Weekly Check-In 1/11/10 - 1/15/10

[Daisy]

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!

[Daisy]

Here is our Week in Review.

http://daisyhomeschoolblog.blogspot.com ... 11410.html

Bigger Unit 11.4-12.1

and

CTC Unit 17

[LynnH]

We just finished week 18 in Preparing. This week has been all about the birth of Jesus, much to Noah's delight. He has continued to read Little Miriam of Galilee in his independent history. For storytime we have been reading "Fountain of Life". It is a tougher book to listen to than the others we have done, but I think that is good. I do stop and explain some things to him. We have had some very good discussions surrounding this book and how it would be to be Eli and hearing the things that Jesus is doing.

His craft this week was a Bethlehem star. We had some difficulty getting the blue paint to look like it was different shades when he painted it on the star, but he didn't really care. He made his shapes to look like a face on his star, so it looks a little more cutesy than it probably should, but it fits his giggly personality.

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The big accomplishment this week also centered around the star activity. He has never been able to write cursive in a small space. He still uses the lined paper designed for 3rd graders. His tremor has made it just too tough to write little. This week I challenged him to write the verse on the back of the star. I drew lines on it to give him a little guidance. He was actually able to do it!! It may not seem like a big deal to other people, but to us it was huge. When I showed it to my DH he immediately teared up. We were told my son would never functionally write. His goal in OT when he was in school was to just write his name in cursive so he would have a signature when needed, so for him to write a bible verse in small letters made my week. The really amazing thing about it was that the verse he was asked to write was the one he memorized and recited for the church musical this year. I think he might have been more resistant to trying to write it if it wasn't this verse, but he just thought it was so amazing that it was that exact verse. His letter formation isn't perfect, but you can read it and that is enough for now.

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[creativemommy]

Another fun week with HOD in our home. My oldest two completed Unit 16 in both LHTH & LHFHG.

My daughter really enjoyed constructing Elijah's altar with her choice color of Play Doh...PINK! She rolled the stones, logs, pressed the flat part around to be the "water" and even added a few "flames." Below is her completed project:


She also enjoyed pouring the "oil" the day we tried to fill lots & lots of jars but our "oil" ran out unlike the widow's jar God kept full. She said, "Mommy, you can fill the pitcher in the sink so I can have more water."


My son's favorite activity of the week was preparing the Last Supper like Jesus had with his disciples. We opted not to use grape juice, but water instead since it's a little more "clean-up friendly" on the carpet of the school area ). Thank goodness for lots of our play cups & plates. His choice of hymn was "Blessed be the Name of the Lord" (Newsboys) - not exactly a hymn but a great praise song.



My son didn't want to spread jelly on his lips (sensory issues) so he just drew lips with red marker around the large lip I had drawn for him.


My son's "rooster" drawing complete with a baby chick. I love the feet!


My son's day/night drawing - it was his idea to make the green light-colored on the side of the tree that faced the sun and darker on the side of the tree that faced away from the sun. For the night part of the picture he drew himself in his bunk bed.


My kids are learning so much & I'm loving it! It's hard to believe we're just about halfway through the school year!

[Daisy]

I love these updates! They are so encouraging to me. Thanks ladies!

[my3sons]

Creation to Christ:
We had soooooo much FUN this week with the history project! Wyatt made a gragger, which is the "shaker" box you can see him holding here:


Then, he made these extremely tasty cookie type treats called Hamantashens, which we all loved eating:



And finally, we got to celebrate Purim the way the Jews do. I read from Esther in the Bible, and every time the word Haman was said, Wyatt shook his gragger LOUDLY to blot out the name of evil. Then, at the end of the reading, we all enjoyed eating our Hamantashens. Wyatt wants to make this a tradition each year!


Wyatt and I even enjoyed one more round of them with our hot tea (another tradition we've begun from doing geography this year!


Wyatt is memorizing his Robert Frost poem now, and doing a good job of that. He also loves to sing with his Phil. 2 CD, and had memorized a BIG portion of Phil. 2 already. I like the music so much, I'm singing too.

We've been having fun with a Christmas gift I gave the boys. I got a microphone/karaoke for them, mainly because of school. When Wyatt and I do the oral reports for A Child's Geography, we like to pretend we are news reporters. We'd been using the remote control as a pretend microphone for awhile, and I thought it would be great fun to use an actual microphone. We've used it for poetry, too, and it's been a hit with the boys.

Wyatt's been notebooking on birds this and loves using enature.com to do so. He's going to have such a nice book when he's done:


Another awesome week!
In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory:
Riley is nearing the end of Beyond, and time has just raced by. He is doing so well with it now. He really grew into it, and I'm happy with the work he is doing. One huge growth for him has been in orally narrating. Here is one of his earlier narrations that I typed as he spoke (as the HOD guide has us do):

Oral Narration by Riley
Feb. 3, 2009
A Lion to Guard Us, Chapter 3

Mistress Trippet came to check the kitchen, and she looked everywhere that she usually did. She looked in the room and she said, “How old are these kids? How old is the boy?”

