Week in Review 4/19 - 4/23

[creativemommy]

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!

[creativemommy]

It's been awhile since I've posted a week in review, but I had a bit of time this morning so I thought I'd share.

Little Hands to Heaven Unit 29

My dd finished Unit 29 this week and began Unit 30. Below is her oil paining of the Garden of Gethsemane (Unit 29). I was so proud of her work - she did it all by herself. I only gave her a suggestion about where to begin painting the green paint on the foil so she'd have room to add the trees she talked about painting.

She has really grown a lot this year in her fine motor skills and it was evident to me in this project.


Little Hearts for His Glory Unit 29

We finished up Unit 29 and moved into Unit 30 this week. My ds really enjoyed being a "wagon" and carrying his "fragile belongings" (an egg packed in cornmeal) out west! Dd even joined in on the fun and the egg survived her journey west, too!

Down the "mountain" (basement steps)


Rolling over the plains...


The egg survived the journey - he was amazed that it didn't break!

[my3sons]

We have only 2 more days of school left, and we are coming to the close of an awesome year! After that, we'll have Iowa Basic Skills Standardized testing, and then the whole summer to r-e-l-a-x (and whip this house back into shape ). As I look back on the year as a whole, it has been such a growing year for each of our dc. God has been so good to us - to Him be the glory! As we look ahead to doing 3 HOD programs next year - RTR, BHFHG, and LHTH - we are confident and excited for what is ahead. Thank you HOD for preparing our dc so well - in mind, in heart, and in spirit.

Creation to Christ:
Wyatt has grown about a foot taller and is wearing men's shoes just a 1/2 inch shy of the size as his dad's shoes! Not only did he grow in height, he also grew so much academically and spiritually. What a good year he has had!

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks of CTC. The first one is his history project, which he made and painted different rocks to represent the church - 'on this rock I will build my church'. Next are some pictures of his science notebooking. They show labeled diagrams of different parts of the body, and he took a great interest in the body from those assignments and the readings of his science book. The last picture is of his final DITHOR project, where he made a timeline of the important events of "Gentle Ben".


Just to share a few of his areas of growth this year...
Wyatt now has a booming, confident voice when he sings along with his Phil. 2 CD, and he is pretty much on key most of the time. He has memorized all of Phil. 2, and the HOD plans along with the CD made this possible. He transitioned into reading his own history so well, and I know it is because of his reading the science in PHFHG the previous year. I love how HOD transitions him into skills such as these. We still loved reading the history-based Storytime books together, and yet another area of growth for him were all of the excellent Storytime comprehension responses he did... giving the response (narration) skit, finding connections in Proverbs, giving an "ad speech" for the book, giving a 5 sentence summary oral narration, giving a detailed oral narration - oh my! There is no fluff in HOD. Everything has its purpose, and I'm so glad we are not just reading, reading, reading books - but are instead enjoying the reading while also learning essential reading/LA skills.

Wyatt's drawing grew leaps and bounds. He was especially proud of his "Draw and Write..." drawings, as well as his DITHOR projects that he drew. Wyatt can easily follow the directions for his history projects independently now, and I get the joy of just having him show me the wonderful finished project now. So worth the previous years of training him to do so! His written narrations for history are just sooooo much better and sooooo much more interesting to read than they were at the start. By the end, I made a copy of the "Written Narration" guidelines and just had him check for them himself before handing them in. There was usually only 1 small thing to fix - like a word spelled incorrectly, or a comma to be added. Again, I know this is all due to HOD teaching him how to write a good narration over a span of several years. Next year, I'll be able to just say, "Write a written narration", and he'll know how to do it and do it well. Hooray!

Wyatt's Bible quiet time has been a special time for him to draw close to the Lord each day. I love to see him snuggled up near the fireplace, engrossed in his Bible, memorizing Scripture, and learning how to pray. His faith has grown so much this year, and he is just comfortable with his relationship with God. What a blessing this has been! I'm so thankful HOD works to get to the heart of a child, rather than just throwing in a Bible lesson here or there for good measure. Instead, HOD has God in virtually every part of the school day. There's just no getting away from Him - praise God! His faith has spilled over into his every day life, not just school, which is exactly the result I've been praying for.

