heartofdakota.com

Ok Fellow HOD Homeschoolers,

What was YOUR week Like?

You can post:

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

Important Note: If you are linking us to your blog, please make sure it's not just a general link, but to your specific post of HOD. That way if someone reads through these a year from now they can find your share without needing to hunt!

World History High School:
Wyatt and I are in Unit 16 in his WH Guide, and he is in the middle of the Crusades and Islam, Black Death, Mongol Hordes, and the End of Feudalism. Whew! That's a lot to be in the middle of, but boy is in into it! Living books seem to turn our dc into quotable authors, as they construct their own writing styles within their written narrations. No hum-drum copy it out of the textbook type answers here! Originality - it is encouraged in a Charlotte Mason education, and HOD assigns the most intriguing assignments to bring out the creative side of thinking. For my somewhat typically logical, Type A personality son, this is such a joy for me! He has such 'heart' and depth in his written narrations, and here are some of my favorite quotes of his...
... Since the demand for laborers grew with the arrival of the Black Death, serfs were able to rise beyond their station...
... Due to the common belief that at the year 1000 the world would end, Christians began to journey more frequently to sites like Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Golgotha.
... As more tourists poured in, the Muslims began to feel their grip on the Holy City was threatened; therefore, they began to capture and threaten tourists while they simultaneously started to attack Constantinople...
... Although many crusades left for the Holy Land and have been regarded with mixed feelings by Christians since, the first one was really the only truly successful one...


Wyatt just finished reading "The King's Shadow," and it was definitely a difficult literature selection that had him fighting sword battles with Arthur, fighting off the allure of beautiful women who were beautiful on the outside and not on the inside, fighting through differences to keep friends, and and fighting for justice, truth, and the worthy pursuit of a better way of doing things. This definitely appealed to the fighting spirit of a teenage boy, and he really put his heart into his reading and his final plot diagram. His answers span 4 pages of notebook paper, and the answer key had even more in-depth answers than that. This method of assessment is incredibly rich! I am confident of the preparation we are making for college level work.


Critical thinking questions continue to be a favorite of mine, as they are teaching Wyatt to contemplate and apply more fully what he is reading. He is learning to write answers within the model HOD provides, and it is producing great results! His opening sentence to one of the questions was...
As the desire to trade boosted exploration and new lands were found, it was not entirely a good thing.

He goes on to support his opening sentence with this detail...
Often the native people were enslaved and had great suffering, ruining their way of life.

Moving on he provided more details and a closing sentence that made clear his thoughts by echoing portions of the opening sentence. What a solid way to learn this important skill! Thanks, Carrie, for writing such detailed, sound assessments!!! You are making our dc actually THINK!


Finally, Wyatt's art study had him studying the style of Delacroix, a French, Romantic artist. Some easy to check fill-in-the-blanks are followed up with some more deep thinking writing projects and questions. Peppered with beautiful art along the way, and interesting narrative readings about the artist - this is fine arts at its finest. We are really both enjoying this elective, so much we'd probably do it even if it wasn't worth a half-credit.


So, those are some highlights from our week - how was yours?

In Christ,
Julie

Resurrection to Reformation:
Medieval History-Based Writing had Riley taking key word outline notes on various readings about Sir Ector, Sir Kay, and the famous soon-to-be King Arthur. I find that there are many natural unplanned connections between the boys' different guides, and that is always means for each to share something unique. Wyatt has been reading the literature classic "King Arthur" for high school, and Riley has been reading about King Arthur for his writing assignments in RTR. The cross-over has resulted in many lively discussions, as each shares their personal knowledge of the matter. I like that they are doing different things, yet can discuss the overlapping elements, rather it be through Biblical connections, character connections, events, time periods, science connections, etc. There are ALWAYS connections among the learning happening in our home! Doing different guides doesn't sever that group learning feeling. Instead, it makes each person be a 'star to shine' as he is able to share his own knowledge on the matter, and his own connections based on what he is learning. There is never that feeling that the oldest always knows the most, or that one person always 'shines' because they are doing all of the talking. For this writing assignment, Riley had many elements to include in his final piece. There are still a few editing concerns, but I let them go at this point because I was pleased with his final product, and it met the laid out guidelines on the check-off skills provided. Plus, we both just liked how it turned out!