“8”.

“How old is the girl?”

“Only 5.”

And when Mistress Trippet went upstairs, the doctor came in. The cook said, “Amanda, go and get a pail of water!” That wasn’t very nice, was it?

The doctor came in and then he said, “Come with me, Amanda.” And she did, and then went dark into the hall. And he said, “Your mother has died.”

Now, here is the narration he did this week:
Riley’s narration
Mountain Born
Jan. 13, 2010

The weather was brooding, and Peter was at Granny’s house working for his coat and his new vest. And the wind started blowing, and it was sharp and cold from the southeast. And then Granny said, “Peter! You’d better go home. The wind’s picking up!”

And Mary and Peter had planned to do a game night tonight, but the wind was just picking up too much. They were going to play checkers and some other kinds of games, and Granny was going to read them a letter.

So Peter went in, got his vest and his coat on, and he said, “Goodbye, Mary! I’ll have some nice wool for you, and I’ll take extra care of the lamb, so that the wool will be strong.”

“And after a few years,” Granny said, “you’ll be in manhood. You’ll have to give me white wool, and I’ll have to dye it dark blue. It’ll take you to manhood, but then you’ll need a new coat.”

Then Peter said, “Bye, Granny! Bye, Mary!”

Granny gave him a slice of bread and his milk, and then he started on his journey home.

I'm so happy with his progress! I have to admit that I find it painful at the beginning to start teaching oral narration. After getting used to listening to my oldest narrate, going back to teaching it again for the first time to my next son was a bit of a shock. Anyway, I thought I'd share this to encourage moms just starting out with narration and feeling a little frustrated that your dc may not seem to remember much - this skill does grow with time and persistence, and it is well worth the effort.

Here Riley is with his microphone sharing his poem with me:

After reading this, he broke into quite a stirring rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner", which is the poem we did several weeks back in Beyond.

In history, we read about the California Trail, traced the trail on a map, panned for gold, in science learned about how light can reflect and make it difficult to locate gold in water, and made a population bar graph of how the population in CA jumped from 14,000 to 250,000 in 3 years!


Riley also had to try to pick things up as a bear has to, with a paw and no use of his thumb. He thought that was pretty tough to do, especially for heavier things, and we could see why the bear we read about had to "swat" at the molasses jug to knock it down and eat from it.


A great week with Beyond once again!
In Christ,
Julie

[my3sons]

Little Hands to Heaven:
Emmett is continuing to learn about Joseph, and is loving it so much that he talked me into singing his Seven Fat Cows song and reading the Bible story of the pharaoh's dream Joseph interpreted again today - on SATURDAY! He also talked me into the Fingerplay, but after that I said we'd have to wait until Monday. Emmett paused for a moment before trying to track down Daddy to read him the story and sing the song with him.

We are finding the half-speed pace to be just right for us, and it is a joy to see his little face light up for that time we have together. Here Emmett is working on cutting and gluing for his Numbers book. He's so proud of it that he always points out his new page hanging on the fridge when my dh comes home.


Loving Little Hands! Hope you had a good week too!

In Christ,
Julie

[Daisy]

Those Hamantaschen cookies were a hit at our house, too!

I loved reading your son's narrations. I need to work with Ryan more on this. He tends to give me the big, "I don't remember" and then he finally gets started and remembers a ton but with a lot of, "But wait, this happened first..."

[Carrie]

Ladies,

What a joy to see your kiddo's smiling faces and hear about your weeks! I'm blessed by the sharing that we do on this board and by the way we encourage one another by sharing the joys and in problem-solving and praying through the struggles. We pray the Lord will be near to you this upcoming week as you homeschool. I was reminded this week that the Lord is always faithful when we call upon His name, but we need to make sure to call upon Him FIRST!

Blessings,
Carrie

[Samuel'sMommy]

I'm a little late getting this in, but here was my blog about our week:

http://cherish-each-moment.blogspot.com ... ek-18.html

[Shimmer]

I'm adding a late check-in too. This week we did a couple days of U17 and U18 in LHTH.

We do a song each morning that I got from MFW K where you make the sound of each letter and say a word that begins with that sound. I use it with some picture flashcards and we practice sign language to match the card. I can't believe at how much my one-year-old can do with us now. She comes running to sit down with the big girls when I say it's time to sing and get out the cards. She is signing apple, baby, cat, dog, hat, nose and attemps some others. We add in a new sign each week with LHTH and the girls love it. It's just so cute to see them all doing it together.

Added a simple stoplight craft to go with Unit 18 Day 1. We stuffed the bags with strips of newspaper to have some ripping fun.


We also made oatmeal cookies to celebrate the letter O.