Week in Review 10/18-10/22

[John'smom]

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!

[Tree House Academy]

We had a short week again this week. Older ds did 3 days of the guide this week (he is visiting with his dad) and younger ds did 4 days (my dh is off tomorrow). Here is our recap - Edited to add pictures.

BEYOND

Younger ds studied the last lesson of Unit 8 and the first 3 lessons of Unit 9. We are studying about the pilgrims once they made it to America and talking about how tough life was for them in those early days. We have done a lot of geography this week with learning what continent we live on, what country we live in, what state we live in, and what city we live in. When we started, he could only tell me the city! I was surprised. He knew North America, USA, and Tennessee...but he didn't know that TN was the state, North America was the continent, and USA was the country. Then, today we did an experiment where we used masking tape to mark the land and he had to blow his "ship" (a ball of tin foil) across the ocean (the table) and make it land on the red X. It was easy for him the first time. The second time, he had to do the same thing, only with me blowing from the other direction. He got tickled and we both just laughed and laughed. Everytime he would blow forward, I would blow to the side. We had a ball! And he learned about how tough it was to sail across the ocean with all the winds and storms and try to land in one place. We also finished Sword in the Tree and began Sarah Whitcher's Story.





CTC

Older ds studied the last lesson of Unit 8 and the first 2 lessons of Unit 9. He began making his Philistine Helmet and is doing a wonderful job thus far. He is working on memorizing his poem and is doing well on that too. His paragraph for the last day of Unit 8 was so long, he couldn't copy it in the box! We had to attach his final copy (almost a page long on college ruled paper) to the box and fold it! He had a hard time getting the story condensed and I reminded him that a summary didn't have to be so detailed. He followed the questions given and still could only get it down to the length it was. He was getting frustrated, so I had him make a final copy and we stopped. I am really enjoying the studies that he and I do together. We finished the book of Ruth and now we have started Jashub's Journal (thanks to Mike who got the book here in record time even though I ordered it just a week or so ago!).. It is really making him think and I love how you are going back to the Bible to find God's laws to govern life's situations. This is great for my son to be learning! He is reading The Railway Children for DITHR and he is finding that the book I picked is just too long. It is giving him around 19-20 pages each DITHR day to read. I told him that, in the future, I will try to pick books that are a bit shorter, but he is still going to have to read on his level. He is doing DITHR 6/7/8 (even though Railway Children is in the 4/5 reading category) and is doing wonderfully with the questions in spite of himself! I think he is just at that age where he needs something to complain about. LOL Science is, by far, his best subject and he is soaking up every second of it. We had a fox try to carry off one of our chickens last weekend and ds immediately started giving me facts about the fox! He even went so far as to go get his SCIENCE BOOK to prove something to me!



And...in this picture, you just have to love little boys. Notice the passage he chose was about everyone being killed...and don't you just love the little stick man with an arrow through his head...SMILING! Oh Lord help me! LOL



Hope everyone else had a wonderful week! I look forward to seeing pictures and hearing your stories!

[John'smom]

You can see our past two weeks here.

Rebecca, your post last week with the drawing of your ds (where they were suppose to draw themselves on an outline of themselves that we drew) really helped me. I'm terrible at art. Thanks for faithfully posting about your week.

[countrymom]

Our big news this week is we changed "schoolrooms." We now school in the master bedroom We have never been known to be conventional in our family, but the living room, which doubles as playroom and toy storage area was just not working anymore now that little brother is not sleeping during school. Big J and I are both very pleased with the new arrangement. Dh is getting used to it . The room has huge windows and is so bright and cheery. Here is Big J listening to his memory verse tape.
'

Big J studying the oceans. We throw large pillows up against the bed and that is our reading area.


We have kind of been getting back in the groove and making adjustments so I don't have a lot to report. I worked with Little J some this week. Here he is working on his parting of the Red Sea painting, and yes, shirtless is the dress code for him when he paints

The finished product:


We are looking forward to a more normal week next week (hopefully).

