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Ok Girls,

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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Preparing Hearts for His Glory:
We finished The Wonderful Winter as our read-aloud yesterday. We ended up loving it, and being quite sad to finish it - I wanted that winter to go on and on for Sir Robert Wakefield (or more affectionately "Robin"). I also wanted to spend more time with Shakespeare, for through Robin's eyes, Shakespeare truly came to life. That was a great read. My ds and I both gave a collected sigh of satisfaction at the end of it - though also we were both a bit wistful it was done. The Storytime books in PHFHG have given us such a complete look into the lives of people living during the time periods we've studied. The people became real - almost friends of ours, if you will. We have only 3 more weeks left of PHFHG now; we'll be sad to see it end, yet happy at a year well done.

We are still enjoying CHOW - Hillyer's storytelling has just grown and grown on us. My ds really gets his humor, and laughs at the appropriate moments during our reading now. One of my favorite things that happened this week is both of our boys chose to read their poems (several times over) in front of our fireplace. They did it as if they were the poets themselves. That was neat to hear, especially when I think back to how it all began with lots of stumbling over the lines, pausing inappropriate (or no) places. They really have the feel of poetry now, and it's fun to listen to. Wyatt wrote a 10 stanza poem this week completely on his own for the Creative Writing lesson. I went upstairs to get our toddler, and by the time I came back downstairs, Wyatt had finished. It was a good poem, and he was especially proud of its length. I was too - I like it when he chooses sometimes to go above and beyond what's asked of him on his own; it usually means he was inspired.

One last thing - the dictation. I am really surprised at how well he is doing with this now. I realized I was only supposed to be saying it once (in phrases), and not repeating it for him. I'd started off doing it the right way, and I had somehow gotten sidetracked (or talked into ) rereading it for him. About a month ago, I went back to saying it only once. It was harder for him at first, but I can tell now that this has cultivated the habit of listening attentively. He is doing very well now, and misses probably only 1 dictation each week. He has also learned to carefully check it over before getting the guide to correct it. I love how the LA skills he's learning just spill over into all of learning and life. When he wrote his great grandmother yesterday, he only had 2 spelling errors and 2 missing commas in about 3 lengthy paragraphs. CM methods really do work wonders!

Here is a picture of him doing his dictation - I should have taken more pics, but my camera somehow switched to "Italian" language, and wouldn't let me snap a picture anymore I've since figured it out and gotten it back to English. :


In Christ,
Julie

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory:
Just last weekend, Riley told my dh that he loved school and wanted to do it every day, even on the weekends. My dh and I really could not believe this because he is our ds that loves the outdoors and has never been unsure what to play for his free time. He is just ALL BOY! It was a great little gift from God that Riley shared that with us.

He is especially enjoying our Storytime read-aloud, The Key to the Treasure. We are only several chapters into it, and he can hardly wait for the next time. He also loved reading Tornado out loud to me from his Emerging Reader's Set. He always wants to practice it once first, by himself all cuddled up with a blanket on top of our master bed. Then, he shouts "I"M READY, MOM!!!" If I am not up those stairs in a flash, he can hardly handle it. We just finished the book Thurs., and it had a great ending. He feels like such a big boy reading the emerging readers, and I'm glad he's excited about reading. He'll often offer to help Wyatt, his older brother, sound out difficult words (which Wyatt doesn't need help with), but it's too cute to see Riley already feeling like quite the expert in reading.

For history, we've been on pins and needles with Stories of the Pilgrims, waiting to see if Isaac and Joseph will escape being Indian slaves and make it back to their parents' home, which is many, many, unknown miles back. Riley has the book all ready to go, and is usually very impatiently waiting for me on the couch to join him (I'm usually finishing up with Wyatt's PHFHG grammar). He had his Bible memory verse memorized on the first day and was so proud of himself. He really liked all of the BLHFHG math activities on graphing this week. We made a bunch of graphs using masking tape and manipulatives - like playing cards, snacks, etc. He then had to compare the results, like saying "there were 4 more marshmallows than crackers" and "there were 4 less crackers than marshmallows", or "there were 22 snacks altogether", etc. Then, he enjoyed eating the snacks. This made his Singapore math page super easy. Here are some pictures of the cards graph:



I hope you had a great week too!
In Christ,
Julie

We finished week 28 of Little Hearts For His Glory this week.
We had a really tough week [not because of HOD ].We had the Educcational Psychologist round doing an in depth assesment on Nathan that took around 3 hours.She was very nice ,and the actual assesment was no where near as bad as the anticipation.Plus we knew her job was to get Nathan into school [and to be fair when we first started Gettting Nathan assesed,wayy ,way back at christmas time- it was something we considered.If you knew from the day you held your baby that you were going to homeschool-I envy you.We never had that vision.]Anyhow she was not anti homeschooling and she had some good suggestions on helping Nathan .She was satisfied we were meeting his educational needs.We refused her offers of helping Nathan settle into school with some support.We are homeschooling.Now we have just one more appointment with a Doctor and hopefully we can put all these assesments behind us.We also had Stanleys Speech therapy assesment this week[he was within normal range ].Its been a stressful time .
Now for the enjoyable parts of this week-our HOD
Here is Nathan with the model he made of the earth,with the sun[swim ring/light] on the left of the earth and the moon we made from foil on the right of the earth.We were learning about the moon ..





Here is the Jefferson house on Monticello .The house should have been red,but we had a small yellow wooden house block

Here we are exploring the Lewis and Clark Trail


We had a big step forward this week.Nathan actually started singing.He was never over enthusiastic about the ryhmes in motion.He usually did the actions but this week for the first time he sang too. Nathan doesnt sing anywhere even at church normally so its a big step forward for us.

