Weekly update week of 8/22/11

We started our new school year on Tuesday.  We started with the official first day of school pics.

N. has grown so much this year.  He is almost as tall as S. and she isn't happy about it. 
N. jumped right in to RTR.  We have taken each box a little slower than usual so I can make sure he sees what is different this year and also I can make sure he knows what is expected of him.  He always starts his day with his bible quiet time.  He is studying Philippians this year and memorizing Philippians 1.  I think he is going to like the bible study book he is doing.  He and I are reading Boyhood and Beyond together and he learned this week to see God in His creation.  Tomorrow he wants to go to a park to spend some time really observing all the wonderful things God has made.  I see a maturity in his bible discussions that I didn't see last year. 
One day a week he is doing a picture study using the book "Looking at pictures".  He really enjoyed studying a painting and then trying to see how much of it we could each remember.  For my visual learner this was right up his alley and much easier for him then narrating after he reads.
In Science we switched things up a little since he had already done the Apologia Astronomy book so he is doing Answers in Genesis Wind and Weather book.  He enjoyed the 2 small experiments we did this week.  He did a great written narration about Joseph Priestly.
In History he is reading "Peril and Peace" and learned about Paul, Polycarp, Justin the Martyr and Constantine.  He enjoys this book, but oral and written narration from it are a little tough for him at this point. I think all the hard  names confuse him.  With a little help he did do a nice written narration.
His history project this week was a Roman Arch with a background.  This is where I am seeing the biggest gains.  He paid close attention to the quality of his work and really took his time each day with this.  Here it is with the background almost done and before he painted the arch.

When we finished the week N. said he thought it was a good first week and a few nights when his Dad would ask him what his favorite part of the day was he said "I can't pick, I like it all." 

The End of Summer

I can't believe summer is almost over.  We are starting school next week.  On Monday I will meet with each kid and talk about goals and expectations for the summer and give them an overview of their curriculum.  On Tuesday we will dive right in.

It has been a wonderful summer.  S. and  N. went to church camp and had a wonderful time and came back with new spiritual things to focus on.  S. has been working 15-20 hours a week.  N. went on a local mission week and had a fantastic time and even let his true goofy self show by break dancing at a concert in the park.  The adults and teens on the trip got a real kick out of seeing this side of the boy they thought was shy and quiet. 

We just got back from a vacation in PA.  Went to the Pittsburgh zoo, Hershey Chocolate World, Gettysburg and Amish Country.  We stayed at a farm bed and breakfast and had a fantastic time.  N. is now convinced he wants to be a farmer.  He was up and talking to the sheep by 6:45 each morning and would stay out in the barnyard until dark.

S. had been more unsure about staying on a farm because she said she was afraid of chickens and didn't like goats.  She ended up loving collecting the eggs and even attempted to milk a goat.  Her favorite thing was the sunset ATV ride that the owner of the farm took us on.

It was a fantastic end to summer and I think we are now ready to dig in to a new, and hopefully wonderful school year.  I have been scheduling things in homeschool tracker all summer.  Sarah is taking a pretty tough load of classes.  Noah is moving on to the next Heart of Dakota guide entitled Resurrection to Reformation. It will include longer reading and more challenging, thought provoking activities.  I am looking forward to seeing his progress this year.

Update for week of 5/16/2011

I can't call this a weekly update since my last update was over a month ago.  This last month has just flown by.  We celebrated my dd's birthday as well as getting a new dog, but through it all we kept schooling and having so much fun.  So here are a few pictures from the last few weeks.
Noah has come so far in the effort he puts forth for his Science questions each week.  I have really emphasized with him that he needs to give it his best effort and he really has for at least the past month or so.

Here he made these yummy treats where he wrapped a crescent roll around a marshmallow and then when it baked "the tomb was empty".  He loved this. 

You can probably tell we are animal lovers at our house.  Although sometimes they get a little too involved in school.

This is our new dog Lacey that we adopted from the shelter where N. and I volunteer.  She is a great dog.  We adopted a smaller dog so that N. can walk her.  Some dogs are afraid of his shaky hands, but not Lacey, so he is going to train her this summer.

