heartofdakota.com

Copied from previous posts:

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!

HI Ladies!

It has been another wonderful week for our family with HOD! We are thoroughly enjoying Preparing Hearts for His Glory. One of Caterpillar's favorite parts this week was reading about how God divided the Red Sea for the Israelites to cross! He has heard the story before many times, yet with our Bible readings, as well as the incredible living books, it just COMES TO LIFE! What an awesome blessing!

Here is a look at our week!

http://joshuatreeacademy.blogspot.com/2 ... nit-7.html

We had a fun week, too! We completed Unit 4 in both LHTH & LHFHG and did the first 3 days of Unit 5 in both guides. Everyday is a fun adventure!

My dd3 loved making letter "D" in chocolate pudding, even ds6 joined in. They were amazed I let them have chocolate pudding at 9:50 a.m.!


My ds6 finished his 100th Lesson in the book today! We had begun it awhile ago doing it informally but began doing it daily when we began our school year in August. He was happy to be done and immediately read 2 other books we had picked out of the library off the suggested list at the end of the book. And our Book-It materials arrived today, so we made his goal for October 21 books...only 19 to go now!


My dd3 with her 5 purses she cut out all by herself. (Yes, she's wearing one of her dress-up dresses - she often comes to the school table ready to begin her day with something fun over her play clothes.) It's great to see her cutting skills improve after only 5 weeks! She cut and pasted everything herself! We don't have many catalogs/mags around the house, so I often draw the items for her with a giant circle to cut around.


She enjoyed doing the coin project today - why can't the coins be different colors?! Would make learning them a lot easier!


My ds6 proudly displaying his "quail" he made today. My dd3 joined in and made her own, too. They were flying all over the playroom!

I finally got a weekly review up this week of our homeschool. I didnt take many pics but will next week

We finished Unit 6 in CTC and Unit 2 in LHTH! The kids are really enjoying school and we have finally found our groove which is awesome!

Here's the link to our weekly review:

http://ellischristianacademy.blogspot.c ... eview.html

creativemommy wrote:We had a fun week, too! We completed Unit 4 in both LHTH & LHFHG and did the first 3 days of Unit 5 in both guides. Everyday is a fun adventure!

My dd3 loved making letter "D" in chocolate pudding, even ds6 joined in. They were amazed I let them have chocolate pudding at 9:50 a.m.!


My ds6 finished his 100th Lesson in the book today! We had begun it awhile ago doing it informally but began doing it daily when we began our school year in August. He was happy to be done and immediately read 2 other books we had picked out of the library off the suggested list at the end of the book. And our Book-It materials arrived today, so we made his goal for October 21 books...only 19 to go now!


My dd3 with her 5 purses she cut out all by herself. (Yes, she's wearing one of her dress-up dresses - she often comes to the school table ready to begin her day with something fun over her play clothes.) It's great to see her cutting skills improve after only 5 weeks! She cut and pasted everything herself! We don't have many catalogs/mags around the house, so I often draw the items for her with a giant circle to cut around.


She enjoyed doing the coin project today - why can't the coins be different colors?! Would make learning them a lot easier!


My ds6 proudly displaying his "quail" he made today. My dd3 joined in and made her own, too. They were flying all over the playroom!

This looks like such a fun week!! We'll get there after next week...going to go see some Unit 3 for LHTH now to see what we have to look forward to

We just finished week 6 in Preparing and it was a wonderful week. This curriculum is just such a blessing. Today my husband was off so he did school with my son in the afternoon so I could do some community service work and my husband loved how easy it was for him to follow.
My son is loving the Cactus Desert book and had a good time with the experiment today of pretending to be a bat and drinking the nectar. He looked pretty cute when he was done. He also enjoyed making his crook and pretended to walk around with it. His favorite activity of the week though was making the Egyptian Pastries. I am terrible making anything that involves dough and this was no exception. After several attempts at rolling them up and covering the kitchen, the floor and my son and I in flour we finally got them made. It did result in much laughter and they were delicious so it was well worth it. My son did say though "Now I know why Dad makes the bread".

Here's ours.

http://daisyhomeschoolblog.blogspot.com ... 92809.html

We are doing CTC with our almost 10 yo, and Beyond with our 6 1/2 yo. Our toddler is there too to mix it up and keep life exciting! It's safe to say CTC is a hit here, and Beyond has been wonderful to return to (we got through half of it last year with my ds, so it was neat to return to it this year). We are schooling from 8:15 AM to around noon or 12:30 PM each day, so we've had plenty of time for the dc just to play and enjoy the outdoors. So, here's our week with CTC...

