Heart of Dakota: Bigger, Week 9 Update

So I know most of you who may have gotten this post a few days ago are saying where is the actual blog post? Well, I am on vacation and so far until this very moment I have not had a chance to sit down and write. So I thought I will just post the pictures which would tell the story.

Anyway, now I have time so here we go. Week 9 went well. The first day, Monday, my poor little boy was sick. He was hugging a trash can all day. So my daughter and I had fun doing school together. I forgot what it was like to school just one child. It sure is a lot easier, but not as much fun.

So our first project was to make a wharf kinda like the one that Ben made. We got out our play dough and of course she wanted pink. Hmmm, I do not think I have ever see neon pink rocks before. But it went well, and you can see by the picture she had her dolly try it out. Of course we do not want dolly to get muddy shoes! LOL.

Then like a very good sister my daughter made a get well card for her brother. Everyone say...Awwww! You can see how cute it turned out. My son did not appreciate it as much as I had hoped, but could be that he was just too sick. The next day he did thank her and giver her hugs for the card and her math sheet and her stuffed animal she gave him.

OK, so for those of you who have not done unit 9 yet in Bigger, let me just say that when you do the potato printing, remember to write the letter backwards on the potato before you carve it out. I just did not think about it with my daughters name (R) and her first print came out backwards. My son (V) made no difference. Anyway, they had a great time doing this project and wanted to save the potato. I can not imagine what it would be like by now. YUCK!!

Of course we did our history notebooking pages. My son drew Ben Franklin's battery. It was really a good rendition of the picture in the book. Now I have to tell you on Thursday and Friday I had my girlfriends children all day. Yes from 7:00am till late and three of them. I have to admit that I thought about scraping school those two days, but decided to try it. She gave me a few things for them to do on their own while I schooled my two. Guess what, I am lucky to have a girlfriend that raises really great kids. We got school done. OK, well, we skipped a couple things...spelling and english!

Anyway, back to notebooking. One of the kids I was babysitting asked to see our history notebook. Hmmm, made an impression. They liked it. Made me feel real good and my kids feel good to show off their work..

Our science project was a blast. Again it is hard to take pictures in complete dark. First let me say it really took a lot of work to get that spark. I finally remembered that my husbands old Army coat was made of wool so I got that and sure enough after rubbing it we got a spark. COOL. My kids enjoyed this one. But it was a lot of work to get that one spark. I love my daughter's drawing of it on the science sheet. The wiggly lines are the electricity on the balloons. Cute.

Now, if you all have not figured out by now that I love to change things up a bit now and then, well, I am sure you figured it out with the mapping project. I loved Carries idea, but we took it a step farther. I actually had them measure the large pieces of furniture in our class room and them put them on their map. It turned out pretty good. My daughter was getting a little tired by this time and wanted to play with her friend so I wrote the words on her map for her, but she did the actual mapping.

We had a great week again. Oh, I almost forgot, "Ben and Me" is a great book, I read it to the kids I was babysitting and they liked it too, even thought they came into it a couple chapters later. It is a very cute book. I highly recommend.

Well, I hope you all enjoy you week, and sorry for getting this post out so late. Kinda hard to get 4 people ready for vacation, clean a house before you go, get all your animals ready, leave and blog. But here it is. I will still post over the next two weeks, but obviously not about HOD. My HOD updates will be back in 2 weeks. Have a fantastic Thanksgiving!

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http://nutbugs.com/heart-of-dakota-bigger-week-9-update/

David and Goliath

I think all children know the story of David and Goliath and how David won the battle against Goliath for the Israelites. Well, Vincent and Raquel asked how this could really be possible, so we made an ancient sling and had some dirt clog flinging around in the back yard. Anyway, they were very simple to do made with felt and string. I know, I know! they were made out of leather and a leather cord back then, but come on, this is now and I (mom) certainly do not want broken windows. LOL! Anyway here it is!

Vincent's First Book

Well, Vincent worked for months on a book. It was one of those books that gives you a starting word or two and then the child finishes it off with 2 or 3 sentences. In this one he also had a chance to incorporate his artwork into it. The book turned out wonderful. He gave a copy to Great Grandma (my Grandma), Grape Grandma (Tony's mom) Nanny (my mom), Barbara and Mark (family friends he calls grandma/pa), Uncle Tim and Aunt Diane (Tony's brother) and one to his sister Raquel for Christmas. there was not one person who did not absolutely enjoy this book to its fullest.

