3-7-08 Weekly HOD Check IN!

This forum is for sharing what your week was like with Heart of Dakota. The goal is to post on Thursdays. You can share a picture, a blog link, a written synopsis, your favorite memory, or anything you want that shares your HOD excitement.

MamaMary
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3-7-08 Weekly HOD Check IN!

Post by MamaMary » Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:00 pm

Ok Girls,

Here is our second 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!
Mary, Mama to 4 amazing sons and wife to one incredible husband! Come check us out on the blog: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MamaMary/

my3sons
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Joined: Sun Aug 26, 2007 7:08 pm
Location: South Dakota

Post by my3sons » Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:03 pm

We had just an awesome week with HOD! We have a bulging folder of things to put in our portfolio. It's really tough to pick just a few things to share here, but I'll try to limit myself...

LHFHG: My son could predict that the character that was coming to try to capture Danny Meadow Mouse was Reddy Fox. I LOVE that the Thorton Burgess books have the same characters. It was exciting that my ds could guess which character would do this - the beginning of character analysis! Hooray! Plus, he just loves this reading time! The activity we loved was the blindfold one where he had to find his way through the room blindfolded and draw a face on a paper blindfolded. Of course my oldest ds had to do this too after it was so much fun! They have a better understanding of Bartimaeus' joy when Jesus helped him see again! My grandma was blind, so this was neat for them to experience what that is like.

BIGGER: We loved the history activity where we used letter tiles to write Ben Franklin's saying. It really stuck with my son how tough it was for Horace Greeley to set type when learning to be a printer. My ds had to typeset his name and other things after that too - he loved it - though he decided he's very thankful there are computers and printers. The other activity he loved was the Science notebooking. It was from the pioneer sampler, and it was about wool and the flowers used for dye. He made a beautiful chart of this I'll try to post a pic of later. This is a big deal because my ds used to hate to color. Now he's enjoying it so much thanks to the notebooking in Bigger. It's just the right amount of work to turn out a beautiful notebook without being tedious or overwhelming.

Can't wait to hear about your HOD week too!
In Christ,
Julie
Enjoyed LHTH to USII
Currently using USI
Wife to Rich for 28 years
Mother to 3 sons, ages 23, 20, and 16
Sister to Carrie

1shortmomof4
Posts: 89
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 9:19 pm

Post by 1shortmomof4 » Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:45 pm

I am using Beyond Little Hearts with my 2nd grade ds. We are on week 9 and were working on the arts and crafts project for the week - a starfish. Well, I have another little ds who is a young 5 who loves to join in when he finds it interesting (or is it an opportunity to see how well I can multi-task) so when it came time for the project of the starfish, he was definitely interested. We are having a great time working with this curriculum and frankly, it has been the best school time yet with my 2nd grader. He's loving school which is most important to me. Here my 2 little guys (I call my two older kids who are 14 and 11 the big kids) enjoying the project:
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I wanted to share that last week a little funny that happened after my ds constructed his Mayflower. He "loaded" the ship with his 120 barrels of fruit loops and later he found that the ship had been raided by his dear little brother. He was so upset until I explained the concept of pirates raiding ships (I know, the Mayflower was safe from pirates, but moms must think fast on their feet.) and so he was quickly satisfied and the squabble was over. Phew!

Heidi

I did it with the photo!!! Thank you for the instructions. You are never too old (or in my case too blonde) to learn something new!
Last edited by 1shortmomof4 on Sat Mar 08, 2008 9:17 pm, edited 3 times in total.

inHistiming
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Post by inHistiming » Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:48 pm

We began LHFHG this week with my 4 year old (5 in June). We are planning to go very s-l-o-w-l-y to begin with, so only did 2 days of plans this week. We really had a good time! :wink:

"Little One" was able to write numbers 1-5, then place a sticker(s) according to which number was on each page. One sticker for the number 1, 2 stickers for the number 2, etc. He did a great job.
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We had a lot of fun, and embarrassed mommy, with the Rhymes in Motion. We learned the first five with motions: North America, South America,Europe, Africa, and Asia. DS looked at me a little funny the first time, but got into it after that! :lol:

Reddy Fox kept us entertained with his adventures with granny. DS was able to retell the events pretty well on day 2, so I was happy about that.