Timelines, written narrations, oral narrations, research, geography - all of these varied follow-ups make the history theme come to life for Riley. Exploration, the English Translation, Copernicus, and Las Casas were all a part of the history theme this unit, and it is easy to see the highlights by perusing Riley's RTR Student Notebooking pages. These pages are filling up to showcase a year's worth of work for his time spent in RTR, and we both just love seeing his notebook grow! He often chooses for me to snap pictures of his completed notebook pages. He enjoys seeing his work from the week all come together, and it really is a beautiful way to organize it that I as a parent have to do nothing to make happen. You gotta love that!


While Riley's glued in project is not the most beautiful works of art this time, I love what it says because it is a window into his heart. Discussions in Boyhood and Beyond, and work within Hidden Treasures for his Bible Quiet Time are really working on Riley's heart. He is starting to make connections to the Word that go deeper than just memorizing it and saying it for me. Of all my dc, Riley is the one that seems to have the hardest time making a 'heart connection' to the Word. He says the right answers, he memorizes the verses, he follows the plans, but though I can't put my finger on why I feel this way, it seems harder for him to truly be connecting deeply with the Lord. Maybe it's hormones, or his changing body, or his age, or I don't know what - but this mama's heart has been searching for that telltale 'light' that shows he gets it - truly gets it at the heart level. This simple project seems to shine to me especially then, not at its beauty artistically, but at its beauty internally. Riley has a very hard time accepting ANY kind of correction from me right now. I think it is a pride issue, because I don't feel I'm being overly hard on him, nor am I being unkind in the way in which I am helping him correct things. I am so thankful HOD keeps Christ at the center and that we are in the Bible every single day. As my dc grow and mature, I realize that those lessons may be the most important lifelong, and God is working on MY heart to put Him first in our education, rather than to always be striving for academic strength. This was a good week because of the 'heart gains' I see in Riley. Thank you, Lord!


Riley continues to love his Shakespeare Study, both the narrative readings and the lovely coloring he gets to do in his Shakespeare Notebook. What a great way to introduce dc to Shakespeare! It is not as intimidating, and I can see it's going to make high school Shakespeare that much more easy to understand and enjoy. Paving the way for learning success in the future - HOD is all about that rather than just looking at one year at a time. Each guide leads into the next guide, and each skill leads into the next skill, and each grouping of guides leads into the next grouping of guides, so that success is at hand and achievable. What an advantage our dc are going to have moving forward!


This has been a busy week, but a satisfying one as well. I hope you are finding the joys amidst the trials of your busy weeks too!

In Christ,
Julie

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory/Bigger Hearts for His Glory:
After finishing out Beyond at the start of the week, we began our first day of BHFHG - hooray! What a milestone to have reached with my precious youngest ds, Emmett! He was beyond excited to begin his new guide, and he raced around the kitchen bobbing up and down as he told my dh about his first school day. He feels all grown up, and I see that too, which has me in a jumble of emotions, alternately feeling like bursting with joy at his growth, or feeling like bursting into tears at the feeling my little one is growing up too fast! Well, I'm choosing joy as much as I can going forward, for time cannot be slowed, and progress is meant to be celebrated. Forgive me for the multiple pictures - it felt like a picture taking week.

Nothing beats a science experiment that lets the whole household eat s'mores mid-morning. Emmett's study of the mantle, core, and crust had everyone cheering!


A beautiful art project Emmett did was painting his vision of heaven. We talked about Papa being there. He brings this up often, which has me in a jumble of emotions all over again. Glad, that Papa is there and healthy and praising Jesus, and sad that he is not here - especially going into a book fair season where my dad used to come and watch the dc. Emmett and he were especially close, so this will be hard. Emmett painted the most beautiful, sunshiny, bright depiction of heaven, and I'm glad that he is happy Papa is well and healed and there. This is an assurance Papa gave as he was dying - that he knew he was going to heaven, and that he was looking forward to seeing his parents there, and that he would be at the feet of Jesus worshiping Him. This was a comfort to Papa as he neared his final stages of cancer. In his obituary, which he wrote himself, he said he would be waiting eagerly for those he loves in heaven - that he would meet us there. If ever we all needed one more reason to long for heaven, this is most certainly it.