Here is some of our blog
http://stanleysmagicgarden.blogspot.com ... clock.html
http://stanleysmagicgarden.blogspot.com ... erapy.html

Spiderman's mom: I'm so glad your ds's week of testing is complete. I know the stress that can add for both mom and ds. The information will be good to have - I am so glad you will be homeschooling though; each day you will see exactly what your ds is doing, and you will be able to make needed adjustments right away rather than waiting for all of the red tape that a change would require in ps. You are doing a wonderful job!

I enjoyed seeing your ds's experiment with the sun, moon, and stars. Monticello was lovely too - even with the bit of yellow (I remember our Monticello had a lego man on the roof . They have to put their own stamp on things, right? ). It sounds like your ds is clipping along with his phonics too. I wish I could have heard him sing his rhymes in motion - that is so fun. Thanks for sharing, and I'm looking forward to a week free of testing for you now - it will be so nice to get back to normal.

In Christ,
Julie

We finished Unit 26 in LHTH this week.

We had great fun with the letter "U". "Bean-ing" it...


Walking on it...


Writing it on the rainy window...


Garret and Allison continue to enjoy the Bible stories and the activities that go with them. A couple of our favorites that went along with the Prodigal Son story were measuring with our feet...


...and lacing the son's trip away from home and back again on our "rocky path".


They also really enjoyed noticing what was missing from our line-up of items. (This went along with the Bible story where the father noticed his son was missing when the bad grape-growers killed him.)


And, welcoming people to our banquet... (As we talked about the application of this story, I couldn't help but think of the song "Come to Jesus".)


To top off our wonderful and eventful week, my little Gar-Bear is now 3! We celebrated Garret's birthday May 3.

(Could you tell that I had been at the park and ball practice and cleaning all day? I seriously should have thought of putting on a little make up or doing something other than a pony-tail for this momumental occasion... Oh, well, we had a wonderful time! Grant's really not grumpy here either, he was trying extra-hard not to laugh at Grandpa in the background. He was laughing so hard in the other picture that there were tears coming out of his eyes! )

Kathleen

PS I'll be back later to post about our week with Bigger. Gotta run now!

Grant and I are really into the story of the Wright Brothers and Their Sister. What a great example of perseverance, creativity, and teamwork!! Truly inspirational! This week they've been gliding and making trips to Kitty Hawk. (There are days/weeks where I'm quite sure Kansas was their runner-up location. ) Not this week however. Our kite has yet to fly as we've had very rainy, calm days. Grant has enjoyed experimenting more with lift and air pressure. Here he is in action. (The stuffed animals were in a high pressure area and moved to a low pressure area.)



We've also now finished reading and experimenting Pioneer-style. We have absolutely loved A Pioneer Sampler! In Grant's own words, "I think this might be the best book we've read. I feel like we've lived there. I wish I really could live there; that would be so much fun!" (Now of course if I questioned him, I'm guessing that it would be tied with several other favorites from the year. But, I have to agree that it has been very informative and interesting...and I imagine how cozy the pioneer days sound. But they were a lot of work! ) We experimented with yeast's job in bread this week.


We're reading about Sterling North's adventures with his pet racoon Rascal right now in storytime. (I'm now imagining a trip to visit my sister in northern Wisconsin and get in on some peaceful days in the woods. Ahhh!) Grant really wants a racoon now. And it doesn't help a whole lot that my dh had 2 racoons when he was younger...

4 more weeks to go! We're all looking forward to summer break, but I'm going to be a bit sad to see Bigger and LHTH go. We have made wonderful memories this year!! Praise the Lord! It's just a wonderful feeling to feel like I've spent my time on what is most important and that I've been able to impact my kids' hearts spiritually. HOD has been a great tool this year to help my family in both of these ways!

Kathleen

We also had a special field trip Friday. We had a very interesting trip to an Insect Zoo (with a great guide!). Grant gets freaked out by spiders...so petting a tarantula was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for him. (He said he doesn't feel the need to do it ever again. ) Here's a picture of Allison with the tarantula. I didn't quite catch the boys. We also went to a "real" zoo for the rest of the day. AND got very yummy ice cream from the K-State Dairy!

Julie - You know the only thing that really keeps me from being sad that Bigger is almost done, is that Preparing is coming next! Even more wonderful books to love! Wyatt really does well with his writing. I've loved his poems that you've shared through the year. What fun you must have teaching little Riley, too. You've gotta love that zest that clearly comes through in your posts of him. It's great that he loves learning and reading!!! Way to go mom!

Spiderman's Mom - I'm sure you're sighing a sigh of relief that you can have a "normal" week. It's great that your seeing such progress with Nathan and have the blessing of teaching him at home. He really looks like he's enjoying the activities and it had to be great to have him join in on singing! Keep up the good work!

Kathleen

Julie-I loved seeing the pictures of Riley and reading about your week with Beyond.I love that Riley wants to do school every day.I occassionally get nervous about leaving little hearts and moving on to beyond[will we cope-will it be tougher] so its reassuring that Riley is enjoying it so much.I have similarissues with my camera,it chnages the date every now and then and I end up back in 2007 .or it changes the light or speed or something and we have really grainy pictures.Wyatt is doing well with his letter writing and I m sure his grandmother will be overjoyed to read his letter
Kathleen -Happy birthday to Garrett.I think you look just fine in the photo,what a beautiful family you have.I love how affectionate your littles look doing LHTH.I am getting excited about Starting LHTH with Stanley in the fall..Grant has a wonderful smile.I think the pioneer days sound beautiful.I loved that he now wants a pet racoon.Do you know Ive never seen a real one.