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Okay HOD buddies! What was your week like?
We just completed Unit 5 in Preparing Hearts! We have had SOOOO much fun this week! Our cartouche came out great, yet is not quite dry, so we will be painting it tomorrow. One of the reasons it took so long to dry is all of the rain we have had! Thus we will be doing the cactus experiment tomorrow as well... when the SUN COMES OUT! :0)
You can see pics and more about our week at our homeschool blog!

http://joshuatreeacademy.blogspot.com/2 ... nit-5.html

THANKS CARRIE FOR ANOTHER BLESSED WEEK OF HOMESCHOOLING!!!!!!!

Hi all! I hope yalls week has been good. This week has been a bit challenging (due to me fighting a migrain both yesterday and today). Kasey, bless her, ended up literally caring for her lil sister through yesterday. She tried really hard to accomplish some school work. I am so grateful for the careful planning of CTC's manual, as Kasey was able to follow her history (except the project) on her own. If we didn't have CTC I think I would have been feeling woeful over work that didn't get done. Instead tomorrow looks very do-able with minimal catch up through the weekend.
One thing that both Kasey and I have been enjoying in the car has been The Cat of Bubastes, so much so that we will be finished listening to it earlier than the schedule. It has been exciting to listen to the tale of Amuba and Chebron. At the end of each chapter (since we are in the car) I'll pause the cd and ask for oral narrations and her opinions of what she has just listened to. Thank you Carrie for definitely prodding me to purchase the audio.
LOL, I originally had intended The Cat of Bubastes to be her story-time, so now I am falling back to reading The Golden Bullaloud for the remainder of the units that TCOB would have been. Then I'll let Kasey read The Boy of the Pyramidsas an independent extenstion read, and that I think should even the schedule back out? (Oh, fyi, I didn't get our basic history option until about 2nd/3rd week into CTC)
Okay I think that wraps our week. Thank you all for letting me ramble and share

Butterfly, what great pics!!

Jasmine, I'm so sorry you were dealing with a migraine! That is so neat that your daughter was still able to get almost all of her school done by herself though!!!

Well, we just started back to school this week after our summer break. It has been FANTASTIC to get back into the swing of school again!! We started Unit 4 of LHFHG on Tuesday, and we have had a wonderful week. There are more details and pictures posted in my blog...

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/adventure/726054/

We had another beautiful week with HOD. We finished week 7 of our school year.

Scotty completed Unit 2 in LHFHG as well as Unit 7 Spelling and LA from Beyond. By far, his favorite oart of the week was making (and sinking) the aluminum foil boats.

setting the boats down to float



Adding out math counters



And finally, capsizing tangrams! LOL



We also wrote about how Reddy Fox can't walk (after he is shot), but Scotty can. Scotty drew this cute little picture of Reddy and even put a real bandaid on his leg.



His second favorite project this week was his heart. He thought it was just too neat how the colors came to the surface when you scratched off the black top layer. We are loving the art in HOD - it is rewarding because the child really can do it himself. Scotty is so proud of his work this year.

Bryce had a short week with Bigger Hearts - he is visiting with his dad this weekend and we cut the week short by 2 days, so he only completed days 1-3 in Unit 7. I FINALLY got the courage to not start on DAY 1 each week! Yippee. Go me!

He did a really good job this week on his Science notebooking.



His copywork really pleases me as well. We did handwriting for a very long time and I am proud to say that he sure has come a long way. Here is his poetry copywork for the week. He will finish this next week when we get back to Unit 7.



And this is a share from his vocabulary notebook. I think his little sentences and pictures are so funny sometimes.

Here is our review...please visit our blog http://escuelitaaparicio.blogspot.com/2 ... nit-4.html
Dorla

We finished up Unit 3 in LHTH this week. Only did three days of school this week between the holiday and the youngest's birthday. The girls really like acting out the bible stories. They kept referring to Abraham as Noah, but finally got the name right by the end of the week. lol...

