Week in Review 2/20 - 2/25

[Qtipper]

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!

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[Qtipper]

I was so excited to share, so I went ahead and posted the Week in Review! My kiddos are LOVING school! Heart of Dakota is such a JOY! Thank you for this God-centered curriculum! Last week my son said, "Mom, I will not give up. I am not going to get tired of doing good!" Our lesson was on Galations 6:9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

This week we are on Week 3 in Beyond. There is a science lesson about bees, flowers and pollen. The kids LOVED it! Here are our snappies:

[birchbark]

Creation to Christ

Unit 23

We got to start a new book this week: Galen and the Gateway to Medicine. We really like how HoD schedules different books throughout the year. It is always fun to start a new one.

[birchbark]

The "After Apple Picking" watercolor and working on science:

[mercymom]

We are loving Little Hearts For His Glory!! I posted my thoughts (and kind of a review of the curriculum so far) on week 2 here:

http://onelittlewordsheknew.blogspot.co ... eek-2.html

[my3sons]

Resurrection to Reformation:
Look out Julia Child! Here comes Wyatt! This week my ds was master chef in RTR, and he did it 100% without me. I am so proud of him! We were treated to seed cake like they had at like those that were sold at plays, baked pears like those in Shakespeare's era, and Yorkshire pudding. I am glad the fun doesn't stop for my dc as they age with HOD's guides. I am also glad I am not having to take over for the fun to begin! My ds is learning such important skills within HOD. I am sure his wife and dc will be thankful someday, for he is going to be quite handy in the kitchen - he loves cooking already (and the other boys love eating what he's made)! Emmett especially enjoys "helping".


Wyatt's been learning so much from his history readings, and I enjoy hearing him share what he's learned in his oral narrations and written narrations. He's really becoming quite adept at sounding as if he's telling a story when he narrates. This is a marked change from how it used to be "just the fact ma'am"! I like seeing his personality shine through as he narrates.

Science notebooking, Draw and Write sketches, history notebooking - these are all HOD assignments that have really helped Wyatt grow in his skills for putting together a scrapbook style page of what he's learned. This didn't come naturally to him. We have spent years in HOD's notebooking talking about what a good presentation of what is learned looks like - neat, organized, uses all of the space of the paper (no big unused areas), balanced out, big bold beautiful pictures, clear labels, fitting text within drawn bubbles, etc. I do believe he finally has it!


"Riders of the Pony Express" is the title Wyatt is reading for DITHOR right now, and he is enjoying this book so much. I was thinking how I used to have to encourage Wyatt to choose his words wisely for his DITHOR Student Book, and how he used to write very short answers. Now, he automatically does these things. The reading instruction within DITHOR teaches so many skills, yet keeps the passion for books alive. I am so thankful to be able to teach reading like this year after year. It is the way I would have loved to have received reading instruction.


Mapping is an area I've been so pleased with in RTR. It is teaching my ds so much! Because the maps match the history, I think he remembers so much more of what he does. It just ties the history together with the mapping so well, that mapping just becomes a neat part of history. I'm excited Map Trek maps will be a part of RevtoRev next year too!


In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Bigger Hearts for His Glory:
Experiments get done every week with BHFHG at our house. I can honestly say this would not happen with just any science program. A few things have to happen for science experiments to happen at our house... has to use things we have on hand... has to be something my dc can do... has to be accomplished within a fairly short amount of time... can't often carry over into the next day - week- month... has to be linked to something we are learning... has to be from a God honoring point of view... HOD does all this! Plus, I want my dc to have an inquisitive nature about learning science, rather than the idea that all of science is already figured out, and it's just something to be memorized. Science has a practical side to it. Much of science is developed to solve problems. Scientists aren't just people sitting around saying, "Hey, let's mix this together for fun and see what shakes out!" They are intelligent, think outside the box type people who are usually trying to improve life somehow - i.e. everyone is getting sick from drinking milk and wine, why? Pasteur figures out that by heating liquid to a certain temperature and cooling it quickly growth of harmful micro-organisms can be slowed, and EUREKA! "Pasteurization" becomes a scientific discovery to solve a problem and to make life better for all! I LOVE this about science with HOD!

My sons link science with not only theories and experiments, but also with people and problems and historical events. Much more meaningful than any way I ever did science!!! History and science just overlap and become a simultaneous learning - for example, here Riley learned that a boat would sink if it didn't have an air pocket for history. He put a paper towel in the bottom of a glass and pushed it straight down into a bowl of water. The air pocket within it prevented the paper towel from getting wet. However, when putting the glass in the water at an angle, there is not an air pocket, and the paper towel gets wet. This can cause a boat to sink! Though he learned this for "history", he learned "science" too. Love that. (Can you see Wyatt baking away in the background?!?)


