Resurrection to Reformation:
With the hustle and bustle of Christmas, I am so thankful how easy it is for me to teach with HOD.
If I had to do a lot of planning, prepping, gathering of materials, or trips to the library, I know school would not be getting done well around here.
This is such a busy time of year - in a good way - but nonetheless, B-U-S-Y!
Wyatt began his "Mystery of History" book this week, and I asked him if he liked it. He said, "Yes! It's soooooo good!"
Then, I asked him if he liked it better than his other history books, and he shook his head 'no' and said, "They've all been soooooo good, Mom!"
Honestly, I thought he might say he liked MOH better than the rest because of all of the pictures. One excellent benefit I am coming to understand and appreciate more and more with the CM living books approach HOD uses is that my dc appreciate what the words on the page have to say the most. When I used to teach ps, narrative books that were timeless and so well-written often gathered dust on the shelf, while the newest and 'greatest'
"eye candy" books with flashy pictures and very little plot were snapped up and read instead. It used to make me very sad. But I can see a real difference in my dc as they use HOD. They love living books, and they can pick them out of a pile pretty quickly. The 'eye candy' books with poor plot don't stand a chance against living books. In fact, my kiddos often say, "Nothing really happens", or "The pictures are neat, but I just don't want to read it" for those less than living books. I'm so glad that HOD is fostering this love of good literature in my dc, and even more glad it's carrying over into their own reading preferences!
Wyatt also started his "A Child's Geography 1: Explore the Earth" for science. His notebooking turned out so neat! I am enjoying his narrations about this. My middle ds doesn't want to miss hearing big brother narrate lately, and I can tell my oldest is rising to the challenge of giving a narrative narration.
He's putting his all into it to impress little brother, and they both love it. This is quite different from his fledging attempts at narrating to start with - he used to be very awkward about narrating in front of me, and positively afraid of narrating in front of others. Now, he does it all the time with poise and energy. I don't take it for granted! I remember those earlier days and am very thankful we kept working at narration until he gained confidence and ability in it.
His notebooking turned out so nicely for science:
Art appreciation has been so fun to do together this year. The pictures are so beautiful, and they go with this part of history so well! Here Wyatt carefully colored to make this lovely replica of art he was studying:
In our rough and tumble house full of boys that love the outdoors and machines that gooooo, a little refinement by studying art is a welcome change of pace sometimes for me. I'm so glad my dc will be able to walk in an art gallery and feel at ease and have something in their education to connect timeless art pieces with - something I could not do until I learned it right along with my dc in HOD. I hope you had an excellent week homeschooling!
In Christ,
Julie
Edie
Acting out the 4 different ways snakes can move was so much fun that even big brother had to leave his work to try it once:
