Heart of Dakota BLHFHG ~ Unit/Week 8

What a fabulous day for Homeschoolers at Colonial Williamsburg! The weather was incredible and we enjoyed walking where our great American Patriots walked before us.  Have I mentioned how blessed we are to be living in this part of the country as we study and learn all about it?!?!  Thank you, US Navy!

Colonial Williamsburg was very hands on for the kids and they enjoyed each of the activities from watering the garden, playing Colonial games to watching the blacksmith and the cabinet maker at work. 

I'd highly recommend a visit to the Virginia area. With Jamestown & Colonial Williamsburg near each other,  it would make a great homeschool field trip or family vacation. 

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Our memory verse for this week was 1 Thessolonians 5:11

This was a helpful verse for me as I reminded the kids daily of these words when I overheard their sibling disagreements. 

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In Art, we observed the leaves falling off the trees and made a season appropriate watercolor painting with fingerprinted leaves.   We started raking leaves outside this week too so, that is a painted leaf pile beside the tree. 

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In History, we learned that it was difficult for the pilgrims to say goodbye to their friends the Hollanders. We learned that they trusted God, had faith that he would watch over them, and went forward on the 'Speedwell' to England.  They met their friends in England and planned to start sailing with both 'The Speedwell' and 'Mayflower.'  The 'Speedwell' had leaks that couldn't be repaired. They returned to England and set sail again with only the Mayflower.  Some pilgrims  had to stay behind.   We learned that the weather was sometimes rough with storms and John Howland was tossed overboard during one storm.  He was pulled to safety after he grabbed onto a trailing rope. In winter, the deck became icy and cold and the children had to stay below. To keep them busy, they told stories and played games. We also learned that 2 babies were amazingly born on their journey.  

Our writing included this cute idea making pilgrim suitcases from file folders that they could open.  We added construction paper handles.  The prompt was, "If I were going to a new land, I would pack..." 

They both put the obvious necessities of barrels of food, water, and clothes. 

A few of their funny answers were:  Dry bananas, lovie blanket, pizzas, doll, crayons and paper, and of course... UNO cards.

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In Math, we are trying a new way to learn multiplication tables with this special offer from 'Times Tales'.   Times Tales Free Trial 

I had heard great things about the program and it is reasonably priced.  I sat my ds down at the computer to try out the free trial.  To my surprise just from one 15 minute video, he learned the first set 3's and 4's with simple stories about the numbers. It is very visual and I was sold with the results. We ordered the product and I think I will even start working with my dd on these as well.   Can't wait to get started!  If you have a little one trying to memorize with boring flashcards. This might help them too! 

~ Science Exploration ~

We tried using the bags as seen on the left that were recommended by HoD and found it difficult for the kids to observe so we repeated the experiment again using a jar. 

We combined oil and water in the jar and learned that oil is lighter than water. We added food coloring for a dramatic color effect.  The food coloring slowly fell thru the oil and the droplet burst into color into the water.  We did this several times * tip* start with lighter colors first.  Next, we added salt and observed that the salt made the oil heavier and it sank blending all the colors as seen below.  It was much clearer in the jar and the kids enjoyed the rainbow colors. 

The kids recorded their results onto their Science Exploration sheets. 

We also talked about the orbit of the earth & sun and experimented by spinning a gluestick on the floor. The gluestick was able to spin many times compared to the kids.  This helped the kids understand that the earth completes a revolution on its axis every 24 hours but it takes much longer -365 days- to revolve around the sun. 

We held a flashlight to represent the sun and demonstrated with a globe.  The area that was shadowed showed night time and the area in the flashlight beam showed daytime.

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To carry on with our adventure reading 'The Twenty-One Balloons', we have each been captivated by the oddness of this book.  I may have to read during Storytime at school and at bedtime to get it completed on schedule as there have been many questions and explanations needed as we go along.  Overall, I think the kids are enjoying it and we decided they should make a movie out of this crazy story. 

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We finished the week with a celebration! 

We went to see Disney on Ice and the kids loved it. 

Love being able to see their faces light up with the simple childhood joys like princesses skating or even as they experiment and learn new things.  It's so much fun being their mom and teacher! 

Be blessed! 

Heart of Dakota BLHFHG - Week/Unit 7

After spending the day at a nearby beach, the kids decided to bring home some of the sand with the shells they had found.  My dd arranged the sand, shells, a grassy area and a couple sticks into a beautiful tupperware habitat.  

