Three Weeks Down, Many to Go.

Well, it was a pretty good week this week.  Lots of work done.

Eli was into everything as always and I caught him in the act.  Here he is searching in the kitchen cupboards for something to eat.

Uh oh!!!  I've been caught.

Preparing - Unit 29 - Week ending 31/1

Well, Shakayla is finally getting back into the swing of things.  It has taken awhile but she has worked quite diligently when she has been working.  She is ditching off when she finds something else much more exciting to do, but that is what we're going to be working on during Unit 30.

She began reading The Shakespeare Stealer for her extention history, after finishing Who was Marco Polo?  For history, she has been continuing with Child's History of the World along with Hero Tales.  We began The Wonderful Winter on Thursday for her storytime.  For independent history, she is reading Shakespeare and the Globe.

She did some research on the spice trade last week.  One part of it was to map out the Spice Trade and she chose to do it on the computer.

She has been reading Who was Leonardo DaVinci? for science.  She did a science experiment to demonstrate how the sun rises in the east.

Shakayla doing her research.  Very intent on what she was reading.

The highlight of her week was making her spice chart.  It provided quite a bit of entertainment, as all the children were up the table trying the different spices.

This was taken about halfway through the finished chart.  We had children running around like mad things when they tried ginger.  Certainly had me in fits of laughter.

BHFHG - Units 17-18 - Week ending 31/1

Beth had a fabulous week.  She really worked hard and showed plenty of endurance.  We didn't manage to do her art project, but are hoping once I get the right supplies we can do it.

We read some more about Daniel Boone and Quicksilver Bob.  She did a fantastic job on her notebooking page and her timeline, so much so that I took photos of them.

She is putting a lot more effort into her presentation which is just tremendous.  Her math is humming along as is her cursive.  We have been reading more Encyclopaedia Brown which challenges us to think about the clues and help figure out each case.

For science we have still been looking at the creatures in the woods.  She had to do an experiment of getting a piece of fruit to go moldy which gave her the shivers every time she looked at it.  

She has been learning 'Our Fathers World' as her current hymn to learn which has been tremendous. 

Beth's favourite part of the week was her Science notebooking page.  She took extra special care and did a fabulous job.

 

 LHFHG - Unit 20 - Week ending 31/1/13

James had a great week.  His reading is really coming along.  We did take him to the optometrist and so he has new specs to pick up tomorrow, which hopefully will make the reading just a little easier too.

He finally has mastered the written words for 1 - 20, so we are now able to move on in his math.

For his history, we read about St Augustine, Charles the Great and Albert the Great.  He really enjoyed these stories and I know he now has the pegs in place to hang further information as he gets older.

He has been doing a bit of opposites work.  I hadn't realised he didn't actually know what opposite meant.  Now that we've done a few exercises he is definately getting the hang of it.  

We finished The Adventures of Grandfather Frog and are now reading The Adventures of Chatterer the Red Squirrel.  James loves this series of books, so much so it was the highlight of his week.

James made a poster related to the story about Charles the Great.  He spent a great deal of time and effort doing it.  Here he is showing it off, and then sharing the limelight with Eli who had just finished his four puzzles all on his own.

Anyway, another fabulous week with Heart of Dakota.  It brings such rich learning into our home.

January is flying by!!!

Wow, it is so hard to believe that January is almost at an end.  Shakayla kindly pointed out on the 25th that is was a month since Christmas, followed quickly by the statement it is only 11 months to Christmas.  I feel this year is going to fly by. 

I thought I would start with Eli this week.  He is getting far better at keeping himself occupied without creating too many hurricanes in his path.

 Eli busy putting his cars on his truck to take them to the station.

 Eli and James playing together.

Just because he is so cute and full of mischief.  See that glint in his eye.

Here he is with his picture he drew.

LHFHG - Week ending 25/1/13 - Unit 19

 

Well, James had a great week.  We have been spending a bit of time reviewing his phonics, so his reading is really coming along.  We began reading about some of the early martyrs of the Christian Church, and Augustine was one who we read about.

 

He has been enjoying the story of Grandfather Frog.  It is great to hear him answering questions and even being able to retell some of the story back to me.  

 

 James learnt a little about Saint Valentine and made a valentine's heart by himself.

 Here is a wee sentence we wrote after reading Grandfather Frog.  His handwriting is coming along beautifully.

  This was James reenactment of the early Christians walking along the road asking everyone they met if they had heard about Jesus and his ressurrection.

So overall, it was a great week with James.  His skills are growing day by day which is awesome.

BHFHG - Week ending 25/1/13 - Units 16/17

 

Bethany and I had a great week.  We finished Rabbit Hill, and what a tremendous story.  We would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a lovely fantasy story.  The new story time book is Encyclopaedia Brown.  It is a mystery book and so far we are really enjoying it.

