Week in Review 9/21 - 10/1

[Tree House Academy]

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!

[Tree House Academy]

How is this for EARLY? LOL My youngest son is turning 7 tomorrow and we are taking the rest of the week off...so today was our last day of school for this week. I am going to post some pics in just a sec. I am excited because we are actually finished with a unit this time and I can post finished pictures and not just parts of things! LOL

UPDATE:

Okay, this took longer than a second(!) LOL, but here are my pictures.

We finished Unit 6 in both Beyond and CTC. Here is some of our work from the week.



CTC

Look how long his paragraphs are getting!



Singapore Math



Pangea Map from Unit 5 that I forgot to post



Science



Science Experiment lab sheet



Finished rock painting, also from Unit 5



Geography Travel Log page



Geography - Finished Map of Turkey



Common Place book entries



R&S English Paragraph



And our favorite paintings yet... Unit 6 poetry paintings. The one on the left is mine, the right is ds11's. I absolutely adore painting with him.




BEYOND

Poetry Copywork...he is doing so much better with this.



Poetry artwork



A great spelling test!



A black, sinful heart that is about to be washed clean by the blood of the Lamb!

[1inheaven]

9/27-10/1/10 Review

I posted a week in review in August after my 1st week of homeschooling...first week ever! I posted that I loved it. Well, I'm here to say that after 7 weeks, I still LOVE IT! I was reading ahead in PHFHG this week and couldn't stop saying to my dd, "I love your school!" She was smiling at me...she loves it too. There are parts that are her fav's and others that are not but she really enjoys every bit of it. She does VERY well! I am trying to get it done quicker so I've figured out I can do Storytime while she is doing her independant drawing work which helps. I am not getting in the DITHOR workbook lessons like I want to or LHTH for my 3 yr old like I want to. We do LHTH hit-or-miss but she is happy and learning. Dd 3yo is memorizing PHFHG verses! She loves the a-a and b-b rhymes and can tell you them so it's getting in there, just not as consistently as I would like
I can't stop saying how grateful and thankful I am to you Carrie for giving me the confidence and ease to teach my children not only the 3 R's but about a relationship with their heavenly Father and learning to live by and revere His Word.
A friend gave me her LHFHG today and I can't wait to start it in a couple of years when my 3yo is ready. I love HOD!
My heart is full.

[John'smom]

Sara, so glad everything is going well with you and your dc.

You can see our week here. Still loving HOD and looking for to starting DITHOR very soon.

[LynnH]

I got a little behind and didn't post a week in review last week so here is a link to a review of the past 2 weeks http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2010/10 ... d-927.html

[Mom4Him]

Rebecca- Wow!! You were done early! I hope the rest of your week went well! Happy Birthday to your son!!
Sarah- I'm so glad you are still loving HOD!! We are too! It truly is a blessing!
Edwena- I always enjoy popping over to your blog & seeing those happy faces! What a fun week!
Lynn, the paintings are so beautiful & get me excited about the future! I love your son's "Buffalo Bill" outfit!

We had a fun week too! This week I posted about the last couple weeks for my daughter using Little Hands to Heaven!! What a joy!
Here's the link...
http://ourfamilyforhisglory.blogspot.co ... eaven.html

[Tree House Academy]

I got so wrapped up in the rest of my week's activities that I never came back and posted my pictures! I will get them on here today, I promise! I am so excited to get back to HOD on Monday and my kids are too. My older son loves not having school work to do, but he misses the reading and the paintings. My kids really thrive on our schedule and our hands on HOD activities!

[moedertje]

LHTH-FINISHED!

My ds was so excited that he finished LHTH, because he is starting LHFHG soon We did not take a summer break, we are taking a fall break and have this coming month off.

Luke absolutely enjoyed writing out the whole alphabet with different color markers. He wants to send it to Daddy's office.


I was amazed at how well he was able to tell Daddy everything he learned this week about the apostle Paul. That's wheat I love about LHTH's dramatic play and activities, they bring the stories to live for the kiddo's. I adopted an old activity from Beyond that we did 2 yrs ago with older brother: "to stand in a crack" (outside) and recite what the boys learned in school. They actually had fun since they were telling Daddy


For math this week he had to sort different color and different size blocks. I used lego blocks and I was amazed at how systematic Luke is. This did bring some frustration as he tried to make his own pattern putting the blocks next to each other and they kept moving. He wanted them perfectly flush... Same thing happened with writing the alphabet as he was NOT at all pleased with some of his letters. I have to keep in check to encourage him so he does not give up, my little perfectionist!
Luke is so different from his older brother who did not care much how things looked. He loves everything to be neat and he wants it to look just like the model given him. Lesson learned quickly at the beginning of LHTH. I do not make him art models anymore.


The art project was so much fun this week as we had to use different colors to make the bright light shining from heaven when the Lord appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus. Even little sis did fantastic on her painting and on staying in the lines.



