Heart of Dakota: Bigger, Week 7 Update

OMGosh, we forgot to play Jeopardy this week. Our week started out pretty slow. This week with HOD I felt was a little slower and not quite as much to do as normal, but let me make darn sure you realize that this is NOT a complaint. It was actually nice, since towards the end of the week, I was feeling a wee bit tired and by Thursday night I realized I was getting a little cold.

Our week started nicely learning about John Winthrop's generosity and making sure that my kids understood that generosity is not just a trait to have with strangers but with each other too.

As most of my regular readers know we pick and choose the art projects because we are in a fantastic art class with our play date group. This week we choose not to do the HOD art and only to do the art in class. This was a good choice since we could not finish the project in class. Just wait till you scroll down and see the real cool paintings the kids did. And they were right in line with the time period we are learning...early colonial America. Well almost in line.

I have to say this weeks Poem, "Thanksgiving" was beautiful. I think I am going to pull this one out and make a copy for everyone for thanksgiving dinner. It truly was a blessing of a poem this week!

Our Bible verse for the week was Proverbs 6:6 and our character trait was industriousness. It really is amazing how each week the character trait for the week really ties into previous week. Have those of you that are doing Bigger noticed that too?

We had fun trying to find Goods and Services with our History Activity for the week. Do you know how hard it is to find things that relate to that time period? We gave up and just did the collage for todays time period. Then I downloaded some traffic signs for the services side. My daughter is becoming quite the artist. She really watches her brother and what he does and tries her hardest to copy him.

As our week continued on we learned about how rice was brought to the wet lands of South Carolina. Who knew we even had that here? OK, well then you are all a bit smarter then me. I had no idea about the rice in S. Carolina. However, I knew all about the Indigo. The first question asked..."Mommy, can we get some Indigo seeds and plant some in the yard and make out own Indigo paints and dyes?" Well, now guess what I am surfing the web for?! Anyway, Eliza Lucas's story really helped to hone in on the Industriousness character trait we are working on this week. And learning the male and female parts of the flower was interesting for the children too.

Many years ago, my son and I did a study on Dinosaurs. At that time we made fossils. He really had fun with it then. But this time my daughter had a chance to do it with us too. We used cars, leaves, toys etc. And then afterwards they went to town building all sorts of pots and planes etc. with the clay. Hey, I could not let very good clay and fun go to waste, right?

Ok, so learning about Berkeley and Bacon brought actual laughter throughout day 4. For those of you who are coming to Unit 7 day 4 or who have been there just wait till you get to the reading. The people all shouted "Bacon, Bacon, Bacon!" I know it really is not that funny but when you have two elementary kids it's hilarious. I was told they were getting hungry and wanted Bacon for lunch and dinner.

Anyway, Geography was good. My daughter and son now understand the difference between an Island and a Peninsula as well as a Bay and Isthmus. As you can see by our project we were able to sort of make those things above with our sand and water. It was not a PERFECT replica, but they got the idea!

I loved the notebooking project today. Why, because I was not feeling good and I did not have to attend to then that much. I actually kinda gave my son the run to help my daughter out with this one. As you can see by their pictures, they did a very good job. As well as a good job on their timelines.

As far as the science project, well, we skipped it. Why you ask? Well, two reason. 1. Cough, cough, sniffle, sniffle. I was tired and not feeling up to it. 2. We spent the entire year last year learning about our solar system. I have something for all of you to use for Unit 7 day 5.

My Very Early Morning Just Started Under Nancy's Pancakes

OK, so what the heck does that mean you are probably asking yourself. Take the first letter of each word (red) and that is the first letter of each planet in order including Pluto. If you do not want to include Pluto, just say Under Nancy. SO anyway, back to what I was saying earlier. Because we worked so hard of the Solar system last year, both my kids reminded me about this (?) acrostic. So I was happy enough that they were both able to name off the planets and give me a little information about each planet so we skipped the project.

My son is really enjoying math. I even took a picture of him doing it on the computer. I may have to sell off all my Abeka math books. Aleks is NOT cheap, but it is working and he has actually asked to do math on Thursdays (our non math day). So I know it is working.

