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What was YOUR week Like?

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In Christ,
Julie

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory:
In "Stories of the Pilgrims" we have been reading about the Pilgrims and the Indians. Today we read about how Chief Massasoit and the Pilgrims were able to keep the peace until Massasoit died. Indians sold land for beads and blankets that soon wore out, and then they longed for the land back. Pilgrims had paid for their land first, but as more and more white people settled in New England, taking land by force became more common. It would seem the further people got away from their original treaties, the further they got away from being able to live together peacefully. As younger leaders on both sides who were less wise and more prone to rash decisions took over, peaceful times came to an end. We had a good talk about how there is much to be learned from our elders, how land is always a precious thing to own, and how all that glitters is not gold (i.e. beads and blankets). Emmett had his brother Riley help him make his special blanket for his history art project. As Riley is now working through RTR half-speed, he enjoys hopping in and helping Emmett with this or that, and I'm thankful he does.


We also read about the Pilgrims' cows dying from eating poisonous plants. Emmett really loved this art project, though you can tell this mama doesn't know how to draw the face of a cow very well!


We finished "The Cricket in Times Square" early, as we loved it so much, and so we began its sequel "Tucker's Countryside." It's becoming obvious what kind of books Emmett likes best. Humor will probably be his favorite genre, along with animal adventure books. He begs me to read more each day, and is doing a good job of narrating. I appreciate that HOD balances the books I am reading aloud according to genre. So many new favorites are found this way, and so much is learned! We love our cuddle up on the couch time together, and the teacher in me loves that we're not just reading, but also doing meaningful follow-ups together that help teach him good narration and solid comprehension skills.

We finished up measurement in Singapore Math 1A. Ordering the weights of household items from least to greatest according to labels was a fun activity. Emmett was surprised at how some things in small packages or bottles weighed more than some things in larger packages or bottles. He couldn't believe how much honey weighs!


We moved on to Singapore Math 1B this week, and using marshmallows Emmett acted out addition and subtraction problems. He rolled his marshmallow "snowballs" down the hill into the "valley" one at a time. We wrote accompany addition and subtraction problems as he did. He kept eating a few marshmallows at a time, so we had to keep adding a few more snowballs. He loves math so much thanks to HOD's hands-on activities!


What a good week!
In Christ,
Julie

Resurrection to Reformation (half-speed):
Riley is enjoying his science in RTR so much! This week he read about the craters on Mercury's surface and did an experiment to reenact a possible way they were formed. Taking 3 rocks of different sizes, Riley dropped them in a blow of flour. The result was a dent in the flour in a circular shape. Riley took his time completing his lab sheets question, hypothesis, procedure, and conclusion. He colored it so nicely, and he wrote neatly this time too. Hooray!


Riley's DITHOR book is in the Vikings series that he is also reading from for his RTR Storytime. He is loving both books! I've been asking him to write lengthier answers in his DITHOR 4/5 Student Book. I've also been asking him to write with better vocabulary and detail on his Storytime ring of cards, where he looks for specific things each day in his reading (i.e. new vocabulary, a great quote, etc.). I like the skills taught in DITHOR and in Storytime. They teach different things but are related by the fact that they work to strengthen LA skills. Riley has been in the habit of using quite general terms in his answers. For example, he will say 'things' instead of specifically what the things are, or he will say 'the girl' instead of the character's name, or he will say they went to the town instead of naming the town. Gradually we are making progress in this area, and his writing keeps improving.

In Riley's oral narrations, he does a great job of remembering the important things that happened and of retelling those events in proper sequence. One thing he has a hard time with is narrating smoothly. He has a kind of choppy way of retelling, pausing at awkward places within his sentences, and it just makes it hard to listen to. We've been talking about this and making this his one thing to work on each time. I always compliment him on all the things he has done well first - he is very animated and does many things right, but then we come back to this one thing to work on. He is starting to 'hear it' himself. I put my hand out and smoothly move it from left to right as he is talking and then stop as he stops. He can see that sometimes he is stopping at strange places. Today he gave one of his best oral narrations. It had all the things I already love about his narrating, and it was also quite smooth. Progress - yahoo!

Riley continues to love his history projects. This week he crumpled and tea-stained paper to make a parchment-like paper to write upon. He wrote first in Greek and then translated in English under it. He still needs to learn to spread out his work to fill the provided space, but overall he did a nice job...


We are enjoying are slow start in RTR together, and it is giving us time to work on some important skills. I am thankful for the way the HOD guides incorporate teaching these skills in a purposeful gradual way. It really encourages growth and maturity through the years, as well as provides excellent means for meaningful varied assessments. I can tell he's improving from day to day, and that is a good feeling for me and for him too!

In Christ,
Julie

Here is our week in MTMM http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2014/02 ... 21714.html. It was a good week.

I love reading the posts and pictures of everyone's week. It is fun to see others doing the same guide(s) I am doing, and those who are ahead. LynnH your son is doing so well with his drawing! He does great work. Julie I love to see your boys' smiling faces with their projects that they are so proud of. I have gotten better at taking pictures of our weekly school stuff, and I even made a photobook of last year's and hope to continue that each year. It is so fun to look back at all they have learned and done.

This week we did part of LHTH, learned the letter R, and about Jesus choosing his disciples, being baptised, and saying "No" to Satan. I love now that we are talking about Jesus and learning about His life. My daughter is also listening to her "Jesus Storybook Bible" on CD quite a lot and at church they have been doing Moses and Egypt. Her teacher was impressed that she knew the 10 plagues, but only because of the Storybook Bible CD! I am impressed with what she can learn. She regularly does memory verses with her sister in Beyond (because there is candy at the end of the week for memorizing).

My 7YO did Beyond and we read in American Pioneers and Patriots about the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam and how they brought cows - so we made homemade ice cream and homemade cottage cheese. They loved that. I even made some with soy milk for my two dairy intolerant and it worked out pretty well for them, though my youngest, who has never had ice cream, didn't care for how cold it was. We loved the story of Peter and Trinka the cow, the stories about children living in these times really bring it to life for my daughter.

We finished Unit 5 and started Unit 6 in Preparing. We are talking about Egypt, reading Tirzah (which I mostly love, and I do love how real it is from the perspective of a girl living there, and how it brings the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt to life. My 9YO and 7YO both wait anxiously for when we can read Tirzah), and back to Grandpa's Box which I really love so far. I love how it brings the redemptive story and how it shows what is happening spiritually during all these Bible events. The independent history activities have been really fun - last week a cartouche of heiroglyphics and this week a shepherd's staff, which my DD insisted on painting all the way from top to bottom. She loves these projects so much. We did have trouble researching "crook" online because of the other meaning of crook, and we were curious about the crook and flail on the Egyptian mummies but I couldn't find anything that explained why those were symbols the Pharoah would use. I admit to not searching long and hard for it, we talked through it a little bit and she just enjoyed making it.

I hope everyone else had as blessed of a week as I have! My main blessing is that we are all restored to health and also this week we had beautiful weather (which next week is not supposed to be nearly as nice). We had park dates with friends and enjoyed unseasonal warmth. Back to winter here soon I guess.

I have begun to feel like all of my week in reviews sound similar and it might be boring to some. This week I posted a very thorough review about the science in Rev2Rev--exploration education advanced. Feel free to take a look at it.
http://roseacademyacademics.blogspot.co ... ation.html