On one of our walks this week we past a tree that had a HUGE amount of acorns on the ground. I reminded them of the bible story we'd talked about where God told Abraham there would be more children than stars in the sky. They didn't get how large that was. I had them try to pick up the acorns and count them and of course they couldn't but they could understand the story better then.

I want my oldest to start LHFHG asap, but I don't think the financial means will happen for awhile. We had talked about skipping over it for her to start Beyond next school year, but I'm thinking that if we aren't able to start it until then, I'll probably do the history side of Little Hearts and the basics side of Beyond. I've learned a lot from reading other posts and I don't want her to miss a thing. It's been especially helpful to read Rebecca from TreeHouseAcademy sharing her experiences. Thanks so much to her and all the ladies here who share their struggles and resolutions.

Shimmer wrote: It's been especially helpful to read Rebecca from TreeHouseAcademy sharing her experiences. Thanks so much to her and all the ladies here who share their struggles and resolutions.

Aww, what a blessing! I am glad I could help someone else!

Preparing was Week 4 for my 9yo, fourth grade girl.

Here's her map:




She was quite upset in the evening when she noticed the wall of ice was gone, wondering WHO had taken it. Who is her teacher???

She did a great job with Psalm 1, writing, singing, and memorizing.

We're a few days behind in the schedule for English. I have her do Daily Grams on the days that I don't have time to do a grammar lesson with her. She's doing level 3 dictation quite well, so I'm picking and choosing some of the harder ones before I advance her to level 4.

I've always been reading the "Reading about History" box to her, but I read on the message boards here that she should be doing that independently since she's capable. I'm not sure if I'll switch her to that or not. I like reading the books.

She finished the Fanny Crosby biography for DITHOR and has now started one on Phillis Wheatley, who I know nothing about. I'll need to try to read that soon.


My 7yo 2nd grade boy is on Week 3 of Beyond.

"Which" and "little" are still difficult for him to spell. I wish he'd do some oral practice of his words (in the car and such), but he really struggles if he can't write it down and see it.

This was his art from day 1:




I think I've given him too much of a pass on the writing assignments, so I'm going to require at least small bits of everything, I think, from now on. He is also doing Rod & Staff's first grade handwriting books.

He's doing the Emerging Readers books, but I'm not satisfied with his phonics instruction (parts of about six different programs, so he's also doing Explode the Code workbooks).


My 5yo, kindergartener finished week 2 of Little Hearts. My 3yo and 1yo join in frequently. They loved the "three jumps back" in the rhyme. The big kids always did the action along with them (which is funny b/c my 7yo wanted NO PART of them last year when he did Little).

Math is their favorite:
Stamping:





Chocolate chip cookies:






Art:




Pretending to be trees in the Garden of Eden:


Science:

StillJulie wrote:My 7yo 2nd grade boy is on Week 3 of Beyond.

"Which" and "little" are still difficult for him to spell. I wish he'd do some oral practice of his words (in the car and such), but he really struggles if he can't write it down and see it.

This was his art from day 1:




I think I've given him too much of a pass on the writing assignments, so I'm going to require at least small bits of everything, I think, from now on. He is also doing Rod & Staff's first grade handwriting books.

He's doing the Emerging Readers books, but I'm not satisfied with his phonics instruction (parts of about six different programs, so he's also doing Explode the Code workbooks).

My almost 6 year old is still doing the spelling and LA from Bigger and he also had trouble with little and Which. As a matter of fact, he has trouble each week with the starred words. However, I think of them as good practice. Until we thoroughly cover it in phonics, I am just hoping he will have the exposure.

We also do ETC. We are almost through Book 3 and my little fella has just taken OFF with the emerging readers. We have been so pleased with those! ETC is a great choice! It takes time (usually 2-3 years) to go through all the books, but well worth it, IMO. Hope you enjoy those.

We have been having a wonderful time with HOD here! I haven't shared anything for the last 3 weeks, so I wanted to give a few highlights from our fun.