Well, all in all this week went very well. As usual I look forward to week 8 and see what HOD has in store for us. Write to you next week.

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Week 6 HOD Update

We have a very unusual schedule. We typically do school for 5 weeks and then take a week off of course during the holiday season it gets a bit tricky. Well, for those of you who follow my blog closely, you probably noticed that I did not have a week 6 update last week. Yup, you guessed it, we were on our week off. But we are back this week. So now we have 6 weeks under our belt. This week was a very amusing week and we, I mean I Learned a lot.

First we started our week off learning about William Penn. OK, now don't laugh, but I really had no idea who he was. I mean, I knew about Pennsylvania, but I had no idea how good of a man he really was, or that he was a Quaker/Friend. And I certainly did not know how much he did for the Indians with the very first Treaty! Well, the kids really enjoyed learning about William Penn and they had even more fun do the jumping History activity. My son of course did really well, but mainly because he is 3 years old and a whole head taller then my daughter. But she did not get too discourage. They really enjoyed that and kept jumping even after the activity.

On Monday we were able to finish our art work in our art class. I have to say I am very impressed with my daughter. She is really giving this art class a run for its money. The curriculum we are using is really geared toward 6th, 7th graders. I knew my son would do very well with it…he the up and coming artist. But my daughter is doing fantastic. The project was to draw either a King, Queen or Jack of whatever you want. My son chose to draw a King of Rockets and my daughter drew the Queen of Butterflies. Just take a look at the pictures below and how cute they turned out.

Hmmm, green pine cones rubbed on the face for wrinkles. Come on ladies lets go get some NOW!!! LOL. Yea, the kids enjoyed giggling at some of the silly remedies that people use to do as Folk Remedies. However the Willow Bark my daughter found interesting. We giggled about how I need to go plant a willow tree in the yard and lick the bark daily for my daily headaches and migraines. LOL! Loved both the kids drawings for the Folk Remedies.

But that lead quit nicely into the immune system. HOD had us cut up some circle for each of the different type of cells. I decided to explain the immune system in a different way then HOD explained. I wanted to make it a bit more real for them.

This is what I said. The Virus is like the bad guy trying to steal your health by setting off a bomb in your body. The T-Cells are the police which are there to maintain control of the situation and keep the virus contained. The B-Cells are the SWAT team who then send in their most well train bomb squad the Antibodies and lastly is the K-Cell come in as the clean up crew. OK, so the kids really understood it so well that they actually each day asked if they could play the game again and again. I caught it on video for you all to watch below.

Lastly we learned about I think one of the very first American Artists, Benjamin West. I liked the little project we did with the paint box circles. Although my daughter complained a bit about all the copy work involved in that, but she did it and it turned out well. And of course we filled out Timeline with William Penn and Benjamin West.

Oh, I have to mention here that we are reading Seabiscuit right now and we are totally enjoying that book. Now I have to say that my husband usually does not involve himself with our school work (he has to work of course) unless he happens to be in the room at the moment or I need help explaining something.

On Wednesday, my husband sat in on our reading of Seabiscuit. He was enjoying it so much he kept making me read more and more until he got the answer as to whether Seabiscuit won the race or not. It was so much reading we got 3 days done in that time with Dad and even the kids really enjoyed all of that reading! I think it was the first time he really understood how the kids really enjoy the Charlotte Mason way of learning.

Anyway, all in all, it was another prosperous week. It was (I feel like) a light week for HOD, but we still learned a ton.

Week 5 HOD Update

Ok, I realized I need to purchase a thesaurus for the phrase" We had a great week" I keep saying that each week and I am sure my readers are getting tired of that same line. Anyway, I have realized that the Early American History that I learned as a child was very watered down as well as my memory of it has been watered down too. There is so much over these past 5 weeks that I have learned I still can not believe it. All those holes in my timeline in my head I have had for years have started to be filled in! Being able to re-learn history has not only given me a love for the subject, but I also have a greater appreciation for history now. Making a timeline has helped greatly too, and you can see from the pictures below how well my son and daughter's Timelines are coming along. Making a Timeline really helps to see how things fall in place. I highly recommend each of you to take this task on. It is so easy and well worth the few moments it takes.

