Week in Review: March 24-28

[my3sons]

What was YOUR week Like?

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[my3sons]

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory:
For one of our follow-up skills this week, I typed Emmett's oral narration of his beloved "Key to the Treasure" Storytime book we are reading. Recording a child's oral narration is important to do, and I am glad HOD schedules this in a rotating manner throughout the year. I usually type their oral narrations on days we are asked to record them. I am a fairly fast typist, but my sons are VERY fast oral narrators , so it is often when I ask them to pause a moment while I type what they just said that they begin to read what I am typing and fix their oral narrating 'mix-ups' themselves as they read what they have said. "Oh, I keep starting with AND, don't I?" Or, "I meant to say they found the key BEFORE they used it to unlock the secret treasure box!"

I usually don't 'fix' what they've typed, but if they are very distraught about something they view as a mishap, I do. During this particular narration, Emmett began speaking in dialogue between characters, and it was a lot of back and forth conversation. He realized it halfway through, and said to me as I had him pause for me to catch up on the typing, "Whew! Ok. Now, I'm going to have them stop talking and just tell it." I was glad too. That was a LOT of quotation marks to type!!! Comparing dc's recorded/typed oral narrations (and when they are older comparing their written narrations) throughout the years of following HOD's plans shows great progress. It also shows an increase in length as well as depth. Progress I may not have been aware of otherwise. So, for all of these reasons, this is a great assessment of listening and reading comprehension to practice through the years.


In Science, we have been having fun reading about the earth and the sun. Emmett has especially loved these experiments because his favorite Beanie Balz buddy (Spicey) is the perfect size and shape to be used as the 'earth' or 'sun.' Give a boy a flashlight and a dark closet, and the experiments just got even more exciting! He loved taping a white paper to the wall, using Spicey as the 'earth,' using the flashlight as the 'sun,' and showing how when it is evening and the Earth turns away from the sun, the sun appears to set. We also talked about how the light from the sun has to travel further to reach the Earth at that time of the day, and how then some of the colors are scattered. Using a clear glass of water, with droplets of milk and a flashlight showed how this would occur. Best of all, we read from "God's Wonderful Works" to bring this all back to the Lord and His amazing creation! I am so glad my ds is learning science this way.


Place value in math can be tough; however, Emmett has turned a corner and is now sailing through this. Something has clicked, and the whole idea of 10 ones = 1 ten has set in and become clearer to him. His writing of numbers has improved greatly as well, as in they are a smaller size and legible. Singapore math is like this - periods where you wonder if dc are getting it at all followed by periods where they just finally 'get it' and are doing it with no problem at all. I have learned to move forward in Singapore, but to continue to carefully rely on the Textbook examples and notes we work through together, as well as the HOD hands-on math lessons. These methods are always at my fingertips in times of need, and I feel like I have a great arsenal of 'helps' when we need a quick refresher on something. Often times, I just word it the same way they were taught it previously, and the light bulb comes on.

This week, we got to do a series of hands-on activities and math games together. Emmett thoroughly enjoyed winning the one I took a picture of ( I did not 'make' his winning happen, but it was a little happy bonus for him I was glad he had ). In this game, we each had a 2-column paper of 10's and 1's, a dice, and cereal pieces. We took turns rolling the dice, and putting that number of cereal pieces in the ones column. When we reached 10 ones, we traded them in for 1 bear and put the bear in the 10's column. The first player with 5 bears won, and it was Emmett by a longshot! I have never rolled so many 1's and 2's in my life - luckily I'm not a betting woman, or I am sure I'd be on the losing end. Here Emmett is after having earned his 5th bear and getting ready to eat his 10 cheerios he needed to trade in for his last bear...


What a great week - hope you had one too!
In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Resurrection to Reformation (half-speed):
This week in RTR Riley read about Mohammed's flight from Mecca to Medina (also known as the Hegira). He read about how Mohammed began having visions that led him to write the "Koran." By listening to Diana Waring's "What in the World..." audio CD, Riley learned that the Koran is different from the Bible as it has additions and views Jesus the same that it views Adam, Noah, and Abraham - as all great prophets and nothing more. He was sad that Islam sees Jesus only as a great prophet and not as God's Son and the Messiah. We read from Matthew in Riley's Bible about the Pharisees and Sadducees asking for a sign from heaven from Jesus, to 'prove' He is the Son of God. Jesus had already, at this point, done many miracles, and doing one more miracle would not have convinced them as they had already chosen not to believe. We read of the warning Jesus gave His disciples, and how the teaching of Islam leading people astray is like the teaching Jesus warned about in the Scriptures. Riley then read how Islam spread very quickly as soon as Mohammed changed his peaceful teachings to sword-type forced conversions. The uniting of the Arabs under Islamic teachings lead to them conquering lands all around, including a large portion of the Byzantine Empire, which Riley showed on his accompanying Map Trek map he made...


