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:
Just when I think the Storytime book we're doing next can't possibly be as good as the one we just finished, I am proven wrong again. This is one time I'm glad I'm wrong! Our new Storytime book "Traveling the Way" is outstanding. I confess I am having a very hard time not reading ahead on my own. I love still being able to get cozy and read excellent books with my big 10 yo ds. He's going through that kind of awkward stage when I give him 'too many hugs' right now (I still hug him anyway ), but our Storytime on the couch he still loves to snuggle in and do with me. I love it.

One thing I've noticed lately - Wyatt is doing so well with the content of his writing. Another thing I've noticed lately - Wyatt is doing poorly with the neatness of his writing. We've talked about this, and today was already an improvement, but he is rushing. I think his thoughts are coming so quickly that his hand can't keep up, especially with his written narrations. I've also noticed that he is not being as careful with his drawings, but his coloring has improved. Anyway, there is always this ebb and flow of skills, and there are always a few to celebrate, and a few to work on again. Here are a few pics of his Student Notebook, his Geography Travel Log, his quiz for history, and his history project of outfitting a Roman soldier:


I sometimes take for granted how well math, R & S English, dictation, and copywork are going. I was just thinking how nice it is to just continue on with these, for the most part, just enjoying them overall. Though these subjects often aren't as inspiring to me as history, science, DITHOR, Bible, etc. - they are such an important part of learning, and I'm so thankful they just flow quite easily from day to day.

For DITHOR, Wyatt is loving "Gentle Ben". Today he had to role play a scene from the point of view the book was written in, and then from a different character's point of view that was in the book. In the past, this would have been a bit of a struggle for Wyatt, as he is not the creative role playing kind of guy, but he really got into it, role played it well, and enjoyed himself too. As he is getting older and more serious, it was fun to see this side of him.

This was an especially busy week, as my dh traveled many evenings, but it was still a good week. I am thankful for the joy and continuity HOD brings to my life!

In Christ,
Julie

Bigger Hearts for His Glory:
Poor little Riley was sick this week. He ran a temperature, had a big headache, and developed a cough too. Little honey still wanted to do school though! We decided to continue to do school, but I tried to have him move very minimally. We are doing BHFHG half-speed, so it was quite easy to do. Thank the Lord he is on the mend today.

Riley's writing is coming along so nicely now. He keeps drawing the same scene for his poetry, but I guess they all have had something to do with ships, so I'm letting it ride. Next week though, I'm encouraging a new picture!

Riley's map was kind of little, but I let it go, in light of his not feeling the greatest:


Science continues to be a big favorite of Riley's! Here he is experimenting with wind, rain, and waves. He was the wind, the dropper was the rain, and we poured water in the pan to crash like a wave when tilted. He loved this! He found that waves change the seashore the most, and he did a good job on his science lab. I am so glad the scientific method is taught in HOD. It makes him really think about what he's doing. I'm also glad we are doing an experiment every single week. I would not get this done without HOD making it easy on me to do. It is one of the things I feel so good about!


Riley has worked up to doing 2 vocabulary cards for history now. There are a few things that help him (since he's young) that I thought I'd share. First, he finds it on his own in the history book. He reads the sentence out loud, and takes a guess what the word might mean. Then he looks it up in the dictionary. For this part, it is helpful to have the alphabet chart in front of him. Since we are using a thick dictionary, the alphabet helps him when we get to the second, third, fourth, etc. letters of the word we are trying to find. Then, we read through all of the definitions together and pick the best one to match the meaning used in our history text. Putting a few sticky notes around what needs to be copied really helps him. Next, he uses the word in a sentence of his own. It helps him if I write the sentence he said on the markerboard for him. He then copies this sentence on his card. Last, we talk about how he could draw the meaning. I do a quick sketch of his ideas for him on a markerboard, and he draws it on his card, putting his own twist on it. All of this works together to make such an awesome vocabulary lesson! Thanks HOD, for even making vocabulary meaningful to what we're learning.



I'm glad we can do school even when we're not in the best of health, and still manage to enjoy ourselves. Praying for good health for my little Riley!