One of our projects this week was to learn more about the Indians. The art project was to make a sand art craft. So the ingredients for this was simply salt, food color and paper plates. I had the kids look at some real sand art on the internet to understand exactly what we were doing and to see the beauty and complication of this in real life. My son really went to town on drawing out his project on the paper plate. My daughter was having a little more difficult time understanding that she needed to make the drawing a little larger to be able to fit the sand into the open spaces of her drawing. But once she understood this concept she had a great picture drawn up. We went out in the back yard and the kids went to town using a paint brush, watered down glue and our colored sand (salt). What a mess, but what fun. I even had to join in on this project! However, I made WAAAAAY to much sand so now we have plenty left over for many more projects. I see Christmas gifts in the future!

I loved the geography lesson about the four different hemispheres. Not that the lesson was anything new for my son, but the fact that we used a melon and masking tape to mark off the northern, southern, eastern and western hemispheres made him crack up. And then I went ahead and had the children mark where they thought each of the continents were. They did a great job.Then we got to eat the world...Haha!

My favorite part of this week was our science project. You see children, in general, have a tendency not to wash their hands really good, But this week was all about how the pilgrims dying off so easily because of hygiene problems and the spread of germs.

We got out some hand cream, glitter, soap, paper towels and water. Using the cream as a glue for the glitter and rubbing the glitter in the creamed hands to act like germs, they had a chance to wipe their hands just in a paper towel first. The result is that their hands were still full of germs. Next we had them just rinse their hands and low and behold, their hands were still full of germs. It was not until they actually washed them with soap and water that all the germs were gone. It was a huge Aha! moment for my son especially. They realized that if the Pilgrims would have had this soap they may not have spread so much germs therefore it is possible they could have not died off so easily at first. They also learned that they need to do this in their own lives too to be able to keep themselves form getting sick and spreading germs to and from others. Great lesson!

We finished up our science by learning about Vertebrates. My son already knew about these as well as mammals, but my daughter was really intrigued by the thought that animals were put into the two categories. Vertebrates and Invertebrates and that we humans were considered vertebrates along with other animals. I wish I would have had a video of this moment for her this week.

Another one of those "Aha" moments for both children was the Need/Want collage they were asked to do. They had to go into magazines and cut out things they thought were wants and things they thought were needs and glue then to a paper. Here is the "Aha" moment... even though there was plenty of things that were good for us like weights, bicycles etc, they still went under the want list. The only things under the need list was food, body coverings and water. What we need ultimately to survive is food and water. Everything else is a want., even a bra and undies. Look at my daughters collage. LOL!!

On top of all that fun we were able to visit the Discovery Science Center and learn about bugs this week and spend a few hours at the park with Dad. Have I mentioned how much I love homeschooling and how it allows for us to have such a flexible schedule?

So, week 5 over and done. Learned a ton and had fun doing it. Jeopardy was great fun. My daughter and son tied so they both got to pull a treat form the treat bag. YEA! They are looking forward to next week though. We school 5 weeks on and 1 week off, so next week is our week off. Unfortunately I will not have a post regarding HOD next Fir/Sat, but I will be back the following week. Hey do me a favor if you like my blog posts, hit the LIKE button up top for each one you read.

Have a great couple weeks everyone and come on back for week 6.

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Week 4 HOD Update

Ok, so this week was not as exciting and good as last week, BUT, it had nothing to do with our curriculum. We were just having an off week. Everyday seemed to start later then we wanted. I was having a hard time sleeping at night all week,  I could not pull my behind out of bed to exercise this week, so that put me in a funky mood. We ended up taking a walk everyday after school, which was great and made up for not exercising in the AM! But, my daughter was in one of those "I Can't" moods all week. My son put on the tears a couple of times during math when he did not understand something and instead of just asking for an another explanation or my help...whine. UUGGHH! Stressful attitude week! 

You all know exactly what I mean. I am sure at least one of you out there has had a week like that. Well, that was ours. But, as far as what we accomplished, wow, it was a lot. I still can not believe how much you learn in just 5 days with HOD.