Now my son when he made a mistake as he was writing this book over the course of several months, wanted to see the corrections on the paper. So that meant there were a few red marks in his book where he actually spelled a few things wrong etc. But this really challenged him not to make as many mistakes and therefore made for a better book. I was going to have him redo the pages he made mistakes on but he wanted to give everyone the book the way it was so they could see how he improved just in a few short months. How smart is he!

I am going to try and scan it and put it into an adobe file and then post the file here. So, come back in a week or so and see if I have it up yet so you can see the fantastic work he did.

Art Under the Sea

We are doing art now with our park day group. We have had so much fun doing with the other and looking at everyone work. I think the kids enjoy the play time afterwards just as much as the art. Anyway, we finally got to put a full piece of artwork together. We used lots of color, which is NOT Vincent's think, but Raquel LOVES color and we got to use layers too. So another words some fish are raised off the background while others are glued directly to the background.

The kids really enjoyed drawing, painting and cutting these out. As a matter of fact they gave them as gifts to Grandma Nanny and Grape Grandma!

Ancient Greece

We have been learning about Ancient Greece. One of the thing we have learned about is the Olympics. Fascinating things happened back then. So we had our very own Olympics. To tell the truth it was not as much fun as I (mom) was hoping, but the kids were smiling. Anyway, as some of you know the Olympics were done naked that long ago and then afterwards they would put on these clothes like togas and put a crown of leaves that have been gilded on the winners head as well as a statue would be erected in the winners hometown. Anyway, we made out crowns out of construction paper and toga type clothes out of cheese clothe. The kids looked very cute!

Hannah & Eli

You know after 4 years of homeschooling my children I have learned that the best way for a child to remember a bible story or any fact is to act it out or make a craft that will help us to remember. We use Veritas Press Bible History and Bible History and I love the fact that in every story we end up with some sort of craft project that helps to reinforce the stuff we have learned. As you saw a few posts ago we had the Gideon story and they have not forgotten it because of a piece of paper, some cotton balls and a blue and brown marker. So simple, but effective.

Well this week was no different. We learned about Hannah and Eli and how Samuel came to be. This craft was not only fun for each of us, but we got to act out the whole Bible story. I acted it out first with the dolls then Vincent and Raquel did it for me. They have asked me several times if they can use the dolls to act out other stories. My answer of course was YES! I know these cute dolls will get a great work out in the coming years! The first pic is them making the dolls, the second is of the kids actually acting out the story and of course you have to see the whole family and Eli!

All Work & No Play Make For Really Cute Rooms

So this summer has been very busy for me so far. Besides doing summer school 2-3 days a week, going on several field trips so far, play dates at the park a couple times a week, I decided to start my yearly clean up of the kids room. That means go through EVERY SINGLE toy they own and either throw away the broken ones, give away the ones that are no longer wanted or played with and then re-organize the rest of the toys.

Well, my son’s room was first, because I thought it would be the hardest due to the fact he has so many toys. With my son’s help of dumping then going through then re-organizing, it took all day and into early evening on Friday the 9th. Whew! But he got rid of 2 huge black trash bags filled to the brim of toys. All his choosing and only a handful of my choosing as well as 1 huge trash bag of broken toys and some trash.

It is amazing how lazy children can be when putting their toys away. He had lost a sandal a few months ago and some socks went MIA. Well, there they were in his toy bins. Hmmm, one has to think how an 8-year-old boy thinks that is OK to clean up that way. It boggles the mind! Especially for an overly organized person such as myself!!!!

Anyway, after we were all said and done, he was so happy and pleased with the results. In his own words, he said to me, thank you Mommy. I am so happy we did this. I was feeling so overwhelmed with it. I promise that I will keep this up this time. Well, we shall see. Then I decided, and I am not sure what came over me, to paint his bedroom.

You see my son has a love for trains. He wants a Lionel train set. I have agreed to buy this $300.00 train set for him if he will keep his room clean for 4 months straight. But up to this point he, unfortunately, has failed terribly at keeping up his end of the bargain. Anyway, back to my point here. I went out and purchased 3 cans of green, white, brown and black paint. He now has clouds on his already blue walls and rolling green hills. But that is not the fun part. His bed is a trundle bed and I painted the walls on the two sides of his bed black with windows to make it feel like a train. I also printed out some beautiful pictures of trains and signs and framed them all in black, hung a pull rope for the pretend horn, made some dials and knobs from cardstock and turned his chalkboard into a train tunnel.