For LA and math, it's been smooth sailing. He does mental math quicker than I can snap my fingers, and he always knows the answers to his oral R & S English questions - last year he did not. Science continues to be a love of his, but he became especially interested in the body and good health this year. He is really taking care to eat healthy foods and exercise, which comes at a great time as that is a need we are recognizing for our whole family now. He also grew so much in his science drawings for his notebooking. They used to be microscopic! Now, they are neat and I can read them easily. He completely gets the lab sheets and is good about guessing how an experiment may turn out. He thinks more scientifically, thanks to the way HOD teaches the scientific method from a young age on. For DITHOR - I had him do the projects this year. He is not by nature a child interested in artsy stuff, so this was new for him. We worked hard on them together, and his artistic skills just grew and grew. I'm so proud of him! We both learned a TON from doing the geography and "Genesis Finding Our Roots". Oh my - it was very convicting and gave us such a confidence in the history of the Bible.

Finally, I have to share how Wyatt grew in his watercolor painting. Again, not a big interest of his by nature, but it taught him sooooooo much. So, you're thinking his paintings were super beautiful by the end, right? Nope. But they were better, and I could tell what he was painting. So, you're wondering how this could possibly be an area of growth, right? Let me explain why. Each day he watercolor painted, it was difficult for him. He would try his best, but it still didn't look that great. However, it did get better as the year progressed, and he learned many painting techniques along the way. We had such a great talk about this on his last watercolor painting day. I said, "Oh Wyatt, it's your final watercolor painting day! How very sad I am, and you must be too." He got a little side grin, and mumbled, "Uh, yeah." I laughed and hugged him and told him I knew it hadn't been his favorite thing to do all year, and he grinned and said, "Yeah, but I did like it pretty much, Mom." Anyway, I went on to tell him a story...
"Three boys who had done 'Creation to Christ' when they were young grew up to be young men. As it turned out, these 3 young men went to visit an art museum together. It just happened to be a 'watercolor painting' only art museum. Years back when doing CTC, one of the boys had been an excellent painter. He loved every minute of it and couldn't wait to paint. Another of the boys had faithfully painted each day, but found it to be somewhat of a struggle, and did not have a natural inclination to paint. The third boy complained to his mother about his painting, saying he didn't want to do it, and after a few weeks she gave in and let him stop the painting altogether. Now, which of the boys will be able to appreciate the art museum as young adults?"

Wyatt said, "Well, the boy who painted beautifully would most certainly enjoy it. And, the boy who faithfully painted his paintings may not enjoy it quite as much, but he would have a great respect of what the artist had done, because he would know how very hard it was to do that. And, the boy who didn't do the paintings would probably just think it looked like a bunch of pictures on the wall, and why not go get out of there and do something else instead?"

Anyway, we laughed about this together, and I told him, "You know which boy you are in that story, right?" He nodded, and I told him, "I'm very, very proud of that boy." We went on to talk about how much of life is that way. We learn to read outstanding poetry, and sometimes that means we become good poets, but sometimes it just means we like poetry and aren't so great at it ourselves. Same thing with music - actually any of the fine arts subjects. An appreciation is attainable by all, even if the talent is not inherent. I'm so glad my ds is getting a rich education, in all walks of life.

Sorry this got long - it was just a fantastic year I wanted to share with all of you! If you're still reading, thanks for sharing in this long reflection of a very good year.

In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Bigger Hearts for His Glory:

We had just a wonderful year finishing out Beyond, and starting Bigger Hearts half-speed. I enjoy the flexible pacing with HOD so much, and next year, Riley will be well prepared and ready for full-speed Bigger Hearts.

Here are some pictures of a few of Riley's things. His science notebooking on the classification of animals is first. He worked so hard on that, and even pulled out the glitter. The next one is a two columned chart for his history notebooking, where he noted what medical practices 'did work', and which ones 'didn't'. (I'm glad we live with more medical knowledge today. ) The last few pics are of Riley being Benjamin West, and painting with fruit juices. He had great fun with this and has a new appreciation for Benjamin's beautiful paintings!



Riley had grown so much this year that it is hard to believe! Not in height , but in academics - especially his fine motor skills. His writing is beautiful! His spelling is near perfect all of the time, with little apparent effort on his part. His coloring is lovely. He is my artistic child - no doubt.

Riley's ability to listen and narrate upon what was read has improved so much. Mind you, there's still room for continued improvement, but he is so much farther along than he was to begin with. He's writing cursive now, doing very well with his grammar, and knows his math facts well enough to really clip along with his math. All of these are areas of immense growth. He has learned to love the heroes of American history, and looks forward to me reading to him from those living books each day. Science is his all-time favorite. He can hardly wait for the experiments, and blessedly they come around often or he'd be so sad. I like to listen to Riley read poetry now. He used to read it in a sing-song voice, but now he does a wonderful job with voice and rhythm. A few other big areas of growth are is starting DITHOR and dictation. He now does all of his own writing for DITHOR, only copying from the markerboard when it's a longer assignment. He studies his dictation and does well with writing it, rarely missing anything. Being in level 4 with his older brother, I know not to fast forward him though! One of the biggest area of growth for Riley is his ability to talk about the Bible and Godly character traits. He used to have trouble making sense of these, especially how he could apply the character traits to himself. We had some wonderful discussions about this, and they were necessary discussions.