[LynnH]

As always I love reading about everyone's week. Here is our week http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2010/10 ... 82010.html.

[blessedmomof4]

Proof of not judging a book by its cover: my daughter was less than thrilled to start the storytime selection, The Wonderful Winter and the DITHOR book, Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin, because the covers "look boring". Well, not only did she make a connection between the Benjamin West book and her history studies with Bigger Hearts about 2 years ago, but she is eagerly sharing with me what she reads in it. She is also on the edge of her seat for what happens next in The Wonderful Winter. I am constantly grateful for the time and effort Carrie has put into selecting such excellent reading material My daughter also enjoyed the Shakespeare book by Aliki and the book for science, Who Was Leonardo Da Vinci. She even added some mirror writing to her notebook page, as Da Vinci would have done

[Tree House Academy]

Proof of not judging a book by its cover: my daughter was less than thrilled to start the storytime selection, The Wonderful Winter and the DITHOR book, Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin, because the covers "look boring". Well, not only did she make a connection between the Benjamin West book and her history studies with Bigger Hearts about 2 years ago, but she is eagerly sharing with me what she reads in it. She is also on the edge of her seat for what happens next in The Wonderful Winter. I am constantly grateful for the time and effort Carrie has put into selecting such excellent reading material My daughter also enjoyed the Shakespeare book by Aliki and the book for science, Who Was Leonardo Da Vinci. She even added some mirror writing to her notebook page, as Da Vinci would have done

LOL - My son cried when I brought out Animal Adventures because it had a GIRL on the front! LOL Now it is his most favorite book ever. LOL

[moedertje]

BIGGER 1/2 PACE Unit 19

I just lost my whole post

Math: learning subtraction from the hundreds and using a meter stick..we printed it off online Addition has been a breeze so this week ds had to pay a bit of attention with the subtraction, but did very well and got the concept.


History Activity: The Rocky Mountains and there function as the Continental Divide. In History we are reading about the Lewis and Clark expedition.

How fire needs oxygen to burn (Of course it also needs wood and sticks if you are making a bonfire!) Elijah's guess was that a fire needs wood and that is true. With this experiment using a candle we demonstrated how it always need oxygen. As soon as I brought the candle over he realized said:"oh it needs air"


Bible: One of the highlights and blessings this week was ds's beautiful handwriting for his memory verse. The exercises and diligence are helping. He was so proud of it, he called me over to come and see half way through


Geography: Learning the directions of the Mississippi and Missouri River as Lewis and Clark started off following the Mississippi in their expedition west.
ds did great labeling the rivers without help! He has loved spelling Mississippi now for many years, Hermie movie!!! So we had to work on Missiouri.

[moedertje]

Little Hearts Unit 2 day 1-3

We do school 3 times a week at the moment. And if anyone wonders where those lovely curls went He thought he would help show my brother how short he wanted his hair and used the clippers It is still very cute, but Mom was not happy ..oh well they will grow back ds is thrilled with his short hair cut

Loved the craft! ds had a blast and so did his siblings..He wanted to make circles.. We have been working on making circles with ARFH



We already no Ephesians 6:1 in this house (broken record), but the kids had fun throwing the scarf and saying only so much of the verse till the scarf fell to the ground


ds demonstration of Reddy Fox being lame... the picture on all 4's did not come out ds decided that he does not like Reddy Fox since he did not tell Granny the truth, he loves the story, just not the character!!


Math had all kinds of fun activities... Carrie I love the activities and appreciate them much more the second time around Learning to write 6-10




The kids were all excited when they saw the square on the floor in the morning! Knowing something fun to do was on the way and it was, doing things inside and outside the Garden of Eden..Especially fighting Lions and tigers outside the garden!


ds enjoys his fine motor activities and does such a good job and staying motivated and at being diligent.


We are taking the week off, this is my Dad's last week here, than he is gong back to the Netherlands and we are going camping at the end of the week.....

