Weekly Review 1/24/11 to 1/28/11

[my3sons]

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!

[my3sons]

I haven't posted for a few weeks and the pictures are piling up right along with all of the good memories! Always in the middle of the school year there is such progress in what the dc can do. I believe the routine of both the HOD guide and our day enables them to take on more responsibility and more independence. This causes our school day to fly! I am so very thankful as we are in the dead of winter here, and in "hibernation" mode. HOD makes our winter months more joyful than they would otherwise be without it!

Resurrection to Reformation:
My ds is making connections galore, and I credit it to HOD's way of doing history. He has a flow of history full of important people, events, quotes, heroic deeds, Christian influences, period photos - well, you get the idea - that is always running in the background of his mind. I WISH I had it - I'm a little jealous I admit, though incredibly thrilled he has it. When something in history comes up in church, he loves to tell a story about that person or event on the way home. When something comes up on the history channel, he is quick to say with delight, "Oh! This is the Battle of..., and General .... makes a bold move to ... which ultimately won the war! So, first, the enemy lines were drawn by an event that changed the..." Or something to that effect. He's not saying it to impress, as he often is not saying it to me, but rather to someone like his 3 yo brother, who is wide-eyed listening to big brother's excitement - not sure what he's talking about, but positive it's quite amazing nonetheless. My almost 8 yo is beginning to join in, and thank the Lord, I can see with HOD I am going to have 3 very inspired quite informed dc when it comes to knowing their history! How I wish I'd learned history this way, and while I am right now through using HOD, I just am not able to retain it like they can. Probably because I am not narrating on it myself, which BTW reminds me - Charlotte Mason's methods - oh my! I believe they are also an piece of the puzzle of why my dc are becoming so filled with the knowledge of history. I can tell when they burst into these vignettes of history that they are narrating what they remember, many times from years passed, but still with quite a measure of accuracy. I cannot say enough good about a living books approach to learning, accompanied with CM's style of learning.

Science is the same way. Documentaries pop up on the t.v., and Wyatt is sharing some inspiring (and also usually a measure more exciting than what the documentary is saying BTW) story about the scientist, the experiment, etc. Even when the weather comes on, and a tsunami, tornado, etc. is mentioned, he has some narrative story to tell like how "Did you know Pasteur first began experimenting with ___ when ___ happened, and that actually caused him to ____? I mean, it was a huge discovery because it changed the way ____, and now ___".


This carryover is everywhere with HOD. Just this week, Wyatt was doing his Medieval History-based Writing Lessons, and was asked to add similes to his writing piece. We also studied similes in R & S English that same day, and he flipped to an old Emily Dickinson poem he'd done a few weeks back and said, "This poem of Emily Dickinson's has a bunch of similes, I remember because she was talking about a moon and..."
He flipped to it excitedly and rattled off a bunch of similes with a smile. Of course all this works together for him to be able to easily add similes to his own writing. This meshing of learning is not a rare occurrence. It happens often! Here he is reading his story he wrote...


In DITHOR this week, the boys were doing historical fiction, and as a kickoff, I told them to think of something from history and act it out. OThey picked a battle, and well, they both just walked in the room so I'll have them tell me about it again, as I don't remember it exactly... here's what my 8 yo says right now about it... " We picked the Battle of Yorktown, where the French and the Americans marched to Yorktown, VA, which they were really trying to pretend they were going to New York. Then they went to Yorktown and surrounded the British by sea and by land. General Washington and Lafayette were the main guys. I was Washington, Wyatt was British Cornwallis, and Emmett was French Lafayette."

Here is what my 11 yo says about it, "The British had 2 big armies in America. One in New York, and one in Yorktown, Virginia. Washington made plans with all of his troops and made it seem like he was going to New York. Then, he turned around and quickly headed to Yorktown. The British could not get any reinforcements to Yorktown. He met up with Lafayette and Rochambo's militia, while General De Grasses' fleet blocked the water way into Yorktown, so no reinforcements could come that way. Each day each one's army pressed closer with their cannons and trenches. Finally, they were close enough to fire over the city walls and into the city. Washington fired the first cannon shot, and paid a special visit to Cornwallis. Within minutes, cannon balls were flying from land and from see into Yorktown. The next day Cornwallis surrendered." (I don't know proper spelling of a few of the names!)


Anyway, they just seem to remember so much, and enjoy it so thoroughly! What a blessing HOD has given our family - a love of learning and a love of the Lord - I am every so grateful.

In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Bigger Hearts for His Glory:
What fun we are having with BHFHG! Riley made a neat notebooking for his science. I love how it ties into pioneer life - I think he remembers it so well because of it! Okay, Riley wanted to narrate for this notebooking here a minute...
"Katie saw one chicken that was acting very strange. She followed her because her Grandma had said if a chicken starts to run, it will surely try to hide its egg from you. So, she followed the chicken, and in the shadows of the barn, she saw the chicken pecking, and then all of a sudden - the chicken darted into the hay. Katie dived after her, and she avoided the pecking and her hand went under the soft warm plump hen, and she found what she was looking for - an egg!"


The science experiments are a BIG hit! Here he is demonstrating how pollen is transported by clinging to bees' legs to another flower:


The One Small Square books for science have lovely pictures. Here is Riley's notebooking on plants...


