heartofdakota.com

Ok Girls,

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!

I have made it a New Year's resolution to try to post less questions on the main board and more updates on our school week to this board.

All my guys (except the 4yo) are braving the cold this weekend and headed out on a hunting trip.

I have to say that usually the cold weather, less getting outside, darker days, and the hope of upcoming bookfairs has me less content with my curriculum this time of year. I always seem to find myself perusing the catalogs. I am glad to announce that this new year I find myself very happy and content with HOD. My children are as well. As a teacher I have always had my own definite philosophies and expectations for curriculum. What a joy that Carrie has created HOD and it falls right in line with what I have been looking for the past 6 years of homeschooling. (I can't say that enough).

This week we have enjoyed learning about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. My older son and I have been reading the exciting story of Guns for General Washington. My son just about jumped out of his seat to tell his younger brother about Henry Knox when we read about him onTuesday from Journeys through time. We will have to do our foot prints on Monday due to the hunting trip. But the boys did do well with there Transportation charts and we liked our discussion of ways to travel then and now. I almost forgot... how younger ds was not so willing to give up his chocolate chips during our tax exercise. Some how one would slip into his mouth as he was paying his tax.

We finished John Audubon today before they left. Yesterday we had the opportunity to watch the morning doves in our backyard. We shared our biscuits with them so they would have some food in this cold weather. My ds's have loved the story of J. Audubon and always seem sad when we finish a book. It seems like John could be dear friends with my guys. They are very similar in there love of observing creatures. They also share the misunderstanding of girls and how they don't appreciate snakes. I will try to find a copy of Birds of America from the Library to share with them.

The older ds read Catwings in a day (he loves cats). And he is trying not to fly though A Mouse Called Wolf. I have been choosing a variety of books in DITHOR. Some from the harder level and some from the easier one. I have been reading along with him and I aslo find it hard to put the books down. We have had wonderful discussions with his DITHOR workbook.
The younger ds is nearing the end of the emergent readers and about to start DITHOR this next semester. We start The Bears on Hemlock MT. on Monday. We too have enjoyed our discussions on the books he's reading.

In R&S my older is finishing "Raise" and "Rise" and "Lay" and "Lie". Maybe, mom can get that straight from now on as well. He will be starting taking notes for a report on Mon. The younger one is working on adjectives. (Carrie, I didn't switch to BJU. After your recommendation, I am sticking with R&S. I'm excited for Write with the Best and more written narration in guides to come). They have been doing very well with there dictation and poem copywork. I am starting the new semester tougher and requiring more neatly done work. I had gotten lazy staying on top of that. My oldest did a nice oral narration of Guns for General washington and I had him copy it from the dictation.

Math has been fractions and division. Older ds had some trouble this week with a few new concepts, but overall is doing so much better than last year with Saxon. The younger amazes me. He is a math wiz and I hardly have to explain the new math concept before he's got it. He must have inherited that from Dad or other relative because I am learning math right along with them.

I love how we learn a new character quality each week. Some of the ways the boys said that they would show leadership over this weekend was to be an example to the other boys on how to play/treat one another, to lead in the clean up, and to follow gun saftey.

Well I wrote a book. We love what we learn each week in HOD. Maybe I can learn how to post pics and post some examples of my guys work in the future.

Blessings,
Cindy

We've had a ton of snow this week, and I've been so thankful to be able to homeschool as we are cooped up inside so much. HOD is the highlight of our day! I truly think we'd be going bonkers without it.

Creation to Christ:
Wyatt is learning about Nebuchadnezzar and his son, and how the Medes and the Persians defeated the Babylonians in 3 different wars. The statue from Nebuchadnezzar's dream was a blast to make - and yummy too! We only had neon food coloring, so the statue was a little off-colored, but no one seemed to mind. He could name all of the parts of the statue and the countries they represented as well. Wyatt loved taking a stone and crushing the bottom of the statue as was done in the dream. He loved eating it (along with his brothers) even more!



We've been enjoying reading a chapter at a time of Jonah, and then after that Esther. I'm so glad that Biblical history is just woven into the rest of ancients history. What a wonderful way to learn about all that was happening in the world in this time period while still keeping God at the center!