Beth has been learning about Daniel Boone this week which has been quite interesting.  I don't think she is all that keen to be his daughter though, being snatched away by Indians.  She is still learning about the creatures living in the woods which inspires her to go investigating in the forest.

 Bethany painted this beautiful watercolour of an island in the foreground, with the sea and sunset and a boat sailing away.

 Bethany reading aloud Toliver's Secret to her new friend Lucky.

Beth painted this tree and that is Daniel Boone swinging from it so the Indians lost his track.

Overall it was a great week, with her making great strides with her math and her narrations.

PHFHG - Week ending 25/1/13 - Unit 28

 

Well, it has been a bit of a challenge to get Shakayla focused on her schoolwork especially as most of her friends are still having their summer holidays.  But we are getting there.

 

She has been reading about Marco Polo and his travels, Christopher Columbus and his travels, and some of the other well known explorers of the time.  I love that all the books she is reading is of the same time period so give her a bigger glimpse into the time period.

 

She has been producing some great work when she sets her mind to it.  In poetry this week, her creative writing task, was to write a poem or paragraph that followed the life cycle of a creature or another part of nature.  She did a terrific job and has a poem that would knock your socks off, but I've suggested she keep it to enter into a poetry competition next time we see one.  It truely was a magnificent piece of work.

 

Whoops, I only got one picture of her this week.  This is her reading 'The Secret Garden'.  She is reading it as part of our reading programme, Drawn into the Heart of Reading.  

It was a good week, and both of us felt she had accomplished well for the week.  Hopefully this week our days won't drag out quite so long.

We ended up with a busy and social weekend after our busy week.  It was great to catch up with some friends who have moved away, and others who are nearby.  Our church family celebrated the baptism of two wonderful members.  It was a joyous occasion, and involved a fabulous shared picnic up at one of the local gorges.  We feel so blessed to be part of our church, and a part of our community in general.  God is so good to us.

 

Cracking into 2013!!!!

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted.  There is a reason I've not been keeping this up.  We had a pretty busy year last year.  I ended up with two surgeries, one after a year of health issues which I thought were all in my head but resulted in the implantation of a pacemaker at the beginning of December.  The cause of everything that led to that is to be dealt with this year we hope and pray.  We also moved mid year into our own home, which was something that surprised us completely as we had only been talking how neither of us felt it was a great idea for us and our family.  But God led the way, and opened the doors and even now I wonder how it all happened, but it is a wonderful and fabulous thing.  We are back in what we class as our home town, and are in a great spot where anyone can call in when they are out and about.  We have also started a home group here, and church is now just down the road.

Anyway, despite all the craziness of last year, it was a year that completely blessed us as a family, and this year I'm sure is going to be just as great or better.  God is certainly keeping us and guiding and teaching us.

PHFHG - Week beginning 14/1/13 - Unit 27

Shakayla finished up Unit 27 this week.  It has been such a joy to work through Preparing with her.  She has gained such independence since she started this. She finished reading Adam of the Road for extension history, and began Columbus for science.  She is continuing with R&S English 5.  She is working through Singapore Math 4B at the moment, but is working at her own pace as she has done most of it over the years, but I wanted to make sure she covered the bits she had missed, so I would imagine she will likely be starting 6A before the end of the year.

Shakayla working on grammar.

Shakayla's History Project.  A stained glass window.

BHFHG - Week beginning 14/1/13 - Unit 15/16

 

Bethany is now doing Bigger Hearts for His Glory, after we found she was floundering a little too much for my liking.  She has flourished with this guide.  I think she also likes the time that she gets with me.

 

She is working through R&S English 3 and is now doing Singapore Math 2B (again that was due to me wanting her to fill in bits she has missed).  She is nearly into Singapore Math 3A and is working well at her own pace.

 

We have been reading a wonderful storytime book called Rabbit Hill.  It has been a fantastic example of the fantasy genre, and we have talked about various things within the book, and why and how it is a fantasy book.  We both really love this time together.  She has been learning more about George Washington which has been really interesting for both of us, as I can't say I know a great deal about him.  She is just beginning to learn the states of the US and their abbreviations, not overly necessary for a kid from NZ but the skills she is gaining through this guide are too many to name, and too beneficial for her overall learning.

 

In science she has been learning about the creatures and plants in the woods.  It is just amazing learning alongside her, as much she learns, I do not know.   It just encourages my love of nature and of learning in general.

 

Bethany keeping Eli occupied while I was working with James.

They had a great time pretending to be the puppets.