I love doing Preparing with Grant! (And we both really love the parts that he can do independently, too! )

He's moved from the Arctic Tundra to the Desert for Science. Here are a couple of his experiemnts. He had to figure out the fastest way to get ice to melt. He loved timing himself on this. He first tried the microwave, and surprisingly running it under hot water beat that! He got really into making his cactus. (It was NOT easy to pick up! ) He spent way too long making it, but that was a good lesson on learning how to budget his time when he's in charge of it for science.


He loves drawing with the Draw and Write Through History book (and tolerates the writing ). His cursive writing really is beautiful though.


The Bible study portion of the guide is still my favorite part of our day. I love the chance every day to be in God's Word with Grant, and it's so encouraging to see the eternal significance of our time played out in his life! Psalm 1 has been so refreshing and encouraging to ME! We LOVE the CD. Here Grant is singing and doing the actions to Psalm 1. (...But, his delight is in the Law of the Lord...)


The history projects are lots of fun. Here is Grant's beautiful rainbow (unit 2), his cave art (unit 3), and his clay map of the middle east (unit 4).


I have to say though that I think Grant's absolute favorite part of the week is the creative writing lesson with the poetry. Here is what he chose to do in Unit 4. He was somehow to have a retelling of To Any Reader. He chose to rewrite this poem and make it about his life. I do the writing for him, and his ideas just flow. Then he types the poem later in the day.

Memories of Me

As from the house my mother sees
Me playing in the hackberry tree,
Sometimes I climb way up high,
Almost in the big blue sky.
Sometimes I play way down low,
In the grass or in the snow.
I’m bouncing on the trampoline
Or swinging on the faded swing.
I hear a lot of birds and dogs
And even sometimes croaking frogs.
I jump and run and laugh and splash
Always ready for a shower in a flash.
But this won’t last forever long,
When I grow up I will be gone.
When I have kids, I will see,
Them climbing in the hackberry tree.

Kathleen

Allison and Garret have 3 days left with LHTH. They are eager beavers for just about anything, and I'm so glad that school can be so enjoyable for them! Here are a few of our reenactments of the Bible stories. (We have to do each one 3 times so we each have a chance to do all 3 roles. )
The 12 disciples watching Jesus ascend into heaven, and the angels telling them what to do...


Tongues of fire resting on the disciples heads allowing them to speak in different languages...


Peter in prison (soon to be awakened by the angel)...


Saul blinded by the bright light on the road to Damascus...


The art projects and letter activities are great fun, too. Garret is growing into being able to do them quite well. Here is our "bright light" painting, our finished projects of Peter behind bars, some "cool Y's" and Z's.


Allison is also doing phonics, the Fine Motor Skills box, and math from LHFHG. Garret joins in on the fun math activities. We've still been practicing with writing the numbers 1-10. (Garret just counts, but he's GREAT at writing #1, too. ) Here I gave them a direction like "Hop forward 3 times." They had to write the number and ask "May I?" We played this outside and had a great time!


Topping cookies may have been the all-time favorite though! Yum!


We're looking forward to our last few days of LHTH, and then slowly beginning LHFHG.
Kathleen

Ladies,

I completely enjoyed reading your weekly reviews. I feel so blessed to be able to sneak a peek into your homeschool weeks! How's that for a rhyme! Seriously though, it gives me great pleasure to see the Lord being glorified through each of you as you minister to the hearts of your children.

I want to encourage each one of you on the homeschooling path, as I know each day is not always easy and has its own trials. But, I know the Lord is near to each of you when you call upon Him during your day!

Blessings,
Carrie

I'm a bit late in chiming in here, so I'll just post the link to my blog.

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/holyhart/726924/

I'm only 5 days late, but here is the link to our blog: http://thebeazhive.blogspot.com/2009/09 ... weeks.html I forgot about taking pictures as the kids were doing stuff, so I'm going to do better with that this week. I love seeing how everyone else is doing!