Creation to Christ:
We are traveling back in time to the Ancients time period, and it is incredibly interesting. I thought I knew so much about this time period, but I'm learning more and more every day. My ds is doing well with his independent things. He especially enjoys his quiet times for Bible study first thing in the morning. He's using the Illustrated Family Bible and learning so much. He likes the singing of the Bible verse with the Phil. 2 CD too, and I am surprised at how he's been able to commit so much to memory already. He continues to enjoy the HOD projects. Here he made a cylinder seal of his name (backwards so when turned over it would be correct), and cuneiform writing. He loved this!




I'm especially excited about Wyatt's watercolor painting. This is an area I have not done much with, and he is beginning to really enjoy it, as well as learn some essential skills for painting watercolor landscapes. Here's his first one:


I was wondering how it would go with Wyatt being more independent this year, but I've been so very happy with it. He was ready for it, and I'm able to give more time to the littles now - especially my ds doing Beyond. He needs me more now, so this has worked well. I like what I'm doing with my teaching time with CTC. The time I spend with Wyatt is on things he truly needs me for, and the things he is doing independently, he truly needs to be doing on his own at this age. He's really growing up so much. He takes pride in the boxes he's taken over this year, I can tell. The student notebook is beautiful - I'll have to take pics of that next time. The resources in CTC are outstanding, and the plans are teaching my ds so much. What a great start to the year!

I'll post separately about Beyond, since I've got pictures for that as well.
In Christ,
Julie

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory:
My ds had done the first half of Beyond last year, so we are returning to finish it doing it 4 day weeks this year, as well as start Bigger Hearts half-speed toward the end. I enjoyed coming back to the familiarity of Beyond as I was beginning CTC with my older ds the first time. My ds is loving Beyond, and has really just grown into it so well. His writing has improved since last year, and it has helped him for me to draw dashed midlines on his notebooking paper for his copywork. I can't believe how much he's improved in this area! His writing used to be very BIG, but now fits quite neatly on the lines. Riley loves to hear me read the history read-alouds. Here he is making his colored sand art like the Puritans designed on their wood floors:



He especially loves his math activities, though he'd rather I leave him alone to do the workbook part alone. I probably hover too much for that, but I want to spot check for mistakes, which usually turns out to be a good thing. He still reverses some numbers, so I wrote the numbers 1-10 for him to refer to. That has really helped him.



He started the Emerging Reader's Set last year and is on The Bears of Hemlock Mountain. His comprehension has grown by leaps and bounds! He answers the questions so much more fully than he did last year. He also loves the books we are reading for our mystery genre study in Storytime. We just finished Key to the Treasure, which was a big hit. This week he shared his Bible verse with his teddy bear. It was so cute! He told me teddy bear loved it. We are enjoying Beyond together so much. It is such a growing year for him, what fun! I can't resist sharing a few pics of my toddler, who is getting ready to start LHTH. Right now, his favorite thing to play is dress-up:



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

I loved reading about all of your weeks. I was going to get this done yesterday... But, at least I'm going to actually post about our week. We've been clicking along with Preparing. We finished LHTH a couple weeks ago, and this week Alli and Garret started LHFHG!

Last week ended up being a spur of the moment vacation to northern Wisconsin to visit my sister and her family!! YAY! (We were planning to go...just not last week, but planning ahead and farming don't exactly mesh real well.) We all had a wonderful time! Allison did break her arm while we were hiking near Lake Superior. But, it really didn't dampen all of our fun being with cousins and seeing the bea-u-tiful scenery of fall in the north woods. Here are the kids with their cousins.


We also have 5 little lab-mix puppies that arrived 3 weeks ago. Yesterday we gave them temporary names of some favorite fall things. The boy is Buck, and the girls are Pumpkin (the roundest one ), Autumn, Cocoa, and Bailey (as in hay bales/hay rack rides).


Butterfly - your son is an incredible artist! His drawings look great!! We are enjoying Preparing, too. We're just a week behind you. And, I totally agree that the book selections in Preparing along with the living books are making the Biblical stories "come alive" to Grant and I in a new way.

Beth - I love the pics of your little gal doing LHTH! We had so much fun with it at our house...I can relive it looking at your kids' smiling faces. We loved the pudding days, too. (Ocasionally we even did that more often than it was scheduled. And, yes I participated. ) Sounds like your son is getting to be quite the reader. That IS exciting!

