heartofdakota.com

Ok Girls,did I do the date ok?

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!

We have completed week 30 of LHFHG
Well actually we retracked and did day 5 of week 29 because we messed up last week and got the days mixed..
So here we are traveling west in our 'wagon'.As you can see its packed with all the essentials,tool kit.boots-,blankets-The toothbrush didnt stay packed for long.

We also had fun with packing eggs and this was an amazing experiment.We packed eggs into a flour tub and then Nathan bounced ,jumped ,rolled to show how things got bumped around in a wagon before air tyres and suspension.Nathan was pretty rough with this tub,so you can see his amazement when the eggs did not crack

We also learnt about Traveler-General Lee's horse



Here is Nathan building a Abraham Lincoln 's log cabin from bread sticks.Yummy and we loved doing this activity.


Blog for the week
http://stanleysmagicgarden.blogspot.com ... /eggs.html
http://stanleysmagicgarden.blogspot.com ... y-344.html
http://stanleysmagicgarden.blogspot.com ... tales.html

http://stanleysmagicgarden.blogspot.com ... moody.html

I am both excited and sad that we have 4 weeks left of LHFHG.

Sam - Nathan truly is amazed his egg made the trip safely - what a cute picture that is of him. He must have been a good packer. His log house turned out neat too. That does look yummy. I have not seen breadsticks that little before; they look really good. Traveler looks ready to hit the road and do some traveling with Nathan. What a good week the 2 of you had!

In Christ,
Julie

Preparing Hearts for His Glory:

We finished PHFHG this week! My ds and really enjoyed our whole year spent together with PHFHG. He has grown in so many areas. Here are a few of my favorite things his time spent with PHFHG has improved for him...
his written narrations, ability to memorize large chunks of Scripture, oral narrations where he remembers names and places better, independently doing more things, cursive writing without a model, making educated guesses about how a science experiment may turn out and independently doing all of his science, using his PHFHG guide to work right from, following directions to complete his history project on his own, using sources to doublecheck/fix his own spelling, reading poetry more theatrically, doing more of his Bible study on his own yet having great talks with me too, knowing God more personally, longer dictation, researching using the computer, figuring out unknown words from his history by doing vocabulary study, reading much harder books and knowing his story elements so well, figuring out who or what a person is placing their faith in by what he's read about them (great talks we've had about this), and he has grown leaps and bounds with R & S Grammar and Singapore Math too! WHEW! That ended up to be a long list of favorites I guess, but I truly cannot believe how much he has grown in all of those areas from Day 1 of the PHFHG's plans. I guess he grew a foot taller and has started to wear men's shoes this year - so I shouldn't be so surprised with all he's accomplished this year academically either.

I am very close to Wyatt, and we easily share our faith back and forth, as well as what we are reading. I know it is because we are homeschooling with HOD. We just have a natural rapport, and I am so glad I am accountable to spending time with him because otherwise I fear we would not know each other nearly so well. I prayed at the end of the school day that I was so thankful I was able to be my dc's teacher this year, that they were the best students ever, and that I was so glad we'd spent our time learning about God and other school subjects together. Wyatt thanked God for me being his teacher, and said it had been "just a great year all year". This really made me tear up - he's just not a very flowery type kiddo, so for him to say something like that is rare. He's right - it WAS just a great year all year!

Here is a picture of his last history project, a trifold about the Olympics:



He also wanted me to take a picture of him with his timeline. He wanted to point out that he learned about all of history from Creation to present day hence the foot pointing to Creation and the hand pointing to present day) ! He loved his timeline so much - I think we'll keep it up for awhile.


In Christ,
Julie

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory:
We just finished Unit 18 - which is the halfway point - of Beyond and are taking our summer break now. When I told my ds we were stopping for the summer he burst into tears and said, "I just want you to read my Stories of the Pilgrims book yet!" I was shocked - I knew he really liked doing Beyond, but he also really likes his free time in the summers - I guess I should have eased him into stopping school!

Anyway, I agreed to read "just one more story in the Stories of the Pilgrims book", and then he said he'd be o.k. Of course, after I read that, he said, "But I'll still get to do my emerging reader books, right?!?" Panicked look in his eyes again. I told him, "Sure, honey, we can keep going with those". I hadn't planned on that, but oh well, it is fun to do together, and I wanted him to read a bit each day anyway.
I'm drawing the line there though - I do not want to get to Bigger Hearts before he's 7, so I'm putting the brakes on. I'm sharing my plan for that on the HOD Main Board. I'm so excited about this plan for him.

So, reflecting on Riley's year with finishing Little Hearts and doing the first half of Beyond - he has grown so much it is truly hard to think back to where he started the year . Here are some leaps he's made...
*he listens to books with very few pictures so happily now - and he even laughs at the appropriate times , read poetry with great gusto always in front of the fireplace, he easily memorizes a Bible verse or 2 within a day or so by adding actions and actually sings along word for word with the music, loves to share his Bible verse on the phone with others - he used to mumble and be shy for this, has decided history is great fun to read about, loves to do his science experiments, can write his 10 spelling words on notebook paper and also in sentences - hooray!, also copies the whole poem each week now - a big improvement over not copying them at all in the beginning, enjoys new genres to read and be read to from - like mysteries, reading-reading-reading everything he can get his little hands on , knows some parts of speech, is starting to have a beginning-middle-end to his oral narrations (a vast improvement ), is doing awesome with math and loves to do it, is starting to ask deeper questions about God and see Him as powerful, all-knowing, and full of love for him.

