Week in Review: August 10-14

Another week has come and gone. This week was easier in some ways and harder in some ways. We battled this week with negative attitudes and bickering between my girls. School has gone well, but it hasn't felt like a "good week" because of the other stuff. We're all a little tired perhaps...I know I am! I'm also gearing up to begin my part-time jobs teaching piano to 32 boys, girls, and adults next week as well as anticipating the English class I teach to junior high homeschoolers starting in a few weeks. So maybe my own distractions have played a part in a less-than-stellar week. All the same, school was amazing and my girls had fun learning, so even if we had some rocky bumps at least we had this as a bright spot!

Grace: Little Hearts for His Glory (Unit 21)

Each week I feel conflicting emotions as we forge on. This is such a sweet and gentle guide and while my girl is growing as I want her to, I hate to see it come to an end as this is also my youngest. We read about Native Americans and some of the earliest explorers. In particular my favorite day was reading about Ponce de Leon "discovering" Florida. My in-laws live in Florida so with that frame of reference as I began to read the story Grace pipes up with, "Were Grammy and Grampy already living there when he found it?" Tee hee...

She finished up one level of the Rod and Staff ABC series and forged on into the next. I'm having her focus on neatness in her coloring and really trying her best. Grace tends to get so excited about what we are doing she hurries through it to find out what we are doing next! I love her zeal for learning and life in general, but this year one of our big focuses will be patience and best effort. Here she is using her colored pencils to color the animals on the first page to match what they look like on the cover. 

We finished up the main portion of the Fundanoodle handwriting book and now we are just going over the letters as review. Soon we will be moving forward onto words and sentences!

Math hit a bit of a bump this week as we started looking at fact families and how numbers relate to one another. We also added in some new math vocabulary like "fewer than" and "how many more" as related to word problems. Grace wasn't exactly a fan of these new things because she had to put on the brakes so I could teach her the new concepts. She much prefers independent learning. 

Beth: Preparing Hearts for His Glory (Unit 1, 2nd half)

Beth was a bit perturbed at math this week as well. Honestly, I think this mostly came from the fact that she had been exposed to some type of poisonous plant which resulted in the need for some medicine which left her rather sleepy. Who wants to do math when you are sleepy? Most kids don't want to do it when they are awake! But we made it through and even though it took longer than normal she did quite well. 

This week as we finished up unit 1 Beth was very excited to begin her new timeline! My girls have loved the Heart of Dakota method for timelines which includes drawing their own pictures. There are some great files in the various social media groups for Heart of Dakota with pictures, but I wouldn't trade having my girls artwork in this form at all. She loved this first card about Creation.

Just like Rose, Beth loves the Draw and Write Through History book. She was not thrilled with the cursive writing portion and we clearly will need to work some on handwriting, but we will get there. I just have to remember each child is different and some will dislike certain portions of their schoolwork that others didn't. This also could have been due to her mild sleepiness during the day. It will be interesting to see how next week plays out. 

Our first attempt at drawing Eve resulted in a disastrous meltdown that included huge tears, a scribbled mess of a design, and a ripped paper. So the next day we started over and I drew alongside my girl. We had a much better outcome this day!

This week Beth had her first taste of diagramming. Her main response was, "Why in the world are we doing this?" So I had the opportunity to explain how this shows us a map of a sentence and helps us make sure that as we create sentences we are placing words in the correct spot as well as using them in the correct way. She said, "Oh, so like a treasure map for a sentence?" Yup...we're going to go with that! 

Written narration is new for Beth in Preparing. I had her narrate to me and then copied down what she said. We will be working on her handwriting through this as well as her narrating skills. Spacing is the biggest issue with her. 

Rose: Creation to Christ (Unit 15)

So when we need help in math, it's always Daddy to the rescue! Sometimes it is because we have been working at it too long, or maybe because my way of explaining hasn't worked. I'm so grateful my husband is willing to step in and support us! 

So this week with math we tried something new. Instead of doing it first to get it out of the way, we saved it for last. This was unintentional at first, but it cut a good 30-60 minutes off of our day! I'm not sure why except that we started with things that were more interesting, but we will stick with this new scheduling of math for a while to see how it works. 

Adverbs...oh adverbs. Need I say more?

Rose is almost done with Sinbad and Me. If you haven't read this book, run to your library or local bookstore or Amazon and get it! I read and loved this book as a kid. I remember doing a big book report on this in 5th grade with a house that had windows that opened to give information about the plot. Such a fun storyline for boys or girls and Rose has been begging me to read more each day!

When Rose first started having independent work she was less than thrilled about using the guide. Now she really likes that she's doing her own work and doesn't have to wait on me. Usually the directions are easy to follow and this year I'm just making sure I'm doing a better job at the follow-up. 

She was sooooooo excited to find out she gets to use Draw and Write Through History again this year! 

Yeah...we're all tired! She did manage to start a beautiful picture of the hanging gardens of Babylon from this posture amazingly enough! She'll finish it up this coming week. 

This year I am striving really, really hard to include all of the art. For various reasons it has been sidelined in the past. This year will be different. So we are going alllllll the way back to Unit 1 for the weekly painting projects and I'm trying to get more than one done in a week. We actually have Unit 2 in the works and it will be finished up tonight. She begged me to paint with her which was a big deal. I used to love art when I was a kid and drew all the time until about junior high. Then for some reason I stopped. While I'm not sure why, I really haven't picked up any art supplies for years. I decided to give it a go and see what happens. I've discovered I actually really like painting! I don't remember ever working with real water colors like this before and I'm thoroughly enjoying the process! Rose loves that we're doing these together and we have decided to get some portfolios to keep our work. Rose's rendition is on the top and mine is on the bottom. 

We are using the guides as well as the tutorials from A Garden for Sara. Her tutorials for each unit are really great. She is quite an amazing artist! 

During one of our breaks this week the girls played with Story Cubes! They love this game! We have 6 differently themed sets and their creativity flowed by leaps and bounds! You can get these online or at Barnes and Noble. 

If you are a fellow HOD blogger don't forget to take a minute to blog about your journey and then join the link up!