Week in Review 9/13- 9/17 (Week 3)

We had another wonderful week of school. I truly find myself thinking through out the day how happy I am. In the past with school I would feel so overwhelmed. I have not felt that at all this year. I think we’re all enjoying ourselves so much.

I’ve come to realize that I really like things planned out for me. I’m one of those gals who like to have a list and check it off. I guess that’s why Heart of Dakota is working so well for us. I love the living books, and short lessons that leave all three of us wanting to do more.

Math:

John has continued with multiplication. This week he’s learned the 2 facts and has covered that a quart is equal to 2 pints. He of course wanted to prove this hands on and we did.

Gracie’s Math lesson had her memorizing the color of the manipulatives. She continued to write from 0 to 20 and review place value.

English:

John continued learning about phrases and sentences with an emphasis still on capitalizing the first word of a sentence and using the proper punctuation.

Science:

John took his first science final this week and received a 100%. YEAH!!! He started his next unit and it’s going to be all about plants which he loves by the way. Daddy is going to start his experiment with him tomorrow.

Spelling:

John flew through book one of AAS and has completed the first 2 lessons in level 2.

Gracie did several steps in book one of AAS and will start step 10 on Monday.

Composer Study:

We finished our study of Haydn using Coloring the Classics. I just love this resource. John and Gracie would do it everyday if I would let them. They are really starting to connect the dots with the composers.

Artist Study:

We started our artist study for the very first time this week. We are using Barb’s Plans. I printed 6 of his paintings on photo paper and put one in a frame this week. Both John and Gracie seemed to enjoy this as much as I did. We started reading a book from the library entitled Edgar Degas:Paintings that Dance.

Heart of Dakota: Both Children

Science: We learned about how bees pollinate flowers and did a simple and fun experiment that you can see in the photo above. We also did another experiment learning how different colors absorb light.

Read Aloud: We continued reading Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin. We continued talking about responsibility and the character of the story. They both drew pictures of Benjamin West and his favorite things. I didn’t get a picture of it :( Everyday they ask me to read more.

Poetry: We all memorized Uphill by Christina Georgina Rossetti. We even talked how if the Lord blessed us with a baby girl that we all liked the name so well that we could easily have a Christina Georgina. Must have something to do with that Italian blood they have in them. They love to incorporate hand motions when memorizing their poem.

Bible: Memorized I John 4:15-16 and had many talks on loving God and others.

Song: Learned the song, Can You Imagine?

History: We continue to read in The Stories of the Pilgrims, and learned of their trouble with King James in England. This has really opened my eyes to some things. In our home, we love the King James version of the Bible. It’s amazing how the Lord can use someone to do something so good even though that person doesn’t have everything right and straight. In a way I was sad to learn how King James didn’t allow others to have freedom to worship God in the way they believed the Bible taught them to. On the other hand it reminded me that God just doesn’t use the perfect. I know I will never be perfect, yet He can still use me. We had some great discussions about King James.

In the photos above you can see John and Gracie enjoying a fun game found in the HOD manual. It went along with our history lessons. To say the least they both ended up in prison because they would not obey King James’ law and worship in his church.

Below you can see a picture of John’s copywork of the poem Uphill that we memorized. I love his road that winds all the way uphill.

The Lord has been so good to us so far in our school year. I’m just so awed by his grace.

This post is linked to:

The Weekly Wrap-Up

The Heart of Dakota Blogroll

Week in Review at the HOD forum

Multitude Monday

31. a new school year going so well

32. fall is in the air

33. a peace I haven’t had in a long time

34. seeing my children grow in their interests

35. a library where we can get so, so many books

36. a cool breeze

37. a good time at our church picnic

38. a nice photo album

39. visits with a friend who lives far away (We love you, Aunt Christy!)

40. sensitive children who want to save their money to send to the Guatemalan children Ann was just with

41. a broken heart for those same children and families

42. prayer

Psalm 43:5, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”

Week in Review 9/5 - 9/10 (Week 2)

Our week started out with some fun. We headed to Coney Island with friends and family.

This is our second week back to school and things are just motoring along wonderfully. So much so that I’m thinking of adding a few things in or should I say doing some other things a little more consistently, like Artist and Nature Study.

JOHN…

Math: Finished Level 2 in Math U See, multiplying by 1 and 0

AAS: Completed several levels finishing up through level 23 spelling plural words.

Science: Finished up his unit on weather

English: R &S , reviewing starting and ending sentences correctly

Copywork: the poem entitled Father, We Thank Thee by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Reading aloud: Animal Adventures by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Delight-Directed: has been furiously working on AB’s Roller Coaster unit and drawing bears in his Draw Write Now book

GRACIE…

Math: Finished Level 2 of Math U See Alpha, Counting to 20

AAS: Finished Level 6, short a words

Handwriting: Officially knows all the lower case letters in cursive

Audio Book: Listened to lots of Misty of Chincoteague

Read Aloud: The Beginner’s Bible pgs. 334-390

Thinking Skills Book: Completed 1-2 pgs./day

TOGETHER:

Heart of Dakota

Poetry: Memorized Father, We Thank Thee by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Bible: Memorized Galatians 6:9

Music: Learned No Mountain High Enough

Storytime: Continue reading Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin talking a lot about responsibility

History: Continued reading American Pioneers and Patriots, about the Pioneers from England settling Jamestown also continued to work on our timelines

Science: Learned about Flying Squirrels and other animals

Geography: Making a map tracing someone’s steps

Composer Study: Continued learning about Franz Haydn and listened to the Surprise Symphony

We had another wonderful week. Things are just running so much more smoothly than I ever expected. I know partly it’s due to adding in Heart of Dakota and the other part is just God’s grace.