Here are the kids painting their last watercolor painting of the year.  They are sad that they don't get to paint next year.  It was a great bonding time for them.  I love how Noah's turned out. 

On our last day of doing CTC.  Noah was sad to see it come to an end.  What a great testimonial to the curriculum that he actually was disappointed it was over.  Although he is really looking forward to RTR next year.  He is already planning on buying Kingdom Lego sets and wants to do some books like Robin Hood as read alouds this summer so he can be ready to understand that time period. 
I had him pose for our annual hold up the guide picture.  I took it and then he put it face down in his lap and gave a pouty face to show how he really felt.

Curriculum for next year

This time of year is fun because you are finishing up the school year and also a little stressful because I am finalizing curriculum for next year.  I think I have the majority of it set.
N. is the easy one.  After 2 wonderful years of HOD we see absolutely  no reason to change.  In fact I am really not changing anything with him.  If it isn't broke why fix it.  He will move into the HOD Resurrection to Reformation guide, or RTR for short.  I have already purchased all the books and I am pre-reading the history books that he will read on his own.  All I can say is Wow!  Who knew history could be so exciting.  It sure wasn't when I was in school.  The history spines are "Perils and Peace" and "Monks and Mystics" which tell church history and show how intricately that is tied in with the secular history of the time.  Then he also will read "Famous Men of the Middle Ages" and "Mystery of History Volume 3".  I think he is going to love these books.  For Science we will focus on Earth Science of which he has had very little of.  He will also do a Picture study and study some of the great artists of the time and he will study Philippians for his bible study time. He has already looked at everything and is very excited.  He will continue with CLE math and also Rod and Staff English.

S. has been the one that has taken all the planning.  I have spent countless hours pouring over things for her.  I think it is now finalized though.
Science will be Apologia Physics.  We are going to do this at home instead of co-op with Daddy being the teacher as needed for this.
Math: She will use Lial's Intermediate Algebra.  This comes highly recommended and as she has looked at it she really likes the teaching style.
History:  This year she wants to study World Geography and Cultures.  She is admittedly very weak in this area since it isn't something that is on the test, public school didn't focus on it much.  We are taking the plans on Harmony Art Mom's site and have tweaked them to include a Mission component also.  The spine for this will be Trail Guide to World Geography with other books added in. 
English:  British Literature and Composition from Smarr Publishers.  This should be a very challenging course.
French 3: Tell Me More French
Bible:  A study of the New Testament using "The most important thing you will ever study"
Child Development:  1/2 credit using "The Developing Child" and other resources that I have.

Now I will spend the summer putting lesson plans into Homeschool Tracker.

Weekly update for the week of 4/4/11

What a great week we had.  I feel like so many things clicked for N. this week.  That is what I love about HOD is that the skills build on each other and what had once seemed like a challenge suddenly becomes something they can do with ease. 

His History Project this week was a Mezuzah case.  He decided that since next year many of his projects will require cooking that he should become more independent with this aspect of his school.  He gathered all the materials and then mixed the dough up by himself.  He then rolled it and shaped it.  We needed to add some flour because the dough kept sticking to our rolling pin. He ended up with some of the flour sticking on him, but he was very proud of his end product.

In his history reading he continues to read from John and wrote a very nice written narration this week about John washing the disciples feet.  He continues to slowly improve in his written narration skills.  The best thing is that he has confidence now that he can do it.

In storytime we finished "Traveling the Way".  This book is now his new favorite from the year followed by "The Boy from the Pyramids".  Actually though there wasn't a single storytime book that he didn't like.  His oral narrations for this book were fantastic.even to the point of retelling me what happened on a day that I had missed and his dad had read it to him.

The painting this week was a snowy scene to go with the poem "The Runaway".

In Science he continues with "Exploring the World of Medicine".  He has gotten over the hump with this book also.  He now looks at 1 or 2 questions before he reads and then reads only 1-2 pages until he finds the answers and then he continues this way until he answers around 7 of the questions.  I have let him decide the number of questions he answers because he has been very good about pushing himself to do a little more each day.