In Christ,
Julie

P.S. Can you tell which sweatshirt is Riley's favorite?!? He wore it before laundry day, and then again right after. I DO make him wear clean clothes - I promise!

Little Hands to Heaven:
Emmett loved acting out carrying the BIG grapes the spies found in Canaan. He thought that was great fun! He also enjoyed gluing his cheerios on a green paper to show grape clusters (though he ate as many as he glued ).


Another favorite was following the cloud of fire God was in. All 3 of our dc had to become the Israelites and act out moving the tent following the fire (flashlight) :


It is neat that we can all jump in and do a few things like this all together, as LHTH's boxes only take about 5 minutes to do. We always have 5 minutes to spare to do a few things up big for the little guy!

Emmett also enjoyed building an example of God's tabernacle. He made it out of Legos, covered it with tin foil, and set coins and perfume out for offerings. He loved spraying the perfume and smelling it, but I had to put a stop to that as I like my perfume too. When I told him the tabernacle was like God's church, he folded his little hands and said a prayer on his own. I think it was something about his tractor, but still, it was a prayer he prayed on his own. I was glad I had the camera ready! It was a special moment. I'm glad HOD is teaching my dc prayer is natural, all of the time. We'll work on the content of his prayers, but at least he already loves to pray.


Emmett's been waking up a lot at night again. My dh was traveling, so that may be why, but I hope he begins to sleep better again soon. It could be his reflux acting up again or his switch from the crib to a toddler bed. Whatever it is, I hope it goes away. Doing LHTH together is the most special time of day for us together, and I'm so glad we are doing it. I hope you all had a wonderful week with HOD and look forward to reading your posts here!

In Christ,
Julie

Bigger Hearts for His Glory

Here we are at unit 5. It is a stretch not to do it all in 1 week.

For our weekly co-op we did our art project and made Indian sand paintings. and added it to our "Picture Story book" and we wrote the Key Idea from the manual.


My son just loves Cheerful cursive, he is very proud when he can circle his best word or letter and I circle the same one as being closest to the model. What I love about Cheerful cursive is that they get to read the cursive, copy from cursive to manuscript and vice versa, and they have plenty of repetition even encouraging the kiddo's to look up unknown words in the dictionary. The other thing I think is great is that they have the kids practice the letters by having them in alphabetical order.


This week we learned about the hemispheres and how the pilgrims sailed from the Eastern to the Western hemisphere. I made up a little sheet for Elijah to copy the 7 continents and write what hemisphere they are found on. (Portfolio Junky).

Learning about the difference between things we Need and Want sparked some interesting conversations and seeing how important it is to discuss these matters with the kiddo's. Sometimes here in the Western world we have so many wants that they become needs in our mind. We also ended up talking about the verse that people often quote when they WANT something and say: God will give us the desire of our hearts. When this means that our desire needs to line up with His.


We had two units for this activity of drawing and labeling Invertebrates and Vertebrates. This is still a bit of a stretch since Elijah is not detail oriented, so I end up modeling it for him and I am not the greatest artist! Well, I am blessed to learn with him. Once I draw it step by step he does a great job


for vocabulary I have him look up one word and I look up another and do a sheet on that. I made up these sheets to give him more room for writing since that fine motor coordination is still developing. Since he knew what pestilence meant from reading the sentence, we just looked it up to make sure and than he picked the word volley. Since I am not from this country this is one of my favorite subjects besides Am. History.

Little Hands to Heaven (sorry, I have not yet figured how to get my pictures smaller)

Doing LHTH at 1/2 pace allows me to add in some other things with Luke. We are taking it slow so that we can start off slow with LHFHG. My little perfectionist needs some time to grow into his skills.
He does great with his letter recogn. and sounds! His handwriting is great for just starting to learn and write letters.

Luke usually finds all his letters for his Hide and Seek page and counts how many he finds. It is also a joy to watch him stay on the line to take the Daddy G to the safe the baby g. For count on me, he usually gives a cute narration of the story we just read and he draws the activity on his own... He does not like to make mistakes!


His favorite thing is to do an activity on the floor with his new lesson and he also sits on the letter to listen to the story on CD.


Finger plays are not his most favorite thing to do until he knows it by hard. We had fun with our g sound! Little sis always joins in and knows most of the finger play herself.

