We touched on the Trail of Tears since we had ancestors travelling it.
(They were Choctaw, one of the lesser known tribes on the trail.)
On Science I misread the page numbers on day 1, and accidentally read 4 days worth.
It came in handy later, when I only had to summarize it when we were short on time.

A lot of our education came with sledding, snowing, and preparing ourselves for winter.
It fit right in with LHFHG's 'Peter Cottontail" that we learned about this week.

Here's our week in Bigger Unit 23. So much fun!

http://www.monarchroom.com/2013/02/hear ... eview.html

Little Hearts for His Glory:
We have been having such fun reading about George Washington this week in history. We actually read about celebrating George Washington's b-day on President's Day ON PRESIDENT'S DAY! Isn't it amazing how God puts together deep learning and connects things in wonderful ways we'd not be able to think through, all because we honor Him by homeschooling with Him at the center?!? I truly give thanks to Him for all He does to make our homeschooling a success with Him in the middle of it all. Here is one of Emmett's art projects from this week - oh, how that boy adores painting!


It has been neat to see how well Emmett remembers the Bible verses from the past 25 units well. This has been a review week. I love how these are planned in the LHFHG guide. He could sing them once and remember them right away. What fun!

Emmett loves to fish with my dh and his brothers, so this week's storytime activity of acting out Farmer Brown's Boy fishing for trout was especially fun. The way LHFHG introduces beginning oral narration skills makes such good sense and is very successful (I'm basing this on my older 2 sons' trek through narrating via HOD's excellent guidance right from the start in LHFHG). Here, Emmett got to orally retell the chapter we had read about Buster Bear and Farmer Brown's Boy fishing by narrating as he acted it out - he did such a good job!


Look how upset he is as he acts out Farmer Brown's boy being upset he caught no fish!


Emmett wrote this all on his own this week, by looking at a markerboardt for the words to copy instead of tracing them like he used to. He did pretty well, and had a good sense of humor too!


HOD's hands-on math activities do such a great job of helping Emmett thrive at math. Here he is with his worms in his soil acting out story problems, like "There were 5 worms in the garden. Farmer Brown's boy pulled 2 of them out to go fishing. How many were left?" I love that we use things on hand that require no prep for these activities - yarn for worms, black paper for soil, squares of paper with an "x" on them to cover the worms taken away... easy as can be, yet so effective!


In Christ,
Julie

Creation to Christ:
Riley and I have been reading about Nebuchadnezzar this week in CTC. He loved drawing and coloring his hanging gardens. I didn't get a picture snapped of it, but it was a beautiful picture! Riley loves to carefully draw and color each of his Draw and Write Through History assignments. I am glad we have slowed to half-speed CTC for now to give him ample time to do this...


In science, Riley is enjoying reading "Birds of the Air." This is another rare find of a book that somehow HOD managed to find, and I am so glad for it. The author obviously loves birds and has such a narrative, completely interested way of speaking about them. Charlotte Mason truly knew what she was talking about when she said a key trait of a living book is the author is passionate about what they are writing about, often taking their entire life to research or work with that topic. Whoever asks the author of a textbook? No one cares. They are all the same. But the author of a living book? Well, naturally one wants to know that, and if one enjoys it, finding another book on the same topic or a similar topic by the same author becomes a reader's quest. Blessedly, CTC also includes "Plant Life in Field and Garden" by this same author already in its science package. Riley will love that when he gets to it! HOD's bird book dc make leaves enough room for ample creativity to shine through, while still providing a solid assessment of what was read. I like how Riley's book looks different that Wyatt's when he did CTC, and I know I'll enjoy seeing how Emmett's (eventually) looks different than either of theirs too!


We had lots of fun in the kitchen this week in CTC. We began making the different colored dough for the statue Nebuchadnezzar dreamed about. We will have fun assembling and baking it tomorrow. I like how the BIble verses are read right along with it - I want our learning to lead to deeper learning about the Bible. There is no knowledge without God - great to learn that right from the start!


Science had Riley in the kitchen too. He put an egg in white vinegar for a week. It became like a rubber ball! Then, he put the same egg in white corn syrup. We'll tell you what happens next check-in! Of course, all the boys had to come see the strange egg. Riley LOVES CTC's science! He cannot wait for it each time. HIs science is a far cry from the science I had in ps. I am so glad he loves it and wish I had learned it this way!


In Christ,
Julie

Missions to Modern Marvels:
Wyatt and I really enjoyed our readings and discussions from the "Who Am I?..." Biblical worldview study this week. Wyatt really likes the stories about the Knight Will, and his helper Brandon. Brandon and he were very hungry and saw a deer to hunt on the king's property. Will said not to shoot it because it was against the law to hunt what was rightfully the king's. Brandon reluctantly obeyed, and they soon found a ram stuck in the bushes on a property of their own. I love how parallel the stories are to the Bible, yet how they still cover so many different genres and situations. We have had great talks about the stories and Scriptures building blocks in this study. Like, just because you don't get caught sinning, that doesn't mean you weren't sinning. A sin is a sin, and God always sees it even if we're not caught. We talked about how we often sin when we think no one can see us, like when we think we are alone, or late at night, or when it is dark out. This is because we convince ourselves it is not a sin, but in truth, it is. Such good talks and so timely as my ds is now a teenager and there are so many temptations out there.

Wyatt had a blast planning his DITHOR final project this week with his little brothers. They chose the Battle of Hastings to re-enact, and it was such fun for me to come watch it as they narrated it play by play. They even involve little Emmett, though he is not yet doing DITHOR. As you can see by the pictures below, the battle took place throughout the entire house, with many nerf guns and pillow/block blockades, as well as plastic ball pit ammo. I love how family-oriented these projects are...


"Write with the Best 2" is turning Wyatt into a well-versed literary critique. This appeals to him on many levels, as teenagers love to have healthy ways to express their opinions. He is reviewing the abridged version of "Treasure Island," which he read for fun a few weeks ago. The guidance in WWTB 2 and the way HOD has segmented the lesson plans really works together to help Wyatt be successful with his writing. The critique examples are HARD, and they give him something high to aim for with his own. Focusing on a segment of the critique at a time really helps him to put his all into each part of it and then makes it easier when it comes time to pull it all together. Here is his first paragraph...


Wyatt is really enjoying "I Am David" right now for his Storytime. He can see how being born in a concentration camp and escaping would make trying to made do alone outside of the concentration camp a real challenge. This boy is clearly special and is reaching out to God as much as he knows how. Though sometimes misguided and often misinterpreted by those around him, he is someone you learn to love and have a heart to help. Empathy and compassion are pretty important character traits. I'm glad the books HOD chooses for my dc to read are imparting traits such as these to my impressionable teenager.

We had such a good week with MTMM! I hope you did too!
In Christ,
Julie

We had a great week last week. We finished up Unit 20 in Beyond and Unit 5 in LHHFG. Love seeing everyone's pics. Makes us look forward to what is ahead
http://q4kids.blogspot.com/2013/02/blhf ... it-56.html

My phone wasnt working right so i dont have all the great pics of experiments and fun loke i had hoped, but here is my 9yo's first week in PHFHG this past week! Ill blog more later for our other three guides

http://www.schooldaysgoneby.com/2013/02 ... phfhg.html