Riley made a neat art project for Longfellow's poem about footprints in the sand. He enjoyed reading about Longfellow in history, and he traced his feet and did some fun painting for this project. He followed the directions in his BHFHG's guide to do this all on his own, other than he asked Wyatt to trace his foot (I was teaching Emmett, and they know to move on and figure things out themselves rather than interrupt me if it's not their teaching time with me ).


Horace Greeley was such an inspiring young boy and man. He fit perfectly with the Godly Character trait he was matched with from Bible time: discipline. Horace was very disciplined. He showed self control and discipline within his growing up years by challenging himself to read many books and learn to spell very well, even though his family had relatively no money and very few books. Riley said, "He reminds me of Abraham Lincoln - Horace walked 7 miles to borrow a book, and Abraham Lincoln did that too!" I like how HOD helps foster history connections across time. Horace was also bullied by other boys in the print shop, but he chose to ignore them and keep on working, doing more type set work in a day than some of those boys had been able to do in a month. Needless to say, his employer was pleased he'd hired him. So many excellent conversations naturally come from HOD! They are timely. We have been talking about using time well, about being good hard workers, and how that will help them grow into young men that work hard, have good jobs, and support their families well. Excellent timing with this lesson, as toward the end of winter and of the school year, my dc often need a "roll up your sleeves and dig in" kind of talk! Here Riley practiced type-setting and realized - it takes awhile! Especially to put together an entire newspaper... yes, well done IS better than well said.


In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Little Hands to Heaven:
Emmett has been marching around the kitchen singing "Twelve Guys" along with LHTH's "Singing Bible" - actually, we ALL have been (singing it that is , not necessarily marching). What a fun, catchy song, and a great way to remember the names of the 12 disciples! Here Emmett has lined up the 12 disciples behind Jesus (the big teddy bear ), to show they are ready to follow Him. He counted to twelve over and over again, and acted out them following Jesus with gusto!


We also read about Jesus' first miracle of turning water to wine. I poured 2 glasses of water, and put purple food coloring in 1. Emmett had to try them and see if they tasted different. First, he really thought they did, but after drinking more, he realized even the purple one just tasted like water. We talked about how we can't do miracles like Jesus can.


Emmett loves nothing more than playing with glasses in water in the sink, so the last activity we did was a BIG hit! I wrote a number on a markerboard, and Emmett read it and filled that many glasses with water. I love how math just becomes a part of an history activity in HOD. This linked so well to the Bible story where the servants filled the jars with water, and Jesus turned that water to wine.


We are moving along in our alphabet journey, and this week we reached the letter "R". Playdough is a favorite of Emmett's, so making this letter out of was great fun for him.


Last night I was reading from the Bible to Emmett before bed. This is our bedtime routine, but we just began reading a more difficult children's Bible that has questions after the readings. I would never have attempted this earlier in the year, because he would not have been able to listen to the higher level of reading, nor answer any of the follow-up questions. Now, he can! I am really amazed at how he is able to answer a good portion of the questions correctly! LHTH has really moved him along in this area. It has taught him to listen more carefully, especially to names/places/events, and it has helped him to get so much more out of what we are reading together. What a great week!

In Christ,
Julie

[Samuel'sMommy]

We had another wonderful week with LHFHG! Here's the link to my blog

http://cherish-each-moment.blogspot.com ... ek-25.html

[Tree House Academy]

we had such a wonderful, relaxing, and fun week with Heart of Dakota this week!

Beyond

ds7 did some great projects in Beyond this week.

We read a story about George Washington as a young surveryor meeting the Indians in a not-so-fun way! We also read about a little girl whose courage and kind words helped her hold safe the key to the barn that her mother had entrusted to her. Our verse for this week was about how a Kind word will put out anger, but a mean word will stir up anger. My boys really needed to hear this right now as they are often fighting with one another and saying unkind things. It was nice to use these examples as we went over the verse and they have been trying harder to remember what God says about kind words now too!

Here is ds7 making a grass scene from his history reading. Patience Arnold wanted so much to just go out and play in the grass, but she was stuck inside sewing her sampler instead. My ds worked VERY hard making his bee for his grass. He was determined that it must have silver aluminum foil wings.



When the soldiers came wanting to sleep in the barn, they trampled Mrs. Arnold's herb garden. ds7 and I made an herb garden of our own - and I must admit, it really smells nice! We attempted to follow the directions in the manual, but what I was imagining and what it said were two different things...so, this is what we ended up with.



Here is a sample of his poetry copywork for this week. He began the year copying just a sentence or two from each poem. Now, he copies the entire poem, no matter how long!



And I just loved his poetry artwork for this week.



And here he is hard at work with his Singapore Math. We are learning multiplication this week in 1B. Singapore makes it so EASY!



And here he is counting out the final answer:

[Tree House Academy]

Creation to Christ

Ds11 hit his stride this week with CTC. He loves learning about the Romans and we both thoroughly enjoyed the history Read Aloud, Cleopatra. It was very interesting and even *I* learned some things from it.