I can't wait to see how he grows even more into Beyond next year. I'm especially excited to see how his oral narrations develop - I know that when my older ds did Bigger, his oral narrating really took off. We'll see if Riley does too. It will be fun to possibly start DITHOR with him, if he's ready when he's done with the Emerging Reader's Set, and I think he will be. Here are 2 pictures of Riley - one with his beloved Stories of the Pilgrims book, and one where he made an art project for the history reading about a sparkler candle that prevented an Indian attack.



What a wonderful end to the year! Summer, here we come, and we'll be all excited to begin HOD again in August.

In Christ,
Julie

Little Hands to Heaven
Wiggles is coming along nicely with LHTH. We had a fun week learning about Abraham and doing some fun hands on things.

This is my favorite picture for the week. We didn't have a read aloud from the children's Bible this day, but he wanted it anyway. Here he is "reading" the children's Bible to me. All the men were Abraham in the book b/c that is who we have been learning about. LOL.

Here Wiggles is serving the 3 guests like Abraham. He actually loved this one...I wish I would have done it last b/c it was hard to get him to put it away. We were using Big Sis's real tea set and I was so nervous it would get broken. It survived and he had a blast.

Wiggles riding his beloved Thomas trains around the letter C.

Here is our art of Abraham's tent with the stars. He did a really good job on this one although our stars aren't exactly all in the sky.
We had a wonderful week doing Unit 3. We actually covered all of this in 2 weeks. We are going very slowly through LHTH as he is only 28 months old.
Hope everyone enjoyed their weeks with HOD as much as we did.
Val

Val-
Wiggles looks so precious doing his LHTH - I just want to give him a little hug and tell him what a great job he is doing! That is so neat that he wanted to read his Bible on a day it wasn't planned - and he even remembered what you'd been studying from the day before. True signs all of this is making an impact! I remember we had Abraham serving the 3 guests for quite a LONG time repeatedly at our house too, but at that point I skipped off and taught older ds his school, so it worked in my favor. That was just a very fun activity! I'm glad older sis' teapots held up. Thanks so much for sharing about your week with Wiggles - I can tell it was a wonderful week!

In Christ,
Julie

]Julie - Congratulations on completing PHFHG[I am thrilled Im getting to grips with the initials of all the curriculums now ] I loved Wyatts timeline and his prayer and comments were precious.I once asked Nathan what he thought I might be famous for one day and he said 'being the best homeschooler ever'.which is far from the truth btw but it lifted me enormously. Riley looks so cute hugging stories of the pilgrims.I am encouraged somuch that Nathan will enjoy Beyond next fall.It will be hard to say goodbye to Little Hearts and its a worry that Beyond might be too hard .Anyway your post has encouraged me that we will have lots of fun in beyond.Have a wonderful summer break
Val- wiggles is so very cute and I am so excited about starting LHTH in the fall .Stanley is about the same age and im really encouraged that LHTH will be a perfect fit.

spidermansmum wrote:]Julie - Congratulations on completing PHFHG[I am thrilled Im getting to grips with the initials of all the curriculums now ] I loved Wyatts timeline and his prayer and comments were precious.I once asked Nathan what he thought I might be famous for one day and he said 'being the best homeschooler ever'.which is far from the truth btw but it lifted me enormously. Riley looks so cute hugging stories of the pilgrims.I am encouraged somuch that Nathan will enjoy Beyond next fall.It will be hard to say goodbye to Little Hearts and its a worry that Beyond might be too hard .Anyway your post has encouraged me that we will have lots of fun in beyond.Have a wonderful summer break

Thanks, Sam! I think every homeschool mom is dying to have her dc say they're "the best homeschooler ever" - that is such a compliment and gives you a good read that no matter how little Nathan's individual school days might go, the big picture is he thinks you're an awesome teacher to have - which really also means he thinks homeschool is pretty awesome. I do think you two will have fun in Beyond - we liked starting it slowly at half-speed, you could always do that with your sweetie if you want.

In Christ,
Julie

spidermansmum-I love looking through all of your pictures of your week. Nathan looks like such a sweet boy in the photos and he seems to be really coming to life with the curriculum. You can see the joy on his face and see he is learning. I am so excited to give homeschooling a go. Hopefully Jonny takes to homeschooling as well as Nathan has done.
my3sons-I love the way you go into such detail how it is enriching your son's and your relationships both emotionally and spiritually. I can't wait to start with my oldest who I want to be close to so much more than we are now. PHFHG looks like a blast. The timeline is great. It really looks like you guys had fun and covered so much this year. BLHFHG looks great too. Your son looks so happy in the pictures and so attached to his book. I am hoping that it goes that well for us...although we probably won't make it through LHFHG until Christmas and switch mid-year to BLHFHG.
This board is so encouraging. Getting to see others working through the programs is just what I needed. I'll be honest switching from ps with my girls who haven't had issues at school has been weighing heavily on my mind and heart. I feel so at peace that this is what we are meant to do just seeing and reading about the journey that you guys have taken before me.
Val