Week in Review 9/20-9/24 (Week 4)

We thankfully had another great week of school here. We had a little busier week as we went on a field trip to a castle with some friends, family, and fellow homeschoolers (maybe I’ll post about that later when I have more time).

This week I’m just going to wrap-up only what we’ve done in Heart of Dakota.

In the science plans we had two fun experiments that John and Gracie both wanted to do repeatedly. One we predicted whether things would block light or allow the light to travel through it.

The next experiment had to do with surface tension. Here we also predicted how many drops of water would fit on the surface of a coin. I’ll tell you they were much closer in their predictions than I was. John was actually only one away.

In geography we talked about the directions, on a compass including some of the trickier ones like northwest and southeast.

We have so much fun memorizing our week's Bible verses the Heart of Dakota way. It includes so many actions it’s just bound to be fun. I was a little doubtful that they’d have all their verses memorized from this week, but they did. They memorized Matthew 6:19-21. Gracie is definitely more auditory and so picks up on these so quickly.

In the history plans this week we continued reading in the Stories of the Pilgrims. The pilgrims left England for Holland. I must have some gaps in my education :) as I don’t remember learning about the pilgrims going to Holland before coming to the new world. I’ve definitely been enlightened.

Even though it wasn’t necessary, we got online to view pictures of present day Holland. It’s very beautiful. We also saw videos online of the huge windmills.

When learning about Holland, we learned it is actually below sea level. We all enjoyed building a dike in the bathroom sink. Granny was over and even got in on the hands on learning.

We added to our timelines that the Pilgrims arrived in Holland in 1608. I’m so loving the way Heart of Dakota does this as well. In the past I’ve always wanted to do a timeline with John and Gracie, but have always felt overwhelmed and implementing it. HOD’s way makes it easy-peasy.

Our poem this week that we memorized and John used for copywork was entitled Daybreak by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This poem was so easy to add hand motions and dramatize our voices on. Daddy even got in on the action in the evening. I think he should start teaching the poems. I’m not nearly as dramatic as he is.

Gracie finished up her first Emerging Readers book from the Heart of Dakota schedule. She’s such a great little reader. Even I felt some of the well known Bible stories were maybe revealed in a different light to this momma. The Lord used some of the stories to convict me. Owl at Home here we come.

Today we finished up our Biography, Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin. We all loved this book. To be honest, none of us liked the very last chapter, I guess because it just ended. Gracie says it’s because Grimalkin wasn’t in it. We read one chapter each day and every single day both children would ask me to read more (and I wanted to read more as well, but I was a good girl and didn’t). So despite the above criticism, we loved the book. I’m super excited about starting our new adventure book next week.

Gracie’s (Age 6) Narration of a chapter in Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin: There was going to be a lot of people coming to Door Latch Inn. Benjamin and the others were getting ready for the people, and when they came, there were thousands and when each one came in they shook Benjamin’s hand or nodded their head, and then when all the people got in, Papa pulled in the latch string so no one else could get in. And, we stopped.

This post is linked to:

HOD’s Weekly Check In

Weekly Wrap-Up

The Heart of Dakota Blogroll