Heart of Dakota Week-in-Review Dec. 18-22, 2017

Heart of Dakota Week-in-Review
Dec. 18-22, 2017

What a busy week getting ready for Christmas!
We had a shortened week, only doing 3 days of school, and that helped us get ready for Christmas!  One of the beauties of homeschooling - setting our own schedule. 

In Creation to Christ, Emmett finished his unit on Israel falling to Assyria and Judah being saved.  He loves to write in cursive, so even when assignments can either be printed or written in cursive, he usually chooses cursive.  His notebook shows how much he has progressed in his written narrations and writing assignments since unit 1!  He also wrote a story for WWTB about Flash.  It has such neat detail, and it really does make Flash's personality come to life! 

In World Geography, Riley finished his unit on Central America, the Amazon, Iguacu Falls, and South America.  His Book of Centuries timeline continues to grow and is a lovely visual way to reflect upon what he has learned chronologically!  He continues to map the world bit by bit, and this map was a favorite, as it contained land masses that resemble objects.  He really had fun drawing it!  I most enjoyed his typed oral narration, as I see such progress! 


In USII, Wyatt is especially enjoying his living library book Gunner's Run.  It is a favorite of his, especially as through this pilot's crash and escape he comes to know the Lord.  I really enjoy the triple journal entry format, as it contains a quote, its context, and Wyatt's commentary upon it.  Wyatt continues to enjoy his MOH readings, and he often consults various maps alongside the readings. 

It looks like a white Christmas outside my bedroom window - hooray!  We also had time for some serious Christmas baking - what fun!  I hope you have a Merry Christmas!

Heart of Dakota Week-in-Review Dec. 11-15

Heart of Dakota
Week-in-Review Dec. 11-15

This week in USII Wyatt studied the Bataan Death March, Japanese-American Internment, and the Battle of Midway.  We had some good discussions with his critical thinking questions.  He gave a high-lighted key word written narration.  I always have him read his written narrations aloud to me with pencil in hand, so he can edit as he reads.  Often times he'll catch any mistakes on his own this way, and I don't have to edit anything!  He'll also make editing changes that make his point clearer.  He truly loves history, so listening to his oral and written narrations is fascinating for me. I also snapped pictures of his Economics principles he is learning, as well as his Personal Finance 'double discounts' work, which showed a double discount is often times not as good of a discount as a straight initial percentage applied.

 A big event of this past week was Wyatt turning 18 yo!  We could not be more proud of Wyatt - he is a wonderful son!  I get very sad thinking my time teaching him with HOD will soon be over.  These years have been busy but precious.  I just cannot imagine not being his teacher anymore - he has been such a good student, and I've enjoyed our discussions and work together so much through the years.  However, I know he's ready for the next stage in life.  HOD has prepared him well.  Most importantly, he has a heart full of love for the Lord!  He also still loves to learn.  Here is a picture of Wyatt's b-day party, where he is with all of his best friends - his brothers and his cousins.  What a blessing!


In World Geography, Riley continues to map the world, one map at a time! He does such neat work, and he is really enjoying his mapping assignments.  He also gave an oral narration that I typed about Columbus' 3rd and 4th voyages.  He has learned to slow down and choose his words carefully, to use transitional words rather than always using the word 'and', and to include detailed words such as names, places, and event.  I really enjoyed his narration on Columbus! He also enjoyed his history telling time by the stars' positions activity, as well as his book Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus.  What a great week for Riley!

In Creation to Christ, Emmett has been learning about Israel falling to Assyria and Judah being saved.  We finished our storytime bookGod King, and I think it's our favorite read-aloud this year!  It was outstanding! It totally helped us better understand this time in history.  Emmett really enjoyed his history project.  He made a prayer box by folding it origami-style.  The CTC Notebook had great directions for this project with visual step-by-step pictures (praise the Lord for this, because I am not naturally gifted at origami).  Then Emmett wrote the ACTS model of prayer steps on the cover of his box.  On a slip of paper he wrote what he wants to be in prayer about right now, and then he put the slip of paper in his prayer box to remind him to pray for these things.

Emmett finished his painting for Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken, as well as finishing his painting for Once by the Pacific.  For Science, he worked on answering his 5 questions carefully. He is getting better and better at answering each question completely, using his book as a reference for accuracy and for spelling.  What a wonderful week this has been!  As we look forward to our last week before Christmas, we try not to be too stressed in this busy season!  Instead, we hope to focus on Jesus Christ being born and the joy that brings!  May our week be full of love, joy, and thoughts of our precious Savior this week, rather than the hustle and bustle of the season that can weigh us down!  I'll need to read this reminder often this week!  God bless!

In Christ,
Julie

Week-in-Review Dec. 4-8

Heart of Dakota
Week-in-Review Dec. 4-8

In USII, Wyatt learned about the Bismarck, Operation Barbarossa, Lend-Lease, and Pearl Harbor this week.  He gave a summary oral narration about Hitler occupying Europe, FDR winning Congress's approval for his Lend-Lease idea, and tensions escalating for America to enter the war.  His summary narration included the visual aid of the photograph noted in his USII Student Notebook.

We also met to discuss the critical thinking questions he answered about FDR's speech "The Four Freedoms", which were really his overall goals for world order.z  Wyatt copied and cut out his critical thinking questions, glued them in his USII Student Notebook, wrote his answers, and then shared them orally with me.  I always have him read his answers, and usually we end up discussing informally more along the way.

