HOD Creation to Christ Unit 2

We continued to love the layout of the teachers guide. It seems to be a perfect fit for our family. Hailey is able to work fairly independently, and she is liking that. In Unit 2 Hailey did many fun activities.

History

For her reading about history section she is continuing to read The Story of the Ancient World. This week she read and studied about, The Tower of Babel, and The First War. It was really great to dig into these stories and where they fit in history.  She learned all about the Cushites, their language, and about their lifestyles etc.

Hailey enjoyed her projects for the week. She made salt dough and use it to create a signature seal, and a tablet which she etched cuneiform letters on and then used her signature seal to sign her name. (instead of the standard signature seal Hailey made a snail)

  

For her Independent history she continued to listen to her What in the World discs. The delved into Noah and his descendants, Sources and Evidences of Noah and his descendants,  Prophecies about Christ and their fulfillment, The oldest cities, The 10 generations from Adam to the Flood and 10 more from Noah to Abram. And she completed a few pages in her History notebook.

Reading/Story Time/Language Arts

For story time in Unit 2 she continued to work her way through The Golden Bull. She is loving this book. She is doing great with her narrations, and is loving making story connections with Proverbs. We started our first book for Drawn Into the Heart of Reading. A biography. Caddy Woodlawn’s Family. We are liking the layout of the study components for this genre.  She also worked in Rod and Staff Following the Plan, and Write With the Best.

Bible Quiet Time/Bible Study

Hailey truly treasures this time each day, and I am so thankful to help her foster this part of her relationship with the Lord. I have no photo’s as she takes the guide and everything she needs for this up to her room so that she can really focus. In Unit 2 she memorized Philippians 2:2. She is not really liking the CD’s that go along with memorization so we ditched that. She read, Day 1 – Gen. 10:8-12, 11:1-9 Day 2 – Job 1; 2:1-10; 42 Day 3 – Gen. 12 Day 4 – Gen. 13; 14:11-24; 15. Each week it guides her through prayers of adoration, confession,  thanksgiving, and supplication.

For Bible Study Hailey and I are going through Genesis Finding Our Roots. We are really liking this book, and our study time together.

 

Science

Hailey is working through Apologia’s Land Animals of the Sixth Day. I have loved the schedule laid out in the HOD manual, it has kept us on track, and we don’t leave out the fun make it stick stuff. In this Unit Hailey created an animal tracks book to be used throughout the next few units. She added dog tracks to the book that she made. Here are a few key points that she learned this week in science. (I couldn’t begin to record it all)

*Mammals are animals that have hair, are warm blooded, have a backbone, and breath oxygen. They must sweat to cool off. They also nurse their young.

*Within the order of Carnivora there is a group called Carniforms. These include animals like; bears, dogs, raccoons, red fox, and coyote. Wild dogs change over time through breeding and natural selection, but the KIND of creature will remain the same.

*The Alpha Male and Alpha Female are the dominant pair in a pack. This pair has puppies, which are cared for by the pack. A “pecking order” is established among the rest of the pack. The pack hunts.

*Dogs have a sensitive sense of smell, often human’s sense of smell is affected by sight.

I do not have a photo, but the experiment for this was really neat. Hailey took two cups of orange juice. She added red food coloring to one cup and left the other plain. Then she took the two cups and served them to her brother. She first had him smell each cup to guess what was in the cups. He said one was orange and one was strawberry. He then drank each one to see if he was right. He again said one was orange juice and one one strawberry. The conclusion was that sight can in fact affect taste, and smell in humans.

Geography:

Hailey is going through the book A Child’s Geography Vol. II. She is learning so much about Turkey right now and it’s connection to History, and Biblical history. Here are the key points she worked on this week.

* Practice finding and recording the locations of various places on the map of Turkey.

*Share three sights from Turkey

Math:

Hailey continues to work on her Times Tables. (almost there)

Poetry/Art:

Hailey is really enjoying her Robert Frost poems, and studying them. This week she completed a water color project to go along with the poem. This is one of her favorite things about this section in the manual.

The Pasture

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I shan't be gone long. -- You come too.
I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I shan't be gone long. -- You come too.