After a few moments, she sadly stepped back, looked around and realized she had a beautiful, tropical sanctuary with nothing to live inside.  I heard a bit of whispering as my little ones united their forces together, combined their allowances and begged to buy... the dreaded hermit crabs. 

After all, they had rightfully earned their money from completing their weekly chores.  So, we counted out their money, loaded up and headed to the pet store in search of our new friends. 

What possible harm could a little hermit or 2 do... even though they are creepy, clawy, and resemble spiders stuffed in shells.  

Can you tell I'm struggling here?!?!  Eeeeek!!  

With their rock crawling, nocturnal adventures at night keeping me awake, I decided to do what every  good homeschooling Momma would do!  I did a little midnight Pinterest research to dig a bit deeper into learning all about our new Hermit Crabs!  We started by finding cute hermit coloring pages.  Then, I printed off a hermit crab Lapbook.  You can find it here.  We are getting to know more about our new pets, Herman-Sherman & Rosetta the hermit crabs. 

They really enjoyed this extra learning project and what better opportunity for learning then when they are already anxious and excited to learn more about something they are interested in! 

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Our memory verse this week was Psalm 119:9-11.  Although, we did the full verse for copywork, I did shorten it a little for them to memorize only verse 11.  I dont like to make a habit of  shortening the verses but, this particular one went with the song a bit better and the kids were able to memorize it quickly. 

We talked about how to write a sentence as a command; beginning with a capital letter of course and ending with a period. We played the fun children's game 'Mother may I?'  to familiarize them with what a command actually is and then they found a stuffed toy to follow the commands as I directed them. Flip over to the left. Raise your right hand. Turn around. 

In History, we learned that the Pilgrims dressed and worshipped differently than the Dutch but, they were still kind to each other. We talked about how most of the Pilgrims found jobs in the Woolen Mills. We made index cards writing the steps to make cloth and both kids were able to place them in the correct order from shearing the sheep to unloading the boxes from the ship to delivering them to the shops. 

We spoke a little of the Dutch language and watched a great Dutch Vocabulary video on Youtube.  You can watch it too: Click Here  

We learned that the Pilgrims believed their children were adapting to the Holland culture and becoming to much like the Hollanders. They trusted God and decided to sail to America to find land that they could have farmland just as they did in England.  We learned that it was very important to the Pilgrims to raise their children to serve and trust God. 

~POETRY~

We enjoyed the poem, "Mother's Jewels" this week.  I had the kids listen while I read the poem and then they were able to guess what Momma's jewels were. We talked about the differences and I had them draw pictures of each to go along with the poem.

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We love to do journal writing and I usually find it helpful to give the kids something to write about as I gather my thoughts for the next thing we have planned.  It works great and keeps them on task.  The kids love starting off the mornings with these random and fun printable pages.  I have many fun activities and printables on my Pinterest Homeschool page. You can follow me and check them out here:   http://www.pinterest.com/lovemynavypilot/homeschool/

This one may have been encouraged by our new crabby visitors!  Their answers were funny as we talked about them.  They both really enjoyed this! 

~MATH~

For the ds, we decided to make this little handy, flexible, gadget to help with multiplication tables thru fives.  I hope to add the 6-10 tables on the back after he gets these down first! It is just simply colored popsicle sticks taped together with a little masking tape for flexibility.

The dd, was working with ordinal numbers this week. She was pretty excited to work with her kitchen food and getting them all in order.  "Make the 3rd one spin."  "Turn the seventh one upside down."  We played this little game together for awhile as she directed me too. 

~ MUSEUM FIELD TRIP~

We finished school a bit early one day this week to go to one of the nearby museums. The weather was absolutely perfect and we needed a field trip out of the house!  Have I mentioned how much I love the flexibility in homeschooling?!?!  The kids enjoyed our day at The Virginia Living Museum.  There was so much disguised hands-on learning there.  It was so fun and neat that they didn't even notice!  ;)  We are looking forward to returning very soon. 

NATURE JOURNAL

It's a perfect time of the year to start a nature journal!  The weather was perfect this week and they brought their journals outside and hunted for neat things to include in their journal. They traced leaves, identified them, found acorns, observed flowers and watched butterflies.  I hope to continue this throughout all the seasons of the year. 

I love that we have time to visit the great outdoors.... sitting quietly or taking a walk and observing all the beautiful things God made for us to enjoy.  This is one of my favorite parts of homeschooling. 

