heartofdakota.com

Can I jump in here and start this week's check in? I know that Mary is having an extremely busy week, so I am certain she will not mind me doing this.

Here is a link to my blog post about our week... http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/granolamom6/497920/

How has your week with HOD been?

Well, we haven't done a lot this week. We did do Lesson 3 in Reading Made Easy today. We are still concentrating on listening for the 'aaaa' sound in words, and reading books together. I'm excited that in a few months he will be reading! DS also played a couple of board games with DD; not in the HOD plans for LHFHG, but it does help with his counting and number recognition! He also practiced writing numbers 1-5 again this week. He's doing a great job...just needs to work on starting at the top instead of at the bottom. Reddy Fox is waiting to entertain us some more today, and we will be reading some History...that's pretty much our week, so far. Looking forward to everyone's posts.

We are on Unit 24 of Little Hearts - Colonization

We always love review week with our memory verses and we usually review all of the verses and they love seeing how many they can remember.

We made a cute little poster for our rhyme this week that looks like a compass and they love jumping north, south, east and west.

They really enjoyed the story of wall street and they got to teach Grandad all about it! I have to admit, I didn't know why is was called Wall St. either! Today we read about the 13 colonies and I was very impressed as they have started asking question, which is a new concept for them. They wanted to know why the 13 colonies didn't go any farther west, they just stopped in a line. Aha....introduction of some geography.....mountains. I was just excited that they were suddenly curious. I hope this is the beginning of asking LOTS of questions!!

And of course....we are loving Chatterer!!

We are only on day 2 today as this week has been filled with dr. and dentist appts. and it looks like we will end our week with visitation and a funeral.....our sweet neighbor's brother passed from this life on Tuesday morning and we had gotten to know him pretty well in the past two years. He had battled cancer for many, many years.

Sorry...no pics this week. It's been a rather unorganized week, and I am really hoping to be more on our schedule next week. It is exciting to know we only have 10 units left....and then on to Beyond!!!

granola Christa! Your dd saying her verse is just the sweetest!! Your girl's shields were great, too.

Now off to visit Wendy's blog! I actually weighed this week....not as bad as I thought....

OK...I'm back. Congrats to your dd Wendy! She looked good on the ice....I always love watching the ice-skating competitions on tv, they're so graceful. I'm sure she's glad she had the opportunity to take lessons.

Thanks, Mel. She had such a great time.

We're finishing up Unit 4 this week in Beyond. We'll finish our biography of Helen Keller, which she was in the news (Fox) on having a photo find of her and Annie Sullivan. We printed out the pic and my dd has it in her drawer .

Early Reader's Bible is going very, very well as she's asking to read more. We're really happy we switched from Beginner's Bible. She actually looks forward to reading it. Yay!

Needs lots of work on narration and remembering what was read and I know it's not comprehension, just a lack of focus or interest maybe. She can remember her bible verses in 3 days now, before it took the full week.

We're having problems with "general" answers to questions. Everything is good or bad, etc. Driving me batty. And we're having issues w/some phonics/grammar. I'm still in a toss up over using LLATL Red complete and bypassing the LA in HOD or picking and choosing LLATL Red and using the grammar in HOD. So for now I am doing what I have been, which is taking it a day at a time. But it's still annoying to me as I'm not sure how to do this. I Love LLATL and I love the LA in HOD. But we need phonics. LLATL is so involved that it's hard to pick things out. Oh well.

Ann

Thank you, Melanie! I didn't mean to show off, but I knew that my mom and my sister would enjoy seeing that, so I just had to post the video.

Well, I wasn't going to start until Monday, but the boys were so excited about everything, that we went ahead and did our first lesson today!

Adam and the Animals was a LOT of fun, lots of smiles and giggles, and they looooved the part where we looked surprised. We did our art project, which is always a very big hit for them. They kinda went a little crazy with the paint, so you can't see the crayon underneath anymore, but fun it was and we talked a lot about God creating night and day. Oh, and they've been wanting me to play the CD all day long. All in all, I'd say we had a great day!

I am LOVING everyone's shares. What a blessing this thread is to me each week! It SPURS ME ON!

We are on vacation for the next two weeks. This week my children were tested, next week we will be in Georgia for my SIL's wedding. I am LOVING staying connected to HOD through your weekly check in, though!