In Write with the Best he finished a letter to his Grandparents.  I love the gentle approach of this writing curriculum.  Writing is still the area he needs the most work on, but he continues to show improvement and he doesn't hate to write like he did before.

Hard to believe that our year will soon be over.  We have all the things for next year and he is very excited about all the books he gets to read and projects he gets to do. 

Weekly update for week of 3/21/11

   I seem to have this every other week thing now as a habit.  Problem is this week I forgot to take pictures so all of the pics are from last week.
  One of the things I love about HOD is the bible quiet time.  I love how it is teaching N. to make this an important part of each day.  He loves reading from the Illustrated Family Bible.  For my visual learner it sure helps to cement things he reads in his bible. 

He also has been memorizing Philippians 2.  This week was a review week and I loved sitting and listening to him sing the verses as his way of remembering them.

In Science he is now reading Exploring the History of Medicine by John Hudson Tiner.  This has been a somewhat challenging book for him.  He has to answer questions every day after he reads.  This has on occasion brought him to tears.  He still can struggle with his reading comprehension if it is something that is totally unfamiliar to him, which the subject matter in this book is.  I am using it though to have him practice the skills of skimming back through several pages of text to find the answers.  This past Friday he did much better with this and was proud of how few he missed.  His science experiment last week was looking to see how fast bacteria multiplied.

This week he is doing an experiment with germs growing on apples.  Will have to see in a few days how that one turns out.

His history project last week was to make a paper doll dressed in the clothes of a Roman Soldier. He really enjoyed this and worked diligently on getting each piece the way he wanted it.

His attention to detail with projects like this is improving.  This week he made a wheel with the names and information about the 12 apostles.

For storytime we continue to read "Traveling the Way".  I think this may be his favorite book this year.  What I love is after I read he will sit quietly and then say "I am thinking about how David must feel... ".  This is a big step for him to start putting himself in the position of the book character and really trying to make those connections.

For his history reading he is now reading the book of John.  He is enjoying reading John all the way through which is something he has never done before.

Next week I will go to the local homeschool convention and will get to talk to Carrie the author of HOD and her sister Julie.  Last year that was the highlight of the convention for me.  I love the fact that I can ask them specific questions about how to make things work for N. and talk through any concerns I have.  I know we will be using the next guide RTR, but not totally sure how each aspect will work for him.  I look forward to getting their input.

Weekly update for the week of 3/8/2011

Once again it has been 2 weeks since I updated my blog.  Hard to believe we are heading into the homestretch of the year.  Overall this has been a very good year.  I am continuing to learn how to draw the best out of N. as well as how S. prefers to learn. 

The highlight for N. last week was his history project of making different types of catapults.  He worked so long on this I finally had to make him stop so he could finish the rest of his school.  When school was done he went back to designing catapults. (Please overlook the mismatched pj's.  He usually doesn't get dressed until after lunch, that just works best for him).

Last week he and S. worked on painting a night sky.  I didn't get any pictures of him painting, but here is S. working on hers.

We have started a new storytime book called "Travelling the Way" and N. just loves it. The first day we read it he had do to a detailed oral narration.  I was amazed how many details he included.  I was really able to see how this skill is improving.  He is also getting better at making it more like a story verses just summarizing it.
His written narrations the past two weeks have also shown improvement.  He still isn't one to use lots of flowery words during his written narration, but he does blend some of his words and some of the authors.  You also can see the things he thought were important in what he narrates.

The highlight of this week was the Roman feast.  N. was so excited to do this.  He worked hard on making his Roman custard. 

He then used his special safety guard from Pampered Chef that allows even a kid with tremoring hands to cut up vegetables safely and proudly displayed his handiwork.  He didn't have a robe to wear so he wrapped a blanket around his shoulders.

Then he served the meal and washed his sister's hands in between courses.  She would have preferred he use warm water.

I really enjoy seeing my 2 dc having fun together.  This year has been a good one for improving their relationship and letting them see each other in all situations.  This week was a pretty stressful week since our sweet dog Bailey was nearing the end of his battle with bone cancer.  N. handled it by taking good care of him and S. handled it by coming down one day after lunch dressed as "Super Sarah".  N.  laughed all afternoon.  It was good for all of us.