I'm so proud of his growth, and look forward to his continued growth. Riley still sits on his haunches, ready to launch at the kitchen table, and he still fidgets like crazy, knocking me left and right when I'm reading to him on the couch. These can be sources of agitation for us both. However, he has learned not to run and thunder about from thing to thing, and I have to say that though he looks like a rocket ready to launch working at the kitchen table, his work still looks like a million bucks - so, I've had to get over this, as its an annoyance that has not much harm to his work.

Riley had a great year and keeps getting better and better incrementally at everything he does. We are looking forward to next year so much! He will be so ready for BHFHG full-speed, and I'll be so glad we started it half-speed to train him. What a good year!

In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Little Hands to Heaven:
Emmett is about 11 weeks into LHTH and loving it. We will take the summer off, and then pick back up, finishing LHTH sometime in the next year or 2. Emmett loves for me to hold him and sing his "Singing Bible" songs, dancing around the kitchen with him. He loves those CD's! We've enjoyed our half-speed trip through LHTH, using both Bibles, alternating them each day. He is actually starting to answer some of the questions correctly, and he does a good job remembering the names of the Bible characters we've read about.

Here are some pictures of Emmett doing LHTH this last week. He can now find the letters in his "Hide and Seek Letter" pages, and he actually can mark them himself. He had to follow some simple directions for making a storyboard of the Bible story we read this week. I was floored he was able to follow the directions - i.e. make a wavy blue line at the bottom of the paper for water, make a mouth, and trace your hand (which I did for him). He was so proud of his work!


Emmett has grown in so many ways as well! He can hold the marker and mark things fairly well, cuts with his scissors much better, and tries to color in the lines too. He can do all of his letter sounds we've learned along with the actions, which I know from doing this years passed with my older dc will help him do well with phonics. When we do the fingerplay together, he beams , and he says each line quite well along with the action, repeating after me. It is such light-hearted fun to do his school, and it makes me get in my time with him each day, rather than me just focusing on the olders - which I would have a tendency to do otherwise. He loves school time together, and I love seeing his little smiling face as he gets his little Bible and waits for me on the couch. What a blessing this year has been!

In Christ,
Julie

[Mom4Him]

creativemommy- I am sooo glad you were able to share! We will be doing Unit 29 in LHTH next week & LHFHG next year- your pictures got me so excited!

Julie, Thank-you so much for taking time to share about your children's years. Your family is so precious, & I feel blessed to know you through this board! Each of your children are growing & learning so much & doing so very well. The story about Wyatt's watercolor painting almost had me in tears. Thank-you!

Our week was wonderful as well. Daddy was gone most of the week, & I wondered how crazy things would get- but I was so thankful for Little Hands to Heaven each day that gave us fun learning time together!
Here are some highlights from our week...
Here are the girls with their animals/babies acting out the Transfiguration... the monkey is Jesus - see how he is "shinging"!

The girls were so proud of their art projects this week & they all turned out beautifully...

They begged me take pictures of them pretending to be Jesus blessing all of the "children"

Thank-you HOD for such wonderful God-centered lessons that are such a joy for our family!
Jessica

[seekhimfirst]

I really love to read about everyone's week! It's great to see what we will be doing in the future. It's also wonderful to see all the beautiful children being raised up in Godly homes with a Godly curriculum!

Hopefully, I will get this right and you can peek at our week in Unit 4 of Preparing and Beyond if you'd like...although you may have to copy and paste to make it work.

http://ourfamilysjourneyoflove.blogspot ... 19-23.html

Blessings!

[LynnH]

I just love reading these. Julie, I love the story you told Wyatt. I am going to remember that. I have a feeling it may come in handy next year when a certain boy with shaky hands gets frustrated with painting. Here is my blog link to our week. http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2010/04 ... 41910.html
Noah did in my eyes, a very good sketch of our greyhound this week to prepare for his etching. I was so proud of him because drawing does not come easy for him.

[Dustybug]

It's been a long time since I've been able to post, but I'm excited to be checking back in!
Here's the link to my blog posts for our last two weeks:
http://reachtothemoonandback.blogspot.c ... ek-24.html
http://reachtothemoonandback.blogspot.c ... ek-23.html

I look forward to reading the other links!