Reading Made Easy is our phonics choice for him. We did lessons 1 and 2, which involved talking about the alphabet, learning the aaa (short a) sound, and playing listening games to identify words with the aaa sound. I was pleased with his abilities in this area as well.

We read about how God created light, in Science; art involved creating a collage out of torn paper and a paper cross.
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We are working on memorizing Matthew 19:14. I have to say this would be progressing better if Mommy would read the correct verse! :roll: I kept losing my place and having him repeat the wrong one, but we're on the right track now. :)

Overall, an excellent start to our K year with HOD. I am so excited that we've begun, and I know things will just get easier as we get used to the routine. I'll try to come back and post the pictures I took of him this week. Can't wait to see how your week went.
Last edited by inHistiming on Sun Mar 09, 2008 7:37 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Melanie
Posts: 777
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2007 6:37 pm
Location: north Missouri

Post by Melanie » Fri Mar 07, 2008 4:32 pm

My pics are from Little Hearts, week 23
We had a blast this week studying the pilgrims.....

Here's Ellen painting spring time in Jamestown.
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And here are all 3 "fishing with fire" like the Native Americans.
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We had a great week!!
Using LHFHG with
ds - '00
dd - '00
dd - '02

Kathleen
Posts: 1980
Joined: Mon Feb 11, 2008 3:23 pm
Location: NE Kansas

Post by Kathleen » Fri Mar 07, 2008 4:53 pm

I love reading about everyone's week!  It gives me a lot to look forward to as I continue to teach my kids. :D Julie - your year this year will be very similar to mine next year.  My oldest will be doing Bigger, and my middle one will be ready to Little Hearts mid-year.  I love your stories...they show how fun HOD is!Melanie - Great pictures!  Your kids look like they love to do school together!I started checking out some of the emerging readers for Grant a while ago.  This week he was reading The Bears on Hemlock Mountain.  He loved it when the bears came and Jonathon was hiding under the iron pot!ImageAlli finished unit 8 in LHTH.  We love the activities with the letters and sounds!  When we started LHTH, I wasn't really planning on her catching on to the letters and sounds since she was only 3, but she has surprised me!  She points out the letters we've covered all the time, and usually gets the sound right.  Here they're driving cars on "G", and she's making G's in soap. :D ImageImageWe also had a great time acting out the Red Sea crossing and Pharoah's army drowning!ImageKathleen
Last edited by Kathleen on Mon Mar 10, 2008 3:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Homeschooling mom to 6:
Grant - 19 Kansas State University
Allison - 15 World Geography
Garret - 13 Res2Ref
Asa - 8 Bigger
Quinn - 7 Bigger

Halle - 4 LHTH

water2wine
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Location: GA

Post by water2wine » Fri Mar 07, 2008 6:26 pm

Wow! I love seeing all the fun you guys are having! I am still kind of half steam so I do not have much to share but I just wanted to share this one thing that melted my heart. My biggest problem is that my kids in LHFHG want to do all the Bigger science. So anyway I had them all trying to get chocolate chips out of flour (not quite what was suggested but I was just being lazy I guess). Anyway we had a few tweezers and some pliers with a few added obstacles. We had fun. This was the one small square in the ocean activity where you are showing them how different beaks give different advantages. Anyway all my kids did this activity.

So today I am at the doctors office today and my almost 4 year old and I are reading a book. It has a chicken in it trying to get bugs and worms with its beak. She says" Mommy it has just the right kind of beak to get those worms because God made it that way. And I have just the right things I need to do what God wants me to do because God made me that way." I'm thinking ahh! They are really getting it. What a joy these programs are to do with your little ones! I guess I won't worry about cross over next time maybe they will get something else out of it. But I loved this little lesson my dd learned. 8)
All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the peace of your children. Isaiah 54:13
~Six lovies from God~4 by blessing of adoption
-MTMM (HS), Rev to Rev, CTC, DITHR
We LOVED LHFHG/Beyond/Bigger/Preparing/CTC/RTR/Rev to Rev (HS)

MamaMary
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Mary's Weekly Check In!