Can I just say, OMGOSH I am pooped. It took me Friday, Saturday and Sunday to do all this. Well half of Sunday, but it was well worth it. He has said to me everyday since I did this, “Tank you Mommy. I am so glad we did this. I LOVE my room”. I love it too. I always wanted a theme room when I was a kid, so I guess I am living through my children. Below is the video of his room, but don’t stop reading because this past weekend, I… did… my… daughters room.

Ok, remember when I said it would be harder to do my son’s room and that is why I started with his room…Uuhh NO!!!! You see my son already had organizational properties in his room. My daughter’s room…. was in pretty little baskets. Let me just tell you…MISTAKE. You need open bins to organize so that things have a place and they can see where things belong!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E54_OJ_Got8

Anyway, my daughter’s room also took me all day Friday the 16th, but without her help at first. You see I went through EVERY SINGLE toy and threw out the broken ones, organized everything into the brand new bins (well 4 bins were taken from my sons rooms from given away so many toys…YEA) and then brought my daughter in to actually go through every SINGLE toy once again and get rid of ones that are not played with. Way mor ework then my son’s room. WAY MORE!!!! However, I am so proud of my daughter. She actually beat my son. She had 3 huge trash bags full of toys and stuffed animals plus another ½ of bag. Now mind you she still had a lot of baby toys, but still that was great. And yes almost another huge bag of trash.

Ok, so now you are asking whether or not I painted her room. Yup! But this time I hammered down and did it all in one day, Saturday. I first had to keep her tied up and out of her room because she wanted to help me so badly. But with the kind of painting I was doing, her help would not have been helpful at all! But once I convinced her that it would be a big surprise for her with what I was going to paint, I then stripped the wallpaper off her yellow walls, and got out those 3 green paints and brown paint and some artist paintbrushes and went to town.

Now, she loves anything princess or Barbie. What is funny about that is we do not watch lots of princess movies. Yes we have seen all the princess movies 1 or 2 times each, but they are not played over and over again in our home. But she sure does love them.

So what did I do in her room? I painted huge Alice in Wonderland leaves and flowers on her walls. And yes they are all just hand done. No stencil. Look closely at the video below and you will be able to tell that for sure. Then my mom for her birthday last year had given her a Princess comforter and sheet set. No offense Mom, but the comforter was for a toddler bed so it never fit right. We used it, but it was always a bit small, so I hung it on the wall. I then took a couple of gift bags that she had gotten for her birthday and cut out the princess and castle and mounted them onto foam board and hung them up. Boy did these wall hangings save me a ton of money. Do you know what they want for princess pictures and wall hangings? Too much!

Oops I hit the stop button before I was done recording on the first video, so there is a part 2 video. Make sure you open them in a new window watch them both.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s_d2VP9qyo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkrCXcH8yds

She loves her room. She keeps asking me when she can have friends over to show it to them. I have told both my daughter and my son, that I expect perfection in their rooms. No more cleaning up and doing it half way or putting things anywhere just to get it cleaned up. I am literally standing on top of them for a while till they really get it that I mean business.

That past two weekends have been tiring, exhausting and lonely. I have been in their rooms all weekend by myself cleaning, dusting, painting, cleaning again and organizing. I have felt snowed under, inundated, besieged and overwhelmed, but in the long run it has been so worth it. As you look at these videos of their room, you will understand why I am writing about this. Not only do I have a since of pride of the work I did, but I have a sense of accomplishment. I did something for my children that they will always remember. It may only last 5 or 8 years, but they will NEVER forget their train room and their princess room. They will tell their friends about it and their children as they get older and hopefully one day when they have kids they will give them the same gift I have given them.

At any rate, enjoy the videos.

Independence Day

Independence Day is a wonderful day to learn a little bit more about our government, our flag and how our country was founded etc. Well, I got this wonderful little book actually from the $.99 store that teaches all about the flag, Uncle Sam, Paul Revere etc. and then has projects in the back to go along with what you are learning. Well, I chose 3 really cute projects. The first one is an Uncle Sam door hanger. If you do not know who and what Uncle Sam is all about and how it came about, take a moment now and Google him. It is a very interesting story.

The second project was a pennant made of our colors, red, white and blue with stars on it. We also decided to make the Eagle out of a toilet paper roll and glue them together. When we displayed them we stuck small flags in the hole which looked real good behind the eagles head! And the last was graham cracker flag which were coated in white chocolate and then using food color we painted on the stripes.

