Week-In Review 12-14-09 to 12-18-09

[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]

Christmas is just around the corner, and we are getting excited to spend it with family. I can't believe how quickly this school year is going! It is just flying by. I hope you are all doing well and looking forward to celebrating the birth of our Savior. Here are some hi-lights from this week:

Creation to Christ:
Wyatt began his new science book Birds of the Air, and he is excited to begin making his own bird book. Here are some pictures of his first entry:



His mosaic of horse and chariot turned out so neat! I was proud of the time he took drawing and coloring it. It went perfectly with what we're reading about in history. We could hardly read and turn the pages fast enough to get to the conclusion of God King. That book is absolutely amazing - full of adventure! Wyatt took it up to his room right away when we finished it, so he could read it "at least 4 times again". Wyatt liked learning the parts of prayer this week (ACTS: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication). It was a good reminder for me too! What a great week with CTC!

Beyond Little Hearts:
Riley and I were amazed at the size of a bison! We measured it out with masking tape on our floor, and all 3 of the kids fit inside it:


Another fun thing was experimenting with air current and birds' flying. Here is the arced wings of the vulture and how when air blows underneath it, it flies high into the sky. Wyatt wanted to get in on this one too:




Riley's writing continues to improve and has really become neat now. He does a great job with writing his poem when I draw lines for him on white paper:



Riley continues to enjoy his history readings, Bible memory work, and music. We are reading Mountain Born right now, and he narrates quite well from it. Since we live on a farm too, he finds a lot of it interesting and yet familiar. It's been a wonderful week with Beyond!

Little Hands to Heaven:
Emmett is loving his school! He feels like such a big boy. We are reading about Joseph and his coat of many colors. He loved painting the many colors:


He loved his review letter Fingerplay because he got to do off all his letter sounds. He also likes me to hold him and sing when we do the Corresponding Music. It is such fun to do LHTH with Emmett. Today is Sunday, and the first thing Emmett asked to do when we got home from church was school. I told him he'd have to wait until tomorrow. I did give in and sing Noah, Build a Boat with him because it's his favorite song so far. Anyway, LHTH is making doing school with the older boys so much easier because Emmett feels like he gets his own time with me too.

I hope you all had a good week and wish you a very Merry Christmas!
In Christ,
Julie

[Daisy]

Here's ours. We had a short week.

http://daisyhomeschoolblog.blogspot.com ... 21609.html

Lydia finished up Unit 15 of CTC and I gave Ryan a free week while we caught up in some other areas.

[LynnH]

This was our last week of school before taking a 2 week break and it was a fantastic week. Just last week I was worried about Noah's retention of things and this week he did a fantastic job with his oral narration and was really able to tell my dh the details later that night. In fact he then told him the story of Horatio's bridge that we read a few weeks ago. He knows he struggles with remembering details so he was so excited that he could remember it all to tell his Dad. He also did a very nice written narration about the Punic war. My DH and I went thru his notebook and compared his written narrations in the first 2 weeks with the one he did this week and it was amazing to see the difference.

For his poetry writing he was supposed to write a paragraph or poem about a place with wonderful smells that brought back fond memories. He wanted to write about a local bakery we go to. He was having a little trouble coming up with the descriptions he wanted so we hopped in the car and headed to that bakery. He sat at a table and took notes of what he saw and smelled and then went back and wrote a nice, detailed paragraph. He giggled and giggled at the thought that he went to the bakery in the middle of his school day.

We rearranged his timeline a little bit this week and it was neat to look back at it.

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He enjoyed the history project of making a Greek Amphora. He loves doing the projects even though painting and drawing are tough for him, he never complains or gets frustrated.

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The other big highlight this week was doing his DITHOR project based on Toliver's Secret. We are using a project book I found since the book project's to send home book isn't available anymore. He made a pop up picture and typed a summary of the book and added that.

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[butterfly113]

This week we did some catching up, and enjoying Christmas preparations!

http://joshuatreeacademy.blogspot.com/2 ... it-14.html

[Tree House Academy]

I have not posted an update in soooo long! Just a little about our week....

My youngest is still doing and loving Little Hearts. Right now, we are doing Bible. History, Rhymes, Thinking Skills, and Read Alouds. He really loves his Bible history and is doing SO WELL with his verses each week. We finished Unit 12 before taking Christmas Break. We did 6 weeks of Beyond before this, though, so we are actually on week 17 of our school year. Little Hearts will go into next school year for us (or we may do some over the summer too), but that is totally okay! I have really lightened up a lot on being such a stickler about when things are done. He is learning so much, I don't want to rush through anything at all.

We were so blessed because Unit 11 and 12 (the ones we did just before Christmas break) were right on target with Christmas. They were about Jesus' birth and early life. It was just PERFECT. I know God had a hand in setting it up that way. If we had started Little Hearts in the beginning instead of Beyond, we would have been way beyond those Units and not had nearly the number of wonderful discussions with it being so close to Christmas now. I am so thankful for that.

I hope you all have a blessed and wonderful Christmas!

[Carrie]

Ladies,

I loved reading your weekly reviews. We are still schooling this week too as we head into the Christmas season. It is sounding like we will be getting a major blizzard here in South Dakota, so we're looking forward to bundling up and waiting out the storm before joining family and friends in a celebration of Christ's birth. We pray each of you will have a safe Christmas and will be drawn closer to the Lord during this busy season of the year.

Julie,
Cole and I loved the picture of your 3 cuties inside the outline of the bison. Your kiddos look so small in comparison to the bison! What an amazing creature God made! We loved Emmett's smiles and Wyatt and Riley's hard work. It's fun to see their progress. Wyatt's bird drawings are amazing and so is Riley's handwriting.

Daisy,
Cole and I loved your blog. Buttercup's Student Notebook is so well done. She can be proud of her work. We loved her prayer box. Dragonfly looks like he is really having a good time and is coming along in his writing. We loved his Bible verse! We're glad he's enjoying John Audubon. Shaw loved it too.

Lynn,
Noah's timeline is really progressing! It looks great. We loved the idea you had to take Noah to the bakery to help him with his writing assignment. What a fun mom you are! Cole thinks this would be a good idea for us. Cole says he really liked Toliver's Secret too.

Butterfly,
Cole and I loved Caterpillar's written narration about Horatius. Cole says Caterpillar will learn more about Horatius in Creation to Christ. The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible is a favorite book here too! The boys love anything that is H-U-G-E!

Rebecca,
We're so glad that your youngest kiddo is enjoying Little Hearts! It definitely is God's timing that you were at Units 11-12 as you neared Christmas. God's timing is truly perfect. May He bless you this season!

We wish each of you safe travel and a holiday surrounded in God's love!

Blessings,
Carrie