You can see how others have wrapped up their weeks at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

You can see how others are using HOD here:

{This Moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Join us at SouleMama with your own moment.

Dads

 

Over at the Homeschool Village they are talking about dads and how they contribute to our family’s homeschool.  Homeschooling is something I could never do without Amos.

He’s there for me in many ways:

1. He prays for me.  Each morning before he leaves for work we have a prayer time together.  He always prays for our school day.  This means so much to me because I know I cannot do this thing in my own strength.

2. He loving provides for me to be able to stay home and he doesn’t balk when I need to buy something.  Really he doesn’t balk even if it’s a want.  We’ve set a budget together and if there’s something I’m interested in he just says there’s money in the school fund.

3.  He often runs errands picking up things.  Right now he’s at the store trying to find 8x10 photo paper so I can print some prints for our upcoming Artist picture study.  He often stops at the library getting us the books we need for our studies and many times he goes to the library super early so we won’t incur a fine.

4. There’s times he will help our around the house.  He knows that there are days that we have a good (maybe even a bad one)homeschool day and not much housework has gotten accomplished.  He never complains and will even jump in with helping out with whatever needs to be done.

5. He’s always been ready to join in our fun as you can see in the photo below.  Last year he pretty much took over all the experiments when we were doing Exploring Creation with Astronomy.

6. He makes sure that I get to a yearly homeschool Convention.  He knows I need it more than I think I do.  He’ll even go to sessions that he has no interest in to take notes for me.  I just so appreciate his enthusiasm for learning how to improve our homeschool.

I know there’s many other things that Amos does and I probably don’t recognize them all. 

Sweetie, you’re an amazing father and such a blessing to me.  We love you big bunches!!!

Some Nature Study Inspiration

“However if the love of nature is in the teacher’s heart, there is no danger; such a teacher, no matter by what method, takes the child gently by the hand and walks with him in paths that lead to the seeing and comprehending of what he may find beneath his feet or above his head. And these paths, whether they lead among the lowliest plants, or whether to the stars, finally converge and bring the wanderer to that serene peace and hopeful faith that is the sure inheritance of all those who realize fully that they are working units of this wonderful universe.”-Anna Comstock

Wordless Wednesday

Back to School

Last week was our first week back to school. We of course had to take our annual school photos in front of our house. You can just tell that John and Gracie are best friends. It does my heart good to have them love each other so much. They even remembered how we take their photos lying on their bellies. I was done taking their photos when they asked if they could take one lying down. Children just love traditions, don’t they?

This year we added Heart of Dakota (HOD) to our lineup. We have just thoroughly enjoyed our first week with it. We started out reading Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin. We talked about it being a biography and the children each gathered five things that told things about themselves. Gracie of course is our horse lover and so it didn’t surprise me when she brought a horse out.

John’s things were a toy (he loves to play), a Dr. Seuss book (he loves to read), a piece of paper (he loves to write stories and draw pictures), a craft we did in geography last year (he loves to do crafts), and a tape recorder (he loves to record his stories).

In the geography plans, John and Gracie enjoyed hopping, spinning, crawling, and jumping to each of the continents.

For science we were talking about whales including the job of a whale’s blubber. This of course led to a science experiment.

I just love Gracie’s reaction in the photo below. They got to see how our Creator truly gives the us and even the animals everything that they need to live.

The asked me to leave the Crisco out as they wanted Daddy to do the experiment when he got home and being the good daddy that he is, he jumped right in.

One thing I’m really feeling good about is that HOD includes poetry in their daily plans. I really feel like I was not exposed to good poetry like I should have been in school and therefore had a hard time writing poetry when asked to. This won’t be the case for John and Gracie. They loved learning The Storm by Sara Coleridge. HOD suggests allowing the child to add hand motions. To be honest, I was going to leave that part out, but they naturally did it on their own. Can you tell they had fun doing so?

They learned Psalm 4:8, "I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety." It was such a blessing because John admitted that at night he will worry in his bed about things. He said he would worry that our house would catch on fire, etc. He even came to me one night last week and said that he was worrying that his bed was in quicksand. (Can you tell they are listening to John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress?) I then quoted him his memory verse and asked if he needed to pray together. He told me no that he was better now. The Lord is so good to give us what we need when we need it. He knew John would need Psalm 4:8 this week. In the photo below Gracie is sharing her memory verse with her stuffed animal.

In history we learned about the pioneers who came to America and how they had to trust in the Lord to keep them safe. Our art project tied in with that. Psalm 28:7 says, “The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.”

We just had a really great first week with HOD. I love the living books, how the Word of God is tied in, and that it has many hands on activities that are already planned for me and easy to implement.

Gracie is even telling everybody that she loves school!!!! This is coming for a little girl who all last year and even before school started this year said that she just wanted to play all day. Each day she’s gotten up and said, “Let’s get our school work done today.”

My Blessings

21. Anticipating beautiful sunshine
22. Sermon on gentleness preached by my husband
23. Cuddling with my children (who fill my entire lap and arms)
24. Listening to John sing songs he has written
25. Seeing Gracie twirl in her new pretty skirts made for her by a friend
26. Receiving books in the mail from an online friend (Thank you, Debbie.)
27. being able to encourage someone else in homeschooling
28. a successful first playgroup/coop last Friday
29. being able to seek the Lord's guidance even in the small things
30. a new pretty pink hyacinth in my front yard

Psalm 34:1, " I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth."