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A-A-Adam!
Can you believe?
God made the animals.
And you and me!


Grayson has been studying the letter A and the short a sound. He has also learned this week about God creating the world and the sneaky snake that tricked Adam and Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. Here are some pictures of him working on his letter A this week.

Kirsten, I am so glad that Grayson is enjoying his start to LHTH!! His smiles light up the room! It is so much fun!!

We've been having fun at our house too. This week I've posted about our girls doing LHFHG!! We enjoy every day!
http://ourfamilyforhisglory.blogspot.co ... arten.html

Thanks Jessica! Grayson truly loves school!

I already have your blog bookmarked! Infact....your blog is the very reason I decided to go ahead and start doing LHTH with Grayson last week. I am always going to it for inspiration. You do an amazing job of putting up pictures of your girls enjoying school. Thank you! It has really motivated me. I love the animal letters, how did you come up with that?

Oh and the twins self portraits are adorable!!!

BIGGER HEARTS 1/2 pace (Unit 20)

We are learning about The War of 1812. How much fun ds had when we did our Geography this week. We had to make a large grid and he had to find the right coordinates and if he did I was to go meet him. He did not want to stop and he gave me some coordinates to come and meet me. My dh was very impressed with this activity, he was thinking how it will benefit him later in his graphing skills!

For the history activity we had great fun playing the game of War with cards. What much fun is school with HOD!

The character trait we are studying in this unit is loyalty and we had great fun discussing different ways to show loyalty to friends and family and how it was most important to be loyal to God. This gave great opportunity to discuss obedience to parents now and how it will train him to be loyal to God regardless of peer pressure.
This is really the first time that I recorded ds his oral narration and had him pick a sentence to explain the main idea. Since we are slowly adding more copywork this was a great activity and to see how oral narration needs to be turned into proper sentences.

Does ds ever love Pioneer Sampler he gets very disappointed when there is no reading for science. This week he had to draw the layers of the tree trunk and he picked to draw the colorful one in One Small Square Woods. I did some modeling for him to draw it and get some detail in his picture and he copied off very well.

This is the second unit that we are copying the poem and making a picture to go with it. I was very impressed with ds's improved handwriting and his idea for his picture. Again I helped him a little bit by modeling how to color more neatly and make a cloud. Ds was very excited with his work this week and glad to show it off to Daddy!

Math is going very well. More multiplication we are in 2B and are doing the times table 4. I love the hands-on activities and how they teach the why behind the multiplication. I continue to have him tell me a story with the math sentences as we do each new times table.

We are moving right along with dictation, it is so good to see that ds is paying attention and catches his mistakes before he gets to check on his card. I gently introduced the indents for the paragraphs this week, since he has to catch them while doing poetry copywork.


Thank you Carrie for a great week once again with Bigger Hearts. We love it, love it, love it!

LITTLE HEARTS FOR HIS GLORY 1/2 pace unit 3

How blessed it is to see my ds so excited and motivated to do Kindergarten.

Reddy Fox has continued to draw all 3 kiddo's and is asked for daily! Ds was very upset when he had to draw a fox, so I talked him through it and simplified it. I am not necessarily one to be able to draw either, so I shared with him about different giftings and that drawing was neither mine nor Daddy's
So he buckled up, drew Reddy and was happy after he had colored him and put a band-aid on his hurt leg.

This week ds had just a little bit of a time with the activity in Do it Carefully. He needed a little help from Mom, which he was not pleased with, to copy the last two diagrams. Just like he gets a bit frustrated when asked to draw at times. I learned NOT to give him something 3-dimensional to copy. It's so cute how kiddo's are different. My older ds never cared whether his drawing remotely looked like the real thing. He does more now This one sees that it looks different and thinks he did it wrong! So, I am learning how to aid him better and how to encourage him in the Lord and it worked.

We had a great discussion about Abraham's obedience to God when he was asked to move and when he was told to sacrifice his only son. How he did not have any objections, discussions, rationalizations etc. Like direct obedience, right away, all the way with a happy heart. This is for Mom as well of course This brought in the loyalty we are studying with older brother in Bigger and all three were sitting in on this one
And I was so blessed to see how neat Luke copied me when I showed him how to fold his clothes and pack them. He did not know that he has to help fold laundry from now on.