Here are his Notebook pages from this week



I thought his painting turned out SO well. He agreed, for once!



In Science, he finished up his study of plants and has moved on to Galen.



He finished DITHR in the Folk Tale genre and is starting on the project. His assignment is to show a purposeful (planned) act of kindness to someone and then write about it in his reflection. He has to tell me what he plans to do by Monday. He is excited about this one and a little nervous. We are praying together that God will show him what he needs to do and for whom he needs to do it!

Thank God for such an amazing week! It was a breath of fresh air after the week "off" we had last week. We do much better when we can stay on track, stay in God's word, and stay at HOME. I cherish each day teaching my kids with HOD.

[momtofive]

So good to see how everyone's week has gone! Good job, you're children's work looks so good!!

Our week was a little rocky to say the least. We were hit with a stomach flu that was pretty intense. My husband started things off with it by midnight on Tuesday night. Then by 2am dd7 had it, by 2:30 ds10, and at 3:30 ds9 and dd4 woke up with it. So, needless to say it was a rough night for a mama!! By God's grace, I only had a very mild form of it with just nausea and so did the littlest dd3! Praise the Lord! Sometimes, I find it amazing the things that we wind up thanking Him for!

Other than that, we had a wonderful week with HOD. . . . .as usual!!! We were doing unit 19. Even the day after the kiddos were all sick, they wanted to do school! So we did school on the couch and had one of the best days. The discussion that comes from our history, science and Bible studies is so rich and meaningful, I just love it!

On that "couch day", we did the activity in Beyond with my ds9 and dd7 where we used a globe (ours was an inflatable one because the "real globe" broke! ), and we taped a little man on it to represent us on one side of the world. It was such a good illlustration about how the sun doesn't really go down like we think. The sun just stays exactly where God perfectly placed it and our earth spins instead. The kids got a few good giggles about our cute little boy taped to the earth!!!


My ds10 in Preparing, unit 19 had a great week as well, despite being pretty sick for a few days. He was still able to complete his four day week, though, and had some pretty great learning experiences. He really loves Grandpa's Box and this week we learned about Christ's death on the cross and His resssurection. I just never tire of hearing this story told over and over. Though, it's not just a story, but what each of us praises God continually for!!! Life eternal!! We learned about how Jesus victory over death and sin, was Satan's defeat. Wow, what truth and everlasting love!

He also really enjoyed the science experiment with the constellations book. He enjoyed laying out the cards for each of the constellations and shining his flashlight "sun" in the middle. He learned so much about what stars we see at different times of the year, and where we see them. He is learning so much through this book! I would have snapped a picture of this too, but he did it too quickly and I missed it!!

The history project this week was to make what my son calls his "Calvary Clock", which details the times that each of the events happened leading up to Christ's death on the cross and the tomb's being opened from the earth quaking! What a great activity that he'll remember forever!



Can't wait to see what's coming next week!

Blessings!

[KristinBeth]

We finished unit 7 in LHTH this week and the kids loved learning about Moses. Here is a link to my blog post about their Moses baby basket project:
http://www.broomandcrown.com/2011/02/ba ... oject.html
I put my two year old daughter's spontaneous narration on the main board already, but it's on my blog as well. This was a great unit!

[LynnH]

Wow lots of post this week. I love looking at what everyone did. Here is our week in review http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2011/02 ... 22111.html

[blessedmomof4]

I really enjoyed looking at this week's posts, especially since I am planning on CTC for next fall! I wish I could buy it all now...I would probably start it immediately, lol Well this past week was very good-the major focus was helping Keri to persevere in her DITHOR assignments. I assigned her Caddie Woodlawn for her historical fiction, while Tamara is reading Where the Red Fern Grows. It takes Keri a while to get her workbook assignment done, but when she does get finished, I am pleased with the result. She is really being challenged beyond "fill-in-the-blank to get it right" to reading thoughtfully and answering questions that require a deeper answer. She did say she likes the main character, because she is a tomboy, like someone else I know Tamara likes her book because it is about a boy and his dogs
We are also enjoying the Wright Brothers and Their Sister for History-there are wonderful character and life lessons woven into the tales of their childhood. Both girls are reading the Extension Book Bud and Me, and are amazed at the story of these two young boys who took an adventurous journey ALONE. The science experiment this week was a hit, since we explored what makes popcorn pop, and then snacked on fresh, hot popcorn-good project for a chilly day
Tamara continues to make great progress in math, and Keri, being the math-minded girl she is, wants more math than I'm giving her. She said she'd rather have more math and less reading...I said she could have more math-I am looking into other programs now-but less reading isn't going to happen I do think Tamara could also use a bit more math practice than she is getting with LOF, so I may have to add something-I wish I would have started Singapore with them back when they were in K, but, ah well, we just have to go from here...