It was a fantastic week all and all. The kids seem to be enjoying our studies and overall are both doing well.  God is strengthening my patience, understanding and guiding me in the words to use while teaching and how to answer each of their many questions.       ....   I've learned that it's much easier to do that after a cup of coffee in the morning.   :) 

See you next week!

Be blessed! 

Heart of Dakota - BLHFHG Week/Unit 6

It was nice to have a review of the memory verses this week. The kids enjoyed going back over and singing all  the previous songs from 'Hide Em' in my Heart' CD. 

We started out the week with a fun way to practice the new word lists. The kids love play doh and even though it ranks right up there with glitter and requires breathing therapy for me as they ball it up, get it under their nails and the colored crumbs scatter onto the floor...  I decided to let them spell out their lists with play doh. It was a success!

The kids both enjoyed making their letters out of the smelly stuff and I survived much better without the cutting tools and spaghetti makers getting tiny pieces of play doh everywhere!!  :) 

Multiplication is going well for the oldest.  The concept was simplified by graphing the tables out with rows x columns on graph paper. My visual learner grasped it much better this way and is beginning to memorize them. We are using flash cards, worksheets, math computer games and songs. 

With the 1st grader, we talked a lot about time. She is doing great with a lot of practice and enjoyed making this clock! 

In History, we continued learning about the lives of the Hollanders.  We talked about their Dutch language, windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and canals. We listened to this song about a mouse in an Amsterdam Windmill and the kids thought it was so silly!   

You can listen to it here: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj40JtpqI0U

We learned that people in Holland did weekly scrubbing of their houses.  Since we weren't going to scrub our house, we had a family car washing day!  The kids also washed both of their bikes!  :)  

We also talked about storks and how the people in Holland believed it was good luck to see a stork and that you shouldn't harm them. The pilgrim boy didn't believe that it was good luck and exclaimed blessings and good things are from God;  not a lucky stork.  We talked about the 4 seasons and learned that migration is what God gave birds as a natural instinct to fly to warmer areas to avoid cold temperatures. 

In Science, we explored water birds a bit further and learned that God made them on the 5th day of Creation. Storks do not have webbed feet as they do not swim in the water.  Storks only stand in the shallow parts of the water to eat fish and frogs. We talked about the food chain a bit too learning that storks eat the fish and frogs- frogs eat insects and fish eat algae. 

Our experiment was to use a spatula to paddle through the water. We had more resistance on the webbed (aluminum covered) spatula.  The other spatula allowed water to pass freely and did not resist water as much.  The kids decided they would like to have webbed feet to be able to swim faster in the water. I think we will just get them some flippers! 

For Storytime, we are reading more in our adventure book, 'The Twenty-One Balloons'.  In my opinion, it is starting out a bit slow and I seem to have to reread a lot to get them to understand.  It is a bit complex in explaining but seems to be picking up as we go.  The kids begged for me to read just a little more! They narrate the reading back to me and are learning about conflicts/problems.  Here is one review:  

You can get this review form here on my Pinterest Homeschool Board.  http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523037146653/

We learned that the main character, Professor Sherman had a very persistent personality trait as he kept his story a secret!  We learned that the town prepared for his arrival by decorating everything with balloons.  To tie into our Storytime, the kids did a watercolor of hot air balloons flying above the ocean water. They enjoyed the painting. 

If you are reading The Twenty-One Balloons and are interested in this FREE PRINTABLE then you can get it from my Heart of Dakota Pinterest page at this link: 

http://pinterest.com/pin/98938523037146878/

In Language Arts, we talked about what gets a capital letter.  Here's what was on our dry erase board all week long! 

In our journal writing, I asked the children to write their very own short story. The story had to include a setting, character, conflict and solution. This proved to be an easy task for my daughter and more complex for my son. It still amazes me how different they each are and am still learning how to develop their strengths and weaknesses. Anyone else notice this with their little ones? 

 Look at what I got in the mail today!?!?!

    

"PIZZA HUT BOOK IT!" READER REWARDS

I was really excited about learning that we could enroll in the 'Pizza Hut Book It!' program as homeschoolers. The kids enjoyed it last year in public school and it is a fun reward for reading books that we can continue doing.  If you haven't signed up yet.... you can still enroll here:  

http://www.bookitprogram.com/enrollment/

Overall, it was nice to have the review this week as it gave us somewhat of a break in our routine. Hard to believe we have completed 6 weeks with Heart of Dakota and still loving it! 