Memory Verse Activity, Rhyme in Motion, Songs for all this little sis wants to join in.


Math has remained a favorite for ds and I pray it remains this way. We enjoy the wonderful activities Carrie has written and they don't scare or intimidate me, like they did when I went through it with older ds Luke had fun seeing Mommy jump, hop, skip, take big steps so he could count and write the numbers down and he did not miss a beat!


We are loving the journey for handwriting with ARFH, I did Italics with older ds, since that is what I learned back home! Luke is enjoying to color his animals on the page and adding some extras. This week he colored his cat orange and left some white patches.


This is our What I am learning now... wall, for Daddy so he can see what we are working on and what the progress is. He can ask questions and comment!
Luke is the most proud of this wall and leads Daddy to the wall as soon as he comes home.

LITTLE HANDS TO HEAVEN (just bible and letter activities)

Dd has been asking to do her school work, so I buckled up and began LHTH just with A Child's first Bible and the letter activity. I added a fine motor workbook, since she keeps asking for her books.


We took the plunge and started with just the Bible stories and the letter activity. Next year we will do it all with the older Bible option.


Here she is with a Chocolate letter from The Netherlands and it happened to be an A for her first initial.


I was blessed to see that dd answered the questions so well that are asked in the Bible. For the question why Adam and Eve had to leave the garden she answered very seriously: "They disobeyed and ate from the tree".

RTR:
Going on the Crusades was the big event of the week at our house! RTR's history project involved making a treasure hunt through the house with stopping points at geographic locations that matched the Crusades. The clues Wyatt wrote on cards reinforced what he'd learned about the Crusades, and the other boys had great fun following them! In fact, they begged to do it many times over.


Probably the next big event was our "televised" broadcast of the DITHOR project. The boys made brochures for the settings in the books they read for the adventure genre. The covers of their brochures invited people to visit their location. The inside introduced the characters of the books, described attractions of the area, and provided coupons for special events. Their fold-out maps showed the locations of places in their books, and they numbered a key for each place. They practiced their speeches in front of the mirror a few times. Then, they presented their brochures in a family broadcast for Dad, Mom, and baby brother. We had a blast!


Wyatt started getting up early on some days to do his independent science. He has always done his independent Bible quiet time early in the morning before we all get up, but lately, he's been doing his science before that. It makes a big difference in the time we finish! I've decided I won't schedule it for him to get up so early (6:30 AM), but I will keep putting independent things at the end of his day, so if he wants to move them to earlier and get up early to do them, he can. He has been finishing school around 11AM. I usually had Riley and Emmett watch a video together or do an educational computer game together then, so Wyatt could do his science - so now, when he finishes early, he either watches what they are doing, or opts to read for fun (usually the latter). I told him a perk to getting up early is finishing early, and then he can pick what he wants to do. If he goes back to not getting up early, or alternates between doing so and not doing so, I'm fine with it. But, I have to say, I'm able to exercise then, and finish off riding my exercise bike, doing my Bible study time, and praying for my family, friends, HOD ladies, etc. I LOVE it! For this season in life at least, it's working.

I hope you all had a good week!
In Christ,
Julie

Bigger Hearts for His Glory:
What a week! Riley is taking off with being able to do more work independently with BHFHG. He has figured out how to get out his own books, how to get his own supplies, how to finish out the independent parts of his work without me sitting beside him the whole time, where to hand in his work, how to clean up his work area, and even how to play happily and pretty quietly with his baby brother while I work with my oldest ds. This was a gooooooooood week!

I really look at BHFHG as an important teaching year, not only because of the age level it is for, but also because if he gets what's in BHFHG down well and learns to work more and more independently, I know he and I will reap the rewards of those newfound skills for years and years to come. He is stepping up to the plate, and I'm proud of him.

