{ with eager hands }: Week in Review // June 18-22

::Sal’s doing some catch-up, so bear with me as we backtrack a little!::

This is the week where Operation: Strategies got kicked up to the next level: MG began her school lessons – oh yeah!

As posted ::HERE:: , MG is 11.5 years old, 6th grade in the school system. We are using Heart of Dakota (HOD) Preparing Hearts For His Glory, plus the Extensions in history, as well as DITHOR (Drawn Into The Heart Of Reading) level 6/7/8.

The other three children are enjoying one another's company whilst we get the hang of HOD and how it all works.

History

Reading About History

This week, we began reading in Grandpa’s Box, by Starr Meade. Heavens to Betsy, this is a wonderful book! Even if you don’t use HOD, I encourage you to find this book and share it with your children!

Storytime

This week was reading passages in the Bible that connect with the RAH (Reading About History) section. There isn’t any tangible work done here, but conversation, but it all relates to the history focus for the week.

History Project

A Shield of Faith, that is what MG was to make this week.

Above is her planning pages, deciding what she would like on her own Shield of Faith.

In our Research time, we learning that everything, from the symbols to the colors, has meaning. On the left, she has chosen the colors for her symbols and will cut them out to glue to the shield. Above right, MG is choosing her colors for her Shield of Faith.

Research/Vocabulary/Geography/Timeline

Research: This is a very fast “box” or subject. She is learning to work her way about a dictionary and how to find information from reference materials. Wikipedia has been used, but I *really* try to have to go to books first. I have this think about Wikipedia….

Vocabulary: Vocabulary is once a week, and is basically all about getting her in the dictionary – she is none too pleased about that. The cards she makes are neat, though, and as future posts will show, she will get used to it, move quicker, and being to use the cards in a meaningful way. Yay!

These are the illustrations on the back of each definition.

Poetry

The poet in focus this year is Robert Louis Stevenson. MG has already read a number of his poems, as well as his books and seems to like him. One day a week, we do what I call Poetry Innovation, which is where we focus on a certain aspect of the writing and try our hand with it. This week, we worked with “The Swing”. Instead of just looking outside and imagining what we might see while swinging, MG went out and gave it a whirl. I listed for her what she saw and heard going up and coming down, and then she re-worked the poem, per the instructions in the guidebook (what I call the official Preparing planner-book).

Language Arts

Grammar: MG is working on Rod & Staff 3: Beginning Wisely, which is pretty basic, bare-bones grammar. It’s VERY different from our work with Queen’s Language Lessons, but for the time being we’re both getting along.

Reading/Literature: In DITHOR, our genre focus for this period is Fantasy. MG is reading (again) The Borrowers and getting familiar with how the book works. She will be reading this one book for the entire 15-day study period.

Dictation: This is new to us, but not a new idea. Charlotte Mason talks at length about the importance of dictation, but I have been leary to start. I am not sure why, because it’s not nearly as scary as I imagined. Below are the elements that MG is to check after a dictation session. I follow her and add my own thoughts on it. So far the passages are super easy – I am actually thinking that they are too easy, but am holding back on jumping ahead, as this is really a time of just getting to know our way around HOD.

Capitalization
Punctuation
Spacing (special note on the spacing between sentences)
“floaters” (Papa can’t stand that I say that ::eyes roll:: but she tends to let words float above the line and that’s just how I began to explain the issue to her. that’s all)
Spelling (the exercises are SO EASY right now. I am thinking of ramping it up for her in a couple weeks, once I feel she has a great handle on it all)
General neatness (we are both learning the hard way that copywork and dictation from the start of her education would have likely nipped this little beast in the bud. Lessons learned my way, which is always the hard way)

Math

Working through Math-U-See Gamma…

Science Exploration

MG is reading through One Small Square: Arctic Tundra. The activities between oral narration, written narration, drawing and copywork from the text and the Bible, and a Day 4 experiment. We’re just getting started, and I seem to not have any pictures of her drawing…

Bible

Bible Study was a focus on Psalms 1:1-2. I have been trying to start our time together with this, but it’s all a work in progress.

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I wanted to take a moment to share how we are learning to organize and strategize our days, MG and I. This week was one thing, next week we try something else, but it’s all a process to figure out what will work best for us as a learning team, and individually. Which –sigh- isn’t always the most compatible. Anyhoo, I just wanted to chronicle what we tried and hopefully come to that place where we say, “YES!”

MG has the Apologia Ultimate Homeschool Planner for younger students, which is set up to coordinate with the above linked planner for me. I have a new one for the new year, but I haven’t gotten in it yet until I see how HOD plays out a bit. I used it last year and wrote a review about it ::HERE::.

At first MG wrote all the box headings and checked them off when she finished them, followed by my checking the “Accepted” box. The problem with that, is that there isn’t enough room to list everything. MG and I both “need” to have enough space to check off. Is that OCD? ;)

We also gave it a whirl to only list those things that she will do independently, or that we began, but she needs to finish. Math, Indie History (drives her nuts that I say that, and not Independent History), Extension, Science Exploration…and whatever else comes along. This seems to work ok, but sometimes she will write out all the headings. She likes to check things off. Like her mama :)

I want to have one of us check off the work in the book, learning to access it a lot, eliminating re-listing. That has been surprisingly hard, as we both like our lists, and as you can see below, I still have my list going in my “brain” (my notebook) even with the Preparing guidebook right there with us. That book has to last us multiple children, and I love the idea of having it unbound, and each page put into page protectors for dry-erase-checking-off. What I don’t love is the hour-long drive to a place to do that, or the cost of all.those.page protectors, and all that plastic. We will see….