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!

Hi Ladies,

We are absolutely LOVING LHFHG! Here is what we did this week:

http://homeschoolingmomtographer.blogsp ... eview.html

How was your week?

~Catherine

Catherine - the pictures of your "girlie girls" and "little man" on your blog are precious! Rachel's black paper on the window turned out neat, and it looked like that Egyptian collar for Joseph was turning out mighty fine. What a good week you had with LHFHG!

In Christ,
Julie

Resurrection to Reformation:
We are 2/3 of the way through RTR, and my ds still gets carried away by the living books he is reading in RTR. He's positively engrossed in them! I was thinking how my own school experience actually caused me to dislike books and reading in general over time, when formerly I'd loved them. I also thought "real books" (living books as we call them today ) were just read for "reading class" (and not even for reading class, sometimes). My ds, on the other hand, only loves to read more and more every year with HOD, and living books are a part of EVERY part of school. How I would have felt differently about science or history or read alouds or poetry or reading or writing - everything really - if I'd only read living books in all of those subject areas! I'm also glad we are not racing through these books, as if "he who reads the most books wins", which is what I often felt like growing up. I'd so much rather go through books CM's way of savoring them, because we then remember them - usually forever! Surprisingly, one thing I have learned in the past 15 years I've been teaching - there really aren't that many truly wonderful books out there. Living books must be searched for and chosen carefully - luckily HOD painstakingly does that with the utmost care. I am so thankful for the education my ds is receiving with HOD.
Here he is with "Iron Scouts of the Confederacy" - an outstanding DITHOR book pack book that he can hardly wait to read each day:


And with "Good Queen Bess" (what beautiful illustrations accompany this lovely book):


And then also with "Gabriel and the Hour Book" - here he is showing his own hour book he made in his RTR Student Notebook:


Even his creative writing goes with his history learning, and here he is proudly showing his story he typed for it:


I was also thinking how rarely I have to have my ds fix a spelling error in his own writing - maybe one each section or so. This is such a far cry from what I was used to helping dc edit back in my ps teaching days for 3rd, 4th, and 6th graders. Not to mention, he really had to grow into this skill of good spelling - he was not a natural speller by any means. I am truly amazed at what CM's methods of dictation and copywork have done for my ds's spelling! Having this all be part of my HOD manual helps me get it done each day. What a good week this has been!

In Christ,
Julie

Catherine, your photos are beautiful, and Julie, your entries really make me look forward to doing RTR next year!

Creation to Christ
Unit 20

I tried to take more pictures this week to get a bigger sampling of DS's work. This first post contains a reading from the Illustrated Family Bible, his math, and the science notebooking.

History notebook, dictation, and working on grammar.

His science lab sheet and his watercolor.

Oh, and one more thing. I came into the dining room (where we school) one morning and found the markerboard with this lavish illustration. "It's the Battle of Thermopylae, Mom!" explained DS with excitement. I guess he's enjoying those history readings on ancient Greece.

Your ds is doing so well with CTC! His history notebook with his Draw and Write pics is turning out so well. His watercolor painting is lovely! I'm so glad to see dc receiving a good education in the "arts" as well. This is being dropped in many schools across America. HOD planning for us to have dc that know and love art and music is such a blessing. It looks like your ds had a terrific week - way to go ds, way to go mom!

In Christ,
Julie

Bigger Hearts for His Glory:
We just read about Lewis and Clark crossing the Continental Divide. "Journeys in Time" has been a neat way for my ds to travel along the way with many historic events. He likes to trace the routes through the map with his finger and see the "action" pictures along the path. Riley built the Rocky Mountain range's Continental Divide with modeling clay for his HOD history activity. He then poured water on top of the Divide to learn how water in rivers, etc. flows either west to the Pacific Ocean, or east to the Atlantic ocean. He redid this many times - there was a lot of flowing water for sure!


Riley's portfolio of all the work he has done in BHFHG is growing every day. He likes to flip through it and remember what we've learned through the year, and I like to see his progress.


Our history and science readings have been fascinating. I cannot even imagine how much we'd be missing if we were reading textbooks instead. I love schooling in this manner. Thinking back to my own education, I am shocked I did not learn about Charlotte Mason's style of education all through my teaching degree and all through my master's degree in education. I am wondering how that happened? Charlotte Mason made a huge impact on education. It has been such a breath of fresh air to school with her influence through HOD. I hope you had a wonderful week!

In Christ,
Julie

Little Hands to Heaven:
We read about the wise men and the shepherds visiting baby Jesus this week. Emmett is so excited about the Bible stories we are reading. Over the years we have accumulated many, many children's Bibles and adult Bibles. Our philosophy has changed from "but we have children's Bibles already, why get another one" to "we cannot have enough good solid story Bibles and adult Bibles lining our bookshelves"! Considering how many other books we buy, it only makes good sense to invest in as many God honoring books as possible. I'm thankful HOD helps us expand our Biblical home library somehow each year. We enjoy "The New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes" for this young age especially. Emmett is learning to think about what's happening in the story as he listens and knows I will be asking questions after we've read. Three questions is about the right number for my little guy, and he is getting most of the answers right now. (A nice improvement from his standard answer of 'Jesus loves me!', which was so sweet and wonderful for him to know, but not the answer to every single question asked!)

