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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