We started Wyatt's DITHOR project this week, and he is making a character mobile of Buffalo Bill. We worked on the face today, and it was neat to take the time to share some tips about how to draw a real looking face with him. I don't know why, but I've never really shown him much of that before, so he really enjoyed it, and I appreciated the more realistic looking face he made because of it.

For science, we learned how eggs allow air to pass through them by putting it in a vinegar mixture. It was so neat to see how "rubberized" the egg became and watch the bubbles forming as it swelled. We couldn't resist seeing if we could toss it back and forth - it looked so invincible; it wasn't! It broke right away, but it sure was fun to try!




Those were just a few of the highlights of our week.

In Christ,
Julie

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory:
Riley has been learning about the 3 trails different pioneers took out of Independence, MO. This week we focused on the Santa Fe Trail. He loved hearing about a young boy named Nick riding into Santa Fe with his father after the long, grueling trip down the Santa Fe Trail. One of his favorite activities was pulling his heavy wagon laden with supplies up the mountains - in fact, he told me he needed a rest after that :



I am amazed at the long Bible verses Riley has been able to memorize lately. The actions we add and the music he sings with really help, but still, I can't believe he's committed them to memory so well. We continue to read Mountain Born, and we love the parallels between Benj, the shepherd in the book, with David, the shepherd in the Bible.

Riley's penmanship keeps improving, and he's made leaps and bounds with learning to use his time better in school. Praise the Lord! It's mainly his chores he dawdles with now, but school has become a welcome time of efficiency for him.

In Christ,
Julie

Little Hands to Heaven:
Emmett has gotten quite attached to the story of Joseph this week. He'll often say, "Joseph was so sad", "Joseph had a nice coat", "Joseph's brothers wah mean", and "Joseph wooked hard" (spelling mistakes intended here). When he had to be like Joseph and follow directions, he had to move his teddy bear various directions and places - and he LOVED this! Here is bear on TOP of his head:


Emmett enjoys The Singing Bible CD so much and loves me to hold him and sing the lyrics for him as we listen. He is very proud to share the letter sounds he's learned, and as he does with everything in life - overemphasizes every action in a big way! His number book is growing, and so are his cutting skills. He can open and close his little scissors now fairly well and follow the black lines I've made for him around the catalog pictures for his numbers book. He loves this activity! And can't wait for it to come around again each week. Here he is finishing of a snack from one of the school activities:


Emmett adores school time and can't wait for me to do LHTH with him each day! It is a blessing to have such unabashed love from the little ones. It is also nice to have deep talks with my oldest, and a little of both with my middle ds. I enjoy the mix of their personality types and schooling. It was a good week! I hope all of you are settling happily - thought probably slowly - back into school after the Christmas season as well.

In Christ,
Julie

We've also had a lot of snow this week (especially the past two days) and it's nice to be home, not worrying about "snow days!"

We had a bit of rough start on Monday - first day back to school after taking 2 weeks off for Christmas, but by Tuesday we were doing better...no more complaints about school once they both remembered the fun activities we do during our school time each day!

We completed Unit 15 in LHTH & LHFHG this week. We're almost halfway through - Wow!

These were our highlights this week...

Dd3 LOVED constructing Solomon's temple with toothpicks & marshmallows (even ds6 joined in and made his own though I think it was really to eat the marshmallows after the buildling was complete)!


Dd3 also enjoyed dancing around with her tambourine celebrating the temple being built (complete in her purple tutu today with baby watching)...


Ds6 loved painting Zacchaeus' tree with textured paint (coffee grounds & brown paint) earlier this week, it smelled so good that it made me want to make a cup of coffee, too! I think every time we paint in the future he's going to want to make it textured.


Ds6 had fun cleaning a penny today...I think if I let him he would have cleaned the entire bowl of loose change!


We also finished reading Danny Meadow Mouse today. Ds6 is really enjoying these books (and I am, too). We had a good discussion about anger/losing our temper which was a good reminder for both of us!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Here's ours. We had a pretty good week considering Ryan was sick on Monday and I had a doctor's appt on Thursday.

http://daisyhomeschoolblog.blogspot.com ... -1810.html

I'm so excited to be back to posting weeks in review of HOD!! Here's my blog post about our first week with Little Hearts

http://cherish-each-moment.blogspot.com ... ek-17.html

We had a great week of school, I am so very glad we found HOD when we did!!

