Week in Review 2/7 - 2/11

[creativemommy]

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!

[creativemommy]

It's been awhile since I've posted a week in review, but here's the link to our last day this week of Beyond Unit 12 and LHTH Unit 12. If you want to read about the rest of the week you can scroll back through the posts.

http://ourlittlethinkers.blogspot.com/2 ... plete.html

[blessedmomof4]

This week was really nice. We are working through unit 26 in Bigger with Extensions and extras. The girls made great notebook pages, and we had the most fun reenacting a cattle drive on the kitchen table with popcorn kernels My youngest gave me a turn to be the cowboy and she got to make my "cattle" stampede! The best was having time today to take a quick field trip to the Wetlands Park, which is walking distance from our home. We got to see some interesting birds and just enjoy the outdoors and beautiful weather. This is a picture of Keri and Tamara at the Wetlands. I will try to post one later that Keri took of herself and me on her phone Editing to correct myself, that was Unit 27, not 26

[my3sons]

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

[my3sons]

Bigger Hearts for His Glory:
Everyone loved Riley's history project this week, because he made Johnnycake! He is learning to follow step-by-step directions in the BHFHG's plans, and this has helped him learn to read recipes too. Actually my oldest ds can cook and bake because of HOD's history projects - not joking here. And I am so thankful, as the boys can often get lunch put together! Anyway, everybody loved the Johnnycakes! In fact, Emmett, our youngest, asked my dh for Johnnycake, and my dh looked at me like, what's that? Riley proudly answered with a flourish, and went into really I guess what one would call an oral narration about it.


Riley was born to do school. He loves it and adds his own flourish to things with delight! I am oh so thankful for the calisthenics added to the day in HOD's BHFHG - he is my wiggly one, and needs them! For his Bible verse, he was to run in place, freeze, and then say his verse. Well, Riley runs the perimeter of the room, LEAPS over my blanket-clad feet as if he's a track star, and races around for one more go at it. I like to raise my legs higher each time to see if he can hurdle, which causes him to leap with sheer joy and giggles shouting "Just one more time, MOM!" each time!


He has gotten to where he knows what I want from his notebooking pages now. Neat. Big, bold, colorful pictures. Labeling. Everything the HOD guide asks him to do, done. He is proud of his work, and I am too!


Andrew Jackson. He cannot get enough of reading about Andrew Jackson in the Eggleston books. I see big brother listening in and loving the stories too. They often shout out things from "Liberty's Kids" or the History Channel that go with what we're reading too. Here Riley made his Andrew Jackson hat and wore it proudly.


Another great week of learning with BHFHG!
In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Little Hands to Heaven:
Emmett loves his Bible. He runs to get it and waits for me on the couch, thumbing through the pages as he waits, and shouting out this or that about what he remembers from pages we've already read. I love starting homeschooling with Bible stories. It says right from the getgo that we believe God is a part of learning, that Christ is the center of learning, and that our homeschool won't separate the 2. He often shares things from his LHTH learning when we are reading the Bible at night as a family, and I can see my dh happy with what he already knows at his tender age.


What could be better than gluing marshmallows, and eating the leftovers! Nothing, in Emmett's opinion. Here's his letter "Q" gluing (and eating) session:


One of the really neat things of homeschooling is seeing brothers be friends. I like how my oldest jumps in if he's done early to help and how my youngest loves that!


Emmett is loving his LHTH time so much, and I am drawing it out to cherish each day with it, as he's my last. What a blessing HOD is in our home!
In Christ,
Julie

[LynnH]

Here is a little bit about our last 2 weeks http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2011/02 ... -2711.html

[birchbark]

Creation to Christ Unit 21

[birchbark]

And something I finally did today. Labeled all our HoD books with color-coded labels. I took Kay in PA's advice here and made my own labels.

Now that everything is marked, I can see how many HoD books we've accumulated! And I haven't labeled the books from DITHOR or earlier programs we haven't used with my firstborn. It's going to be interesting trying to keep up-and-coming students from reading all that good stuff too early.

[pjdobro]

It is so fun to see all of the wonderful things that your dc have done! I rarely make it over here to the week in review. I think I need to make it a point to get over here more often!