For G Luke went outside to cut some grass (we live in Fl) and it was green when we glued it on the letter and we put some green glitter on the other one.

Just wanted to say that I love your weekly reviews, ladies!!! I always look forward to Fridays so I can read about and see all the wonderful things you've done with your dc. It's my prayer that this next year, I will be reporting in here with all the wonderful HOD things I'm doing with my dc.

My dd completed Unit 24 of LHTH this week...

She loves to cut paper with her scissors and will ask everyday if there is a cutting activity. If there's not one planned, I'll make one for her. I've seen such progress with her cutting this year in LHTH projects. In the picture she's proudly displaying her "brown" color page she completed at the beginning of the week.


My ds completed Unit 24 of LHFHG this week...

He's really enjoying the history stories (and so am I ). We've also read through a few of the suggested books in the back of guide that we've been able to find at our library. Carrie - you've done a great job planning it out for LHFHG intertwining History for Little Pilgrims with History Stories for Children. Thank you!

I printed off the 13 colonies map from a website for my son to color instead of making it out of PlayDoh (just for the sake of time the day we did it)...


He is also enjoying the Thornton Burgess books. We finished Chatterer's book this week and loved the ending. We're looking forward to beginning Buster Bear on Monday.

One afternoon this week, we took a walk through our squishy, muddy yard (thanks to the TONS of snow that has melted) to find some first signs of spring (a non-HOD activity). My kids loved spotting these tiny flowers growing up through the mud. We love snow & winter, but we're excited SPRING is just around the corner.

moedertje - Your ds's Indian sand project turned out so well! His science notebooking is awesome - he worked so hard on that and it looks so nice. Cheerful cursive is a hit here too. I'm glad your ds is enjoying it. You had such a good discussion about needs and wants. I agree, it is difficult to separate the two due to where we live sometimes. We are incredibly blessed and often take for granted how God provides for our needs. HOD does a good job of bringing up discussions like this. Your little guy doing LHTH is doing so well with his fine motor skills. I am trying to imagine being able to go outside and clip grass, but it's a stretch as we still have snow everywhere! What a cute idea to have what you glue on be something that starts with the letter. My little one loves the masking taped letters too. He will play on them long after the "lesson" is done. It looks like your little gal likes to jump right in there. What a happy week of homeschooling!

creativemommy - Your dd's Brown page looks so neat, and her smile shows she is sure happy with her work. Learning to cut is no small task - how wonderful that she is enjoying it and wants to do it more often. I'm so glad you and your ds are enjoying the history stories in LHFHG. You'll be sure to enjoy "Buster Bear" as much as you enjoyed "Chatterer...". It is a funny book, and it just gets more and more fun to read about the Burgess characters as you get to know them better and better. We have a mixture of snow and mud everywhere right now. I liked your picture of pretty flowers, and I do so hope we soon have some as well. Thanks for sharing your week here!

In Christ,
Julie

BIGGER: We are on our last week of "One Small Square: Woods". Actually, we have only one day left. Then we'll be moving on to Pioneer Sampler. I'm really looking forward to it. But whenever we study nature, it's depressing. I grew up in the Midwest and being in AZ there's so much more. I always feel like dd is getting shorted somehow nature-wise....so the Woods was a good memory anyway.

We measured the wing spans of owls. And dd also did an excellent drawing on plants vs funguses. We're running a little behind. But that's okay, right?





next time I'll do a thumbnail. I'm new at this pic posting thing and my photo host is crawling.

Annaz,
I am new at posting with pictures and have to figure out for the coming week how to get them smaller. Your daughter has an artistic talent going. How neat her drawings!

Julie,
You are a true encourager I just love this board so much. It reflects God's word: Encourage one another and build each other up. Reading your posts written in honesty about Wyatt improving in one area and going back a little in another reminds me not to get too upset when the kids put more of there energy in one area to learn that.
Riley is doing very good with his drawings, Elijah even made the comment looking at his drawings how good they are! He inspires me to move on to two vocabulary words with Elijah soon.
Little Emmet looks like he is having a ton of fun with LHTH.
When I did LHTH the first time around with Elijah I went through the whole manual planning what to do for the letters and kept a file. I wanted to get familiar with the what we would be doing the whole year and took notes. A planner at heart, in need of knowing what lies ahead. This also means that the Lord is working in me to handle distractions, since I usually can plan them in!!!
For the sand paintings, at co-op I modeled 2 different patterns to give the kids an idea than they each came up with there own. One did rectangles, one did some cool figure and Elijah did his.