Starting "The Secret School" for DITHOR has gone well! I wondered how it would go, as this is a more difficult book than we have done so far. He loves it! He can't wait to find out what is going to happen with Ida and her secret school she is teaching at. The intro to learning about realistic fiction books had him answering questions about himself. We then discussed how a person's perspective can effect how they write a book. This was a great tie-in as the author of "The Secret School" used a place she vacations often as the setting for her book.


I also wondered how beginning dictation would go. He passed! We discussed how to study dictation, looking at the punctuation, the capitalization, and the spelling carefully. I had him study each part, close his eyes and visualize it, and then we proceeded with me reading it phrase by phrase, him repeating it as he wrote it, and us checking it together. He was so happy to have passed!


His first day of R & S English 2 went well too. We discussed a good portion of it orally and chose one section for him to write, which has worked so well with our older dc too. This is a very helpful tip Carrie gives! We talked about how to number his paper in the margin, and I wrote the first few answers for him to visualize the size of writing that fit well on lines. He recognized the sentences from the fragments right away, probably due to the teaching he had 1x a week in Beyond for grammar. Such good prep for R & S English 2!


A week of endings and beginnings - reasons to remember and to celebrate.

In Christ,
Julie

Here is our week from the WG http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2015/01 ... 11615.html

This week Angie said she 'loved' school! I'm not really sure what brought her to this point, but it did my heart good. I'm sure HOD plays some part in it. Our days have been going well, and, Julie, I wrote down a 'routine' for doing the boxes/subjects. Angie likes following the list. She took another book today and started reading again on her own! Praise the Lord for peaceful school days!

Pam hearing that Angie said she "loved school" just brought a huge smile to my face! I think giving her a routine and a list is a great idea. My friends son with ADHD and visually processing issues does much better if he has a list to work off of vs just the boxes. I think it just visually makes more sense to his brain. Also wonderful to hear she took a book off the shelf to read on her own. I pray you continue to have good school days and even if you have bad days I pray God gives you wisdom as to if there is something you can do to make them better or if it just "one of those days" that you need to ride out.

We are after schooling with Hod. We are at week 16 with preparing for my 6 and 5th grader, week 3 in beyond for my 2nd grader and week 25 in LHTH for my 5 year old and 3 year old. We are loving it and cruising right along. Iam hoping to jump into lhfhg before the summer, CtC hopefully in the beginning of summer and finish beyond near the end of summer. After schooling has worked out really well. We are learning lots and enjoying ourselves greatly.

If you don't mind my asking, what do mean by after schooling? Do your kids attend school? That is really if that is the case.

My kids go to public school. When they have snack after school we read history, story time, science, and bible. My middle child gets home 30 minutes before the oldest. So we do his first (beyond) then preparing when the oldest gets home (half speed). In the summer I will do everything. We have enjoyed it so far. I am kind of hoping that I can full time homeschool at some point again, but for now this works.

That is really cool! I will be praying for you that the Lord can answer your prayer to bring your kids home full time.

One thing I love with HOD is that my kids have learned so much about the Bible that it will help them grown deeper in faith tremendously. To me, that is the bread and butter of this program I am sure you kids are soaking in the word as well. And the projects they have you do are just down right fun

psreit wrote:This week Angie said she 'loved' school! I'm not really sure what brought her to this point, but it did my heart good. I'm sure HOD plays some part in it. Our days have been going well, and, Julie, I wrote down a 'routine' for doing the boxes/subjects. Angie likes following the list. She took another book today and started reading again on her own! Praise the Lord for peaceful school days!

So glad to hear Angie is making comments like she 'loved school!' That is a comment kiddos rarely make, even if they do love school deep down. I'm glad the routine order is something Angie likes! You are doing such a good job with your sweet Angie. Peaceful school days are praise-worthy - celebrating with you this week!

In Christ,
Julie