See you next week!

Blessings! 

Heart of Dakota BLHFHG - Week/Unit 5

Another short week with Labor Day. We completed the week in 3 days to have extra time off for the holiday.
Public school started this week in our neighborhood and I was a little concerned that I would have some sort of backlash to deal with as they watched the cute little first day of schoolers load up on their big, yellow, bus.  At first a bit of gloom I could see on their faces quickly turned into no big deal.  To my surprise, the kids just stood outside and waved them on.  In all honesty, I felt relieved as we marched upstairs to start our school in our own little school room.  What a blessing it is to me to be able to share in our kids learning.... teaching them and watching them grow physically and spiritually.

We started out the week with a little 'PoP for Sight Words game!'   A pretty cute game... a breeze for the 8 year old, but was really great for the 6 year old. 

http://www.amazon.com/POP-for-Sight-Words-Game/dp/B0032EKAJ2/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1378432645&sr=1-1&keywords=pop+for+sight+words

This week our memory verse was Psalm 139:13-14.

 The kids enjoyed the song, "You Knit Me Together" that goes with the verse and sang it over and over again while doing their work. This was a fun verse for them to learn and they became quickly fascinated and wanted to learn more about the womb.  

In History, we read in Boys and Girls of Colonial Days about Love patiently waiting to see her father after he had been kept in England imprisoned while she went on to Holland. She stayed with a nice family and was given a bulb.  She waited and it grew into a rare, beautiful and large, pink tulip in the spring.  We listened to this song "Tulips from Amsterdam" that was recommended by some of our friends who live in England.  Little girl loved twirling to this one!  :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ors-eZeeJ0U

The kids enjoyed the tulip craft project and being able to make the flower grow taller by attaching it to a pipe cleaner and poking out of a hole under the flower pot.

We completed our history worksheets and color pages that we got from the Facebook HoD files. These really seem to help the kids process the reading material by answering the questions about what we read.

In Science, we talked about how God created a special kind of energy. Light energy!  Light moves in waves through space. To demonstrate, we filled a bowl with water and blew across the water to see the waves ripple quickly. We learned that this is kind of like the way light moves in waves through space. 

We started our Storytime ~ Adventure Book. We chose 'The Twenty One Balloons.'  The kids both enjoy me reading to them.   

http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-One-Balloons-Puffin-Classics-ebook/dp/B001ROAKEY/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378432765&sr=1-1&keywords=the+twenty+one+balloons

In our journal writing, the kids enjoyed this cute template here: http://pinterest.com/pin/98938523037082770/   from my Pinterest homeschool board.  

"I wish it would rain cupcakes because they have icing!! And some are big!"

         "I wish it would rain money because I want to buy a car." 

I refer to my Pinterest Homeschool board often for all the little extras that we do.  You can follow my board and check it out here on this link:  http://pinterest.com/lovemynavypilot/homeschool/  There are so many FREE little unique and fun ideas!

The Writing Without Tears poetry printables from the HoD Facebook Files were a fantastic addition to the curriculum.  My 6 yr old actually did two pages of Copywork on her own before bed and said it was so easy! I love the awesome files everyone has shared with the group. It makes HoD so much easier and makes me feel like I'm not alone! There are others that have done this before and have thought of everything!!

In Bible Study, we studied about how Jesus was a baby and grew just like we do. He had a heart beat just like ours. We held a toilet paper roll to our chests and let eachother listen to our heartbeat.  They were fascinated to be able to hear the beating so clearly. We read Luke 2:51-52 and learned that Jesus pleased and was obedient to God and his parents as he grew. 

Preparing for our field trip to the nearby apple orchard, we made an Apple Lapbook. This was our first one ever and the kids really loved this project. I found it on Pinterest, of course... and it was FREE! 

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/apple_pie_tree.php

 It helped break up the daily curriculum and got them... ok, me too... excited about our orchard visit!  I don't know who is more excited me or the kids!!  :) 

The 'how to make an apple pie' recipe section on the left above was perfect! I'll share what my 6 year old wrote for her recipe. 

"First, we get 2 apples and then we cut them into little circles. Next, we cook it in a microwave for 100 minutes. Put a little sugar and then try a bite!"

What a fantastic field trip to take after talking about pollination a couple weeks ago. The kids enjoyed the orchard! 

If you have a nearby orchard make it a day trip and visit! We made lots of memories and enjoyed the apple adventure! 

                  See you next week!  Be Blessed!