I already explained the DITHOR broadcast in my pp about RTR, but here's Riley giving his report:


Riley cannot get enough of the microphone! He went through his map twice - just in case his "listeners missed a turn or two". When he told about the Main Street Store he added, "If you come in the afternoon, the store will let ya have a bag of freshly popped popcorn and a hot cocoa with marshmallows." He had tidbits like this throughout his broadcast. He really shines at that kind of thing!

Riley loved his history story from Eggleston about Putnam and the wolf. Here is his notebooking of the wolf in the cave, with her footprints leading up to it. Can you see her yellow eyes peering out of the mouth of the cave? We love HOD's noteobooking assignments.


Here is another one of Riley's history notebooking, where he continued to add to his map of important sea routes:


Riley is doing well with his vocabulary cards now. He has learned SO MANY skills from this HOD activity! He makes educated guesses about what words mean by reading the context in which they are written in his living history book. He uses the dictionary - and a BIG THICK one, mind you - to find the actual words. Then, he reads through the numbers and chooses the one that matches the context of the word in the history book. He copies the definition (I use sticky notes to off-set it as the dictionary has tiny print), draws a picture showing the definition, and then has to file his card alphabetically in the recipe box. Pretty amazing, huh? This is one of those skills that is super hard at the onset, but is soooooo worth doing as it helps them learn the skills to figure out words they don't know in virtually any subject area.


John Audubon is inspiring Riley to learn more about birds. I LOVE how living the science books are, how the experiments tie right in with what they are reading, and how the labs teach the scientific method. Science is loved by all of our dc because of the way HOD does it! Here Riley researched a wood thrush. I think he listened to the wood thrush's song (on the Internet site HOD suggested) about 100 times!


Multiplication - all I can say is the hands-on HOD activities matched with Singapore's no-nonsense mental math approach are making it a breeze.


In Christ,
Julie

Little Hands to Heaven:
We read about Solomon building the temple for God's house this week. Emmett LOVED building the temple out of marshmallows and toothpicks. We happened to have only gigantic marshmallows and a few little marshmallows on hand. This was fine with Emmett, as he enjoyed building with them, and also really enjoyed eating them. He did kindly share with his big brothers too.


Marching in the processional with musical instruments to celebrate the temple's completion was so much fun! Emmett is a fast leader though, so the big boys know they need to be prepared to R-U-N!


Emmett liked the matching and ordering activity with socks. His favorites were the long striped boot socks. He definitely got the lesson, "These are... just right... a little big for me... WAY TOO BIG for me, Mom!"


Painting his big "G" with glue water and pouring salt on it was fun for Emmett too:


After Wyatt and Riley were doing their TV broadcasts for DITHOR, Emmett took the microphone over and sang "B-I-N-G-O" Karaoke style, and finished with his old favorite the "Alphabet Song". If you're searching for a good Christmas present that is fun to use for school, a microphone could be a neat idea - we sure have used and used and used ours!


In Christ,
Julie

Bigger

We have had a very exciting week with Bigger! In these pictures we are making Wigwams, Indian houses.


IMG_7476 by keyschristianacademy, on Flickr


IMG_7478 by keyschristianacademy, on Flickr


IMG_7480 by keyschristianacademy, on Flickr


IMG_7487 by keyschristianacademy, on Flickr


IMG_7494 by keyschristianacademy, on Flickr



IMG_7496 by keyschristianacademy, on Flickr

In the next pictures we are learning about peninsulas. The kids really enjoyed making the Virginia peninsula, since we live right near it! The kids added an island for fun. We put them on a cookie sheet and then poured water in it to really make it real to them. They loved this activity!


IMG_7499 by keyschristianacademy, on Flickr


IMG_7500 by keyschristianacademy, on Flickr


IMG_7501 by keyschristianacademy, on Flickr


IMG_7507 by keyschristianacademy, on Flickr

We had a great week with Beyond and CTC!


CTC


Older ds is playing catch-up right now. He went to visit his dad last week, so he has now finished up through the 3rd day of Unit 10.

This week, he learned about David slaying Goliath. He made a slingshot and tried his hand. Not so easy!



He also did a nice job on his notebooking...but, of course, he had to draw the picture of David cutting off Goliath's head. NICE! You have to love boys!



