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!

Resurrection to Reformation:
This is one of my favorite things I get to see every day with RTR - my ds snuggled in engrossed in whatever excellent living books he's reading for RTR:


I've often thought how much I would have enjoyed reading my "school" books this way rather than in an impersonal, uncomfortable desk with 20 other people around me. Not to mention, I also would have loved reading living books rather than textbooks. Isn't it a satisfying feeling to homeschool this way with HOD?!?

Another thing I am so grateful for is that my ds can show me what he's learned in creative ways that make a neat keepsake for the year. I prefer this so much to worksheets and tests - mainly because it shows better what he knows and IMO is the best assessment to use, but also because it requires higher level thinking and results in a final product that encourages individuality and creativity. Pretty neat! Here is Wyatt's RTR portfolio. His timeline is at the top, written narration at the bottom, research postcard in the middle, biographical info on the right, mapping location of important historical person in the middle, etc. Note the beautiful pictures of people and places he just read and learned about too!


Shakespeare - I was worried about Shakespeare. Not any more. My ds is LOVING it! I have him tell me a tad about it now and then, as it's an independent thing, and he is always enthusiastic and knows just what he's talking about. I'm so glad he's being introduced to Shakespeare this way first! I wish I had been. I also love the beautiful coloring he's doing for it. Who would have thought he'd enjoy the coloring so much?!? He never did take to coloring very much, but for some reason he really loves this Shakespeare coloring. I think it's because it turns out lovely, even if he's not so fantastic at coloring, plus, I told him to go all out and use bright, bold colors - Shakespeare wasn't drab - pictures of his work need COLOR!


The step-by-step drawing instructions really make it possible for Wyatt to draw things realistically and successfully, and I like they match the time period (this from a boy who adored stick figure drawing previously ). Here is his knight:


Making the banner for his history project was a favorite project of this week. Here is his banner, complete with paint and glitter glue. He was in "attack" mode in some of the pics. He's already planning on making a "family banner" for the next time the cousins and our kiddos engage in "war", only his next one will be reinforced with cardboard and have a spear point on the end (he said a knight should always be ready for battle, so the banner should double as a weapon ).


Hope you all had a good week!
In Christ,
Julie

Bigger Hearts for His Glory:
Riley sure loves just about everything he does in Bigger Hearts. He never checks the clock, wants to rush, or worries about finishing late - he just whistles his way through school, relishing it all. He would do it alllllllll day happily. While I'm glad he feels this way, it is a challenge to move him along sometimes. Going half-speed has been the perfect answer for him. He is flourishing. I can see he is capable of doing it full-speed, but he enjoys it so much, going half-speed and letting him draw it out is just right. I can see that by next school year he will want to go full-speed though, and then I think he'll have his time management and independence down better.

Every single book we read Riley adores. Every time I begin reading he is ecstatic, and every time I stop reading he is crestfallen. His emotions are all over the place sometimes - I have absolutely NO IDEA WHO he gets that from ? (I believe my dh would say me and be quite right. ) John Audubon, The Indian in the Cupboard, the Eggleston books - he cannot bear to wait to see what happens next. But, he is learning patience. We follow the plan and don't read ahead and I've learned that's so much better, for he always had adequate time to finish his other work, and a nice balance is kept to his day. Here Riley is drawing his owl for science notebooking. I love that there is always a Bible verse he writes to match his notebooking at the top, usually some sort of picture he draws using one of the books for a resource, and then something he writes that is relevant to what he learned. His notebook pages are like scrapbook pages, and I especially like that they are not "canned copies", but rather creations of his own. It's neat his look different than his older brother's looked back when he did Bigger Hearts.


Anything that Riley can get his hands in is a favorite activity of his. Here he is enjoying making different geographical elements, like mountains, hills, and plains. He asked to do it over and over:


What a wonderful week for my little Riley!
In Christ,
Julie

Little Hands to Heaven:
Emmett repaired the broken down walls of the temple this week. It was funny to watch! He stirred the oatmeal/warm water gluelike mortar ferociously. He glopped it on the cracks of the wall with a smack. But when it came to pushing it down with his fingers, he did so very daintily. Little guy never has liked to get his fingers sticky. Big bro Riley saved the day by helping him with this part, and he was proud of his final wall:


Never has there been a more confident King Hezekiah. Once Emmett had made his crown, and it was placed on his head... he was the boss... in charge completely... and very confident all around needed to be his servants.


Here he is overseeing the renovation of the temple... a serious matter:


Leading praise music in the temple...


Begging the Lord to save them from the king of Assyria:


Praying the Lord would help them...


Quite sick hoping the Lord would heal him (his servants fell ill as well)...


Happy he was healed!


I don't know if we'll be able to peel the crown off his head and out of his little fingers. Now that he's had a taste of being the king, I fear he may never be able to take orders himself again. Too fun - what a blast!
In Christ,
Julie

LHTH:
Little J making his sheep and clouds, with big brother helping of course.

The finished product!


Little J had fun mixing and measuring his “oil.”