Last week in church, we read about the high priest tearing his clothes upon Jesus saying He is the Son of God and the Messiah. Today in church, we read in Matthew about the high priest going before Pilate and accusing Jesus of wanting to become the "King." In the prime power of the Roman Empire, this accusation held more weight than the high priest simply stating that according to Jewish tradition, Jesus had committed blasphemy (as Romans didn't care about Jewish traditions). The denial of Jesus as the Son of God has sad, sad consequences. History repeats itself in not recognizing who Jesus really is. We had a great talk as a family about this after church, and it was neat to see how Riley truly grasped this in a deeper way, having made the connection to his history readings in school with what was said in church. What a blessing we can school this way!

In science, Riley is learning about gravity on the moon, compared to gravity on Earth. He read about how the lower amounts of gravity on the moon can cause tides, and how lunar eclipses block the sun's light and cause the Earth's shadow to move slowly across the moon. He constructed a fun experiment to show this using the information he read in "Exploring Creation with Astronomy" to help him, and finally he completed his lab form using the scientific method to show what he had learned...


In "Tales from Shakespeare" Riley read "Winter's Tale" this week. His Shakespeare Student Notebook is turning out to be a lovely keepsake of the time spent reading Shakespeare. He enjoys the intricate pictures to color and likes to copy the quotes from Shakespeare as captions. This is going to be a great way to remember his time doing Shakespeare this year in RTR...


In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

World Geography:
In science, Wyatt has been reading about DeForest inventing the triode to amplify electronic signals. He learned that changing the amplitude or the frequency of radio waves results in speech or music being able to be transmitted. Reading about diodes, transistors, and microchips, further helped Wyatt understand the work of a triode. Next, he read about the discoveries of Roentgen (discovered x-rays) and Becquerel (discovered uranium is radioactive). Moving on, he learned about electrons, protons and neutrons being particles that make up an atom. Rutherford is credited with the discovery of the proton, and Mosely developed a test that shows how many protons are in any given atom. This ebb and flow between reading about scientific terminology / processes and reading about scientists / discoveries is an innovative way to teach science! Having the connection between scientists and scientific findings connects the two in a way that naturally makes the vocabulary and information easier to retain. The text reads very narratively, and that makes it easier to relate to and retain as well. I wish I'd been taught in this manner! The follow-up daily assessments in the "Integrated Physics and Chemistry" activities booklet make it easy to grade and see what Wyatt has remembered. Here you can see some of the text he is reading, and his activity book assessment (which he probably needs to write a little neater on next time, but hey, at least he only missed 1! )...


In history, Wyatt read bout Vancouver being sent to the ports in the northwest coast of North America to enforce England's rights. Vancouver Island, near British Columbia, was named after him and was where he found Spanish houses. Here is Wyatt's written narration as an assessment for his readings...


Wyatt also read about Bruce, who went through an incredible amount of life threatening ordeals, before going on to reach the source of the Blue Nile River in Abyssinia. Wyatt loved reading about this, and it shows in his written narration of the account. I can always tell if Wyatt connected deeply with a reading by the way he begins it...
A young Scottish man felt that his destiny was to find the source of the Nile... Bruce at 25 years of age was determined to find the source of the Nile... After reading that, I knew it would be a good one. For those of you at the somewhat difficult stage of beginning written narrations with your dc, I want to encourage you to take heart! Progress will come, and when it does, you will be so glad you persevered past the rather mundane, short, uninspiring, riddled with misspelled words type written narrations common at the start of tackling this skill. I was in that stage not long back with my middle ds BTW, and looking forward I am seeing that stage on the horizon with my youngest. It's good to remember progress does come, and then - oh the joy of having persevered!


In Logic, Wyatt reviewed the fallacies he has read about previously, and then moved on to learn about the "fallacy of induction" (which is basically misusing empirical data). He loved making a depiction of his favorite fallacy thus far, which was an "appeal to fear/false dilemma." Here he drew an ad showing a crashing plane and the suggested purchase of a 'cheap' survival pack including matches, an axe, a flare gun, camouflage, a GPS, soup, vitamins, and clothes - and then suggested that the only other alternative to purchasing the survival pack was to 'face the danger alone!' Wyatt's dry sense of humor is showing through here.


For "Rooted and Grounded," Wyatt learned about China being one of the last strongholds of Communism today. Containing 1/5 of the world's population, China is quickly becoming a world economic power. Its most common religions include Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. Some of the key verses Wyatt studied along with this topic was Matt. 20:26, 28... "for whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant... for just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many." We had some great discussions about this, as a servant role is difficult to take on sometimes. I enjoyed reading his answers, as they are a window into his thoughts...


As I see Wyatt taking notes on our Pastor's sermon each Sunday, I am reminded of what a privilege it is to homeschool him through high school. Heart of Dakota is helping him see the world through Jesus' eyes, and our learning in school spills over into his learning in church, and his learning in church spills over into his learning in school. It is beautiful to me, as school and church were so very separate entities for me when I was his age, so much so, that I had trouble not being two different people in those two very separate places. Wyatt is himself everywhere, and it's neat to see him not struggling with making sense of that as I did. What a blessing - thank you God!

In Christ,
Julie