We finished TRL this week!!!!!

Luke is so excited about reading and so proud of himself. I couldn't be more thrilled with our whole experience over the last year. TRL has felt effortless; it's been a perfect fit for us. We started a year ago this week. I'm just reflecting with such joy and amazement of how enjoyable and "doable" homeschooling has been. I THANK GOD FOR HOD!

We're in Unit 33 of Little Hearts (right side) so we are about to celebrate Luke graduating from K too!

THANK YOU CARRIE!!

And thank you JULIE!! You both are such a gift. Thank you for sharing your skills and talents so generously!

Blessings,
Victoria

We got back into school this week after a 2 week break. Noah was actually excited to get back going and that was even with having his sister home 2 days this week due to snow days. We continued learning about Rome this week. Noah had a little trouble at first with Little Miriam of Galilee as far as relating to it, but now he enjoys it. We talked about the differences between Roman children and Jewish children and once I got him started recognizing the differences that were pointed out in the book he was able to name a few more. I love how he is having to think about what he is reading and not just read. That is a challenge for him at times, but a very needed skill. We are both enjoying Fountain of Life. What a great book!

For his history project he made Denarius and a pouch. Our pouch wouldn't dye brown, but he didn't care. He had fun showing his dad his pouch and money. Yesterday he learned about all the wonderful buildings in Rome during the time of Augustus Caesar. He did a nice written narration on what Rome looked like at this time. I am excited because I just found out that Google Earth has a 3-D simulation of Ancient Rome and all the buildings including Circus Maximus and the Pantheon. I haven't quite figured it all out yet, but this weekend I plan on figuring it out and showing my visual kid what those buildings looked like inside. I don't remember learning any of this in school so I think I am excited about the history as he is. Preparing has just made it all so real.

We had snow this week and Noah worked very hard in order to get his work done and go out and play and go sledding. I love that I could feel like he had a full day of learning and yet he was done by 12:30 and ready to be a boy romping in the snow.

Julie,
After reading your post I realized I totally forgot my little guy in LHTH. We read about Joseph this week as well. He asked similar questions. "Will God help him, Mommy?" "Will he forgive his brothers?" He also loves to act out the stories. He and the middle brother still make fun of me and how I played Isaac when Jacob disguised himself as Esau. They both go around in an elderly Jewish man voice and say, "Is that you, Esau?" I'll never live that particular character down. All fun!

It has been great to get back into the swing after a wonderful Christmas break. Here is a look at our week!

http://joshuatreeacademy.blogspot.com/2 ... it-15.html

Adding this in late for me so I can look back and remember what we did later. Dh was out of town on business. We had 4 days of school between U16 and U17 of LHTH.

Susannah started Singapore Math 2A. I'm loving it. I was thinking of having her start with 2B, but after looking at 2A I didn't want to pass any of that book over. I have the TM for LHFHG so we can follow along with the additional activities. We're going faster than one page a day until she is caught up or needs to slow down. I'm really glad we switched over to this. I think it's much better than the K math we were doing.

We did the making soap out of laundry detergent project from U16 Day 4. I didn't get any pictures because it was SO messy. I should have done it when the baby was asleep. I was a bit stressed trying to make sure she didn't pick up some to eat. Ours didn't seem to form a ball until I added more water than listed. But the big girls seemed to enjoy it. Next time I'd do it with no extra little helper.

The oatmeal paste to patch God's house from U17 Day 1 was fun. I managed to keep the baby busy that time.


The crown craft was fun from U17 Day 2. I let them have glitter and boy did they enjoy it.

Your girls are so adorable! Looks like a great week.

Ladies,

I fully enjoyed reading through your weekly check-ins! Each one of you should be so pleased with your progress this year. You are each doing a tremendous job of guiding both your kiddo's hearts and minds! There is no greater responsibility than training up your children in the way that they should go. Each of you has taken on that awesome responsibility, and only with God's help are we equal to the task.

I pray for each of you to feel God's peace in your homeschool and also want to let you know how much this thread encourages others each week. We are upholding one another in Christian love each week as we gather together and share our lives.

Blessings,
Carrie