heartofdakota.com

Ok Girls,

Here is our first Check In Thread! 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

I already posted mine for the week! But if you click on my blog link in my signature line you can see pictures of our HOD FUN! I love being a HODDIE!

Our week....

History: we are on the reformation period. My kids have Martin Luther and Martin Luther King totally mixed up! (They have a movie called "No More Baths" that is about MLK.) Hopefully they will get it when we hit it again in later years.

One big thing I did last week was to put away LLATL for awhile. It takes a big leap covering long vowel sounds, blends and special ending (-ink, -onk, -ang) all at once and we need some time....so, we have just been using Phonics Pathways for reading, copywork and yes...even some dictation and they are really getting it!! And I love just using one book for everything!

We also got a lesson in how to cut out a pattern from Nana and they got to pick out some material from the fabric store.

I promise I WILL work on posting pics sometime this week!

Mary, this is a GREAT idea! Thank you for suggesting it!

For pictures from our week, click on my blog link in my signature.

Okay, I posted on my blog sort of what we've been up to for school. I plan to take pictures of our first week with Little Hearts next week, so maybe by next Thursday I'll have those ready for all of you to see.

Visit www.perfectbydesign.blogspot.com for this week's goings-on.

We are doing Beyond and my dd is thoroughly enjoying the Helen Keller Biography! She also loves the bible verse ideas so far; running, freezing, etc. I think those really help. I think she's one to need to keep moving.

I did switch to the Early Reader's bible because it's just a bit less intimidating. We'll see how that works. We just got it yesterday.

We're on Unit 3, Day 2...we're a bit behind due to other appointments. I'm happy. She has not complained about any book readings. The choices are great!
Annaz

Here is our update!
www.escuelitaaparicio.blogspot.com
Dorla

Dorla my littlest one wants to go on your rope swing! What a beautiful back yard you have!

Sure wish that swing were mine. It is a lot of fun, but sadly it is at a friends house. But you can still bring your little ones over!
Thanks for looking at our blog!
Dorla
www.escuelitaaparicio.blogspot.com

Dorla wrote:Sure wish that swing were mine. It is a lot of fun, but sadly it is at a friends house. But you can still bring your little ones over!
Thanks for looking at our blog!
Dorla
www.escuelitaaparicio.blogspot.com

GREAT! I am sending all six! They will be excited! It looks like you guys know how to have fun! My kids loved your blog. The all wanted to ride the swing and play the music with your ds!

Ladies,

I am really enjoying seeing your blogs and getting a glimpse inside your lives. It just makes me tear up to see your precious little ones doing activities written in our guides. We don't ever get to glimpse the "doing" part except in our home. Thanks for inviting us to peak into your lives!

In "Little Hearts..." my 5 year old loved dipping his saran wrap skin with permanent marker sores in the waters (of the Jordan River) like Naaman today to get off the dirt and oil. We, of course, discovered the dipping did not take the sores off, but only removed the dirt and oil. God's miracle healed the sores!

My 5 year old also loved tossing beanbags into bowls and reciting his verse. He is getting so much better with his hand-eye coordination.

In "Bigger...", my 9 year old really loved building the various styles of fences the pioneers built. He used his Kapla blocks and experimented for an hour trying to build the most stable fence. His expressions.... "Mom, it's not as easy as it looks!".

He also informed me that he used the pioneer measuring from "Bigger..." the other night to see how long one of his toy snakes was. He stretched it from hand to shoulder and said, "See, it's about a yard!"

But, his favorite is anything involving a snack, so he loved this morning's "Bigger..." math where he used Cheez-Its to find the area of various sized squares (and then ate the Cheez-Its while finishing his math).

Blessings,
Carrie

We are in the Reformation unit also this week. I have been enjoying having conversations with my oldest about what it means to be saved. I never thought that would happen during school time. I am loving the fact that HOD helps me ground my children in God's word.

We took a couple of weeks to do the unit on Knights and Castles. My boys thought this was great stuff. Here are a few pictures of the finished project.

Sir Bryce in his Knight costume


Sir Bryce Knighting his Brother

They did this on thier own. After I found the camera I had them do it again way too precious to not have on film.

Tomorrow we are celebrating Bryce's 5th Birthday. Here is the cake I made for him with Little Bear on top. He loves to read Little Bear stories.


Thanks for starting this thread. I love sharing what is happening in our homeschool days but not many people seem to really care.

Karen,

Love, love, love the pictures of your boys. They did a great job on the shield! Which guide is this in? And I thought your cake looked beautiful. Maybe you should start a Blog with How-to tips for cake baking and decorating?! I would definitely visit... Thanks so much for sharing.

Great idea, Mary! I checked out everyone's blogs, and I'm thinking I may need to do one again. I tried it a while ago, and decided I was not going to be consistent enough about it. All of your blogs make it look like fun though! Christa, Mary, inHistiming, and Dorla - I loved them! It was fun to take a peek into your lives - how blessed your children are to have you for mothers!
P.S. Karen - my son turns 5 next week - can you come over and bake his cake?!? WOW! I must confess my poor children have never had a cute bear cake like that. And that knight costume - AWESOME! Keep sharing stories here - we all care!

O.k., here goes... Favorite moments from this week...
Bible Study in Bigger...: We were discussing Deborah, Barak, and decisiveness. We had an awesome discussion about this, and we kept linking it to other Bible stories we've read. We talked about that Mary and Joseph WERE decisive after the angel appeared to them, that Zachariah wasn't decisive and therefore was mute until John the Baptist was born, and that Gideon needed several signs from God to be decisive. Then, here's my favorite part, my almost 5 yo Riley chimed in with his Bible story from LHFHG that day, saying Peter was DECISIVE when he got out of the boat to walk out to Jesus, but then he stopped being decisive when he lost faith and started goin' under! WOW! And I thought he wasn't getting much out of riding along for that talk!

Danny Meadow Mouse art project in LHFHG: My son wrote ALL of it pretty neatly and was so proud! He also read me 4 BOB books this week - hooray!:D

One more from Bigger today: The Bigger history reading from Eggleston was about Audubon being a good shot, as well as other hunters that could shoot the wick off a candle and still leave it burning. The activity was to "shoot" at a hat being thrown in the air as Audubon did, and then to take 100 toe/heel steps back to shoot at a candle wick (NOT lit) ! The activity just called for socks to be "shot" at them, but we are a household of boys, so they brought out the big nerf guns, shooting multiple times and loving it! We could only do 50 steps back, and I held the candle (what a brave soul I am!). But, they could not hit it, and were in awe of hunters that could do that at double that distance and still leave it burning! They'll never forget Audubon was a great shot, nor that he was wonderful at drawing birds since we read the biography about him earlier. What a great day!

Thank you for the wonderful feed back. I will really try to start sharing more. I really do need to connect with other homeschooling moms IRL and online.

We did the coat of arms with unit 20. On day 5 we read about the Kingdoms and castles in europe. I has also picked up the book If you Lived in the Days of Knights from the Supplemental List. We talked about how a coat of arms showed what family you belonged too. I intended to just have my son paint a coat of arms and be done with it. However, the next day, he told me that we need to make it so that he could hold it like a shield, make a shirt to match and that he should have a sword. So I found material to make the shirt - Daddy's rag basket came in handy and made a sword with card board and duct tape. As soon as he had the outfit on, he went over and "knighted" his little brother. They loved reading about the knights.