Week in Review Jan. 23-27

[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]

Little Hearts for His Glory:
We've been reading about the Israelites in our Bible history. It really is so helpful that Emmett is familiar with some of the history we are studying this year. It is helping him comprehend what we are studying so much better than if we started studying something else. He truly loves the Bible stories. Isn't that something? Dc really do naturally love the Lord and the Bible at a very young age. We are reading through Egermeier's Bible Story Book at night as a family, and we happen to be matching Emmett's stories most of the time. He LOVES hearing them again, and he feels so excited to be able to contribute to our informal talks as a family.

One of Emmett's favorite Bible activity in LHFHG this week was the making and flying of the quail. We read about the quail the Lord sent to feed the Israelites in the desert, and Emmett got to make his own quail (paper airplane-style) and fly it. Of course, all the boys showed up to for this activity. Wyatt gave instructions on how best to fly an airplane, and Riley was a great cheering squad for Emmett!


Science was a good tie-in, as we had just read about the Israelites following the cloud in the desert, and we studied clouds in science. Emmett felt the cotton ball "cloud" when it was dry and noticed it was light and fluffy. He then added water to it, and felt that it was heavier. Last, he got to make it "rain". That little cloud rained a lot of times - cotton balls are pretty sturdy! He loved it!


We read about the 10 Commandments this week in the Family Time Bible. That is one of my all-time favorite story Bibles. The pictures are beautiful without being too adult, and realistic enough without being too frightening. It really is a lovely Bible. Emmett held up a finger, counting 1 at a time as I read the 10 Commandments. Then, I asked him what some of them were, and he named a few and then said, "Well, why don't you just give me the Bible, and I'll read them, Mom!" This is the first time he has brought up reading something outside of his phonics program. I let him give it a whirl, and he did alright. I think he was so excited he could read any of it!


Emmett is starting to memorize his Bible verse more and more quickly as the weeks go on. I love he is hiding God's word in his heart already - those "Hide 'em in Your Heart" CD's are awesome! This week's verse was, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind...". He is improving his large gross motor skills and can now toss balls, bounce them, and catch them fairly well.


Emmett's fine motor skills are improving slowly but surely too - hooray!


Emmett's learning about greater and less than in math. He understands the concept well already, thanks to HOD's fun hands-on activities. Here he is counting the two towers of linking cubes and comparing them. When I wrote the first one for him on the marker board as an example, he said indignantly, "MOM, I can write my own numbers!" Quite an improvement from him wanting me to write them for him earlier in the year.


I hope everyone has a super weekend!

In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Preparing Hearts for His Glory:
We just finished "A Triumph for Flavius" this week - what an AMAZING book that one is! I loved it as much as Riley did. I got all teary-eyed reading the last chapter. I don't want to spoil the ending for those of you who haven't done PHFHG yet, but it reminded Flavius' behavior reminded me of Jesus' great love for us when He took our punishment though He was innocent. Great love indeed. The day we finished reading it, Riley whisked it off to his room and read it all again from cover to cover, while Wyatt kept telling him to hurry so he could read it again (Wyatt and I read it years ago in PHFHG - he still loves it!). They both read it all again within a day, and I could hear them talking about it late at night in their room they share.

We've had a few character things to work on this week. My dh has been gone on business for 2 weeks, and I'm sure Riley was missing him. Riley was starting to be slow to obey, and a bit argumentative about the most basic things we've had as house rules forever. We had a heart to heart talk about it, and I told him that he was exhausting me with his behavior, and that I was very sad because I felt like we were not enjoying each other's company like we usually did. I let him know that I would be having to make some changes if it didn't improve. Well, he turned things around right away, and I had my smiley Riley back again! Sometimes when we are owlish, we aren't even really aware of it until someone kindly points it out. I am so thankful that HOD has daily Bible application in the plans. I depend upon the Lord backing me up like I depend on oxygen - especially when my dh is gone for long periods of time. The fact that my dc open their Bibles every single day to do HOD is such an incredible blessing. I don't feel so alone in this parenting business with the Lord on my side. It is neat to see Riley's Common Place Book being filled with timely Bible passages he is memorizing, and our discussions have been very personal. I am to thankful for this being a meaningful part of our school with HOD. It is relationship building for us.


Making a Greek amphora was a neat history project Riley got to do this week. We read about it in history, and then he researched it specifically in research. He then got to make his own picture of an amphora for his history project. He looked it up on the computer, drew a dark crayon outline on his vase, and painted over it to achieve the look of an amphora. I think he did such a good job on it! He really does love all of the history projects he is getting to do in PHFHG. They are so creative and fun, and they tie in perfectly with what we are learning. I'm glad hands-on projects are a part of his every day in PHFHG; he is learning so much from them.


The experiments in science have been a favorite hands-on part of PHFHG for Riley too. He is getting better about organizing his "Procedure" part of the lab sheet. He must have decided it helps him to make boxes and number them. I like it too! It's a good way for him to visually represent the procedure he followed in an orderly way.


Another thing we enjoyed was the DITHOR prereading activity we did this week. I skimmed their upcoming chapters they'd be reading, and found objects that were significant to each of their stories to set on the table. They then had a little bit to look over their upcoming chapters. Next, they had to try to each choose which objects were representative of something in their books. Two objects had nothing to do with either of their books. Those smart little cookies got them all right! I really thought they'd mix up some of them, but they chose well and could explain their decisions well. We had a lot of fun with this!