Count on me activity was another where he was not quiet pleased with his ovals since they did not look like Mommy's. I had to show what an oval looked like. I assured him that the baskets he drew were beautiful and the picture in our Bible of Paul in the basked confirmed this for him. I have truly enjoyed having him do the extension activity, for the "Count on Me" page" knowing how it will be build upon in the subsequent guides.Most weeks he gave me a little narration of the story we'd read.

Luke started on phonics a few months ago and is doing very well reading short vowel words and some sight words. He loves to read to Daddy at night and on the weekends. He was not so keen on the phonics books that had the teachers words in there so we made a quick switch and now he enjoys reading. He gets too overwhelmed with so many words on the page. He loves his phonics we use now and I do my best to cut out all the busy work that our current phonics program has. He has finished the first box of Bob books and is on the second box and reading other little readers with short vowel words and adding to his sight word worm as we go. So thrilled at how well he is picking up.

All in all we had great fun for the last 1 1/2 yrs with LHTH. I anticipate much fun and fun learning when we start LHFHG. Luke can not wait to start his new math book!!! He has asked all week when he can do his math. I had keep reminding him that we will have a little break and than start. At this rate, I might as well start him right away... Such excitement and anticipation. What a blessing.


To celebrate finishing LHTH we will have "Family Fun Night". He will pick the meal, we will make sundaes and play games and hide and seek in the dark! We will have to do it next Friday since our evenings are packed this weekend... Will put pictures next week.
Here are decorated A-Z each letter decorated with an item that starts with that letter. He is so proud that it hangs on the wall in our dining room.

[moedertje]

Bigger Hearts 1/2 pace Unit 18

This week we had to get back in the swing of things after our week away on vacation.

We had been struggling with handwriting and I have been doing some activities with Elijah and he is doing so much better. One of the things I implemented was doing the model writing like Julie suggested and putting highlighter lines in between the words. Combined with some other activities we are making strides toward beautiful penmanship. We also took a break from cursive at the moment since his manuscript was suffering greatly. I intend to wait till next year to start over with cheerful cursive, and just focus on manuscript at the moment. I have a mostly gross motor ds here

I think I said it before, but I have to say it again: " I love R&S 2 and the way it teaches! I am amazed at the retention that Elijah has and I am learning so much myself being a foreigner. We are learning about using adjectives, which is much needed in our family since we are not the greatest detailed story tellers. Now all I have to do is remind Elijah to use more adjectives when he comes to tell me stories. Even the little ones remember the lesson that we had a few weeks back on placing others before you and doing so when you tell a story. It's so great how it sticks the R&S way, because it is done from a Biblical point of view. God's WORD has such power!!!
What a blessed program. Thank you Carrie for recommending this great and godly program and introducing us to it:D


Dictation is going super! We are on lesson 69 and loving it still. With the handwriting issue I had taken a break, but did not want him to forget the valuable spelling lessons and started back up. (The handwriting was getting so mixed up, sometimes that he was doing letter reversals and/or just leaving letters or words out and even saying out loud how to spell the word and writing it completely wrong). Now we are back on track. Yeah! He catches his mistakes again and catches the letter reversals. With all this I must say he did have a bad asthma attack and had to get back on his inhalers and nebulizers and that usually really takes a toll on how he focuses and writes.


We finished 2A and he was delighted! I do think the celebrations we have for finishing our books helps a great deal. We went out and had ice cream at the Amish place. He did great with the reviews, I am glad I returned to singapore after a slight detour a few years ago, caused by fear and anxiety of not being able to teach math. Elijah's comment after doing the first couple of pages this week in 2B was. :"The math is easy again, but I know when I get to the middle of this book it will be hard. They always make it easy for us in the beginning". I had to laugh and enjoyed the fact that he discovered it after doing a couple of books with Singapore, that the intensity of the subjects changes. It must be different for the different kiddo's as well. We had quiet a time with computation in the beginning. I think that partly it requires more precision that he could handle at first, but as the reviews showed he got it


The other jump in progress I noticed is in doing our vocabulary words. It takes less time to find his words and he is needing less help finding the longer words in his dictionary. When we look up words in the 1828 Webster, it is more difficult. Elijah uses a Bob Jones dictionary for most words.


History is still the favorite subject of this guide for Elijah. He loves it and enjoys all the stories that he totally places himself in as I read them. His narration has improved as he is being encouraged with much positive feedback. I sometimes take a turn and have him comment on what I might have missed. I love how Elijah has gained some independence with his activities. He now does his time line with minimal assistance.


We had a ton of fun with the science this week measuring out the wingspans of the different owl's and than measuring Elijah's arm span to compare. He is in the 90th percentile and so his arm span turned out to be 50 inches, only 10 less than a horned owl. This gave us a good idea of huge this owl's wingspan is.


We finished our two adventure books for DITHOR: Stone Fox and Dolphin Adventure and Elijah was filled with joy to get to the end of the books so he could re-read them from beginning to end.
For our project we picked the activity to write a thank you card to Wayne Grover for inviting us on this great adventure. Here is the result.


