Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory:
The marker board is a marvelous tool for me right now with Emmett. I pull that little gem out so often. For timeline pictures, I do a rough (and I do mean ROUGH) sketch of what he is to draw, as well as write the timeline entry words under the sketch. This helps him so much, as he just gets stuck staring at the paper otherwise, trying to think how to begin. The rough sketch takes 10 seconds and gets him started right away. It also shows him I don't expect him to draw a perfect picture.
I use the marker board for rough sketches (and again, I do mean ROUGH
), for little pictures to go around his poetry copy work. He appreciates this and is able to start drawing immediately then. I used to feel sad seeing other dc's pictures they drew for activities such as these, but I don't anymore. My sons are not natural artists, though Riley is probably the most blessed in this regard - even he is not a stellar artist. I have had to ask myself if they have done their best and completed all of the assignment. If they have, I count it as good enough.
For science, Emmett and I had such fun with water! We've been reading about the Mayflower, and it was a neat tie-in to science to do this water experiment. In a ziplock bag, Emmett filled it water, added blue coloring, and shook it. Then, I held the bag and he added a few drops of oil. After that, he poured in some salt. He learned from this that oil rises to the surface of water as it is lighter and does not mix with water. Then, he learned when the salt was added, it mixed with the oil and began to sink to the bottom. I like best of all that Emmett was the little scientist in this experiment. He did it all, save the sealing of the bag (I thought I better make sure about that step). So many other science curriculums I've used in the past 20 years I've taught have had ME being the scientist - ME doing the experiments - and ME making the connections. This was because though the experiments looked good on paper, in actually doing the experiments, teachers had to take them over. They were just too difficult. HOD's experiments let the CHILD be the scientist and do the fun stuff. Our dc all love science, and they all do well with it, so I guess it is working!
For spelling, one day each week has Emmett copy 3 sentences using his words. He comes up with the sentences, I write them on the marker board, and he copies them on his own marker board. This is such a good assignment on so many levels. He is thinking what the words mean and having to use them properly in context within sentences. He is practicing spelling the words properly WITHIN sentences, which is naturally how we have to write, as opposed to just making lists. Finally, he is writing sentences properly with capital letters and punctuation. I know from having done this with my other older dc, this one day a week each week in spelling is a big help to doing dictation well.
Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
In Christ,
Julie
), he can do them simply by following Foerster's excellent lead. Believe it or not, Foerster even has a dry wit and quick sense of humor. He finds ways to make story problems witty that I find hard to explain. He really is quite a funny guy! 