I hope you all had a good week with HOD too!
In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Revival to Revolution:
I really got picture crazy this week with RevtoRev - lots of memorable moments I guess! We are just loving this stage of the year. One of our favorite activities was the science experiment. Two balloons were blown up, and one had only air, and the other had air and a small bit of water in it. Wyatt had to hold the balloons one at a time over a lit candle (the plans said this required adult supervision). Of course this was something everyone wanted to see, so they were all gathered around to watch. Well, Wyatt started with the air only balloon, and it was only a few seconds before it BURST! (Emmett was still covering his ears, just in case. ) The boys were shocked and LOVED it, or course! The second air/water balloon could be held over the flame and never did pop. The boys thought that was amazing - what fun! This was teaching about molecules and how temperature affects their movement.


Wyatt has been learning about Samuel Morse, and he loved the activity of writing out the first Morse code message, "What God hath wrought" for his little brother to decipher. They've told me they have grand plans of adding this way of communicating to their spy missions with the cousins.


We did 5 days of school this week, so he did Unit 20 Day 5, and Unit 21 Days 1-4. He finished coloring his stage coach, and it turned out so well...


Wyatt loved retelling the Andrew Jackson story for his written narration this week! I'm so glad he his putting his personality into his written narrations more and more - I love his personality, and his good sense of humor. His timeline was neat too, and as usual, he has a lovely history notebooking page to show for it, thanks to HOD's neat pages.


The inventor study has been such a neat connection to the "Exploration Education". The Inventor Student Notebook is sooooo neat. I like the written narrations telling the story of the inventor's life, the pictures of the inventions, and the timeline of the important inventions. This week Wyatt learned about Henry Ford.


Wyatt also sketched and colored a log cabin this week for his history, and we talked about how my Dad attended a country school as well. He even rode a horse to school!


The history project was a BIG hit with all the boys this week. Wyatt made Greek cookies called Koulourakia, and they were mmmm, mmmmm, good. HOD is turning my ds into an excellent cook, and our entire family is thankful.


In R & S English, we are learning about the different types of pronouns. To help him better remember them, their usage, and clues as to how to choose what is proper, I made him some index cards. I am so impressed by R & S English - what a thorough program!


Wyatt started basic Algebra this week in Singapore. He thinks it is so easy. I think it's easy because Singapore has taught him to use bars to find the unit forever, and the unit is the algebraic term now. Ya gotta love Singapore for its "thinking" ahead! What a super week - hope you enjoyed yours too!

In Christ,
Julie

[spidermansmum]

Little Hands week 2

Its even more interesting when you get to re do a the curriculum guide with different child.It brings back so many happy memories of homeschool a few years ago .Its interesting watching how each child learns differently.

Reddy fox.The first day ,Stanley could tell me nothing about the story. I asked who Reddy lived with ,his answer was "His Mummy and Daddy "
10 days in[already? how did that happen? ] and he can now tell me bits about the story.Not always in correct order and usually he needs some propmpting..but he can retain the general outline to the next day .

Here is Stanley making an ark ,thenseeing how many passengers he could place on board

[spidermansmum]

I took some pictures
Bigger week 9
The guide suggested using small stones or clay to make a wharf.I have a budding engineer who just loves building things.Make a model -no way.Make the real thing.
It was raining.He loved it.


He is writing [progress !] but its still struggle for him . I found a very old pocket websters dictionary on ebay[very cheaply too] and he thinks he has a real antique.I like that the explanation of the words is brief [less words to copy].He enjoys looking up words now.

[creativemommy]

Hi Ladies! we finished Unit 4 of Bigger & LHFHG the first 3 days of this week. My ds finished Stone Fox in his DITHOR this week, too. I at the ending. Oh my, it was not what I expected or what my ds predicted to happen. He is enjoying DITHOR (so am I).

Here are some pics and stories...

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

[bethelmommy]

Hi Everyone,

We just finished our first week in LHFHG. We had a wonderful time. I didn't think to take pictures, but will try in future weeks. I have two dc doing this guide ds(5.5) and dd(4). Both of them loved school this week. Ds's only complaint was that he wants more story time. He's DYING to know what will happen next in Reddy Fox

The first two days this week I picked the order of subjects, but the last three days we took turns choosing. The dc tended to choose story time and the rotating box first, but seemed happy to do the other boxes as well. I was surprised at their eagerness for some activities that I thought might not interest them, like Rhymes in Motion and some of the bible memory activities. In fact, they were so eager for school each morning that dd (who usually takes FOREVER to finish her morning chores) was racing through her morning routine so we could get started earlier.

My favorite memory from this week was the dictated note to Reddy Fox. This was such a special moment for me because ds was nonverbal for a long time and is still working on expressing himself (he has CP and HFA). Anyway, here are both of their dictated notes:

DS - Dear Reddy Fox, You cannot steal stuff from the henhouse because it is dangerous. You are too bold. Sincerely, Nathan.
DD - Dear Reddy Fox, Don't get into trouble! Stay away from the henhouse! Sincerely, Haven (exclamation points expressly dictated )

We are so excited to be using this program. Even dh commented how happy he was to see them so engaged and excited. I hope everyone else had a great week!

[LynnH]

Here is a link to our week in RTR http://graceandfur.blogspot.com/2012/01 ... 12312.html. I love looking at everyone's weeks.

[andreamichele13]

Lynn,

I love your blog b/c my ds12 will be doing RTR next fall! I subscribed to it yesterday! Thanks for all your detail and explanation! I'm sure I will be referring back to it a lot next year!

Andrea