heartofdakota.com

Hello ladies,

What was YOUR week Like?

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a- A picture
b- A blog Link
c- A written synopsis
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e- Anything you want that shares your HOD excitement!

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Hello,
I hope everyone is having a blessed Good Friday.
I have to get this started before we leave in an hour for a 6-7 hour drive to Grandma's for Easter fun!

This week we worked (er...played) in Little Hands To Heaven Unit 16. My little ones learned about Elijah and Elisha, and practiced the letter M (big sister already knows letters and their sounds but still loves doing all the activities). My little Hannah slept through all the fun stuff, but she'll get her chance to do it again in two more years.

Lily scooted "grandpa elf" around the letter 'M'. Even though she knows the letter and its sound, doing this big 'gross motor skills' motion of following the M path helped her remember how to form a letter M when she practiced it later in her preschool handwriting book...


She wrote the letter M in quinoa...


Our favorite activity of the week was making a play-doh model of the altar Elijah made to to show God's power to the unbelievers.

Here is what we based it off of, from A Child's First Bible...


Here is Lily's altar, complete with stones, logs, water surrounding it, and a huge pillar of fire (her idea) from God's heavenly flamethrower.


Because it is Easter week, we also took some time for a Maundy Thursday foot washing and a Good Friday preschool craft. They weren't from the curriculum so I took down the link to them, it was just something we did on our own (pictures are on the blog if you want to see them).

This week has been a MUCH calmer week than the last two! School with HOD is just going so well this year, and I can’t believe our year is already winding down. The kids are enjoying their work, and are looking forward to the next year already. We’ll be using Little Hearts, Bigger Hearts, and CTC!

This week in Beyond my children learned about George Washington becoming our first president. We even did an activity where we simulated fireworks in milk!!! It was a great experiment on how the soap breaks down the fat in the milk causing the colors to mix and change!


This weeks Bible verses were Galatians 5:22-23, and centered around the kids learning about the fruits of the Spirit. We really had some wonderful discussions on this topic. As always, our Bible study fit perfectly with some “character training” that’s been going on as well! On day 5 we discussed Col. 3:12 which talks about clothing ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. They made little replicas of the shirts they were wearing, and on the inside they wrote some of these great qualities! Thank you HOD for reaching the hearts of our children with so many important truths!


In Preparing Hearts this week my son has been learning about Pirates, Pilgrimages, and Princes! It’s been a great week for him, too! He’s really enjoyed learning about King Richard. He has always so loved the story of Robin Hood and enjoyed learning a new perspective on this story! His history project was a lot of fun for him, as well. He made a relic box. His box just wouldn't stay closed, so he came up with a great little way to fasten it shut! He even made a little cross and crown to keep in it, made out of pipe cleaners!


For science this week he’s continued to learn more about the coral reef. This book just fascinates him. He loves learning about a whole little world that he’s never seen before! Here are a few of his science pages:

(Please pardon our spelling, my son is just on his first year with dictation and, while very gifted in many areas, spelling just isn't one of them! )

That pretty much ends our week! I just love reading all about everyone’s week and all the fun you’re all having with HOD!

We just finished Beyond last week!
http://bobandabbies.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... od_22.html

We finished up Unit 20 in Beyond & LHTH this week and here's the link to the post showing highlights from our week...

http://ourlittlethinkers.blogspot.com/2 ... it-20.html

Happy Easter!

We've just started LHTH! This week was days 2-4 of week 1. Wow, I am so pleased with what my 3-year-old is able to do! I've been so focused on teaching her sister that I didn't notice before.

Her successes this week:

-- carefully gluing noodles onto the A
-- knowing confidently what sound A makes
-- drawing 5 "caterpillars" and being able to count them
-- being brave enough to say "A-A-Adam! Can you believe?" (she's usually shy about that sort of thing)
-- cutting out the tree for the number book almost perfectly, I didn't know she could use scissors so well!

We're having a great time, taking it slowly, taking days off when we feel like it. =)

Hello there. I am very interested in starting HOD in the fall. Right now I just put my own curriculum together, but looking for more plans and activities. I will probably be using 2 different programs, Preparing with my oldest, and Bigger with my middle and youngest. I see that there are several of you that are using 2 programs, I'm wondering if it is too much and how hectic is your day?

