Resurrection to Reformation:
This has been another amazing week of learning in RTR for Wyatt! He is loving his books for all subject areas.
He continues to enjoy MOH, and he has been really excited about starting Galileo for science! As he was reading he stopped and said, "Mom, this book about Galileo is wonderful! I really like it - and do you know it's been talking about Archimedes and Galen from last year?!? Those guys were amazing - remember how Archimedes came up with those battle tactics for war, all with science-like ideas? Remember that crank he made to pull that heavy boat, and the screw to irrigate water? This is going to be great to read about Galileo - hey, can I read Archimedes again? He may have some battle tactics I can try when we play war - you know, pull the old tower move on Riley and Emmett!"
Anyway, this kind of talk happens all the time at our house, and as you can see I am the listener. I am not pulling this out of the dc, it is pouring forth! Evidence of years of solid education with excellent living books in HOD.
And yes, he is now rereading "Archimedes".
I thought it would be fun to include his written narration about Galileo here, just to show an example of it:
Galileo was born in Pesia, Italy near the end of the Renaissance in Europe. When Galileo was old enough to walk in the streets, he could see amazing art that was produced in earlier stages of the Renaissance. The Renaissance is a time period where great actors, great thinkers, great artists, and great architects were making masterpieces. Galileo's father was a great flute player but had to be a cloth dealer to earn enough money for his family. He wanted Galileo to be a good doctor. Galileo was born into a medium-class family in the time period called the Renaissance.
*he misspelled "amazing", otherwise, he had no errors
Here's his science notebookings from this week, which is a form of narration as well:
I like the meshing of drawing, labeling, writing, applying skills all wrapped up in one notebooking assignment.
Here's his science experiment and lab sheet on density this week - which he loved
:
And another science lab/notebooking he completed:
I love these succinct vignettes of learning I am privy through my dc's narrations. It is like a window into their minds and what "stuck" from our learning. A LOT "sticks" with HOD!
Much more than any science or history - or whatever - I had in school.
I am the first to say my dc are average. My ds was born very premature and struggled with many "firsts" that come easily to most dc in life. However, after years with HOD, my ds is soaring! What he can do brings me great joy, and he has a real passion for learning that spills over into so many areas of life!
Here is one of his written narrations from history this week. Again - such a neat way for me to see what he's retained! We both enjoy this so much more than multiple choice, true/false, etc. answers. He could guess his way through those, not so with narrations. You know it or you don't, and it's pretty easy to see if dc know it by what they've written.
Sir Francis Drake was called a pirate by the Spanish and was called "The Great Navigator" by the English. Drake was the second boy born into his family, so at age 13, he took up a job as a sailor. Since he was born second, he would not inherit any of his father's land or money. Suddenly, the captain of the ship that Drake was on died. The crew elected the "twenty year old" Drake to the high position of being captain. The first thing that Drake did was to plunder Spanish ships. Sir Francis Drake was amazing in his ship career!
*he misspelled "captain"
I'd like to mention here that I wondered how my ds would do with multiple choice, true/false, etc. questions, as he has never done them with HOD which is pretty much all we've ever used. Well, he does awesome! And with no prompting or help from me. Last year for Tiner's History of Medicine book in CTC, HOD had him do he quizzes. It just came up in his independent plans, and he handed it in to me. 100% right. Every time.
I thought I might need to hold his hand through it, explain what it was asking him to do when we got to that, but nope. It turns out good learning from great living books = good test taking skills too. Who knew? Not to mention his standardized test scores. I won't get into specifics, as I personally believe that is far less important than a child doing his best and more importantly than a child just knowing the Lord - Whom all knowledge comes from!
I like the informal yet still informative style of narrating through the beautiful postcards in the RTR student book, too. It's a different kind of narrating, short and sweet, and more like we'd do in conversation with a friend, but yet a good quick way to see what he found from his research of a famous place. We both love the full color photos of the place in the RTR notebook too, and the fact that he can now search, skim, and find research information on Wikipedia is a blessing too! Here's his latest postcard for Paris...
Dear Shaw,
Did you know that Paris is the capital of France? It is located on the river Seine. Paris was the place to be if you wanted to be involved in religious wars. France was also filled with the Black Death. The Eiffel Tower is the site that makes Paris famous today!
Love,
Wyatt
Mapping - the mapping in RTR is phenomenal. Map Trek maps match what we read to a tee. I cannot believe how much he is learning from this!
HIstory projects - they keep the fun going in school at upper ages, yet it's "fun" in a meaningful way. I like that there are step-by-step directions to follow, and when you don't follow them there are natural consequences - like your window cling not turning out.
This happened this week when Wyatt took his cling off too soon and then tried to do the next step. He had to start over and is finishing it today (Saturday). Yep - a real life consequence for not following directions - things don't turn out. Reminds me of when he put together our shoe shelf - upside down. He had to take it apart and redo it. But then he had 3 more to build (yes, we have 4 shoe shelves in our entry for 4 men/boys in this house who have BIG boots, cowboy boots, shoes, and slippers of all kinds (and 1 woman who likes shoes and boots too
). You can bet he followed the directions and built the next 3 shelves right. Excellent training for becoming a man! He was proud of the end results, and I often see him eyeing those shoe shelves with pride, giving it a little swipe with his hand, and saying, "Hey mom, remember when I put these together?"
Shakespeare - well my ALL BOY BOY loves Shakespeare! He is in his own world avidly reading "Lamb's Tales of Shakespeare" and then coloring those beautiful HOD Shakespeare Notebooking pages with care! This from a boy who loved nothing more than scribbling black crayon over every coloring picture as a child.
Are his Shakespeare coloring pages the best ever? Nope. But they are HIS best ever, and that I love. For those of you thinking you don't have a "colorer lover" on your hands, and thinking they may not like coloring for the Shakespeare pages, please rethink it - even the less stellar of colorers can make these look lovely!
A wonderful week - hope you had one too!
In Christ,
Julie
Editing to correct myself, that was Unit 27, not 26 
So Wednesday night, taking our queue from the Robertson's, we decided to cook pioneer style. My dh and I were not quite adventurous enough to get out the cast iron dutch oven camp stove, but we did get our cast iron skillet out and tried to make foods that were available 200 years ago. So we had fried venison, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and biscuits with homemade blackberry jam all accompanied by old time fiddle music. I have to admit that is a favorite meal around here anyway, but it was made more fun by discussing how the pioneers would have fixed it and what items they may not have had. We have enjoyed reading about the maple syrup making as well. We finished the week with a treat having pancakes for breakfast so we could experience maple syrup as we were studying about it. My dc now want us to go out looking for some maple trees around here to tap. 
He was so sad that he didn't get to make it. Then, he used the widest tipped marker he could find to make his map and was very disappointed in himself for making the map "messy." I told him he could do this activity again on his own time if he really wants to do a better job. I think he decided "kinda messy" was okay! LOL