Post by MamaMary » Fri Mar 07, 2008 6:58 pm

We are using...,

Little Hands- 5 year old son

Beyond Little Hearts- 7 year old son

Bigger Hearts
- 11 year old son

Little Hands

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Jacob, working on his new letter, "B"

Beyond Little Hearts

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Seth, made his shield to go along w/ Psalm 18:1-6

Key Idea- "The Lord is your sheild. When you are scared, you need to trust God to protect you.

This went along w/ history and bible!


Bigger Hearts for HIS Glory[/b]

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Colton charting the path Columbus took on his way back to spain from Hispanolia.

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In science we talked about animals and living things you might find on the shore line and then what you find when it's low tide living where there "was" water.

Field Trip to the BEACH!

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Our Family

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Squeeze Bottom- Fills up w/ sea water when the tide goes down to keep it hydrated and alive until high tide.

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If you squeeze them you can see them literally squirt water.

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Sea Snail

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Sea Grass

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This is simply a picture of my first born sons foot next to mine in the water. It brings tears to my eyes as it seems like yesterday I was carrying him on my hip and now he towers over me?

We had a GREAT week with HOD! Next week we will take off from HOD as it's our year end testing and two of my boys have birthdays. My Seth will be 8 and my Colton 12. This is the last check in where I could write ages 7 & 11

:cry:
Mary, Mama to 4 amazing sons and wife to one incredible husband! Come check us out on the blog: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MamaMary/

Carrie
Site Admin
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Post by Carrie » Fri Mar 07, 2008 10:50 pm

It's so much fun to see and hear about everyone's week! For "Little Hearts..." this week my little one loved being Joash and "hiding" from Athalilah (while following my prepositional 3 step directions). He begged to do it again and again, since Athalilah never found him because God was protecting him! :D

We have also really loved our Bible verse for "Little Hearts..." this week too, "Do everthing without complaining or arguing!" It has become a goal at our house this week! :wink:

For "Bigger Hearts...." my middle son loved sketching the bumblee and the wasp for his science notebook. He has really gotten into sketching animals this year, especially birds, since we read John Audubon for science earlier this year. 8)

He also loved trying to shoot the wick off a candle (like the hunters used to do). Although our candle remained unlit, and we used a beanbag for the bullets! My son couldn't believe how far away 100 paces was. We could only back up 72 paces in our house without running into a wall, but he said he couldn't even see the wick on the candle that far away! :lol:

My son loved copying the Longfellow poem about footprints in the sands of time (to go with our sandy footprint picture we made for art the day before). :D

Blessings,
Carrie

Tansy
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Joined: Thu Sep 06, 2007 9:11 am
Location: Texas

Post by Tansy » Sat Mar 08, 2008 1:43 am

my dd told me she wanted to go to Philidelphia and see where ben franklin worked... WE have supporters in philly we haven't seen in 3 years himmm....

And tonight at the prayer meeting break she saw a container of Philidelphia cream cheese next to the bagels... ANd said MOM MOM look its where Ben Franklin lived!

I had gotten some Ben Franklin books out of library and i caught her reading one to Ransom a dog I'm boarding. it was hysterical to see her pointing out to the fluffy mop-head of a dog in her lap that Ben Franklin figured out lighting was electricity. Ransom was actually looking at the book, where o where is the camera!

Most of the time stuff just doesn't stick with my child in one ear out the other but she loves dear old Ben... So I'm sticking lots of stuff to old ben hoping it will lodge in her brain for...ever... lol
♪♫•*¨*•.¸❤¸.•*¨*•♪♫•*¨*•.¸❤¸.•*¨*•♪♫
Dyslexics of the world Untie!
Adoptive Mom to 2 girls
http://gardenforsara.blogspot.com/
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Carrie
Site Admin
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Post by Carrie » Sat Mar 08, 2008 10:39 am

crlacey,

I noticed you posted this on the end of the thread on the main board, so I'm moving it here for you! We restarted this thread this week. :D

Here's crlacey's post:
Now that the week is officially over, this week in LHTH, we covered the stories of Abraham and Joseph. (We're speeding it up since Katie is actually ready to move int LHFHG.) We actually went out to our driveway with chalk and drew the greener grass area for Lot to choose and acted it all out. Katie enjoyed the acting part. Sometimes she picked Lot's part, other times she wanted to be Abraham. She even took Daddy outside when he got home to do the story with him!
_________________
Crystal
DD 5/28/03 LHTH, MUS, A Reason for Handwriting, Phonics
DS 1/24/06

blessedmomof4
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Location: Las Vegas, Nevada