Its been a short week this week.Dh got a day off in lieu of working some of this weekend,which we grabbed as a family day.Then we had good friday [holiday ]and then Easter Monday is another bank holiday ... and then next Friday is the Royal wedding -when we get another bank holiday !..so not a lot of HOD ing is going on ....
But we have finished Week 20 and started week 21 in Beyond.
Nathan is reading and enjoying the Nature reader.I had a giggle -I had to google the pronounciation for Cicada.But he is reading so much better and learning-he loves non fiction books!.
I was also amazed at his math-In Sinapore he was foing double digit addition without using blocks or props.He is making good progress
He copied all of Against Idleness and Mischief without complaint.
Bible Study was about Dilligence .Nathan is good at doing his chores-thats a blessing of his aspergers-he is very routine orientated.He gets up everyday and makes his bed-first thing .But he doesnt understand theory of mind -so doesnt know sometimes how or to offer help .But on the day of his Bible study I asked him to hoover his room.He hoovered the hall too...and none of this was part of his routine.. big progress.

LHTH
we have been doing Daniel and the big lesson this week was using a nice voice.I love that Carrie included in LHTH.

http://stanleysmagicgarden.blogspot.com ... aster.html

Hey everyone! We had a great week and a wonderful Easter weekend. We completed Unit 30 in Beyond and finished up to Day 3, Unit 31 in CTC. It is so hard for me to believe our school year is almost over. I find myself feeling a mix of joy and sadness as we finish our guides: joy for the completion of a wonderful school year and much growth spiritually and academically; and sadness at ending something that has really become such a part of our daily life! My kids said they would miss our stories, bible time, and super fun projects the most!!!

Kristin - Your little ones Elijah's fire /altar looks awesome .We loved that activity too .
Lisa the activity in Beyond with milk-looks like alot of fun.We are lloking forward to trying out that one.I love how HOD science includes items we have already ,no sending off for iron filings or such.
Preparing has pirates and pilgrimages -oh wow my boys are going to be desperate to start Preparing
Twoxcell-your field trip looked exciting
Beth-we are at the same stage in our curriculums thats awesome.
Catbeth-I love the time that LHTH gives me to focus on my littlest one too.
Rebecca-Your nearly at the finishing line .Its a mixed feeling reaching the end of the year .

Well we have begun CTC...first the good news Dd age 13 who did not want to hs this year and who was still begging me to send her back to ps in the fall only a few weeks ago, said, "I actually am liking this curriculum" Both girls did excellent work on their History notebooking pages, and science was a hit (though Keri needs some beefing up in that area-I am considering letting her pick some science library books or science kits). The level of history is perfect for both, and the read-aloud time is enjoyed very greatly-we are reading Dinosaurs of Eden now. They REALLY enjoyed painting for poetry. I hope to get a chance to post some pics of their awesome work this weekend.
The "bad" news-our days are too long-I am expecting we will get streamlined as both girls take more ownership of their work and time. So far it has been 5-6 hours instead of 4.5 to 5 And we are using HOD's language arts (R &S 5 and 6), and a short math program (takes 30 minutes), so it's not those areas. What seems to be dragging things out is 1)long discussions on the part of the girls 2)interruptions during storytime and 3)silliness or minor squabbles between the girls. Because of these things, part of me REALLY wishes that I could have been able to buy RTR for the 13 year old (so they wouldn't be doing the same things at all) but I do need to make this work, financially speaking. I think two solutions are in order 1)set the timer and 2)using separate rooms when needed to avoid excessive silliness/squabbles. I will say that they have been having a lot of fun on the whole, learning plenty, and making lots of connections on their own, so overall, a successful week

Lourdes-that sounds like a looong day.I hope the girls settle into their new routine quickly

I haven't posted any updates for a couple of months, so I thought I'd just share a few photos from over that time.

When DS drew his war elephant with Hannibal, our then-3yo decided to draw one too.

Our Roman meal, shared with an aunt and uncle, and one of the watercolors.

The blood-clotting experiment.