heartofdakota.com

What was YOUR week Like?

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a- A picture
b- A blog Link
c- A written synopsis
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We have had so much fun the past two weeks, that I haven't had time to upload pictures or add to the blog. But I finally got it done last night!

Here is the link: http://keyschristianacademy.blogspot.com/

Jack LOVED The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, he was dissapointed when he finished the book. That is the first time I have ever had my son experience what it is like to read a book that you don't want to end. It was a special moment for this book worm mommy!

Aly has taken over the role of "teacher" for Grayson ( our two year old). Each day I give her the day's LHTH lesson and she does school with him. It does wonders for her self- esteem to teach her little brother and he loves having his sissy for a teacher. Grayson is learning so much, he just blows me away.

Grayson is always in the room when I am teaching the older two. We have been reading about George Washington in history and one afternoon he heard a commercial on the tv that said George Washington's name; he lit up and screamed, "Mommy, they said George Washington!!"

I have also learned that my toddler can memorize the scripture in BHFHG. One day Jack was backtalking me and Grayson looked right at him and quoted Proverbs 21:23...every word! I was shocked! Not only had he memorized it, he had applied it!

What a fun couple of weeks you have had! That is really neat that your daughter is teaching your youngest son. What a nice help that is for you and it's wonderful that it is helping her confidence grow as well. It looks like you all enjoyed the bird's nests at your house as we did at ours. I actually would like to make those again!

We are having such a great Heart of Dakota week!

This is my first time posting our week in review and I'm afraid I don't have any great pictures. However, that doesn't mean that we haven't been having a great time learning and growing!!

My oldest ds10 is really getting into the stories presented in Preparing. Right now we're finishing unit 18. My son is loving the Constellation book and is learning so much. At night he looks forward to seeing the stars so he can point out the ones he's learned about in school! He really knows a LOT of them! He's also really liking the Little Miriam book and often comes running to me telling me what's happened last in his story. Grandpa's Box continues to be a favorite with him. We both enjoy reading the stories together and learning right along with the characters in the story. When we reached the time of Christ's birth, my son said, "Oh, I can't believe it, it's finally happening, He's here!" What excitement he's showing at placing himself in that time, and experiencing the joy of the birth of our Lord! It blesses my heart so much to see his love for the Lord growing each day as a result of this curriculum!

My next two, ds8 and dd7, are thoroughly enjoying Beyond together. Their friendship with each other has really grown a lot, too, because they work together for school! This week we are reading stories about how some of the pilgrim children dealt with the constant threat of the Indians around them. They have been doing so well at narrating and really putting themselves in the shoes of the characters in our stories.

My son's handwriting is improving through doing copywork, which is something I thought would never happen! Both of them are also getting so much out of the poetry each day as well. Their pictures are getting more involved and really starting to show their deepening understanding of each poem.

My little two, dd4 and dd3, are just loving LHTH. They so look forward to starting "their school" each day and hearing the next Bible story and singing along to the music. It's the perfect thing for them right now and they are each learning so much. It's a great feeling to hear them acting out their Bible stories and verses later in the day with their dolls!

Hopefully, next week I'll have some pictures to add to my post!

We were so excited this week, because we received all the boxes of books for next year. We'll be doing CTC, Bigger, LHFHG, and LHTH. Everyone is so excited to see all the fun that awaits them for next year! Thank you HOD!

Lisa,

That is so neat that your son was so excited about Christ's birth in Preparing. I'm really looking forward to Preparing next year. It sounds like all of your dc and you are having a great time!

We've had a good week here. I actually remembered to take the camera to the den to try to get a couple of pictures. We enjoyed studying about William Henry Harrison, Tecumseh and the War of 1812 this week. We had fun with art making the "bomb's burst in air". My paint was a bit on the thick side and my dc both were getting dizzy blowing through the straws so I got out a couple of paint brushes for them to finish their paintings. They turned out really nice.
We're moving right along in R&S grammar 3 and recently learned to diagram direct objects. Here they are doing some diagramming work on the white boards:
We're still loving A Pioneer Sampler. We enjoyed reading more about the way they did things back then and my dd and ds really enjoyed getting to try their hands at fence building. They were in places where they couldn't see each other while building and I thought it was funny how differently they interpreted the task of building a fence. I wonder if that is a girl thing versus a boy thing? My ds, had an entire compound built!
They really had fun with this activity and when I found some little plastic farm animals that we had used in kindergarten, they were thrilled to work together and build a complete farm. They ended up with all sorts of out buildings, fenced areas, etc. They really took in all of the information from the book and put it to use. I remember hearing a speaker at a conference a few years back talk about how in their free time, her dc were acting out things they had learned in school. It's so wonderful to hear and see that!