Post by blessedmomof4 » Sat Mar 08, 2008 12:23 pm

http://s227.photobucket.com/albums/dd63 ... 658962.pbw

Here's a slideshow of stuff from the last 2 weeks-notice my grade 8 daughter joined in for art :D
Lourdes
Wife to Danforth
2 grads 9/19/92,7/8/95
2 in charter school 1/31/98, 9/19/99
3 in Heaven 8/11/06, 8/18/10, 9/13/13
Future HODie is here! 9/14/12

water2wine
Posts: 2743
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Location: GA

Post by water2wine » Sat Mar 08, 2008 1:32 pm

WOW Mary I want to go to the beach with you! We are planing on going as well to find some of the things that we learned about in Bigger science.

Everyone looks like they have so much fun! I would be so envious except for the fact that we get to have all this fun too. :lol:
All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the peace of your children. Isaiah 54:13
~Six lovies from God~4 by blessing of adoption
-MTMM (HS), Rev to Rev, CTC, DITHR
We LOVED LHFHG/Beyond/Bigger/Preparing/CTC/RTR/Rev to Rev (HS)

MamaMary
Posts: 970
Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2008 7:52 am
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Post by MamaMary » Sat Mar 08, 2008 4:05 pm

Julie, I LOVED your share. I cannot wait to get to Ben Franklin! What a neat project. When you talked about having them use tile squares to write out things. My eyes got really big..., What a GREAT idea!

Heidi- I laughed so hard when you wrote about your little one stealing your older sons fruit loops! :lol: I am loving this year more than any other too! Heidi, I know you are in the learning curve with the picture..., is there anyway to make it a little bit bigger next week? I can't make out any of the details. (it's ok if you can't, just thought I'd ask) :D

InHisTiming- We loved the paper and cross project too! I still have a picture from my Seth and Jacob doing this:

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Mel, your kiddo's are such cutie patootey's! What did you make the fish out of? Was that wax paper? And I can't wait till we get there, how did the indians fish?

Kathleen- I LOVED your pictures. I like how you did your "G". It was PERFECT! We are doing "little hands" too and also adore the activities! Your little ones are so cute. Which book is your 7 year old reading?

W2W, I love the chocolate chips in the flour! Your so inventive!
water2wine wrote:
Everyone looks like they have so much fun! I would be so envious except for the fact that we get to have all this fun too. :lol:
EXACTLY! I cannot wait to get to study the 3 branches of government. I found myself getting all wistful and then I remembered..., Oh Yeah, I WILL GET TO! :lol: :D :lol: :D

I wish we could go to the beach together! Me with my four, you with your six we'd be quite a site! (smile) :lol:

Carrie- My boys are gonna LOVE the shooting the wick off the candle activitiy. "I" can't wait to read the John Audobon book!

Tansy- Can I just say, that I LOVED that your son saw the Philly cream cheese and made the connection. That is a perfect example of how and why we don't have to test our kids. They are obviously getting it!

Crystal- I love that your little girl took "daddy" outside to show him. Again, you don't need a test to tell you they're getting it. I guess I am just hyper sensitive to this because, I have spent years dong a curriculum where I felt like I was working really hard and not getting those natural feedback moments from my children. It's so nice to experience that ourselves this year!

Lourdes
- I LOVED your slide show. I like how you incorporate the math, english and everything! You have such a neat family! :D
Mary, Mama to 4 amazing sons and wife to one incredible husband! Come check us out on the blog: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MamaMary/

my3sons
Posts: 10698
Joined: Sun Aug 26, 2007 7:08 pm
Location: South Dakota

Post by my3sons » Sat Mar 08, 2008 8:26 pm

Thanks so much everyone for sharing - and Mary, you personify what we all should be like - so uplifting with all of your encouragement to all of us! I always feel so happy and content after reading your posts - that's the kind of feeling a person wants to have when partaking in a message board! A very happy end to the week!
In Christ,
Julie
Enjoyed LHTH to USII
Currently using USI
Wife to Rich for 28 years
Mother to 3 sons, ages 23, 20, and 16
Sister to Carrie

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