Week in Review - Feb 5 -10

[countrymom]

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!

[countrymom]

LITTLE HEARTS
Catching up the last 2 or 3 weeks like usual. Our art project today shows why we are taking Little Hearts in 2 years. Little J is just not quite ready when it comes to fine motor skills, concentration, perseverance, etc. I know this doesn't look like an Egyptian collar, but that is what it is supposed to be. He was immediately frustrated that it would take him too long and he couldn't do it and so on. I did cut it out for him as I thought that was a bit hard yet. Then I directed him 1 step at a time to color a few areas on the collar. I would point to an area and tell him to pick a pretty color and color it. He would think he was done and time for stickers and I would point to another area and tell him to choose a pretty color and color it. After he had colored an appropriate amount I let him use the stickers. I thought I had sequins, but didn't so we ended up with flowers

Little J had to "pack" a while back just like the people would have done when they left the tower of Babel. I know it looks like he is just throwing the shirt in the suitcase, but he actually did a very good job.

Little J loves the action rhymes. Here he is acting out "Praise God when you get up....."

I love the coordination exercises that go with the memory verses in Little Hearts. This past summer we discovered our older ds could play baseball quite well for age 6 and I wonder if all of those Little Hearts exercises had anything to do with it.


BIGGER HEARTS
Big J made an acrostic our of Pocahontas and he did really well. He came up with most of them himself.

I remember Julie mentioning that one of the reasons she had Riley go 1/2 speed for awhile was because he was so artistic and wanted to put time into his work and could not be hurried. Well, that is my Big J. We only did one vocabulary card last week because he knew all of the words well, but it was a process. He had to color, add a background, add other wigwams, tell me all about it.....finally we got to the sentence on the back. I love the vocabulary exercises - what a way to cement vocabulary and we are having fun learning how to use a dictionary.


We are really enjoying singing the hymns each day. Big J already has lots of practice from church but I appreciate this opportunity for him to learn all of the verses and learn the story behind the hymn.

The "germ" experiment today was perfect. Big J examines his hands and discovers that a paper towel or cold water does not take the germs off. Maybe this will help the boys remember to use warm water when washing. Little J was along for the ride, just being Little J!

I can't say enough how much I LOVE HOD!

[KristinNitz]

So I say it every week, another good week. I think it is about time to come up with a new opening line to my HOD updates. But it really is true. Come check out all the pictures of unit18 in BIGGER.
http://nutbugs.com/heart-of-dakota-bigg ... 18-update/

[Heidi in AK]

We had a SUPER week. God has really shone His light into our homeschool, and given both Mommy and kids a sense of His goodness. We have been away from them a lot lately and that has played into our lives a bit. Thankfully, though, God is good and has wrapped His arms around my kids and bandaged up the boo-boos when we have had hard times together lately.

That said, we LOVE school, and had a great week finishing up LHFHG Unit 10 (Exiles and Babylon) and starting Unit 11 (Jesus is Born!!!). John also started a LHTH playgroup today, and both John and the other little boy had a blast. We were so busy with them we didn't get pictures. We did Unit 1 - "A-A-Adam!"

Here are details on what has led to improvement in our school:
http://heidihovan.blogspot.com/#!/2012/ ... yable.html

And here's a synopsis of our week:
http://heidihovan.blogspot.com/#!/2012/ ... 10-11.html

[tkeller]

Hello ladies! It has been awhile since I posted an update, but we are plugging right along with LHFHG. We were planning on being really close to done (should have finished in March) but due to sickness (both my husband and son got chicken pox in October!) and I had another miscarriage so we didnt do any school for close to 6 weeks. It was amazing how we could just pick up right where we left off, without a bunch of preparing or review! Love HOD!

We finished up unit 21 this week. Had lots of fun reading about Explorers. Also he is really not only listening but ENJOYING the Burgess books now! So if your little one doesn't like it at first, don't lose heart!

Here is a link to my blog:
http://tkeller3.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/week-21/

[KristinBeth]

Ack! I just wrote such a detailed post and accidentally hit 'back' and lost it!

