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Ok Fellow HOD Homeschoolers,

What was YOUR week Like?

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a- A picture
b- A blog Link
c- A written synopsis
d- Your favorite memory
e- Anything you want that shares your HOD excitement!

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Week 13 in the WG guide http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2014/11 ... 42014.html

World History High School Guide:
Wyatt has been reading about South America's Inca road systems, Pompeii's destruction, and Marcus Aurelius' reign. His written narration was in regard to the Inca road systems, which were advanced for those times. The past many years of doing written narrations within HOD have helped Wyatt to become more and more adept at this skill - hooray! The noted guidelines for written narrations have gradually increased the length of written narrations, and the Written Narration Skills checklist in the Appendix has gradually increased his editing abilities. I can see how the living books he has read and is reading, alongside the varied writing programs HOD schedules through the years, have worked in tandem to help him develop his own writing style that is rich with vivid vocabulary. To think he has gone from writing 1 sentence narrations that were very guided at the start of PHFHG to 3-5 paragraph narrations that are independent in WH is amazing! I am even more dedicated to follow through with the process with my younger 2 dc now. You can see his narration in Box 1 in the pictures below.

The Critical Thinking questions from "Short Lessons in World History" challenge Wyatt to think more deeply. The topic this week was 'what modern nations can learn from Rome.' The WH guide is helping him solidly develop the skill of answering these types of questions by restating the question, providing supporting details, and using an appropriate closing sentence. So, his starting sentence was... From Rome modern nations can learn that it is very easy to slip into patterns that eventually lead to ruin and destruction. His next several sentences supported that opening statement, and his closing sentence was... All these occurrences brought the Roman Empire to her knees. HIs second critical thinking question was in regard to what the Romans did to keep the poor happy. This sandwich type method of answering critical thinking questions is so effective. It also works for individual paragraphs within essays. You can see these answers in Boxes 2 and 3 of the pictures below.

Wyatt uses his earbuds to listen to his "You Are There!..." CD, and that helps him be able to hear more clearly to take notes. He lists bulleted words and phrases to describe each person's point of view, actions, character, etc., and then he shares his own thoughts and opinions about the topic at hand. The Last Day of Pompeii was the topic this week, and the MP3 playing really portrayed the chaos and ruination of Pompeii's last hours. I love that Wyatt pulls out his Bible regularly for virtually all subjects of school, and he sees the Bible as the best standard to measure decisions by. Pompeii is compared to Sodom and Gomorrah in this lesson, and the parallels are clear. You can see this assignment in Box 4 of the pictures below.


In Fine Arts Wyatt is learning about the beautiful work of Peter Paul Rubens, who became court painter to the Archduke of the Netherlands. He learned his paintings were down on a large scale and reflected faith, family, and pastoral type scenes. The HOD WH Art Gallery is just so lovely - it really makes the paintings come to life. I cannot imagine just reading about these painting and not actually seeing them. I am so glad we are experiencing art in this memorable way!!!


In Total Health Wyatt studied infectious diseases, which was somewhat ironic as we all were recently sick with the flu. So, the discussions we had were very timely. We talked about how it was a blessing that for each of us individually the bout with the flu was rather short, though it seemed longer for us as a family as it slowly made its way through each person. We have been working on building stronger immunity by the foods we eat, exercising, getting enough rest, taking vitamins, and regularly having spinal adjustments. I think it helped each person recover more quickly than if we had not been doing all of those things. We have not been sick for well over a year, so I count that as a blessing. We are glad we are well again though - health is such an incredible blessing from the Lord - one not to take for granted. Here is Wyatt's essay about infectious diseases and immunity...



Wyatt continues to thoroughly enjoy his Pilgrim's Progress study. I am SOOOOO glad we waited to do this study until this year. The discussions we are able to have are phenomenal - so deep compared to if we'd tried to discuss these topics when he was younger! I read Pilgrim's Progress way too young, I remember, and much of the depth of it was lost. Also, it just plain scared me - especially as we watched it at the end on a tv in our church, and the burning at the stake scene was somewhat graphic. Anyway, this is SUCH a better way and time to do it. I am thankful to be having these discussions with my ds at an age when he can truly understand what he is reading.


In Christ,
Julie

Resurrection to Reformation:
This week Riley has been reading about Africa, Italy, and Persia at the end of the 15th Century. His oral narration from the Mystery of History about the African Empire of Ghana showed some promising improvements. He did well with the sequence of the events, he did well with using proper names for people and events (and there were quite a few), and he didn't start his sentences with "And then" but instead used good transitions. Hooray! The thing to continue working on is pausing in the middle of sentences to collect his thoughts. I am not sure where this habit came from, but it is a toughie to break. He is more aware of it now, and he is trying to collect his thoughts between sentences rather within them. Progress is being made, so I'm very happy with his effort.

One of his favorite things this week was making his African mud cloth for his history project. This is a hand-dyed cloth that came from Mali that Riley read about this week. He did a good job following each of the multi-step directions in the guide, and the results were super! These projects provide such growing experiences for our dc. The skills they acquire are so important. First and foremost, they learn to carefully follow directions in their proper order. This is the kind of work I remember having to do like once a year for a science project or for a one-time history project in public school. No one was very good at it, and in general, the projects that turned out well usually had a LOT of parental involvement. Not so in HOD. Weekly practice with multi-step projects and experiments well equips our dc for successful completion of more detailed projects in high school, and even in later life. Our sons can put together an excellent meal by following step-by-step directions on recipes very easily now. They can also follow my handwritten step-by-step directions to do all sorts of laundry. Building things we have bought that include step-by-step directions is usually a pretty easy task, and when those directions are lacking (as they sometimes are these days), they can troubleshoot the steps fairly well. A side benefit is the projects offer a unique more exciting, creative, and fun way to be assessed in school.