[my3sons]

This week has been crazy busy! I'm late posting here, but I still wanted to, so here goes!
RTR:

Wyatt and Riley had a great time with this week's history project. They played "Race to Rome", and had so much fun! It incorporated map skills, and it did a good job of teaching how different groups of people were in a "race" for the acquisition of land and for control of the land. Many of the homemade games we make for history projects for HOD end up being played again and again. They become favorites in our "game cupboard". How neat history learning is being reinforced every time they play too!


This week's science lab required Wyatt to find different sizes of the planets to scale, and he also placed them according to their distance from the sun to scale. He did so well with it! He was amazed at how big the sun is in comparison to the planets! This was a great way to illustrated this. He is so efficient at doing his science independently, that I missed snapping a picture of the planets, but here he is with his completed lab sheet:


Wyatt continues to enjoy his "Draw and Write" pictures. I am so thankful for these over the years. They have really taught him how to draw! I'm glad they are housed in his RTR Student Notebook, so we can remember them and have a keepsake of them:


Both Wyatt and Riley are going all out on the fantasy maps for their DITHOR project. We are having so much doing this up big! Here's his finished map:


Those are a few highlights of the week. I am so thankful for HOD this time of year especially, as my dh is gone quite a bit. Though it is a tougher time for us on the home front, HOD is always moving along smoothly. It makes me feel like I am being a good mom to do it! I hope you had a good week too.

In Christ,
Julie

[Tree House Academy]

I LOVE that map, Julie. Your sons did such a nice job! We are doing DITHR 6/7/8 for my older son and he loves to draw, so he did a mural. He refused to let me post it here because it didn't turn out as good as he had hoped. However, he is already talking about what he would have done differently and looking forward to being able to have another go at a mural in the future. I think he did a nice job - it was his first mural and it was meant to be done in a group (which we dont' have here at home).

[my3sons]

Bigger Hearts, half-speed:
What a week for Riley! He loves to do the artistic side of things so much. He enjoyed mixing paint colors to make the background for his kite. I also like to have Emmett work at the table during this time, doing whatever LHTH artsy thing in the plans for the day. This is a way they can be working together, but still be doing what suits their individual abilities:



We have been enjoying Eggleston's narration on Benjamin Franklin's life so much. We had a good talk about the wise and witty sayings he wrote in "Poor Richard's Almanac". Riley liked choosing his favorites for his notebooking assignment. I like that HOD's notebooking assignments pair exactly with what we just read and learned, rather than being just an extra thing to do. Riley seems to remember things he's notebooked on or narrated on so much better!


I could have a child that would be perfectly happy reading poems theatrically for a living. Riley loves it when it is his turn to review and enjoy previous poetry. He gets out the microphone, reads it with a flourish, and then immediately begs to read another. He told me when Papa was here, Papa let him read them ALL. Oh my, Papa! What have you done?!? Actually, I am so glad he is enjoying poetry so much, and I think it is excellent practice to get up in front of people and read orally with gusto (though we need to work on the posture while reading).


We learned about the different ways that birds fly in science. We read about them, acted them out, and then did a lab report about them. I truly enjoy HOD's science. The living books offer such a neat way to teach about science, and the follow-ups make the concepts come alive. Riley's favorite was jumping off a chair to soar. He soared many times! He got out our South Dakota birds book and looked up birds doing each of the types of flying to draw and color from a model. He loved this assignment!


Here Riley is with his fantasy map for his DITHOR project for Stone Fox:


He likes working with big brother on it, but I have to say I'm relieved DITHOR is the only thing they're doing together. Wyatt finishes long before Riley, and they talk way too much, wasting quite a bit of time. I cannot imagine how long our day may go if they were trying to do everything together. For us, doing separate guides is a winner! I hope the rest of you doing BHFHG are having as much fun as we are!

