Nov. 6-10
In Creation to Christ, Emmett has been learning about the ancients time when first King Saul and second King David reigned. He loves to read these stories, and I love that Bible history is a key part of the ancients history. His book The Story of the Ancient World is so narrative, and he enjoys reading it almost as much as he enjoys reading The Illustrated Family Bible for his Bible quiet time. After all of this history reading, he gets to do some pretty neat follow-ups! He has gotten to make a sling, arm it with a stone, and swing it around his head, aiming for the mighty Goliath. He has also gotten to research prophecies of Christ by looking up first the prophecy and then its fulfillment in his Bible using Scripture references. He likes to sing his Philippians Chapter 2 memory work for me, and he can already belt out 10 verses! He made an ancient game called Twenty Squares, and he will get to play it with his brothers the next school day. Here are some pictures from this week's school...
One of his very favorite things is to use props to reenact his Storytime reading. We have been reading Jashub's Journal, and Emmett reenacted the part of Jashub judging Koshen and whether it was safe for Koshen to leave the city of refuge and return home after committing an unintentional murder. He looked up in the Bible how this would be judged, and then he retold the story with props. Here you see "Jashub" with his shepherd's headdress and walking stick, proclaiming his judgment...
For Write with the Best, Emmett wrote a descriptive story about a setting. He chose to write about his favorite room in our house - the basement! As you can see, the basement is a place the boys can get creative, messy, and loud- which is of course why they love it so much!
In World Geography, Riley finished one unit and began the next. This last unit he has been learning about Ibn Batuta traveling to Persia, China, and India, as well as Prince Henry navigating his way through Africa. He gave a key word oral narration, and as he did, I looked in the World Geography guide to check off the key words he included in his oral narration. These are the words I checked off that he mentioned: Batuta, Mecca, Imam, Imam's 3 brothers, China, Africa, Constantinople, ambassador to China, costly presents, attacked, junks, hurricane destroys ships in harbor, reach China, Chinese poultry, death of Great Khan, home to Tangier. Whew! That was a lot of amazing words relevant to his history reading that he included in his oral narration! He has worked up to the skills needed to do this type of oral narration gradually within Heart of Dakota, and I'm happy with his progress!
He also did a typed oral narration about Henry the Navigator, who was the third son of the King of Portugal. He is adding more details now!
I love to see Riley all cuddled up reading his Mapping the World with Art book! It is very narratively written and makes geography so much more fun than it was for me when I took it in high school! Here is one of his latest maps he has drawn for his history.
In United States II for high school, Wyatt has been studying the Spanish Civil War, Albert Einstein, the Blitzkrieg, and the "Phony War." The different history books he is reading work together to give such a rich, deep story of this time period. This turbulent time of Franco, Hitler, and Stalin comes to life with these readings, and the visual aids in the USII colored notebook, the listening to of speeches such as Britain's declaration of war against Germany after Hitler invaded Poland, the watching of the American Testimony DVD coverage of the war - all work together to truly make these events come to life. Listening to Wyatt's oral narrations and hearing him read his written narrations shows how much he understands and retains with this multi-faceted approach to learning USII history - and what's more - it shows how much he cares. These were real people, involved in a real war, and it wasn't all that long ago that it happened. 
It was especially interesting reading this primary source document, which is a letter from Albert Einstein to President Roosevelt. Einstein, a German physicist made famous by his theory of relativity, immigrated to the U.S. to avoid Nazi persecution, as he came from a Jewish background himself. Finally, Wyatt gave his first speech to our family. He chose to give his Heroes speech about George Washington, who has always been a favorite President of his. What a great week of school -
I hope you enjoyed your week too!
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