So this week we learned about trading and how the pilgrims (John Smith)  traded with the Indians for food with the much needed help from Pocahontas. I truly believe without her, there would have never been a Jamestown! Now I think the Indians got the raw deal of it all, but I won't get into that hot topic. However, even my son noticed and mentioned that he thought the trades were not fair.

My son and daughter bartered back and forth for cookies, M&M's, pretzel sticks, and crackers. It was fun. My son got the good deal! He got both cookies and almost 3/4 of the M&M's. Oh well, I gave her extra after our activity!

I also read a book I happened to have called Adventures in Colonial America: Jamestown, New World Adventure by James E. Knight. We read 1/2 of it on Wed and the rest Thursday. The ending actually made me tear up! Sniffle, Sniffle!!!   I highly recommend you all get this book. Very easy read and it takes the perspective from a Master Carpenters point of view while building Jamestown. Such a great book!

One of the other things I added this week was a replica of Jamestown. You see I use to be on the Old School House review board as a reviewer, so I have tons of different curriculums sitting around that I reviewed and am either waiting to use or sell. One of them was this cool eBook on Jamestown by Homeschooling in the Woods. I printed out the pieces on cardstock. The kids colored them and then I had to cut them out. My fingers still hurt! This project is for sure not for the young grade schoolers who can not cut intricate objects. More for Jr. High students and up, but never the less, we did it and the kids started playing with them after we were done assembling them. Look at my son's picture of Jamestown below. You can see he made a mini John Smith (with gun) and Indians etc. to go with his colony.

Now as I have stated before I pick and choose the art projects with HOD because starting Oct 3rd we will be in an art class every week with our homeschool group. But I thought that the art project for unit 4 would be fun. And it was! The kids enjoyed making the Indian blanket, although I had to keep reminding my daughter to make each side the same. But they enjoyed getting to do this and my son has his hanging up on his wall in his bedroom along with mine!

Now HOD had us make a map of the continents. They wanted us to use graham crackers, but I was out so we used 5x7 index cards. We ended up gluing them to a blue piece of construction paper and then labeling them including the oceans. Turned out real cute and now we have another thing to add to our History Notebook!

For Science this week we learned the difference between Invertebrates, vertebrates, and Arthropods. We were taught how to tell the differences in the mollusks by the shells and Yup, mom learned some new things this week once again. I never knew the names bivalves and univalves and really what that was referring to in sea creatures. 

We also learned about air bladders in ocean life. This is what makes plants and fish float. Hmm, very interesting. Didn't know that either!!! OK, do not laugh. The curriculum asked for an eye dropper for our experiment this week. Well, I could not find one of course until after school when it suddenly appeared in the upstairs bathroom. Anyway, we improvised and used a.......Turkey baster. Weeeeell, it really is just an oversized eye dropper. Right? LOL!  The kids are really enjoying science and all the experiments. The experiments are short and quick and they love them!

Oh, the last picture is of my Jeopardy board. I have had a few people ask me what it looks like and how it works. I mean we are talking reeeal simple. Take some 5X7 cards with numbers 1-160 on them. I put the questions of the week on more 5X7 cards behind the number cards and as they are answered I turn the number card over and give the child who answered the question right, the card. Who ever gets the most cards get a prize from the $1 grab bag and who has the least gets 1 M&M for each correct answer. You should see these kids fight over who is going to answer the questions. It really has been a great tool in our home. One of these days I will get my hubby to video tape the kids during Jeopardy...shhhh...without them knowing!

So that was our week in a nut shell or maybe a bivalve clam shell! LOL!!! Overall it was a good week for our learning and bad week for attitudes toward everything, including me! Well, except for Friday. That was a great day. Good way to end the week!!! Next week is a new week and we will pray heartily over the weekend that our week 5 will start and end with GREAT attitudes, yes including me! I need more sleep this week! Tylenol PM here I come!

Don't forget to hover over the pictures and they will tell you what we are doing in that picture. You can click to enlarge them a bit, but click 2x and they will get perfect size.

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