It was an awesome week!

We took this week off due to tons of running and house cleaning that needed to be done. Needless to say, I got the "running" done, but the house is still a wreck. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! I can't wait to get back to school on Monday!

Creation to Christ

Unit 22

Making the papyrus map:

Performing the poetry and the watercolor:

History notebook:

Freezing rain and blizzard-like conditions are keeping us at home this Sunday, but we had a nice at home family church service together! And now I have time to reflect on the past school week and how God has blessed us!

Resurrection to Reformation:
We are in the home stretch of school, with only about 9 weeks left of RTR. This time of the year is always a good time to revisit turning in "your best work" type talks, I have found. We had a good talk about this, and work has once again improved. Having standards that are not over the top, yet that are expecting enough, is always a "balance dance" we homeschool moms must do. We talked about how when guidelines are given in an assignment, that I want our dc to be the kind of workers that don't just do the "minimum" to "get by" (i.e. in this notebooking pictured below, the HOD plans suggested that dc may want to photocopy pictures of these men along with writing some biographical information about them). Wyatt chose not to. We talked about how taking a minute to do that step would improve the visual appeal and overall information in his notebooking, and then I helped him do it. I had him watch the clock and see how much time this added to his project (about 1 minute), and then look over his notebooking to see how much it improved its overall appeal. He agreed the minute was worth the results. We also talked about how sometimes workers go above and beyond what is asked in the plans. For example, a worker may have chosen to color the photocopied pictures. Wyatt has never loved coloring, so he did not want to do this, and I did not make him, but he did then understand what doing the minimum, doing all that is asked, and doing more than what is asked looked like. We chatted about God giving each of us different gifts and talents, and us using them in different ways, which means sometimes we do the minimum, and that's okay. Sometimes we do every little bit of what is suggested we do, and other times we blow it out of the water and do more than what was asked of us. Good talks! And ones that relate well to him holding down a job and being a good provider for his family someday, so my daughter-in-laws can stay home and homeschool, if God so wills.


MOH continues to be a hit, and Wyatt's oral narrations are becoming so good, I honestly cannot think of much to ask him to improve upon. From such humble beginnings, this is great success! Emmett sometimes sits in on Wyatt's oral narrations and loves to listen to him. I think Wyatt really puts his all into it then, and uses his "storytelling" voice that I love (and Emmett loves too ).


We had a chat about his timeline figures as of late too. We looked back at his timeline from the beginning of the year, and his most recent ones, and he could see for himself that as his timeline marched on, his effort had retracted. I was proud of the effort he made on his own to improve it. We are really liking the neat photographs on postcards included in the RTR Student Notebook. He researched Oxford this week, and the postcards just make it feel like we're traveling the world!


Another "get back to doing your best" moment for Wyatt was his Shakespeare coloring for his Shakespeare Student Notebook. His beginning of the year colorings were beautiful, his most recent ones... not so much. We looked back at them together, and he deduced this for himself, and worked to make his coloring this week especially vibrant.


Wyatt finished his window cling history project and did a super job on it! The visuals in the RTR Student Notebook make the history projects "mature" for his age, and he loves them!


Singapore math - we are moving on to BIG number division and multiplication without a hiccup. Amazing to me! I taught ps for 7 years, and when we reached this part of math, things slowed to a halt. We spent months - MONTHS - on this skill. Singapore laid the groundwork for it so well, it took Wyatt 2 days to get it. I cannot say enough good about Singapore!