Julie, you are just 1 week ahead of us in Bigger so I love looking at your pictures to see what is coming up for us this week. BTW, I read your post on the main board too about the work ethic that you are instilling in your sons which is wonderful and I would like to reserve one of them as a husband for my dd. I think Riley and my Tali are probably too similar so Wyatt might be a better choice. LOL!

I think this is my first time ever posting our week in review and unfortunately I don't think to take pictures during the week. I wanted to share though because we had such a wonderful week! This was the week that we finally started A Pioneer Sampler. I've had this book over 2 years and could hardly wait to start it. I was thrilled when we started Bigger this year remembering that this book was upcoming and finally this week, we started it. We are having such a great time with it.

We loved our studies on Wednesday reading about Clark's burning glass and the way that the Indians made fire versus how the white man made fire. My dc could relate to this so well because dh has shown them all different ways to make fire and had them practice many of them. We haven't done fire by friction yet, but they had done all the others so they could really relate. We loved the experiment with the candle and the glass. Both of my dc came up with a guess that the fire needs fuel in the form of kindling, logs, etc. but didn't think about the oxygen until after we did the experiment. My ds told me how the oxygen in a light bulb was a problem when Thomas Edison was inventing the light bulb. That's something he remembered and connected from the biography he read back in September! I love the connections that I see my dc making in all the different subject areas!

On Wednesday we had such fun reading about the way the pioneers cooked that we decided to go back in time for supper. We have been traveling around the world each night experiencing the music and food of places around the world, and our visit to Africa on Tuesday night wasn't a big success. 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.

It was such a great week. We've been struggling to get back on schedule since Christmas. First my dc were sick with a flu-like virus and then I had bronchitis so it's felt like we have been straining to keep going, but not so this week. This week, we had fun and thoroughly enjoyed our studies. I can hardly wait for next week!

[Tree House Academy]

In the busyness that was our week, I forgot to post the update for Feb 7-11. It was a rough one for us because my little guy got sick with a fever. However, he was a real trooper and chose to do school each day! As he felt better, he worked really hard to catch up.

Here are a couple of pics of his favorite projects this week in BEYOND:

We read about Deacon Drowne who was a coppersmith in the time of Samuel Adams. He created a copper grasshopper that, after his death, was put atop the Boston public hall that Peter Faneuil built. We were supposed to make an edible model of the grasshopper out of peanut butter paste, but my son is very picky about his artwork and it was driving him nuts to think he would build it and then have to eat it. LOL So, instead, we ate some peanut butter crackers and made the grasshopper out of regular playdough. I think he did a pretty great job!



And here is his very own model of the building with the little copper grasshopper on top.

[Tree House Academy]

double post...sorry!

[pjdobro]

I love his grasshopper! What a fantastic job he did! My dc saw it and said we did something like that but made it out of peanut butter. So they recognized the project from when they did it last year. They enjoyed eating their grasshoppers, but they weren't near as detailed and beautiful as your son's grasshopper. Great job!

[Tree House Academy]

I love his grasshopper! What a fantastic job he did! My dc saw it and said we did something like that but made it out of peanut butter. So they recognized the project from when they did it last year. They enjoyed eating their grasshoppers, but they weren't near as detailed and beautiful as your son's grasshopper. Great job!

Awww...It will make his day to hear your compliments. He loves these little art projects we do with HOD.

[Tree House Academy]

Creation to Christ

I guess "better (really) late than never" would apply here. We took Feb 14-18 off, and I meant to post updates for the 7-11 during that week, but just never got around to it. Here is a brief work display and I hope I can get better at doing my updates in a timely manner once we start back to school on the 21st!

I love his student pages. I love looking through them each week and going back through the older ones. I can see his progress so easily with things like handwriting and sentence formation through this year just by flipping the pages. His artwork is so fun to look back at too. He loved the drawing this week and even HE thought he did a nice job (he is usually way too critical of his artwork).



His poetry painting turned out beautifully too!



The Papyrus - well, mom dropped the ball! LOL I actually forgot to help him make it on Day one. Then, that night, as I was looking over the work for day 2, I realized it needed to dry before he could draw on it. So, as he was sleeping, I made the papyrus paper. 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