He finished his Philistine Helmet at the end of Unit 9 and he ran downstairs and got this sheet (for God only knows what reason!) and added it to his wardrobe. It was pretty funny. Ignore the black under his eyes...he went trick-or-treating with his dad and they put black eye make-up on him. UGH!



I think his watercolor painting for this week turned out wonderful! I love it! And he did it all by himself this time...I didn't even make a model for him to go by!



We had a wonderful "moment" in Jashub's journal this week. When it was talking about Hamul's son being rebellious and what the punishment was back then for not obeying your parents and how it was a sin against God because you have broken His command, my ds' eyes got big and you could tell he really thought about it as something IMPORTANT for the first time. I think maybe he had never thought about his disobeying being against God too! It was a great lesson!


Beyond

We had a great week with Beyond. Ds7 actually finished up Unit 11 this week. We learned all about how little Thomas got into lots of trouble. Once he even shot his arrow into an oiled paper window. Here is ds making his oiled paper "window."



And the final result:



This week, he also copied his entire poem! This is the first time. Here is the first page of it.



And here he is writing some of his sentences for spelling.



I am so thankful to HOD for having all of these great ideas and plans. We do so much more hands on learning now and it is really a perfect fit for my boys. I am excited each week as we get into learning and doing something new. The boys always want me to read ahead in the read alouds, read ahead in History, read more than one lesson of Science, make more than one project, and even tell them what projects are coming up. Of course, I never give in! It is all a great surprise when we get there! I love that they love to learn!

I'm loving reading everyone's weeks in review!!

We've had a few crazy weeks here and I haven't been able to update lately. I love HOD and the fact that we can still move forward with school even when life gets crazy and hectic! Hopefully, I'll be able to get back in the swing of things by next week.

It looks like everyone had a great week. Here is the link to ours http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2010/11 ... 12010.html.

Enjoyed reading about your weeks.

Mom4Him, I liked how you printed the little writting part for Storytime and had the girls color on it. I've just been putting the fill in the blanket sentence on the markerboard and it never seemed too exciting. I bet coloring with it would be much more fun so I'll try that this week. Thanks for the idea.

Rebecca, where do you get the handwriting paper you're using for Beyond? I get our paper from Wal-mart and looks similar to that, but landscape oriented so it doesn't fit in a binder very well.

We finished LHFHG Unit 13 this week. It seems like school goes so fast each day. I think I've just gotten used to it mentally.

I've noticed that my 4yo needs to do her reading lesson with me earlier in the day. We had been doing it after I get the 2yo down for afternoon nap and before her occasional nap, but she and I are both too tired to do very well. We've done it in the morning a few times this week and it definitely goes better. This is her only solo school time with me at the moment so I want it to be fun for both of us! I'm going super slow with 100 EZ where we do about 1 lesson a week with lots of reviews and practice echo reading the other days.

I like reading Danny Meadow Mouse the best of the Burgess books we've read for Storytime so far. I think they are harder books to read aloud due to the rich vocabulary, but either this book is suiting me better or I'm getting used to the vocab. I've been surprised at how my almost 6yo will ask for it each day like it's a highlight. I think it's a fantastic transition to stories with less pictures. She still calls all the books Reddy Fox since that is the one you start with. We've started doing Storytime in the morning after our "Beyond Block" of LA, math, and ER before we take a little break and it's made a big difference in my mental state too. I like having the more important things done first.

I'm excited for her to start Amelia Bedelia for Emerging Readers this week. That is one I really remember reading when I was young. I thought the Frog & Toad books were really cute too. I hadn't read those before. We're using the other suggested books as our booklist for Book-It. She earned her pizza for Oct and was very excited to get a special lunch with Daddy to go get it. When we transitioned to reading the books instead of the Bible she wasn't reading out loud as well. She was mumbling a lot and skipping small words. I think it was because these stories were new and she wanted to read them faster to herself! I'd seen other posts about kids reading the chapter to themselves first so we started doing that and it took care of most of the problem.

Shimmer: I buy it in bulk from miller pads and paper http://www.millerpadsandpaper.com/catal ... temID=2601 My paper is 1/2 inch (3rd grade).