Here Riley experimented with what keeps candles burning and found when a lid is placed over a burning candle, it goes out. He shouted, "Fire needs air to burn! Or, oxygen, I bet!" I am so thankful HOD makes the experiments fun, meaningful, and yet DOABLE!


This was a fun history art project. Riley followed HOD's directions to paint a tree and make a swinging Daniel Boone! I'm glad the directions are easy for him to follow, and he loves the projects so much.


One more highlight of the week - Riley got to act out being Daniel Boone tracking his kidnapped daughter's strips of cloth she tore off along the trek she was led away on so he could find her. He had to dress up... of course. I was Jemima Boone waiting to be saved at the end of the torn strips of cloth (paper towels). Riley actually set up a "kidnapper" (a stuffed teddy bear) and shot him when he found me. Wow - that protecting women thing starts young. Anyway, we had a blast with this!


In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Little Hands to Heaven:
I have a little "ham" on my hands - a born actor! Emmett adores hamming it up and acting out everything. Blessedly LHTH plans for this, and he loves it! Here he is with kitty, acting out the Bible story with gusto:


We are moving through the ABC's and are to "P" - hooray! He will finally put the raisins on all by himself now. Before he hated to get any glue on his hands, though he enjoyed pouring out buckets of glue.


This was Emmett's letter review day, and he slathered on the glue/water mixture as usual:


Daniel and the lions was a favorite story this week for Emmett. Here he is with his lion art project he colored:


He is finally holding the marker properly when he colors, and cutting quite well too (still with me helping though). He read his first BOB book this week, and though he probably memorized it, I was proud of him and he was so happy. What joy a little one brings to the home! We are thankful for Emmett's funny sense of humor and boundless energy. I hope you had a good week too!

In Christ,
Julie

[doubleportion]

Here are our weeks with LHTH and PHFHG.

My ds had so much fun building towers, creating patterns with blocks, racing cars around the C on the floor in masking tape and learning all his Bible stories. http://quietlyrunningtheracehomeschooli ... eview.html

And my dd had a great week in PHFHG. We didn't complete the Egyptian pastries yet or the experiment for Unit 6. I hope to have a recipe that is gluten free to share for that soon! http://quietlyrunningtheracehomeschooli ... ew_29.html

Edie

[Tree House Academy]

What a fun week with had with HOD this week!

Creation to Christ

For drawing this week, he worked on the Parthenon. It seemed to be the theme of his notebook pictures as well. LOL Of course, I had to laugh when he drew MACHINES destroying it. We had to have a little talk about time periods and inventions after that.





He is thoroughly enjoying Science right now. He loves learning about the plants and is always asking me things like, "Mom...did you know that plants_____ and that is why we _____ ?" He loves it.



He is doing very well with DITHR this year too. I am excited at how independent DITHR becomes in the 6/7/8 level books. He is always so proud of himself when I check over his work and see that he did an excellent job all on his own.

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Math is coming along nicely too! Since he was behind in Singapore, we are moving through it at a pace of 5 days a week instead of 4. We hope to start 5A before this year ends and try to get back on track by the end of next year. I was very proud of this Practice lesson in 4B - I count them as quiz grades and he did SO WELL!

[Tree House Academy]

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory

Ds7 continues to love and enjoy Beyond (and so do I). This week, we finished up "Key to the Treasure" which was just a wonderful book that we both enjoyed. Next week, we will be starting "If You Lived 100 Years Ago" as our read aloud. In DITHR, he is reading "The Littles" to me. We are excited to see what happens with these little mice tailed people!

In History, we learned about two Purtian children and how Puritan children were rewarded for good work in school. We had been having a rough week attitude wise as we were reading this, so it came at the PERFECT time. And, to make it even more perfect, we did the part in the guide where we made the ribbon award. I figured my ds would not care much about a little piece of paper, but I was WRONG. He got very motivated to "earn" the award himself. Now, each day of school, he has a chance to earn the award. He is so excited to show his dad when he gets home from work. Who knew such a simple thing could still make a child so happy?



Ds is still working hard in his poetry and copywork. He doesn't love copywork, but he has been doing it without complaint. I think he is doing a nice job.



In Language Arts this week, ds went over the days of the month again. I was really surprised to see that he would miss a few of them when trying to name them in order. We worked on this and he is doing much better now. I am glad that came up as part of HOD. Sometimes I forget that things we learned a long time ago still need to be reviewed over the years!

[LynnH]

Here is an update of our week in CTC. http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2011/01 ... 42011.html

[Tree House Academy]

I forgot to post about our column this week. Your blog reminded me, Lynn. I had to laugh. Bryce made his column so tiny and intricately drawn that it was absurd! The thing was literally 5 inches tall and about as big around as my thumb when he finished! He enjoyed it, though!

[birchbark]

Creation to Christ Unit 19

Just a couple photos of the watercolor. We did have kind of a cute "aha" moment while reading The Birthplace by Robert Frost. I pointed to the line "Today she wouldn't know our name. No girl's, of course, has stayed the same," and asked DS what he thought that meant. There was a moment of hard thinking, then groans, eyerolls, and a belly laugh.