Amber - Your picture of your kids all painting together was great. They all look so into it! I like the fireflys that your son ended up with. CTC looks like it has a lot to look forward to in it.

Lynn - We were right there with you on Unit 6 in Preparing this week. Our pictures will be almost identical! (We even used red sprinkles for our "pollen"! )

Daisy - Your kids' work looks GREAT! I especially liked the sand painting that your son did. That was beautiful!

Julie - I can't believe how grown up Emmet looks!! He'll be filling those big shoes before long. Riley's sand art is beautiful, too! Did the Puritans use sand to paint their floors (or something else)? We do a lot of things with sand on our floors when it's nice out....but none of it's very attractive or intentional! (I usually call it a mess!) He's getting to be quite the reader, too. Great job Riley! And, I loved the peek into CTC.

I'll post our review next...
Kathleen

LHFHG Unit 1

Allison and Garret were super-excited to move into "new school". We're slowing down LHFHG with the plan to keep Allison and Garret together for all of the non-basics part of the guide. I think it's going to work well...at least we've got one good week under our belts.

Allison does Phonics, Fine Motor Skills, and Math every day (well 4 days a week). Garret joins in on the math activities so far (counting and eating snacks seem to keep his interest ). Here, Alli was drawing a card...counting out that many Cheerios...and then eating one and telling me what one less would be. It was a hit!


Here's another math activity. We took turns hiding an odd number of bears around the living room. Allison and Garret each searched for some and then we compared the 2 sets. Here, 1 is 7 less than 8. And then whoever found the fewest bears got to be the next "hider" so everyone was happy!


They're having fun learning about the beginning of history. Allison really gets what history is already. Last night she asked me, "Everything that's already happened is history, right mom?" "Yep!" "So, I already fell down at the park...and thaaaat's history!" I thought the art activity did a great job of helping them remember that Jesus is THE most important person in history. He is right in the center.

We also had fun measuring time by having the earth orbit the sun and stop to sing "Happy Birthday" each time. (But then, anything with a flashlight is a hit here! )


Reddy Fox is a hit already! Now, we only get to read about him every other day...but that will just stretch out the fun. Right now our plan is to do the Rhymes in Motion and Music every day and then rotate doing Reading About History and it's corresponding box one day and Bible Study and Storytime the other day. It's working great so far! They're doing great learning the Bible verse. They thought this was a great way to practice...


Kathleen

PHFHG Unit 6

We are LOVING Preparing! It's so refreshing to love what we're doing for school and look forward to accomplishing it and growing each week. (And the great part is...I know I'll still be thinking this in April when we're finishing the guide!! )

Grant says that his favorite thing this week was the science experiment on pollination. He thought it was great fun to be the "bat" and get a sip of the sweet nectar! (He even repeated this yesterday in his free time, but used 3 different glasses with different colors of "pollen" so he could see it transfer to him and the other "cactuses".)


His 2nd favorite was writing poetry. Here is his poem for the week...

Midnight Moon

The moon bathes the earth with beautiful light,
Giving a soft glow to the sky at night.
Painting silvery strokes across the sky,
Lighting the way as I go by.

He lights the way on a wooded path.
And soothes the baby to sleep after a bath.
Sometimes he’s half, sometimes he’s whole,
But he’s always having a peaceful stroll.

He peers at his reflection in a lake;
But it is gone when I awake.
He slips away before the break of dawn,
The Night Light of the World, is gone.

Grant Michael Fincham


We all thoroughly enjoyed the Egyptian pastries for supper (and breakfast the next morning - we doubled the recipe )! They were yummy!! I love having activities like this scheduled into the guide - because we actually do them! Grant has a lot of fun doing, even though he really does learn well by hearing.


We finished reading about Jed Smith this week for DITHOR. Grant absolutely loved that book. Having a book about an all-outdoorsman guy that was totally committed to God and living for Him was right up his alley. I'm thankful he could read about a great role model like this! For his project, he did a "patchwork of facts". Here is the finished product.


And, I have to say, that I still absolutely love the Bible time in Preparing. All of it! Grant and I are having wonderful - simple, yet deep - discussions about Psalms. We are loving the music to go with it. Grant really likes going on his own on Day 3 and having his own quiet time. The last couple weeks, it has been a blessing to me to be able to let Grant know how much of a blessing he is to our family while we're learning Psalm 127:3-5. And, of course, he loves the analogy of being an arrow in our quiver. But, I can't say how much of a joy it is to hear him praying that he will fly straight and true because he's remembering all we've taught him about God. He is really starting to treasure God's Word as THE Book necessary for life! Praise the Lord!

Kathleen

Hi all! Hope everyone has been well. This past week we accomplished Unit 7 in the 4 days. Kasey really is beginning to pick up speed in accomplishing the independent work sections. She has begun to enjoy the geography even more. I tried to get her to read on her own but she answered "Awh Mom, I really like it when we do it together and you read out loud. You really make it come alive!" When we first begun the geography we incorporated a mini tape recorder into the "Field Notes" section. I have noticed over the last few weeks a steady improvement with her speech and sentencing order. She likes to play back sections and if she doesn't like the way it sounds she'll do it over.
We did try to make the jewels in the History Project and found we had to add more cornstarch and were only able to make one jewel in the batch. Unfortunately Typhoon Tiffy decided it was a cookie. She ate it. Thankfully that receipe was nontoxic. We'll try again tomorrow.
I hope to get back on track with pictures next week.
Blessings, and have a wonderful next week/unit

This is the first time I've visited Week In Review and I just have to say "Wow!" I love all the pictures, next week I'll try to remember to take some to post!

We finished up Unit 11 last week and started Unit 12. Dd loves the drawing and history projects in Preparing, I love how everything ties into the Bible. This is our first year with HOD, even though I had looked at it a couple of years ago (at that time I couldn't figure out how to make it "fit"). It's funny how my dd hated doing math and LA before, and now it's just a part of the day like history and science. I think it's because HOD makes everything so fun and interesting, that doing a little "work" (math) is not so bad.

Making a fossils with bread and the flipbook were highlights of the week!

Blessings,
Lisa

I am a bit late this week but here is my share!

We took Tuesday off for my younger son's birthday, so we just finished the unit today (Monday Oct 5). We finised up Unit 9 in Bigger Hearts and Unit 4 in Little Hearts.

In Little Hearts, we had a blast making the Egyptian collar!





My son wanted to decorate his Bible verse today after he said it to me. I gave him the paper and this is what he did. I was so proud of him! On the top, it says "I Love Mom" and "Jesus will Return." Our verse wasn't even about Jesus returning - he just wrote that on his own!



Bigger Hearts with Extensions was a lot of work this week for my older son. He got bogged down a few times and really struggled. Thankfully, he was back on track today and finished his work normally.

Here is one of his Extension summaries. He has come a LONG way from what I was getting 10 weeks ago when we started.



Science Notebooking (Ben Franklin from Science in Colonial America book)



Ben Franklin History Notebooking activity:



And this was REALLY fun...the potato printing press.

I wanted to go ahead and post something about last week so I have a place I can remember it later. lol...

We did all Unit 6 in LHTH. We had a lot of fun with the Joseph, May I? game. The girls liked taking turns being Joseph and telling the rest of us what kind of steps to take. I was holding the baby and she thought it was pretty fun playing the game with us. I'm figuring out how to include her more. We're doing the Playtime Devotions fingerplay each day with her during circle time. She really likes that. I might start reading a board book to her before we read the bible story too. Maybe then she wont be screeching to be picked up before I can finish!



The sparkly desert was a hit. I just had them use a smiley face sticker to be Joseph since I didn't think they could draw small enough to fit under a sticky note. I gave them some salt shakers and that worked pretty well. I had some leftover colored sand from doing a desert art project that I added to the D unit so they used that too. They even had to get out the glitter. They made deserts for an HOUR! I save craft time for the baby's morning nap so it's open ended on time, but I was still surprised they were occupied and happy for that long.



For the Bible Activity on Day 4 I had them draw their portraits. I thought they turned out great.

Susannah's


Isabelle's - I was pretty impressed for an almost 3 year old. She only wanted to do it in pencil. We teased her about forgetting the mouth as she is always talking.


I was also impressed with Susannah's LA work from LLATL for this week. She was supposed to be making a simple sentence ("Susannah has a cat.") with word cards and copying it. She was fine with doing that once.


Then she took the initiative and told me what she wanted to say ("A rat is eaten by a cat."). She wanted to write any extra word cards she needed herself. I suggested rewording the sentence so she wouldn't have so many words to copy, but she wanted it her way. She copied it beautifully. I love that she took charge and embellished from the original idea.


We used a map to see where family members live instead of the pictures on the last day. Acting out the blessing about brought me to tears. It was humbling to be reminded of how blessed I am. I don't deserve the wonderful life I have and a beautiful eternity in heaven. God is so good!