Robert Frost

Organizing Heart of Dakota’s CTC Materials

I received a few requests for me to explain how I have organized our Creation to Christ teachers manual so here I go. First thing you should know is that there really is not any need to do the things I have done. You can basically pick up the manual, open it, and begin teaching. (as long as you have the books of course)

The first thing I did was cut the binding and put the manual in a binder. This is not necessary, it’s a personal preference. Then I put a tabs and labeled the different sections in the  back of the manual so that they were easy to locate and turn to. (ie; Poetry)

Next I put a tab at the top of the page we are currently on. This tab  is moved each day so that we can know exactly where we are. This is very helpful to my daughter. Now, I will say that if my daughter was not so good about taking care of the manual I would remover a few units at a time and place them in page protectors.

Next I printed a materials list for science and history that I found on the Yahoo group I think, and put it in page protectors and put it in the back of the book.

The end!

Happy homeschooling!

CTC Unit 1

I can honestly say that Unit one in Heart od Dakota’s Creation to Christ curriculum was a breath of fresh air. Hailey was was excited to learn all week. It wasn’t a bunch of boring books, or a ton of sheet work. There were many times that she came running in saying, “Mom, you have got to hear this, (see this, do this etc.)” She even asked to break out her guide on Sunday.

 

Bible Study/Quiet Time

I loved that this curriculum not only encouraged Hailey to have a “quiet time” with God, but gave her direction. Her quiet times had a scripture focus, a Prayer Focus, and her scripture memory time.

Reading: Gen. 1-9

Scripture Focus: Gen. 1:26-27, Gen. 4:6-7,  Gen. 6:9, Gen. 8:21

Prayer Focus: Prayer of Adoration, Prayer of Confession, Prayer of Thanksgiving, Prayer of Supplication.

Independent History Study/Projects/Reading about History

She has been listening to the What in the World? discs from Answers in Genesis and really liking them. She was particularly interested in the lineage lists, and how old the people were. Like me she realized that because of how long people lived then, people in the stories of genesis are much more closely connected than we think. Like; Noah lived at the time of the Tower of Babel, the Pharaohs, and the building of Babylon. Completed several activities in her History notebook. 

For the Reading about History section this week, she read several chapters of The Story of the Ancient World. This is a biblical history book. I read this book in May and REALLY liked it, but I was concerned if it might be to dull for a child. I am happy to report that she loves it as well. Everything she learned in history this week complemented her bible time, and also made history connections to biblical history.

Story Time

For unit 1 we read Ken Hamm’s book Dinosaurs of Eden. Hailey LOVED!!! this book. She did not want to put it down. I enjoyed the book as well.

Science

For the first few units we will be using Apologia’s Land Animals of the Fifth day. I have discovered that Hailey is very interested in animals right now. She has a light in her eyes as she learns new things.

She learned about Animal classifications and watched a great video to help her memorize the categories.

 

She did a fun project to talk about camouflage and how animals use this for protection. This is supposed to be done using M & M’s, but we couldn’t find the ones we had gotten, so we gummy fish. It still worked using the fish but would have been better using the other. What you do is take three different colors of construction paper (several sheets) and cover the bottom of a laundry basket with the crumpled paper. Then you dump in the four colors of M & M’s. She then had to find and many as she could in 1 min. The goal is that she will find more of the ones that were a different color than the papers.

Geography

Hailey has enjoyed the book A Child’s Geography Vol. II. It has taken her in a journey into Turkey Mesopotamia and a few rivers. The book made several biblical and current connections to those land marks. Hailey worked an mapping skills, and and really enjoyed the activities provided. She also opened a Little passport from South Africa.

Language Arts

We are working with Rod and Staff English, and Write With the Best. We are liking both of these programs, and Hailey likes that the lessons are short and to the point. No photo’s.

Math

Math, what to say about math? Well, we are working on multiplication facts nothing real fun this week, but I am working on some games to help her with this.

Poetry/Art

We love Robert Frost poems. Each unit we are focusing on one of his poems. They are supposed to complete a water color to go along with the poem, but we started school before we had gotten all of our supplies, so we will have to do ours at a later date. I will leave you however with these words.

A Late Walk

When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.
And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words
A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.
I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.

Robert Frost