Creative Mommy,
You dd daughter does a fantastic job with coloring and we loved LHFHG and I am glad I get to do it 3 times by the time all all my kiddo's have gone through it, I will know my North American History, being from South America.

Have a great weekend and looking forward to seeing your kiddo's next week. have a blessed week and may the grace of God be with all of you this coming week.

Wow it looks like everyone had a great week. Here is our week http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2010/03 ... -3810.html

Hi all! I'm sorry we haven't posted in a while. Its good to be able to find the time again to post our adventures of the week.
Its been slow, but we are slowly picking up speed again as God has seen us through a personal storm. We are now working through week 16 of CTC.
This past week brought some wonderful highlights. We are currently working with IYW. Kasey made my heart smile when I read a piece of creative writing that was clever and witty. It still needs tweeking, but for the first time her writing made sense..hooked me as an audience leaving me wanting to know more about her character. For Kasey creative writing has been a very difficult and tedious task. What joy it was for her to present this piece to me that showed every evidence of growth and improvement.
This week I turned her loose in my kitchen, literally, I left her on her own to bake her Nebuchadnezzar cookie. Thankfully she produced a cookie without us having to call the fire department
When we were going over the parts of the cookie statue, she told me she had to leave out the bronze part because she ran out of room on the cookie sheet (see picture). I have to say the cookie was very sweet and tasty!
This past week also yielded one more precious moment. Typhoon Tiffy was found "reading" herself to sleep, so naturally had to share this pic too. I am slowly doing small parts from LHTH with Tiffy. This week every letter she saw was the letter A and every word she saw was the word applesauce lol. She loves doing the first part of A-A-A- Adam.
Again, thankyou each and everyone for your continued prayers, and please know that I keep the people of this board in my prayers too.
Blessings and until next week.....

Ladies,

I enjoyed reading each of your weekly check-ins so much! It blesses my heart to see and read about your precious children and to picture them doing the activites we are doing with our own kiddos as well. I love the chance to connect with other families through this board as we write our guides, as it always keeps your children in my mind as we seek to draw them nearer to the Lord through what we write. This is such a personal reminder of how important the Lord's work is and it encourages me beyond measure! We pray that you may also find encouragement from the wonderful ladies on the board. We know the Lord has blessed the board with each of you!

Thanks for sharing!

Blessings,
Carrie

Wow! What a joy it has been to take a peek at everyone's weeks! It is such a blessing to read what you are doing- as this has been a great encouragement to me!
Julie- I always love to read about your children. For whether sick or not (I'm hoping everyone is on the mend) it looks like they are having so much fun & learning so much. Your posts are so very helpful!
moedertje- It is wonderful to see your family in action! I love to see how HOD works in other homes, & it seems like it is going so well for you!
creativemommy- Our children really like the color pages too- your daughter did so well!
annaz- BIGGER looks like so much fun- your post had made me excited to get there with my little ones (but not too fast )
LynnH- I always really enjoy reading about Noah! What a precious picture he made of your family!
rainbowacreshes- what a sweet picture of your daughter & a yummy looking cookie!

Sorry this post is a bit late - it has been quite a busy weekend, but I wanted to share about our week, for I had pics that I can't help but share.
We finished unit 22 of LHTH. We learned about Jesus growing up & the beginning of his ministry.
The girls were so proud of their Letter R's- they wanted to leave them up ALL day, so Daddy could see them when he got home. This was not easy with so many little ones, but it was worth it to see the excitement they got to share with him...

We had great fun making shadows. Just as our shadows follow us wherever we go, the disciples followed Jesus wherever he went- & we should too!

We really enjoyed painting. It was fun to see how different each child's picture turned out, as they were each given the same paint & paper!

We are thankful for such a wonderful, godly curriculum!!