We are taking off the month of October doing only a little bit of handwriting, math and of course since Elijah is a book worm, I will not have to even tell him to keep on reading Thank you Carrie for all your hard work and dedication in writing these guides for us Mom's to enjoy

[moedertje]

Oh ladies, it is so good to see all the progress your kiddo's make week by week. I love seeing the finished products and looking back at when we did them and also looking forward to doing them again.

Rebecca: I like the common place book and how nice and neat your ds's handwriting is. The paintings are beautiful!
Good job on the spelling for your ds of 7. yeah! I remember doing that craft with the heart and how it encouraged such great dialogue for us.

Edwena: I enjoyed your blog and your creativity in writing the clue behind a puzzle!!! Got to remember this Your kiddo's look so joyful working together on their projects and I lived in Holland for 5 years so I enjoyed seeing their colorful beautiful tulips. I love home schooling and the result of having kiddo's bond at home instead of being strewn in different classrooms at school and only seeing each other a small amount of the day

LynnH: Love the poses and the animation your son has in the pictures. Good work on the notebook. CTC looks like so much fun!

Jessica: I absolutely enjoy looking at your little princesses as I did last year. You are very creative and I love the idea of doing the huge letters and turning them into things! Do you have a template you use? I also like the idea of printing off the scripture verse and having dd write or trace all the letters that have to do with that unit, than cutting it out and pasting it together. Your girls definitely have the joy of the Lord on their faces. I am starting LHFHG soon, my ds is just chomping at the bits to start. So we will be a couple of units behind you again:-)...

[Kathleen]

CTC: Unit 7


Here are a few highlights from our week...
We finished reading Boy of the Pyramids for storytime. Another great HOD pick! We learned a lot about Egyptian life while having a great story to follow. Grant & I got a good laugh out of many of the things Kaffe did. My favorite part of storytime is the last day of the unit when we skim Proverbs to find a connection to what we just read. LOVE the way that it's leading us to see how God's Word speaks to every kind of attitude & action!!

Grant finished his DITHOR project and put on a little puppet show for us with glove puppets he made. Tales from Dust River Gulch was his humorous book...and here are JD & Bo.


I love the paintings that he's making during poetry!! Grant has really learned to follow the directions in the guides independently so well. He has been TOTALLY on his own with many things in the guide this year while I'm spending needed time with his brothers & sister. I'd actually love to sit & paint with him, but I think I want to finish school in a timely manner more. I love getting a glimpse of what he's done though, and am so glad for his growth in independence!


Kathleen

[Kathleen]

LHFHG: Units 18/19

Allison's favorite part of our day right now is reading about the adventures of Grandfather Frog. She can't wait to see what happens to the animals in the story next! She's offered to let Grant read the Burgess books we're done with since he didn't get to listen to these when he was little.


We're almost done with the Early Reader's Bible in the ERS. She's reading so well - and loves reading to me!


She also loves to write and color (and can do it so quickly). I'm quite sure that I won't have the dawdling struggle with her and school. (I'm sure we'll have some of her own special challenges though.) Here is her W page with a Watermelon.


Her Bible stories and activities this week had us learning about Paul and Silas in jail, Paul in a storm & shipwreck, & the beauty of heaven (with our rainbow).


Kathleen

[Kathleen]

LHTH: Unit 9/10

This week Garret learned about the spies being sent into Caanan to check it out. Here are his "grapes". (We opted for popcorn painted purple since we happened to be out of Cheerios & cotton balls that day. HOD definitely works without planning the supply list ahead of time! Garret really wanted to glue, or we could have used the fingerprint with paint option.)

We continued on with the story of Joshua leading God's people and encouraging them to love & obey God...and pass it on to their families. Here Garret is searching for 10 Daddy's to cut out & put on his #10 page to remind us of the Dads that teach their famililes about God.

On to Rahab helping the spies in Jericho. Building a wall with graham crackers & peanut butter was great fun...and YUMMY! (Allison got in on this activity! And they took a few "wall sections" to Grant, too.)

And we ended the week crossing the Jordan River. Here he's balancing a non-sticky "tape ball" on his head and following the path we made.


We're reviewing letters this week. He has them down pat...but I'm still loving all the other fine & gross motor skills that are taught and reinforced along with them. He's still learning in that area, and having so much fun with school! Here he's painting glue to fill his "D", and then sprinkle it with cinnamon. He doesn't usually get control of a shaker like that...so this is one of his favorites!


Kathleen

[spidermansmum]

Week 9 BLHFHG


School in a box! We were learning about the cramped conditions on the mayflower and Nathan came up with the idea of doing his school inside the box.It was very squished in there -especially when I climbed in there to read and teach .
We have since had a weighted blanket made for him.
Ive explained more about that in my blog
http://stanleysmagicgarden.blogspot.com ... n-box.html

[spidermansmum]

Rebecca-I love the winter paintings .
Your dc's s copywork in Beyond is amazing.I loved doing that heart craft activity.
Lynn-I enjoyed seeing Buffalo Bill
Edwena-your Tulip pictures were amazing
Moedertje-I loved the alphabet around the room.If I do LHTH again[and I think I will] I want to save all the letters DS makes and do that-it looks awesome
Kathleen I loved Grant's puppets