Of course big brother had to try and he just happened to be wearing a dinosaur outfit. You gotta love homeschooling – the dress code couldn’t get better!


BEYOND:
Big J had lots of fun making his Mayflower boat.

When it was time to count the 180 “barrels” big J was not so pleased until I reminded him he could bundle them in piles of 10 and count by 10’s. Then he lit up and went right to work. Great math incorporated into history. While “loading” the barrels we talked about how heavy they might have been, how they might have got them on the boat and how long it might have taken them. What a great project! Of course headless (my great photography skills) little brother “helped” by eating the barrels.

The “loaded” boat!

We added another square to our timeline this week.


Big J doing his water and oil experiment.

As usual another great week with HOD!

We had a really good week. Here is the link to my blog http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2010/12 ... 92010.html

We had a great week this week despite our schedule getting busy with Christmas stuff at church and at home. We got a little behind in our schedule through the year though so I'm going to try to make it through 2 more weeks before we break. Here's my blog post for this week:

http://cherish-each-moment.blogspot.com ... ek-17.html

CTC Unit 12. DS really enjoyed the science experiment demonstrating the differences between lizards and dinosaurs. HoD had a wonderful idea to use Tinkertoys intead of the cardboard tube and wire.

We had a wonderful week. My younger son finished Week 14 in Beyond. I seemed to have taken a bunch of of pictures of his week, and very few of my older son. Not sure how that happened.

BEYOND

We made the English Flag - the Cross - to show what flag the Pilgrims saw as the new ship came into Plymouth: Ds took such sweet time trying to stay in the lines as he painted.



Here is the finished painting:



We learned about snake scales after an Indian tribe sent arrows in a snakeskin to the Pilgrims as a warning. These are made with hole-punch dots. It took ds a LONG time to get all those on there!



And this is our neat experiment about how the stomach digests broth vs other foods. This was FUN!



DS has enjoyed learning about the pilgrims so much that he found the following two pictures in a Draw Write Now book and just had to draw them. I was proud that he chose something he was studying in HOD as his art object!

His Pilgrims:



An Indian picture story:




CREATION TO CHRIST

Older ds is still making headway in the "catch-up" game. He ended the week with Day 2 of Unit 14 - so just a few days behind his brother. My goal is to have them back on the same unit each week after Christmas.

Older ds loved all of the spiderweb work this week. This was his favorite...the Science experiement.





I was also very impressed with his Science notebooking page this week. He did a nice job and copied without too many misspellings (which is something we have struggled with).



This is my favorite: This week's painting with the spider web! He enjoyed it too!

Hello everyone,

I have not contributed to this section before so bare with me as I figure it out....I have a few photos to share from the past 5 weeks of Preparing and Beyond.... I will add more in next attachment post....

Corrie

Ok, here goes upload number 2....sorry my pics are so big....I will change them next time! There we go! My first post!

Hi-Its been a while.Thought I should make get back to the weekly reporting in .Its been a busy couple of months.My 14 yo is settling well into homeschooling and Im so glad .I dont think she is loving her computer schooling-maybe next year we will try something else So we have all been adjusting.Add to that -I had a miscarriage afew weeks back.I wasnt very far along about 6 weeks -Homeschooling just took a backseat for a while.We also had a vacationfor a couple of weeks in Florida.But now Im determined to bet back on track.Heres some pics
First -Our other learning us at seaworld-you even get to see me


LHFHG Week 12
The earth[ball] orbiting the sun[lamp on table] facing north star


LHFHG week 13
The leaves drawing water up from the plant/ground


We have had some very comforting memory verses over this difficult time.I am so thankful for hearing Nathan say God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to his purpose...Thankyou Carrie for picking that one .

LHTH week 14?
Solomon[Ace] being urged not to follow his wives [other planet heroes] and worship idols.

Whew, what a week! I LOVE LOVE LOVE HOD!!! I am using LHFHG for my 2 boys, and 2 girls(that i babysit). Having some struggles trying to teach an auditory learner when i am NOT!! other than that, we have sooooo much fun! will have to get some pics for next week. My oldest son has about 2 months left of TRL and can't wait for him to reach that milestone! He is super excited about reading and everyday is reading more and more as he goes about his day, at home pointing out words, while driving, at the store, EVERYWHERE!! The best part is him teaching his 3 yr old brother what this word says! Although it is just as awesome hearing the little one singing praises to our awesome creator throughout his day!! Or the four of them playing house and making sure they pray before their 'meals'.

With this being my first 'official' year of hsing, i am soooooo thankful God led me to HOD, I searched and searched last year trying to find the right curriculum and when i thought i had found something that might work i came across HOD, the last few months have been awesome! EXACTLY what we needed!

anyway, looking forward to getting to know everyone.

Salena

ds 8/05 LHFHG, singapore & miquon math, TRL
ds 06/07 LHFHG(he joins his big brother often) and is doing TRL
4 waiting in heaven

two girls on 'loan'(i babysit them) '07 and '02