Riley's timeline entries were colorful and neat this week. I try to encourage him to take a little time to do these nicely, as they will be such a neat remembrance of what he did through these 4 years of his work in the Hearts for Him Through Time series. When put all together from Creation to Christ to Missions to Modern Marvels, they will create 1 huge beautiful chronological timeline - which is pretty innovative! Creating his own pictures for Muhammad Ruling in Songhai, Ismail and the Shiites Dominating the Safavid Empire, and Leonardo daVinci Painting the Mona Lisa helps him remember what he studied far more than just affixing a pre made sticker somewhere.

Riley researched Savonarola this week. He learned about Savonarola's preaching in Florence, Italy, and how this brought him many enemies - Lorenzo de' Medici and Pope Alexander VI - to name a few. Savonarola was finally arrested, taken to Rome, and tried there. The postcard Riley wrote with his research findings showed he did a good job answering the provided questions in an informal way. As always, Riley chose to write his postcard to his cousin Greyson.


In DITHOR, Riley and Emmett are learning about Main Idea and supporting details. They had an All Levels Together day, and each enjoyed sharing the Main Idea of their readings for the day. The other person could then ask for supporting details, and the person would then respond with answers that supported the main idea they had shared. They loved this! Especially Emmett, who adores big brother Riley.


In math we have been working on factions, and then most recently on ratios. I snapped some pics of the Textbook and Workbook, as there were some questions about how much help is alright in math on another thread on the board. My writing is in red, so you can see how I helped or talked through it as I wrote. (I realize I am a 'messy' helper looking at these! ). Anyway, I have found that math is not a time to leave my dc's side to go do something else. Singapore Math is advanced and includes multiple skills in a lesson. Being their to help ensures dc keep on track with their learning. The sidebar illustrations and pictures of children with thinking bubbles of information provide insight to the mental thinking going on as dc solve problems. I refer to them often. When kiddos lose their way in the Workbook now and then, I remind them of the steps we learned in the Textbook, and away we go. In Singapore, it's good to keep in mind skills are not needing to be 100% mastered before moving on. Many skills are introduced and then practiced in various ways later in the same year and again in the subsequent guides. Standardized Testing required by out state has proved to me Singapore is advanced, and our dc do well on them. So, I expect to help, to stay by their side, and to remind them to use the methods taught. Eventually, the mental math the dc in the sidebar pictures are using in their thinking bubbles are the same mental math methods my dc are using in their heads, and THAT is success. I see it in my high school student - those years together in Singapore have molded him into a very strong math student. I can see it starting to do the same for my other 2 dc, but I must remind myself to have patience, as it takes real time to see those results.


In Christ,
Julie

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory:
Emmett is in Unit 30 of Beyond and learning about the Pioneers going west in covered wagons. He is learning to read maps and globes and is getting better and better at understanding how big of a place this world is and how much it has changed. Tracing river routes and finding each river's mouth, source, and route was one of his geography activities this week. Reading about Dan's family and the dangers they encountered as they headed west really helped Emmett visualize the difficulties pioneers faced. Stampeding buffaloes, broken-down wagons, deep rivers to cross, high freezing cold mountains to cross, and lost trails were just some of the dangers we read about this week.

One shocking thing to visualize was the sheer overpowering size of even just one American bison! Often growing 6 feet tall, and 10 feet long, these massive animals when stampeding caused the ground to shake and tremor. Taping off a rectangle of this size and explaining the measurements to Emmett caused big brother Riley to come and listen in awe too! He joined in the fun of becoming a 'buffalo' and acting out various things buffaloes did within the taped off area of ONE buffalo's size...


Another looming danger for the pioneers was the mountain ranges filled with icy snow. They snow often covered the trail, and losing the trail for pioneers often meant losing their lives. The elements were harsh, and cold, and there was not much protection from them for the pioneers. Many Godly character traits were modeled in reading about the plight of the pioneers. The Native Americans helped Dan's family find the lost trail that was covered by snow, and Dan's family took in a sickly orphaned baby who had been found in an overturned abandoned wagon. The art project Emmett did had him making the mountain range the pioneers crossed. He loved tearing each of the layers, and it turned out nicely!


In DITHOR 2/3, Emmett has been reading about the African Savannah for his nonfiction genre study. His workbook page in his DITHOR 2/3 Student Book had him come up with four questions he'd like answered as he continues reading. He looked ahead in his book, paging through it and scanning the pictures and skimming the bolded titles to come up with his questions. The DITHOR lesson guided him how to choose better questions that have more than one word answers. It also reminded him how to properly punctuate questions with capital letters at the start of the sentences and question marks at the end. He will answer his questions later in the plans, after he has read more of the book. I often write the his answers for him on a marker board as he dictates them to me, and this helps him focus on writing neatly and properly when he copies them. It also helps him focus on choosing the best answers as he says them to me, showing his full comprehension, rather than coming up with easier to spell answers that would display far lower comprehension abilities. Here is a picture of the marker board questions he copied from...


In Storytime, we are reading "All of Kind Family." Emmett had to dictate a letter for me to write. He had to choose a character to write to from the book, and he was to tell her about himself and also ask her questions he'd like to know the answers to in light of the reading we had done that day. He needed help narrowing his questions and keeping them on topic. This is one of the many reasons I love the LA instruction in HOD - it teaches skills he'd not learn on his own just by reading or listening to good books being read to him. He is an excellent reader and good listener already for his age. Now, he needs some LA skills to go along with that reading /listening to better help him learn higher level skills such as beginning to understand the application, synthesis, and analysis levels of reading (as opposed to just the more basic levels of comprehension that do come more naturally just from reading /listening to good books).


In Christ,
Julie