Here Emmett is acting out the shepherds visiting Baby Jesus in Bethlehem. Never one to miss dressing up, he wanted not only the shepherd look for his head, but also insisted on walking with the yardstick as a staff. He limped the whole way, dragging one of his feet - not sure how he got the impression shepherds do this, but it was quite comical to watch:


This art project was fun. He glued toothpicks on the shape of a barn, macaroni noodles for straw, 2 cotton balls for sheep, and a rolled up bit of paper towel/cotton ball for baby Jesus. I am so thankful HOD has me use stuff I have on hand. I know I wouldn't get art projects done as often otherwise. He took a moment to stop his truck to show off his art here:


We are on the letter "Q" this week, and he is remembering his letter sounds so well now. Here he built a barn scene and has his farm animals strutting their stuff around the "Q" and saying the "q" sound as they do :


It is a joy to see Emmett learning the stories of our Savior each week. I am so thankful for this time to teach him all about Jesus!
In Christ,
Julie

I'm using some pictures of Mike, Carrie, and the boys for the photobook, and since they are so busy with HOD that they don't get a chance to do the Weekly Review here anymore, I thought it would be fun to post some of them here:


In Christ,
Julie

Catherine - I loved your blog! Your girls looked like they were having a great time.

Julie - I always love reading about your weeks. You give such great descriptions of what's going on and it makes me excited for what I have to look forward to with my son.

Also, thanks Julie for posting pics of Carrie and her family. It's fun to see them enjoying themselves too!

Birchbark - It looks like you may have an artist on your hands! Your son did an excellent job on the drawings in his science and history notebooks and with his painting. And I loved the battle on the whiteboard!

Here's a link to my blog post about this week http://cherish-each-moment.blogspot.com ... ek-22.html

This was our first week back to school after our new baby. Some days went better than others. I had more attitude issues from me (lack of sleep) than them. I know it'll keep improving though. Overall, I was really happy to be schooling again. We finished Unit 20 of LHFHG.

I'm amazed at how quickly Susannah picks up her spelling words. She likes spelling and looks forward to her test on the 4th day of the unit. I'm enjoying the CLP Nature Reader from Emerging Readers with her. We're both learning cool things about spiders and bees.

We had a wonderful week with HOD, as always.

BEYOND LITTLE HEARTS FOR HIS GLORY

This week, we studied more about the early settlers in History. We focused on a little girl from France who carried her doll, Lady Claire, with her on her journey by canoe with her family to Detroit. Our timeline is coming along nicely. It is really large so my ds can draw on it comfortably and we hang it in the school room so he can always look at it.



Math was a little bit of a challenge for him this week as we got into subtraction of higher numbers. It took a bit of trying and a bit of teaching creativity on my part before it "clicked" for him, but when it did, there was no turning back. I really love Singapore Math!



He did his copywork this week without complaint and I was very excited to see his colorful hummingbird drawing on his poem. He really enjoyed this one. HIs favorite experiment of the week was using different "beaks" to learn about how God made the birds and how He chose to have them capture and eat their food.

CREATION TO CHRIST

My older ds and I are getting so excited about doing RTR next year - just because he and I have enjoyed CTC so much. He says that each day is like a little surprise - and he loves to wait until that day to actually look and see what he gets to do. That just melts a mom's heart.

Math has been his biggest challenge this week. He pulled a few "B"s on the reviews and was very disappointed with himself. However, I can see the overall picture and I can see that he is doing very well and learning so much. Most of his mistakes are silly ones. I took the pic below before grading the page. I am not sure if I happened to snap two pages with all problems correct or not...I bet not. LOL



He adores and looks forward to the drawing with Draw and Write Through History. He was also very excited to see that it was used in RTR next year. Art is one of his favorite things!



Even though he loves art, he has struggled a bit with the watercolor paintings lately. He was very proud of this one - and I am glad. He did it all on his own...and while I am sure there will be lots that are much better, I am glad to see him take pride in his work...not because it is the best, but because he DID his best!



He is getting better and better at doing his summaries in a SHORTER version. I think he feels like he has to put in less detail now that we have moved on to the 2nd history book. He is still doing a really nice job, writing-wise, though.



By far, his favorite subject right now is Science. He adores learning about the plants and i think it really shows in the quality of drawing and the effort he is putting into his plant book. ...except maybe his spelling on the right side there. EEK Can you tell that is one of our main struggles? BUT...He is a great kid! I just love teaching my children with HOD and watching them learn so much in such fun and exciting ways. When I thank God for my blessings, finding HOD and being able to use it with my kids is at the top of my list of things for which I am so thankful.



I hope you all have a blessed week (2/7-2/11). My youngest is running a 101.7 fever and feels pretty rotten, so I am thinking we may not get a full week in with him this week. He managed to make it through today, but tomorrow is looking pretty rough if it is anything like tonight. There are lots of bugs going around - hope everyone stays well! God bless!