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!

Creation to Christ:
It's so hard to believe we are on Unit 20 in CTC already - the year is going by so quickly! I'm very thankful for HOD about this time of year, as the middle of the school year is always when I need to 'press on to win the race'. The winters are so long and cold here, that this is a time prime for staying in and homeschooling, but the gray skies and cold weather can dampen my spirit if I let them. HOD is a bright spot each day for us, and it is a wonderful feeling to be moving through the guide and marching onward.

Wyatt is in just a great place right now with CTC. He knows what he needs to do, and it is really all just about fine tuning things now. Here is an example of what I mean. When I forget to mention he should take his time and do his best on his drawings, he produces a student notebook like this (he didn't draw/color the guy with the torch - he just did the half yellow and half brown coloring ):


When I briefly remind him of what a good picture looks like, his notebook looks like this:


What a huge difference a 15 second recap of expectations can produce!

Anyway, he continues to enjoy CTC so much, and feels very good about what he's learning and how he's doing in school. The ancients time period is so interesting to him, and I'm glad we waited to do it until now. He especially loves his Bible time each morning. The Illustrated Bible has been a big hit here. I'm very glad we got it. I also love hearing him sing with his Phil. 2 CD and often find myself humming the tune and singing the words later in the day (as during his singing I'm teaching my middle ds). History projects and science experiments give him enough action throughout the school day, and I'm thrilled he is doing them independently as I have 2 other little pumpkins to teach. It's been another good week!

In Christ,
Julie

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory:
We have ONE day left of Beyond! Can you believe it?!? My little guy will be starting Bigger Hearts half-speed next week. I am so proud of the progress he's made during doing Beyond. His writing and reading have grown leaps and bounds. Patience is NOT my best virtue, so I'm glad we're past the early reading and writing stage as that stage is always frustrating to me (and I have to work not to have too high expectations and frustrate my dc) . Anyway, it's a welcome relief to be past those early stages and enjoying fully the place we're at now. He LOVES his American Pioneers and Patriots book, and got all teary-eyed today seeing we only have one more reading left. Here he is with big brother racing to see which of them can get all 10 pairs of socks in the bowl first, which signified the 2 sides of the Transcontinental Railroad racing one another. My boys did it FOUR times, and then I put a halt to it as they appeared ready to hyper-ventilate. Too fun! They'll be doing it again later today, I am sure!

Here he is with his finished timeline from Beyond. He is so proud of it!


This was a tasty science experiment everyone wanted in on. He made the core (pudding), mantel (chocolate chips), crust (crushed graham crackers). MMMMMMM! That was fun!


We are sad to say goodbye to Beyond, but excited to say hello to Bigger Hearts!
In Christ,
Julie

Little Hands to Heaven:
Emmett totes his Bible everywhere, and has gotten into the habit of telling everyone about whatever Bible character were learning about. He loves gluing and is enjoying cutting too (with help ). He asks on the weekend to do school, and is blossoming with the time alone with me. I feel so good about it, and enjoy it as well. Here he is with his gluing project, and also practicing his letters:



I can't wait to hear about your week, gals!

In Christ,
Julie

I don't post often, but thought I would show how not to do the water activity for unit 7 of LHTH. I placed little J on a chair (Big J had to help with this one) and ran to get my camera. When I came back I found him dangling like a monkey. I guess the chair I gave him did not allow him to submerse himself in the activity as well as he would like . I got him safely standing on something solid and the boys had a blast experimenting (playing) in the water.

The next day dh told me he was helping little J with a LHTH assignment and he switched the pencil in little J's hand. I guess he did that twice before little J finally said, "Why are we using this hand daddy?" Dh is so used to working with big J, who is left-handed, that he was forgot little J is right-handed. Hopefully little J will learn to write despite his parents. We are so pleased with little J's progress. He just turned 3 in November and our only goal for this year was to give him his own "school", have fun, and hopefully start to get the idea of sitting still for 30 seconds across. Well, we still don't sit still for 30 seconds, but we are learning. We are up to G now and he can pick out all of the letters and say what sound they make. I am so grateful for HOD.

Big J is doing well and we had an "extra" lesson in learning how to follow directions this week. This occurred while completing the ark of the covenant assignment in unit 8. I instructed him to cut his drawing into 6 sections and showed him how. He then proceeded to cut his paper into smaller segments. I told him it was a puzzle and he would not get it back together if he cut it so small. He insisted it was better to cut it the way he was, so I decided to stay quiet and let the lesson play out . Sure enough, when time to put the puzzle together it did not go so well. In the end he was cutting little squares to try and fill in gaps. I think it was a good lesson learned, but regret I didn't to take a picture for future reference in case he forgets the lesson somewhere down the road. About 2 or 3 weeks ago he began copying the memory verses from "A Reason for Handwriting" A, and he loves it. He is doing very well; here is a copy of his first verse.

One day this week he asked me for "The Reading Lesson," and when I asked him why he said he wanted to write sentences from the book. I was willing to oblige and am glad he loves the copy work. Big J is growing so much as we work in LHFHG. He was so hesitant when we first started, especially with the action rhymes and acting out, but now he is becoming more secure. I LOVE the activities to learn the memory verse. I have seen his coordination improve quite a bit since we started. Last time we did the ball toss he caught the ball FOUR times and he was so pleased. His smile lit up the room, but unfortunately it is hard to get a picture when you are throwing the ball. Well, off to finish up a couple of activities for the week.

Here is our week.

CTC Unit 19
Bigger Unit 13

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

Had a long week with hubby sick. You might pray for him if you think of it. He has psoriatic arthritis. So a simple cold morphed into a very painful week.