These projects were very fun. We read the book everyday the week before July 4th and did some sort of project almost everyday. Great learning experience this year!

Timbrel time

You know learning about the Bible has been a lot of fun. We have learned all about many characters in the Bible. The thing I like the most about the curriculum that we use is the fact that there are projects that help you to remember things. Today we made a Timbrel. they came out very cute!

Greek Architecture

We have now started learning about Ancient Greece. One of the things we need to learn is the government and architecture. So to remember both at the same time we made Greek columns. The one with a little pink on it is Raquel's of course.

So how we made them is with oatmeal canisters, Popsicle sticks, card stock and spray paint. Real easy and we had a lot of fun. As I sure you can tell, Mom helped a lot with the paint job, but that is because she wanted to keep these as mini plant stands thorough out the house. They look great and Raquel and Vincent learned allot about how much work went into making something like this!

Gideon

I am sure most Christians know about Gideon and how he asked God several time to show him a sign. Well, that is what we learned about this week. The project we did was very simple. We just had a piece of paper with Gideon's name on it. We split the paper in half. One side for dry fleece and the other side for dry land. We use cotton balls for the fleece and markers. The children will never forget this story from the Bible!

Solar System

We have started learning about the Solar System. Our very first project is to build a solar system and here it is. This will be used many times throughout our study of space. We are looking so forward to learning all about our universe!

Fruit of the Spirit

What a cute project they did in Sunday School. A Fruit of the Spirit Tree

The Science of Social insects

We have been learning about flying insect lately and today was all about the social insect...the bee. Here we made toilet paper bees and of course Vincent had to be the artist he is and add a flower and legs etc. I just love how you can incorporate crafts and art into science.

Chores and Savings

Aren't these cute. The bags were 100% done by Raquel, but the houses, well they were done by MOM! This is our new way of saving money. We got the plans from Doorposts. Each house represents a certain saving, like spending money is the store, the house is dowry. Each chore they do gets a certain dollar amount and at the end of the week I pay them a percentage for each house. So 20% for tithe etc. they love this and it has made doing chore worth while for them.

This week we learned all about the Tabernacle and what it all meant and where the items were place and why. So we built and Ark of the Covenant as well as the 10 commandments and the cup to be placed inside it. It turned out pretty cool. The kids did a great job on it.

King Tut

This week we learned about King Tut and how his name was changed, what the mask was all about, parents etc. It was very interesting and making this mask really helped to bring home everything we learned about King Tut! By the way...no help from Mom on this one for Vincent!

I Vant to Suck Your Apple!

I remember doing these as a kid in school. Shrunkin Apples! We used rice for the teeth of our vampire apple and cloves for the nose and eyes. I, mom, did, however, cut the slit for the mouth. This took about 3 weeks to look like this. Bu it was pretty neat looking at 1 weeks too. It was very cool how we were able to watch the rotting process and talk about our soul how it can rot away with sin if we do not turn away from sin and ask for forgivness.

A Builder Boy

Lego. Hmm, What can I say! My son is so creative! This crane he made all on his own, no samples, no kits just pure imagination!

Fall of 2009 is Here

Well, the picture does not do justice to this. He drew his hand and arm, colored it, sprayed it with water then added some fall leaves we found in the neighborhood. Of course we add a small little lesson on how leaves change their color and read a couple books from the library!

Moses Basket

Today we were learning about Moses and how his mother Jochebed had to make a basket, cover it with pitch and Tar and send the baby Moses down the Nile river to be safe from death. This really made the kids understand how hard it was to keep the basket water tight as well as how hard it was for mommy Moses to do such a thing.

Summer 2009 Projects

This summer we really laid back on the school work. We did reading and math daily and got a few science lessons in here and there. We did a few craft projects that I thought I would post here too.

We read about clocks and we read Hickory Dickory Dock several times. Vincent did most of the work on this but Raquel had a few things to add.

For Raquel's birthday party in August all the kids made fireflies. They really turned out cute. They have glow sticks in the butt to make them light up.

This is sand paper art. We colored on sandpaper and then I hot ironed onto regular white paper. This was lots of fun.

This is a car manufacturing plant. Obviously a new plant. LOL. He did this all on his own. he is very talented in lego's. He would love to work at Legoland and build all the neat things. Hey the master builders make a good chunk of change!

This is a copied drawing of Vincent's from a coloring book that he also enhanced.