For his written narration, Wyatt wrote a summary of about 10 detailed sentences.  The topic was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the declaration of war by the U.S., and Hitler declaring war 4 days later.  What a turbulent time in our history!  He also used his Mystery of History book to make a chart of the Axis and of the Allies opposing sides.  One of the boys' favorite board games to play is Axis and Allies, so this whole history theme is something Wyatt's very familiar!

This week was also Wyatt's 18th birthday!!!  We are having his
birthday party next weekend, as that's the weekend my husband is home.  But, we took Friday off and had a wonderful time birthday and Christmas gift shopping!  We ate our annual lunch at Old Chicago, shopped together, drank our annual hot cocoa and ate our cookies or muffins at Barnes and Noble, watched Wyatt's favorite basketball team (Golden State Warriors) play, and then I made him his favorite pie - pecan - what an awesome day!!!  I also made the boys a little batch of Christmas 'pretzel' gifts during the week - I LOVE this time of the year!!!

For World Geography, Riley learned about The Great Zimbabwe, the Taj Mahal, and de Gama's Trip Around Africa to India.  He gave a topic oral narration using key words from his readings.  The key words are listed in the WG guide, so I always just encourage him to look through those after he reads, right before orally narrating, just to mentally plan for using them in his oral narration.  He is using 75% of the words in his narrations now!  And there are a lot of words!  Riley also drew several maps and added them to his growing collection.

 Riley began listening to the audio of "The Captive."  He completed a page of his one-sentence summaries.  Writing a one-sentence summary is actually pretty tough - given the guidelines noted in the guide - but he is doing so well with it now!  Each sentence could be a slogan summation for a movie advertisement!  In IPC, Riley experimented with closed and open circuits - which of course he loved!  His red light lit up - which he had to show me multiple times, of course!

In Creation to Christ, Emmett learned about the Assyrian conquests.  He read about Shalmanaser, the death of Elisha, and the defeat of Judah by Israel.  He also made a neat mosaic of a horse and a chariot - I'll have to share a picture of that next week!  In science he researched spiders - NOT a favorite of mine.  He made a cool web for his science lab!

The spider webs he learned about in science connected nicely to the spider web he painted in poetry appreciation!  He also worked on writing long/short varied sentences in R & S English, and he and the boys had a blast doing a DITHOR kickoff for historical fiction!  What a wonderful week!

Heart of Dakota Week-in-Review: Nov. 27 - Dec. 1

Heart of Dakota Week-in-Review:
Nov. 27 - Dec. 1

In Creation to Christ Emmett has been studying about Israel and Judah at the time of Elijah and Elisha.  He researched the northern kingdom of Israel using his Story of the Ancient World book, his Bible, and Wikipedia.  He learned about King Ahab, what he gained by marrying the wicked Jezebel, what caused the end of the northern kingdom, and what exactly happened to Jezebel (yikes - we all that Bible history, and it was not a good end for Jezebel).  Anyway, one of his favorite things this week was his clay map he made of Israel.  Using his Heart of Dakota notebook, he followed the map to make his own clay map of Israel, along with flags labeling each country.  He then removed the flags and had to put them back from memory.  He did a great job!

Another definite favorite of this weeDrawn into the Heart of Reading Adventure genre project.  He did a retelling of Cabin in Trouble Creek, like an advertisement to try to entice us to want to read it.  Well, he got so into the advertisement that at 25 minutes I had to cut him off and have him say the line "Now, doesn't that make you want to read this book?"  I had our other sons listening as well, and with both of them being in high school, time is not always so free.  However, they clapped and promised to listen to the rest during their playtimes with Emmet.  My little Emmett adores an audience and retelling readings with special objects!!!  So glad this is one of the assessments for what he remembers in homschooling with HOD!!!

 One thing we have LOVED in our homeschool routine this year is our morning sessions.  With older high school students with jobs, along with my part-time job, it is important for us to get up and get going on homeschooling early in the morning.  I used to get up super early, shower, get dressed for the day, and have the kids do the same.  It was kind of a jolting way to wake up each morning.

Last year, I really thought about what made me feel so weary (other than the obvious - yeah, I'm getting older and the days are getting fuller).  I decided it was the start to the day.  So, I changed up our morning routine.  The kids have what I call homework the night before, which really is about an hour or so of independently assigned work for the next day in HOD.  Then, in their rooms, they get up in the morning and do an independent subject or two.  I do my Bible quiet time during that.

Then, here comes the part we all really love, they each have an individual time they meet with me in my room.  All of us are still in our pi's, I have my coffee (strong), and they bring in their homework from the night before and their completed work from the morning.  We go through it together, laugh, talk, share, and correct/edit the work as we go.  We LOVE it!  Emmett sings his Bible song for me, shares his Bible memory work, shows me his science, shares something he found interesting from his Bible quiet time, shows me his independent history, and does dictation with me.  Riley goes through his World Religions and Cultures study with me, says his Bible verses, shares his Storytime sentence summary, and any oral narrations.  Wyatt shares his Bible study, his British Literature, and his Living Library written/oral work.  I love having time alone with each of them, and then we whisk off to do our chores and get ready for the day.  After breakfast, we do our next homeschooling block.  Just thought I'd share as it has been a wonderful change for us!

Finally, here are a few more pictures from Riley's work in WG and Wyatt's work in USII...

 And one beautiful sunrise I saw out my window just before I began homeschooling our sons!!!

Hope you all had a wonderful week!

In Christ,
Julie