Countrymom, I like the Egyptian collar with a little Island flair.
Kristin, I was laughing out loud at your mom eating the science experiment.
Heidi, I'm rejoicing with you over the positive changes you're seeing in your home!
Talitha, I'm truly sorry about your loss. It is a blessing that with homeschooling (esp. with HOD) that you're able to take some time as a family when you need it. Your son is just a few weeks ahead of us in Little Hearts, it's nice to see what we have coming up. I love the tipis.

As for us, we finished Unit 16 in LHFHG. We reached Jesus' death and resurrection in our Bible, and had some meaningful talks about the work Jesus did on the cross. I don't know how much my little ones understand, but they listen very intently.

In math, we worked on 1/2 and 1/4. We may need to review 1/4 a little bit (or maybe not, sometimes dd surprises me by understanding something days later that I thought she didn't get - this happened with skip counting). We enjoyed 1/4 pieces of cheese and 1/4 crackers to help learn the concept. Yum.

We're moving through the Early Reader's Bible (just finished David & Goliath). DD is really "storytelling" when she reads, with all the voice inflection, not just reading words on a page. It's great to hear!

In science, we talked about Jesus as the light in the darkness. DD was to draw "Day" things in color and "Night" things in black and gray. She went scientific with "night" (moon, moth, bat, racoon) and to lala land with "day" (unicorn, rainbow, mermaid, princess). I think she was also associating colorful daytime with happiness, thus the things she loves. I was happy to see all the detail in her drawings, as fine motor has always been challenging. After I praised her hard work, we both had a laugh because she said, "What do unicorns and mermaids have to do with day?"

[my3sons]

Revival to Revolution:
This guide is so rich with history! The primary source documents and the poetry are truly a window into the past, and though they are meaty, Wyatt has really learned to enjoy them. His poem this week was "The Charge of the Light Brigade". Wyatt and I watched the movie "The Blind Side" together, and Tim McGraw does a stirring recount of this poem. Well, Wyatt did too! He was so excited when he recognized this poem, that he asked if he could read it to all of us after Riley shared his poetry from PHFHG with us. Wyatt read "The Charge of the Light Brigade" with gusto, and he was obviously inspired. After he finished, he told Riley and Emmett how brave these men were to fight to the death. He then asked to read his other favorite poem so far "The Barefoot Boy". That was a long poem, yet he read it all and we loved listening. Moments like these are priceless. Thank you HOD for giving my "all boy" boy a true love for poetry! And thank you also for the depth of learning and emotions the primary source documents evoke - they give a window into people's lives back when - they are well-matched and well-timed, and therefore well loved by my ds!



The period paintings are another favorite part of our time together in RevtoRev. We like to look at the paintings over coffee (for me) and tea (for Wyatt) during our meeting time. It feels like we get to go on a little art gallery visit each week. I thought this week's painting was especially lovely, and though it is difficult to adequately paint the awe and beauty of our Lord's creation, the use of light and the majestic cliffs in this painting did a fine job of attempting the task. I'm so glad President Roosevelt made Yosemite a national park to preserve its beauty. Wyatt's gold miner turned out well too, as did his copywork of an excerpt of El Dorado, such neat pages he gets to create within his RevtoRev portfolio...


Another favorite part of our meeting time for me from a teacher's standpoint was DITHOR 6/7/8 this week. I felt as if all of our time together within DITHOR, teaching all of those important reading skills and Godly character traits along the way, came together this week. It was an independent day for Wyatt, so after I heard him orally read several pages he set to work. During our meeting time, we looked over his DITHOR Student Workbook together then, and I was so pleased! His assignment was to complete a Venn Diagram of his book he is reading with another book he had read. He chose to compare and contrast "Sir Malcolm and the Missing Prince" (which is a wonderful book he is reading for DITHOR) with "A Tale of Robin Hood" (which is an extension book from RTR that he read for fun). I thought this was an excellent choice for comparison, and he really knocked it out of the park!


Wyatt's history project was a layered watercolor painting. He did very well with this, as he knows how to watercolor paint from doing CTC a few year's back. The projects have been so varied and such fun - he really looks forward to this part of his day, and I love to see what he creates!


Wyatt's music appreciation timeline of composers is growing, growing, growing. He especially enjoys listening to "The Story of Classical Music" by Marin Alsop. Charlotte Mason believed it was important to choose learning materials written and created by people passionate about their subject matter - to choose those authors who wrote about the one thing they truly loved most. Marin Alsop did just that. She is a conductor herself, and her retelling of the history of classical music reveals both her knowledge and passion for it.