  LHFHG - Week beginning 14/1/13 - Unit 18

 

James and I finished Unit 18 this week.  It was great to get back into it.  We were learning about the early Christian church.  It was great fun.  James is doing great with his reading and is progressing well through The Reading Lesson.  He is doing a terrific job with math and is doing Singapore Math 1A.

 

We really love the hands-on activities in this guide.  It really appeals to James style of learning.  He is also gaining incredibly on his ability to listen to stories and to verbalise what has happened in the story.  This is a really hard thing for James so any gains is a huge thing.  We are loving reading about Grandfather Frog and his adventures.

 

  James reenacting the prison falling down around Paul and Silas.

Anyway, overall it was a great start to the year, and we pray the rest of this year will be a relatively smooth run through these guides and into the next ones.

Fun times at home!!!

I just wanted to share about some of the really cool stuff the blossoms have been doing around here.

A couple of weeks ago, Dad was busy watching the cricket on television for the afternoon, so the kids spent the afternoon outside playing.  They played their own game of cricket as well, which seemed like a great deal of fun.

As it got closer to dinner time, they decided they wanted a picnic outside, so they went out and set up where they were going to have it.  While they were outside doing that, Dad decided that we would surprise them by putting their dinner into little paper parcels (like at the fish and chip shop).  So we told them not to come inside and that we would take dinner out to them.  So we put their sausages and some homemade wedges in the parcels, added a couple of different dips (tomato sauce and sour cream), and a couple of bits of bread each. 

The tray of food all ready to go.

Dad taking dinner out to them.  They were in their pj's because it was a pj picnic.

After dinner, Shakayla made this teepee.  The idea for this came from having read The Indian in the Cupboard for schoolwork.  

It was really great to see their imaginations growing, and also seeing their learning come out in their play.


Fast forward now to this last Saturday.  After having a bit of a rough day on Friday, I decided that Saturday would be a fun day for us all.  Dad was working so it was just the blossoms and I.  The three big kids and I all chose two things to do during the day. 

We started off with one of Shakayla's ideas.  It was to make miniature gardens on lids from icecream containers.

Shakayla's masterpiece.

James and I worked together to create this piece of magnificence.

Bethany did this wonder, which incidently is portrayal of Spud's (a dearly departed pet fish) grave, and the edge of the garden in which he was buried, and then the lawn.  It is amazing that they still talk about that fish, because it has been dead for at least two years.

So after the garden creations, we set out for a walk on the farm as one of Beth's choices.  We had to find things that began with K and P.  Now this turned out to be a really fun time because it is really hard to find anything walking up the driveway as we did.  We managed to find a few things legimately but some we used a little imagination for, like the petrified wood I found with my friends, the slaters on it who were incidently called Peter, Paul, Pauline, Paula and Pippi.  We even resorted to naming some of the calves in the paddock alongside the driveway.

When we got home, Shakayla and the kids made a teddy bear's picnic for lunch, including honey sandwiches.  So off we all went and sat outside with all the stuffed toys and shared our lunch with them.

Then we played a board game that Beth had chosen to play which was quite a lot of fun, especially when someone ended up having to wait multiple turns before they could move themselves again.  This was followed by a new card game that I had stashed away in the cupboard, called Archealogy.  Well, this turned out to be a hit with us all.  It was great fun, so next time you're visiting ask us if we can play.

After sitting down for awhile playing the games, we ended up going out and having a game of cricket because it was J's choice.  After that, some gingernut cookies were made, although some ended up burnt.  This was also J's choice. 

My final choice was to make sushi.  So that proved lots of fun as always, but most of all provided us with a very delicious dinner.  We ended our day watching a movie on TV called Like Mike 2.  Nana and Grandad have the first one on DVD so it was good to see this one too.

Overall, it was a fabulous day, and one we will repeat but obviously with different things.  However, I think this coming Saturday may end up getting filled up with the jobs I wanted to do last Saturday.

Unit 2 & 3 - LHTHG - 27/03/12 - 9/03/12

UNIT 2

In Unit 2, James and I learnt alot about Noah and the flood.  It was a great week.  James is really starting to listen and also remember what we have already learnt about.

J was pretending here to be in the garden of Eden.  I was asking him to do things in and out of the garden.  The garden was inside the square.  Here he was asked to walk around the edge of the garden.  This was great for him as he had to listen carefully and follow the instructions.

J is displaying his art work here.  He coloured the page with bright colours and then together we coloured over it in black.  Then I etched the shape of the heart out and he etched the inside of the heart.  It didn't quite show the beautiful colours that he had used, but I think the quality of the crayons may have had something to do with it.

This is the four children dancing to J's music.  His music is of the memory verse for the week.  For some reason they all come running when they hear it on and start to dance together.  It just brings such joy to them all.