Bible Quiet Time is already included in the daily plans for Wyatt within RTR, and it's been neat to see this excellent habit form. This week as we were reading "Boyhood and Beyond", it challenged him to put together his own Bible Quiet Time and journal on it. He has done this of his own accord in addition to his RTR Bible Quiet time every day - I am so proud of him. God is so good!
In Christ,
Julie

Bigger Hearts for His Glory:
We are having so much fun at this stage of the guide! My ds can do all that is asked of him now, and he does it Riley-style, with gusto! The sinking of the Philadephia was a hit - a BIG hit! Big brother just had to help out. Riley built the Philadelphia and the catch boat, and the boys re-enacted the Americans sinking it by placing one coin at a time in the Philadelphia, and by bombing the catch (making sure not to sink it) with tin foil "bombs":


Riley has one response to activities like this - "LET'S DO IT AGAIN!" I let him do it again - but later, after school is done.

The Pioneer style science we are doing is making an impact on how Riley views science. I am so thankful for the living books we are using in science. They cause my dc to see science as practical, as useful in life, and as something pretty exciting to do! Here Riley has made a flip chart to show how bees see ultraviolet type lines to flowers - he loved this, and he did it all on his own (it was done when I got to the kitchen for his teaching block - he is getting very good at following the clear directions in the HOD guide ):


He also enjoyed making his notebooking page about insects, using the beautiful pictures in his living science books for help:

We read about John Audubon being an excellent shot in the woods, and how someone challenged him to shoot a hat thrown from a distance high in the air - he hit it! We also read about some other men who were even better shots, being able to shoot the wick off a burning candle and shave off just a bit of wick so the candle wick was hit but then kept burning. The boys LOVED this history activity, and found that although they do hunt with my dh (Wyatt shot his first deer this year, and Riley target shoots in the back yard), that hitting that tiny target was pretty hard!


Learning about Old Hickory Andrew Jackson this week was fun. I love that our boys are having heroes to look up to in their history readings. Here Riley worked hard on his "Old Hickory" notebooking page about Andrew Jackson:


Riley surprised me by doing his entire poem for copywork in 1 day. He was so proud, and I am rejoicing in how HOD brings along our dc in the amount of writing they can do! I remember when 1 line of poetry copywork was tough, and it wasn't all that long ago. I am thankful the HOD portfolios let me look back and see how far my dc have come. It helps us celebrate the milestones!


Riley did multiplication of 4's for the first time today with no problem. HOD's hands-on math makes it easy for him. Here I drew dogs (but then Riley and I decided we'd think of them as cats as my drawings looked more like cats ), and we put 4 marshmallow legs on each one. He did it for his activity, and then didn't need them for the workbook, so he ate the marshmallows then. He loves the hands-on math HOD has planned, and I do too.


What an awesome week with Bigger Hearts for His Glory!

In Christ,
Julie

Little Hands to Heaven:
I cannot believe how easy LHTH has made doing phonics for my little guy! He is doing very simple phonics right now, but he's doing very well with it. I think it's all because LHTH has been teaching him his letter sounds in such an easy way to remember. Emmett loves the masking tape letters. He happily drove his semi-truck over it and shouted "R-R-R" as he drove.


Emmett could mark all of the "R"'s in his hide-and-seek letter page this week. HOORAY! I used to have to help him find every one. With repeated times of putting markers, crayons, and pencils properly into his hand, he finally has the right grip on them and is beginning to write and color with some control.


Cutting and gluing are coming along too! He can now hold and cut with his scissors, as well as glue things well. For those of you doing LHTH, moving dc along in these skills so they gradually take them over by the end of the guide is a HUGE help in the guides to come, and though it seems impossible, they truly are able to do it eventually!


What a happy week with Emmett in LHTH! I pray you have found God's blessings in your week as well.
In Christ,
Julie

We've been having so much fun with LHFHG. I forgot to do a review last week, so this is our review for the past 2 weeks.

http://cherish-each-moment.blogspot.com ... 23-24.html

We are brand new to Heart of Dakota. We just ordered and received our curriculum last week, and we can't wait to get started. We will be using LHFHG starting in March. Here's a link to my blog about our "Box Day!"

http://lllath.blogspot.com/2011/02/kind ... x-day.html

Mandy, we can be buddies then. We just started last week. Here is my box day post. I am planning to write about week one when I get a chance, we really enjoyed it!

http://onelittlewordsheknew.blogspot.co ... s-day.html