We had a lovely week, including:



DS made a jail for Paul and Silas (LHFHG week 18), with the help of oldest sister. When he brought down Paul and Silas (aka playmobil Viking and Robin Hood) big sis said, "I have to say he looks a little fierce for Silas! Could he at least lose the Viking hat?" He did, and all enjoyed an impressive reenactment of the story. As you can see, the jailer dropped his sword and repented.

Dd8 continues to love the Science and History notebooking:


Dd9 wrote a sweet poem using personification:
Whispering Wind
I know the name of a little wind
She whispers through the trees
She sweetly blows towards heaven's gates
And whispers with her breeze.

I'm enjoying seeing everyone's weeks! Have a great weekend!

One quick sweet story from this weeks LHTH. Ds and I had one of those wonderful moments where the Lord coordinates our H.S. curriculum with other events He has brought to our lives. All in his divine time and plan. My 4yo and I finished unit 6 this week- Joseph. One of the Active Exploration boxes, for the story of Jacob blessing Joseph's sons right before God called him to heaven, had us "Ask students if they have had someone pass away? Pictures help us to remember those we love. Have students look at or share pictures of their relatives." Some of you may have seen on the board that we lost my sweet Grandma and my boys special Great Granny recently. What a special time to sit down with my little one and look at pictures of her and share how much she loved him. Then we had the time of blessing and prayer over him. Precious moments. Thanks Carrie...Thank you Lord!

Off to a good start with Preparing, just completed unit 3. My 5th-grade daughter is doing very nicely with Singapore Math 3A. She is also doing the latter half of workbook 2B for reinforcement, and copywork for memorization of math facts. The memorization copywork takes her about 5 minutes a day and the 2A workbook pages take about 10-only 15 extra minutes of work each day and already I see such improvement. She is enjoying learning math again after having been lost at ps(Yay!) We start each day with the Basics (right side) with Bible and math first, take a short break and then do the History portion (left side). We are using R&S 3 and DITHOR 4/5. I have to say that we are both enjoying the weekly projects. I discovered a reason for my daughter's previous resistance to art related things-she told me her art teacher in public school "was a perfectionist, and no matter how hard I tried on my projects she always said they were terrible" Her words, not mine. That just about breaks my heart, but I am glad she is beginnig to enjoy creative endeavors again
Here is her re-write of "Rain" for this week:

Snow
By Tamara

The snow is snowing all around.
It falls on grass and fence.
It snows on the high rooftops here
And on the cars and street.

I know it doesn't rhyme, but she kept the right meter and totally enjoyed writing it!

We just finished Unit 21 in Preparing. We are so sad to have finished Grandpa's Box and Fountain of Life (I read ahead to finish it by today). Two excellent books - thanks Carrie! One of my girls asked if there was a Grandpa's Box #2 and could we get it to read!
Brenda

Ladies,

I am up way to early on a cold Saturday a.m. while all my gang is sleeping. I have had some time to read everyone's week. I love this board. So fun to see what all of us are doing for God's kingdom. Julie and Daisy I love to look at the pics of your CTC notebook. They just amaze me. Buttercups Greek soldier is fantastic. Gets me all excited for years to come. Dragon Fly's poem illustration was great two. Daisy, I love how you always create neat pages for your kiddos to do. That was one of our favorite poems this year! threegreatkids and blessedmomof4, I loved the poems that you shared. Blessedmomof4, I have to say that it seems like most of the personal poems I have written do not rhyme either. Everyone who posted looks like they are having lots of fun and staying warm. Looking forward to a new week.

We finished week 20 of Preparing this week. Noah enjoyed learning about Stephen, Peter and Paul in the various stories in Grandpa's Box. He loves that book and has made me promise to never sell it. He continued working on his Star book in Science and I was amazed at his cursive this week. He started writing and I hear him say "Wow this is good cursive". He really wasn't bragging, I think he was just surprised at what he can now do. He also said "I sure wish I could show my old teachers this". I think he knows he has gone beyond their expectations for him. They were wonderful teachers, but within the confines of the fast pace of public school I am sure he wouldn't have been as successful at improving his writing. He enjoyed mixing the applesauce and cinnamon together to make his ichthys. We are still figuring out where he wants to hang it. I took Carrie's idea that I saw in a recent post and had him do the geography independently and then show me what he learned. That worked out great. I think he will remember more that way. I also am pushing him to be more independent with his written narrations. It was funny because normally the guide gives him a sentence to start with. This week it didn't and he wanted to know what the first sentence was. I told him there wasn't one and that he would have to come up with one. He was unsure that he could do that, but once he started on it he did great.

We had a breakthrough with oral narrations this week. He was doing his typical very general narration and really struggling to recall any details. It was the story of Paul on the Road to Damascus and I knew he knew the story, but just seems to hit a road block when put on the spot to narrate. I told him to act it out and narrate while he did that. It was amazing the difference. He included all the details and was able to quote what God said to Paul. When he was finished I praised him and he said "Mom that is the only way I can remember things, I either have to act them out or see it to remember it".

He continues to read Jed Smith for DITHOR and enjoys sharing his reading time with one of our dogs. Another plus of homeschooling according to him.

Ladies,

I thoroughly enjoyed reading through your weekly check-ins today on a very cold, snow-covered Sunday afternoon in South Dakota. It made me feel like I was sitting down with friends and chatting about our week. It gave me such a cozy feeling!

I am so proud of each of you for perservering with your schooling, especially at this time of year, when it can be tough to energize yourself and your kiddos and keep on going.

I was reminded in looking over your pictures and the thoughts you've shared as to how much your kiddos are each growing and changing! It's so neat to see their progress and to cheer for one another as we share our journey together.

Thanks for sharing! It blesses me and countless other readers too.

Blessings,
Carrie

I just posted about our week on my blog

http://cherish-each-moment.blogspot.com ... ek-20.html