What a wonderful time Wyatt and I are having in RevtoRev - I hope you all enjoyed your week as well!
In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Preparing Hearts for His Glory:
Riley is a mover and a shaker who is constantly on the go. He is starting to develop his own style of narrating, and no surprise, it's quite an active method. I decided to let him kind of pace as he tells it, and he has taken that idea and run with it, adding gestures, facial expressions, and voice changes to his oral narrations that actually seem to enhance his retellings. This is an improvement from his former movements during oral narrations, which largely had nothing to do with what he was saying and only acted as a hindrance to the listener (a.k.a. me ) because they were distracting (i.e. twirling around or balancing on one foot for a short spell before hopping to balance on the other foot ). I just had to snap some pictures of his science oral narration to share Riley's active way of narrating. In the first picture he is "the crab" constellation, which you can see in the top right hand of the book I am holding...


In the second picture he is "the archer" constellation...


Another favorite way for Riley to narrate is the Storytime's oral narration which has him becoming the person and retelling it from first person point of view, saying "I" as he retells it. He is really good at this type of narration! He "became" Eli in "Fountain of Life" and really retold the reading with clarity and emotion. The next day, he was doing an oral narration for Reading about History's "Grandpa's Box", and he naturally began telling it in first person from Mark's point of view. He realized this halfway through and switched to third person. Following Charlotte Mason's advice of just listening attentively with encouragement and a lively look upon my face, I told him after he was done that he had done a very good job, and that it was just fine to tell the narration from a first person point of view, as long as you kept doing it for the whole narration. He beamed - he likes to narrate this way the best.

Riley's creative side is coming out with so many of the activities in PHFHG. He loves to design, sketch, label, and hang his timeline pictures. It is such fun to see his timeline growing! He is learning so much from expressing his creativity within the creation of a timeline. He likes to look at it as it grows, and I like that every time he looks at it, it's like a mini-review of what he's learned.


Poetry reading provides yet another way for Riley to get into his learning. He loves to read it with certain moods, raising and lowering his voice, and speeding up or slowing down the pace as befitting to the poem...


"Little Miriam" has been a great book that Riley is reading for his independent history. The oral narrations have been neat to hear, and he has loved coloring the pictures that accompany it...


Riley's history project involved painting, which is always a hit. I like the short segments of hands-on learning that the history project provides each day, and they have been so varied, each week feels like a fresh, new, fun creation to create.


We are nearing the end of our DITHOR Folk Tale genre. "Buffalo Bill" has been such a treat to read! It appealed to Riley because it is full of daring adventures and tall tale-like stories. He loves it! He compared his DITHOR character, Buffalo Bill, to one of his free reading characters in a Chuck Black book, Prince Rowan. He did a great job! It is fun to have one ds in DITHOR 2/3 and another in 6/7/8. You can see the exciting growth dc make between the levels by looking at my Revival to Revolution post I did on Wyatt's venn diagram, which shows the upper level of this skill.


This week was also the week for my dc to make their index cards for Godly character traits we have been studying. Riley shared he struggles with truthfulness sometimes. He confessed he has not been doing all of his morning routine he is supposed to (i.e. not washing his face, combing his hair, etc. - I thought he was looking a little disheveled! ). I thanked him for confessing this and told him that sometimes the things we have to do everyday grow tiresome to do, but they still need to be done, so - it's best to do them as quickly as possible rather than drag them out (Riley is always the last one down each morning). I suggested he try doing all of his body check chart as quickly and efficiently as possible, and I'd time him so he could see how long it took. He was excited to try this, even though it was the middle of the day. I timed him, and it took one minute. He couldn't believe it! He made a goal to be the "one minute man" each morning with his body check. We stuck with this theme for his other 2 goals. He second goal was to be the "do it right guy" when Dad and I ask him to do something. His third goal was to be the "General of the Lord's army" to spend more personal time with God. He put his card up on his mirror in his room, and he's excited to be that kind of person. I love that DITHOR is giving us a wonderful chance to teach Godly character and talk about important things when we need to...


