Unit 4 CTC and Bigger- The "Nitty Gritty"

For the past three units I've shown you all the "fun" activities and projects that the girls get to do during a week of this Heart of Dakota program.  They are absolutely a wonderful part of our day and add a much needed dimension of enjoyment to learning.  Things like art projects, history activities, and science experiments help children learn by involving them in the discovery of new information. 

However, that's not all we do during the week.  There are also the more "basic" lessons that need to be learned and can't all be turned into fun projects.  So this week, I will show you a glimpse of the other work my girls accomplish.  Oh, there may also be a few things that were too fun for me not to share!

**Disclaimer: Not all the picture may be from work that was done during week 4.  I did try to get close to that time frame, but sometimes I just flipped open the notebook and took a picture of something that was representative of their work in that subject no matter the specific week.**

Fear not! This will be the only time I do an entire post dedicated to these mundane topics. I know everyone likes to see the finished projects from each unit.

Bigger Unit 4 "Nitty Gritty"

Bean can't do much of her schoolwork without teacher direction, but one of the things she can do independently is cursive practice.  

Individual letter practice right now, but soon Bean will be writing a short verse.  In A Reason for Handwriting each week ends with a coloring page to display the student's writing and that's Bean's favorite part!

For English, Bean is being introduced to sentence diagramming and also focusing on proper punctuation.

Rod and Staff 3: Beginning Wisely is the first in the series to offer worksheet for some of the lessons.  Whenever those are available, Bean completes them instead of doing the copywork from the text.  That really speeds things along!

At this point, I think we will be abandoning the spelling as assigned by HOD an using another curriculum instead.  That will start with week six, once I have the textbook.

A typical dictation page as assigned in the HOD manual.  I do not feel the words challenge spelling ability.  Bean is able to spell every word ahead of the schedule.  This is a Charlotte Mason approach to learning with which I just can't seem to get on board.

History and geography have written work as well as the projects.  Last week you saw that we do vocabulary words on index cards each week.  We get those words from our history reading. There is also geography work that includes drawing and labeling maps and then adding the routes of different explorers.

An acrostic using the letters from the name POCAHONTAS. 

An ongoing timeline of the people and events studied in history.

Of course, there's math work to be done each day.  This is certainly her least favorite subject.  She is doing Saxon Math Homeschool Intermediate 3 this year.  It is the longest part of our school day since Bug does struggle with it so much.  No matter the program, math will be a difficult subject for her, so I do not attempt to do another program because I feel the change would actually be very detrimental to her.

Sample page of daily math practice.

Working diligently on a practice set.

For Drawn Into the Heart of Reading, she just finished the biography genre with a book about Helen Keller and will be moving on to the Adventure genre with the book The Littles. 

On day one of the Helen Keller book, she asked some questions about the book based only on the cover and synopsis of the story.  On the last day of reading, we went back to answer those questions.

Experiment for the week: discovering why some plants and animals float more easily than others.

A dropper filled only half-way with water will float like a stalk of seaweed due to the air trapped at the top.

When she guessed that salt in the water helps them float, I was pleased to realize that she indeed paid attention the week we studied salt water. :)

Creation to Christ Unit 4 "Nitty Gritty"

During CTC, the student only completes half the English textbook for the year since writing assignments sometimes take the place of an English assignment.  Because of that, she is still near the beginning of the book and only doing review material at this point.

Rod and Staff 4: Building with Diligence.  Worksheets are done instead of text copywork if they are available. 

Bug has also been doing the HOD dictation as her spelling lessons.  Again, I don't feel this challenges her spelling ability as much as it challenges her ability to quickly memorize a passage for transcription. Not sure there is much long-term value in that at this point.

As with Bean, we will be switching to a more traditional spelling curriculum starting with unit 6 (the arrival of the textbook).

Math may not be Bug's favorite subject, but thankfully she doesn't struggle with it the way Bean does.  She is doing Saxon Math Homeschool 7/6  this year.  I teach the lesson to her now, but next year I'll probably buy the DIVE DVDs for her instruction.

Second, some Mental Math and Lesson Practice.

First, a Facts Test.

Finally, the Review Problem Set (side one of two).

As mentioned earlier, some days each week are devoted to a writing lesson instead of an English lesson.  Write With the Best is suggested for use by HOD.  In it, the student studies the writing styles of different famous authors and then uses that method to compose something original.  I apologize, but I had to blank out Bean's real name in the picture. I'm sure you all understand. :)

After studying the descriptive writing style displayed in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Bug wrote a description of her sister.  After editing was done, it was typed and printed.

Drawn Into the Heart of Reading is going great for Bug.  She will be on the Biography genre for a bit longer than Bean since she moves through the program at half-pace this year.

Almost finished with Carry On, Mr. Bowditch.  This was a great character association map.

There are notebooking pages to be completed each week for science and history on top of the fun projects and experiments that are done.

This notebook page was a little lacking, but I let it go since we were in a bit of a hurry that day.  We made corrections later.

You may see history notebook pages featured in future posts since this is Bug's favorite subject and she is always asking me to show you all her work. :)  On these pages, the narration section is by far the most difficult thing for her to do.  A necessary life skill, but she needs a lot of practice for that one.

Geography is MY favorite lesson to complete! I am learning a much as Bug is!  I should have paid more attention in school when I was younger.  Now I understand the value of knowing this information.

The geography book is A Child's Geography.  We are studying Turkey right now with a focus on the Middle East over the entire year.  This is a great time to understand that region considering the current tension our nation has with many of those countries. 

 

Some fun stuff happened, too!  I prepared a traditional "Hebrew" meal for one day's lunch as instructed in Unit 4, day 3.  Bug, Bean, and Sprout were all very excited for this meal!

Served food included yogurt, flatbread with jelly, cheese, grapes, cucumber (with ranch dip), pomegranate seeds, and sparkling grape juice.

Bean wore the shepherd's headband and covering that she made this week.  We used an old receiving blanket for the material.  I loved how perfect the weather was for us to have an outdoor picnic!

This week's painting for poetry was beautiful.  Bug thought is was her best painting to date.

Featured poem: A Passing Glimpse by Robert Frost

That's it for now folks.  From now on, I'll go back to the regular posts about the fun projects and experiments for each unit of Heart of Dakota.