BTW, my tester LOVED Heart of Dakota. The boys had already filled her in during their testing time, before I ever had a chance to tell her.

Here is a link to my week in review.

http://beandipblog.blogspot.com/2008/03 ... eview.html

Melanie-seems like we are on the same schedule. We are enjoying Chatterer too. My dd is looking forward to starting Buster Bear next week.

Gina

Here is link to our week!

http://homeschoolblogger.com/pazzaacademy

I've been spending a lot of time creating our blog this week. I figured out everything, but changing the avatar (which I didn't even know what it was before). My dh is gone alot and he's really liking the idea so he can stay in touch and see what the kids are doing.

It's been fun reading everyone's updates and seeing what we will be doing next year and then beyond. It's so exciting!!

Laurie

We have fallen a bit behind this week as learning time has taken a "back seat" to dollies, Polly Pockets, and princess dress up time! My daughter has just seemed to need to fulfill other areas of interest right now so, I must comply!

The good news is I don't plan to move forward with Little Hearts until she is much closer to age 5 so, we have plenty of time to move at a slow, relaxed pace.

We did create Joseph's Coat Of Many Colors using a coffee filter and diluted tempera paint to create a neat stripe pattern. Very colorful and fun art/bible activity that my daughter was very proud of! I took pics of our project (I painted too) for my blog but can't seem to figure out how to transfer the pics there (Melanie you are going to love this! ), since my husband bought me the Kodak Easy Share camera and software.

I am enjoying reading about everyone's week!

Candice

Well we didn't do much this week. Matthew has been sick and therefore not sleeping well, needless to say neither am I. We did read about Squanto and made colorful corn with Fruity Cheerios. The boys had fun using the glue.

Hopefully next week will go better.

Ladies, it's so fun to read about the different activities your kiddos are doing (and to see their smiling faces in the pictures is such a pleasure!).

This week in "Little Hearts..." my little guy loved examining the various parts of the hand and creating a hand like his own out of paper (to be the hand writing on the wall like Belshazzar in Babylon)! He also loved measuring objects with paper clips for his math as he chose his 3 favorite stuffed animals to measure (Mama Whale, Baby Whale, and Baby Dolphin)! Last, he loved camouflaging himself after reading about how colors can help camouflage you so you blend in with your surroundings. This went along with Daniel, who could not hide or be camouflaged, in the lion's den.

This week in "Bigger Hearts..." my middle son really enjoyed our new poem "My Books and I". He loved the wit in the poem and the way the various stanzas were so different from one another in the mood they portrayed.

He also loved mixing colors with food coloring, painting the mixed color on paper towel, and then watching the colors separate again as the paper towel was dipped in water. This went along with our lesson on pioneers dying wool by mixing colors of various plants. Using a grid in Battleship style to act out Daniel Webster following the woman who took wood from his house was also a huge hit here!

We hope your week has been a good one as well!

I'm loving reading all of these - isn't God doing great things for our dc and us in our HOD homeschooling? I was SOOO EXCITED to share some pictures this week with my weekly check-in! But, my dh nabbed the camera and has it in his car at work. I'll have to post them later tonight...

But, here goes...
LHFHG: My ds said the WHOLE Lord's Prayer for his memory verse! I prompted him with made-up hand motions, but he got the WHOLE thing. He chose to share it with my dh on the phone when dh was at work. My dh couldn't believe he was doing that on his own - he actually asked me if he was reading it. I told him, "Hon - he's just reading BOB books, not quite up to the Lord's Prayer yet!" Also he made a great art project about those he loves that I'll post a picture of tonight!


Bigger...: My ds gave a great oral narration this week! He really nailed it - and he was so proud! It took a little time, but he is probably already better at it than I am. It was one I typed while he said it (this comes up on a rotating basis in Bigger's... plans). I can't wait to branch out into written narration lessons next year with Preparing! I'm also putting a picture on on the history notebooking I posted about last week at the check-in.


Also, I know I said this in another post earlier this week, but it really is one of my best memories this week. When I came downstairs after putting our baby to nap, I found my ds raising his hands to heaven as he sang his hymn for the week. He was kind of embarrassed about me walking in on it - I guess he was having a private moment with the Lord and didn't want me intruding. This is the absolute first time he's ever done that - it really touched my heart!