Riley's creative writing with his RLS Poetry continues to be a favorite part of his day. "The Sun's Travels" provided a great model for Riley to write his own night sky poem. He chose to write about the night sky we see at our Fourth of July celebration. We have this at our house every year out in the country, and we do a bunch of fireworks. The cousins and grandparents come, and it's a great family time. Here is his poem...
Fourth of July

I saw the glory of light in my eyes,
While the colors flashed in the night skies,
I felt my sparkler blowing out,
While I twirled and and ran about.

My ears rang as I heard the bang,
as fireworks shone all around,
I smelled the smoke and the fizz of the pop,
and the smell of ashes on the treetop.



What a good week!
In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Little Hearts for His Glory:
Emmett became Balaam riding his donkey this week. I was the angel with the shining sword, and he then turned around to bless the Israelites. Boy did he ride his donkey a long time - we acted this out a bunch of times - he loved it so!


Painting the mortar between the bricks of the walls of Jericho was a big highlight for Emmett. He mixed the glue and toothpaste "mortar" and painted, painted, painted. He wanted "NO HELP". It dried very nicely, but I didn't get a picture of that...


Emmet built various walls of Jericho, attempting all different kinds of bases for the wall to decide which was the sturdiest. He did this for a full hour. We all decided the triangular base was the best...


It has now become a tradition for Emmett to share his Bible verse by saying it into the microphone, and we all love to hear him. He likes the other Bible activities we do for memorization too. This week we could actually both throw balls to each other at the same time and catch them. We even backed up a pace each time and were standing about 10 feet apart throwing and catching them. This is much improved from the start of the year, where we just threw balls and hit each other.


We are now reading "Peter Cottontail". We read about Peter Rabbit wanting to change his name to Peter Cottontail. One of the discussion questions asked if there may be any problems with Peter Rabbit changing his name. Emmett said, "No". I said, "What if you changed your name?" He said he'd be named Rich (like my dh). I asked him what would happen if someone called the house, and he said, "They'd ask for Rich, and... OH! That would be a mess!" We laughed and I told him I wondered if Peter Rabbit may have some troubles like that. He still wasn't sure, so I told him I was changing my name to Mabel, and his name to Burt. He looked at me wide-eyed - not sure if he liked this idea. I told him the whole time Peter Rabbit called himself Peter Cottontail, we'd call each other Mabel and Burt. At supper, I told my dh I was now Mabel and this was now Burt. Emmett wasn't so sure. He called me Mom, and I'd say, "No, I'm Mabel". A few nights later he said, "Dad, that's too small of a piece of dessert." My dh said it was big enough. Emmett looked at me and winked and said, "Emmett eats small desserts, but I'm BURT, and he eats BIG desserts!". We all laughed! He's back to being Emmett, and I'm back to being Mom, but we sure had some laughs for a few days.

In Christ,
Julie

[spidermansmum]

We had another good week with LHFHG.I actually took some pictures this week !
My favourite part was how he had the memory verse memorised.Stanley had a freak accident[ fell climbing onto a chiar and hit the table with his face]and needed to have some stitches in his mouth. I think this played into how he memorised the verse this week

He said "Trust the Lord with all your might and lean not on your brain.In all your ways think of him and He will make you paths."
Dh was impressed anyway because he said it showed comprehension.

He has been learning about Joseph and here he is attaching family names to his teddies.

[spidermansmum]

I love HOD.Nathan is doing Bigger .We have finished week 11.
This week he made bird nests and he is loving John Audubon.He sounds like a boy very similar to Nathan.We managed to go bird spotting this week and we managed to look closely at the ducks because of the snow.We could see their feathers and markings and the colour and shape of their legs .We also saw their webbed footprints clearly in the snow.We fed them.I think they nearly followed us home.
We had a cowboy day [ not sure it was related to Bigger] but I explained even cowboys had to learn how to read.They had to read the wanted posters.Of course he loved the rounding cereal 'cows' up and sharing them equally into pens[division -maths].A cowboy had to be able to write too.... and we had campfire stories.He is resisting a little bit-beause he feels like Bigger is expecting more work...which it is and I want it too ,but he always struggles with change.I know the work is not too hard.So anything I can do to make the lessons more fun ,is good. I also have been lighting a candle for handwriting.My sister who is a teacher suggested this.Peppermint is supposed to aid concentration .

[LynnH]

I loved reading everyone's reviews this week. Here is a link to our week http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2012/02 ... 62012.html