J had to make a boat out of foil and pretended it was Noah's boat.  Then he had to add things until it sank.

As you can see it took some sinking.  We ended up having to make some quite vigorous waves to get it to go down.

And it finally began to go.  What a great demonstration of how Noah's ark was built so well to hold its precious cargo.

UNIT 3

During Unit 3, we learnt about the Tower of Babel, and the languages getting confused and the people moving to different parts of the world.

Here J is pretending to pack like the people did at the Tower of Babel.  He did a great job folding his clothes and putting them in his bag.

Here he is with his finished bag.  He was really proud of how well he had done.  I do think though the size of the bag was a bit of a hindrance but at the time I couldn't find anything smaller.

James has been working really hard with all of his work.  He is beginning to read, using a programme called The Reading Lesson.  It is wonderful to see him blending words with me and working out what they are saying.

He is also making some great connections between the different books we are reading.  He really is enjoying listening to 'The Adventures of Reddy Fox' by Thornton Burgess.  During this unit, Reddy Fox got a little too confident and ended up getting shot by Farmer Brown's boy.  This was something that really grabbed J's attention, as he knows his Dad goes out with the shot gun to shoot rabbits and possoms on the farm.

This was a science experiment, which involved smelling different herbs and spices.  He was wondering what to start with.

He worked out that the scent on the cotton ball matched the thyme in the packet, and thought himself pretty smart.

Here he is thinking very carefully about whether this smell matched the one in the spice packet.  Eli was trying very hard to join in.

This was J's artwork for the week.  I wrote his name on the black paper with a white crayon.  He then used a nail and hammer and hammered the holes in it.  He then chose a yellow piece of paper to put behind it.  It looks really effective with the sunlight directly behind it.  He also added his own drawings to the front of it.

 Over all, we had a fabulous two weeks.  He really enjoyed it and learnt a great deal.

Unit 4 & 5 - Preparing - 27/02/12 - 9/03/12

Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks.  We have been fairly busy with our day to day things with extra curriculars added in and our first homeschool group of the year, not to mention a birthday party thrown in, and harvest on the farm happening whenever it can.

I thought I would just pop in a bit of Beth's cursive work she is doing.  Her handwriting is really coming along this year, considerably tidier than last year.  She has also found she really loves doing cursive so much so that some days she does it in her free time.

UNIT 4

During Unit 4, the girls were learning about the Climate Changes, so we finished reading Life in the Great Ice Age.  Quite a fascinating book to read.  Very interesting to see a viewpoint of people who lived in caves in the Northern Hemisphere.

Here the girls are working on their project of making a model of the map of that era.  They made it with air dry clay which they managed to keep pliable after the project finished and are now slowly making small things from it and drying them.  I thought it was very wise of them to use it twice.

The girls working on labelling their toothpicks to place on their maps.

Shakayla's finished map, including the great wall of ice.

Beth's finished map, including the great wall of ice but missing one label which decided to fall off.  Never mind.

We began reading A Child's History of the World this week, and began talking about the different cultures, languages and foods that were in the world then, and also in the world today.

Our poem of the week was "To Any Great Reader" by Robert Louis Stevenson.  The girls did some creative writing and retold the poem in their own words.

They also finished memorising the rest of Psalm 1.  It really was a joy to have discussions with them about this psalm.  It not only taught them something, but I too learned quite a bit.

For their science project this week, they made a cactus each out of playdough and used toothpicks as spines.  They had to work out how the spines help to keep the cactus cool.

Shakayla's cactus.

Elias playing with the playdough too.  How could we leave him out.

So, all in all a great week.


UNIT 5

This turned out to be a bit of an interesting week.  It was a week learning about the Egyptian Civilizations.  The week started out on a bit of a sad note as I and a couple of the blossoms had headcolds.  So we started off slower than usual.  Partway through day 2 of the week, things went from bad to worse.  It was then I realised I really needed to slow Beth down so that she would learn completely and not be dragged along with Shakayla, so she is now going at half pace, so has only finished half of week 5.  So from here on in, I will be blogging for Shakayla and Bethany seperately.

Anyway, it was a great week of learning.  Shakayla learnt a great deal about the Egyptian Civilizations.  Together the girls learnt about hieroglyphics and the project of the week involved making a cartouche of the lady Pharoah Hatshepsut's name. 

Here the girls are making their own air dry clay.  I think the interesting looks on their faces were due to J's speech therapist coming in.

Here is Shakayla's finished cartouche, which fell apart a little, and didn't quite work the way it was meant too with the etchings not coming out as clearly as they should.

You can see the etchings a little better in this photo.

All in all, she had a great week and is really enjoying working a little more independently now.