In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

LHTH:
My little guy was beside himself this week with one particular art project and activity. It was the making of the ark of the covenant, and the carrying of it as David celebrated bringing it home. The glitter bottles were the first thing he loved. In fact, he told me that I could "leave the room". He wanted the glitter alllllllllll to himself. Here he is making his ark:


This child loves to glue! He would be happy squeezing glue out of a bottle all day long. I have to limit him, or we'd be running out of glue daily. Anyway, here is the part where David brings the ark home. Wyatt carried the ark, Riley followed, and Emmett was supposed to be next in line - but Emmett quickly shot out to the front of the procession and was beyond excited to be leading it. I think this may have been the speediest trip ever taken with the ark! He went around and around the house, in follow-the-leader type fashion, and loved it. The bigger boys had to take some long strides to keep up!


Emmett also can't wait each week for his "Hide and Seek" pages. It is encouraging to see how much his fine motor skills are improving. He can now properly hold the marker and mark the letters on the page. He usually finds them all too! He's very proud of his paper (he also wanted his tiger in the picture ):


As my older children get - well - older, I guess, I take great pleasure in the simplicity of doing school with Emmett. It is just plain fun! It's so easy to make him laugh, and for us to have a good time together. I'm thankful for all the different stages of life our dc are in right now - they all have their good points. It's nice to appreciate that, as too soon, those moments are gone.

In Christ,
Julie

[lovetobehome]

WOW, I just discovered this section of the board! I was wishing the board was more active, I like to check what is going on. And I found this section! Just wonderful!
We finished our week today, a short week. My kids have their standardized testing tomorrow, and Friday is our co-op day. We completed week 5 of CtoC. My 8yo DD cries almost every day because she wants to do all the fun things that my son is doing in CtoC. She does the painting with him, and I bought her the notebooking pages, so I will try to start her on it this coming week. I have not yet put her in a HOD program because I have been so busy with other things and am not sure what is the best fit for her, or if I should put her in CtoC. Also, I really wanted to concentrate on her math, spelling, writing and English for a bit and was afraid I would get distracted and let those slide.
My son thinks HOD is wonderful. He really, really enjoys it and is learning so many new things. He asked yesterday if he could switch to all the things HOD recommends, because he is liking it so much. I told him we would not be switching our math, but we could try WWB instead of IEW. He is feeling so proud of himself and what he is accomplishing. He schedules his subjects as he pleases, which keeps some variety for him. It is a wonderful feeling to know he is gaining independence and ownership of his schooling! And I thought it would be so sad to let go and have him work on his own. I wanted to keep directing him, but it is a blessing in many ways!
Anyway, I am so glad to have found this section. I will look forward to posting more and to reading more!

[Tree House Academy]

Oh this is wonderful Meg! I am so glad your ds is enjoying things this much. My son loves it too!

I am not sure I would put your 8 y/o in CTC. If you did, you would really have to slow it down for her and she would likely not be able to do many of the writings and readings on her own. I think I would probably put her in either Beyond or Bigger based on where she fits best on the placement chart if you decide to go that route.

WOW, I just discovered this section of the board! I was wishing the board was more active, I like to check what is going on. And I found this section! Just wonderful!
We finished our week today, a short week. My kids have their standardized testing tomorrow, and Friday is our co-op day. We completed week 5 of CtoC. My 8yo DD cries almost every day because she wants to do all the fun things that my son is doing in CtoC. She does the painting with him, and I bought her the notebooking pages, so I will try to start her on it this coming week. I have not yet put her in a HOD program because I have been so busy with other things and am not sure what is the best fit for her, or if I should put her in CtoC. Also, I really wanted to concentrate on her math, spelling, writing and English for a bit and was afraid I would get distracted and let those slide.
My son thinks HOD is wonderful. He really, really enjoys it and is learning so many new things. He asked yesterday if he could switch to all the things HOD recommends, because he is liking it so much. I told him we would not be switching our math, but we could try WWB instead of IEW. He is feeling so proud of himself and what he is accomplishing. He schedules his subjects as he pleases, which keeps some variety for him. It is a wonderful feeling to know he is gaining independence and ownership of his schooling! And I thought it would be so sad to let go and have him work on his own. I wanted to keep directing him, but it is a blessing in many ways!
Anyway, I am so glad to have found this section. I will look forward to posting more and to reading more!