heartofdakota.com

Hello 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!

Here's our week with Bigger.
http://wonderfilleddays.com/bigger-hear ... ry-unit-6/

Unit 13 in Little Hearts and Bigger Hearts:

http://myfullhandsandheart.blogspot.com ... 15_24.html

Here is my blog post covering week 9 and 10 in the WH guide http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2015/10 ... 32015.html

Thanks all for sharing your week in review! We had just a so-so week here, though we got through MOST of our work, I feel like things need some tweaking.

We did unit 2 of Beyond, unit 31 of Bigger, and unit 25 of CTC.

We are ramping up in Beyond and my DD is slowly getting the hang of the extra work. Much to my surprise, she loves spelling. I am not at all surprised that she loves the history books and the storytime read-aloud, we are doing Squanto, friend of the Pilgrims. She also really likes the timeline, surprisingly. The way it is introduced really helps the kids understand what we are doing with it. I love all of the things being incorporated. We did a little extra time on the continents and oceans (back in unit 1) and she is still talking about those too. I got out my globe and large world map and had her go over the continents and oceans several times.

Bigger is going really well. We will likely be finished with it right before Thanksgiving. The challenge is definitely ramping up and I am also trying to think of ways to have her take over independence on some things. Timeline is one I am now having her read and do on her own. She loves The Wright Brothers and all of the activities going along with these readings are really fun! It's so fun to explore air and flight with her and see her discover it. She's also reading at the same time Amelia Earhart for DITHOR, which we could go visit a museum about here in Atchison, KS, where she lived with her grandparents for a number of years. I am really tempted to schedule this trip!

My daughter in CTC is also clipping right along and doing really well with it. I'm thankful for the growth I am seeing in her, and even the ways she uses what she learns for other things. Writing has always been a struggle, but now I see her being creative and using her writing skills for things in her free time. It shows that all this work is paying off! She really seems to enjoy the creative writing work in WWTB. She's writing a folk tale right now with some dog and cat characters. I just love her creativity, we are still working on using descriptive words, but as that's where she needs to grow, I think she is doing so well.

The issues with this week have been that the baby has been up at night, therefore I am so tired, and therefore my motivation and patience during school has not been very good. One day I really just called the rest of school off at 12 and said "we're going to the park, kids!" The weather is so nice and I just felt my attitude going way downhill as I was trying to keep them on task and get school done. Problem #1 is definitely me - my time on my phone or me getting distracted with my phone or computer when I am waiting for someone to finish something. This then leads to my kids getting distracted also, or when I am not paying attention my 6 year old especially has a bad habit of running off to play. So, Thursday my commitment was to not even touch my phone during school. That did make a difference, but the kids still have things to work on and Lord willing I will be able to help them with that. On Tuesday. Monday we are going to visit a friend who just had a baby.

Bigger Hearts for His Glory:
In history, we read about Washington crossing the Delaware River and attacking Trenton the day after Christmas. The river was icy, and a few of the men froze to death. Some of the men didn't even have shoes! They left bloody footprints in the snow. But, when the morning came, Washington surprised Cornwallis, and was able to take Trenton! Here you can see the icy river and the footprints of the brave soldiers...


As Emmet is now in the second third of his guide, I'm having him do 2 vocabulary words instead of 1. For the last third, I'm having him do 3 vocabulary words. This will help him be ready for the 3-5 vocabulary words planned in PHFHG. Emmett looked up "seine" and "tax" in his children't dictionary and wrote the definitions. He drew pictures for each of them too...


He also made a neat note booking page about Henry Knox...


Finally, he saw how he measured up to an ostrich, for science. Big brother Wyatt helped with this experiment, and Wyatt was much closer to the ostrich's height than Emmett was!


Another great week of homeschooling my little one!

In Christ,
Julie

Revival to Revolution:
One thing I love about homeschooling is my children are just happy and content with the way they are! They aren't worried about bullying or making friends or being safe or impressing others, and I saw a lot of sweet kiddos worried about those things back when I used to teach in public school. Riley and I have been enjoying "The Exciting World of Creative Writing." It is a writing program that encourages creativity, while also encouraging dc to consider how they are representing themselves as Christian writers by the style and topic of writing they choose. As a very short part of a lesson, Riley had to quickly try to jot down a 4-line poem. I LOVED what he wrote - not that it was so academically impressive, but that it spoke volumes of how he feels about himself and how he views God as His Creator...


"George Washington's World" is a favorite of Riley's that he gets to read for history. It is written so narratively, and the hand-drawn pictures give it a journal-like feel. It is a wonderful replacement for those dry and utterly forgettable textbooks I used to have to read for history in middle school! I love to see him curled up reading his history in his favorite chair, eating his favorite snack, just all smiles that he gets to enjoy a book like that and call it 'school work.'


For history projects this week, Riley whipped up some pretty amazing things in the kitchen! One day he made English Tea Cakes, and the next day he made French Tea Cakes. He was able to follow the recipes' directions in the guide easily, and they turned out great! The other boys had fun eating them!


I hope you had a wonderful week too!

In Christ,
Julie

World History High School:
Wyatt has been listening to Bonhoeffer: The Cost of Freedom for his Living Library in WH, and he says it is one of the very best, if not THE best, audio he has ever listened to. He has been completing his Literary Synthesis Sheet as he listens, and he has been so inspired by Bonhoeffer's courage to stand strong for Christ in the face of oppression. He is also nearing the end of Pilgrim's Progress, and the connections between these 2 resources are powerful. I have greatly enjoyed discussing Pilgrim's Progress's questions and written work with Wyatt this year. This is such a much better way to go through Pilgrim's Progress as mother and son discussing it together, than how I first was introduced to it (which was by watching a movie when I was 12 yo that showed the burning at the stake). I didn't even get what was happening, as we just watched the movie with no prior discussion! Anyway, this experience with Pilgrim's Progress with my son with Heart of Dakota has been entirely different! It is inspiring, the deeper meaning of it all makes sense, and the eternal blessing of pressing on toward the prize of heaven no matter what shows it for the gift it really is!!!

In Lit study, Wyatt is nearing the end of Les Miserables. It is a wonderful book that I enjoyed reading myself last summer! I am surprised at how much Wyatt is getting out of it! It is a difficult book, and the enjoyment of reading it is enlarged tenfold by 'reading between the lines' and understanding the innuendoes and implications of what is 'really going on' (in layman's terms). The back of the book has some wonderful 'helps' that I referred to when I read it, and Wyatt has enjoyed those as well. The Common Place Book and Literature Journal, as well as the annotating, have been excellent ways to reflect more deeply about each day's reading!

The entire year with WH has been a fantastic year of learning! But one of my favorite things about my ds doing HOD for high school is that he is still able to pause and be a part of the other boys' homeschooling. For DITHOR's biography project, my 2 youngest sons chose to interview Wyatt. He surprised them by showing up for the 'interview' dressed in a totally crazy costume! The boys LOVED it! They totally got into the interview, and so did Wyatt! The best part? Lots of laughs, awesome memories made together, and brothers growing closer and closer to one another to be best friends! Having Wyatt home for high school is one of the best things we have ever done. Not just for him, but for all of us.


In Christ,
Julie