heart of Dakota: Bigger week 14

My poor little girl was very sick for the first three days of school this week. I have to admit, as bad as it may sound, that it was actually really nice to only school one child. You see, my daughter is, well, the child who always makes the teacher have to stop class to correct, discipline or wait on. Where as my son, just does it right away and answers a question right away. Plus, without having to do her math, reading and penmanship, the day went faster too because I only had to focus on one grade level for the academic subjects. Despite the fact that the first three days went very quickly, we had a good week. I was able to bring my daughter up to speed on the things we had learned while she was out. And since she was still very tired the rest of the week from being sick, I just went onto Starfall.com to do her reading and math instead of her regular school books.

Anyhow Both the kids had a love/hate relationship with the History activity this week. My son's smile just got bigger and bigger as I kept taxing his M&M's until he had 1 left and he said to me "is this one for me?" Mommy said, "Oh wait I forgot about the tax for children with messy rooms. 1 please. Ok, honey now you can have your M&M's. Go ahead eat them all up." I say this as I have 20 M&M's dripping from my mouth. LOL! Needless to say I gave him 20 back. My daughter's reaction, later in the week, was not so funny. She sat there almost in tears. She hated the idea I was eating all her M&M's. Don;t worry folks, I gave her 20 too. But I will tell you they both got the WHOLE idea of taxation.

Proverbs 11:14 was this weeks Bible Study verse which was all about Leadership. I loved this one once again. I think I love them all so far. Anyway, I showed each child that even though they are not adults, they are still leaders. "What do you mean Mommy?" Well, I showed my son that he is a leader in the home with his younger sister. That she looks up to him for guidance, asks him question she does not understand and asks him to help her with things. I told him it is up to him to guide her correctly and be a good leader. Wow the smile I got from that. "Light Bulb!" My daughter then asked me, "I guess I am not a leader at all since I am the youngest?" My answer was of course "Not true." I asked her how many friends of hers are younger then her…all. Well then, they look up to you for guidance on how to act like a young lady, how to play, do makeup/hair or maybe even to look to God in everything you do etc. She was so happy that she was considered a leader too. I want my kids to be leaders in everything. Whether it be in a play group to show how to play or act or even in their own home as we homeschool Moms are leaders. Great subject for discussion this week.

Now last week we were on vacation from school, but we still finished reading "Guns for General Washington", which I am glad we did. This week I got to pull out a few books I had on hand to read in place of the "Guns for General Washington "book. What a great book BTW. The Henry Knox story was very inspiring. The Geography lesson was really good to see the difference between what kind of determination they had to have to get those guns across to Washington compared to what it would be like today to go that same 300 miles. WOW!

OK, bad Mommy, we got the first science exploration only half done. My son did not draw pictures of birds, but on the last day of science both kids drew the three birds we talked about. Ostrich, Humming Bird and Bustard. Ah, but day 3 of science was so much FUN! OK, so my son drew the mouse and put it in the sidewalk. Then our tape measure was only 25 feet, which was a good refresher for counting by 25 for him. Do you know we actually got to 250 feet before it was really truly unrecognizable. But really 150 feet is where we would not have know it was a mouse. We could see the white piece of paper, but really if we did not know what it was we would have never known. I think a few of our neighbors thought we were crazy measuring 3 house down. Oh well, crazy homeschool Mom!

By the time we got to the Art Exploration my daughter was feeling much better. So after giving her a run through of everything we had learned thus far, and because we did not have our art class this week, and because I thought this project was a good one to help remember Valley Forge, I went ahead and did art. I loved the way the foot prints came out. I had my son trace my daughters foot and visa versa. They came out so cute and it was a great fun day for my daughter after being sick for 4 days. She got to go outside to get some fresh air for a little bit while we finished our art.

This week we learned about the Declaration of Independence. I have in my possession so many very cool things from when I was a kid. I got to pull out a copy of the Declaration, a movie about the Declaration as well as the Constitution, School House Rock DVD (always fun), several books and we even went over the difference between the Declaration and the Constitution. The movie we watched was very good. A little long for young kids, but Very good. You know it even cleared up some confusion in my mind about a few things.

OMGosh, I almost forgot. I read a book to both kids on Monday while my daughter was in bed called "Breakfast for General Washington". It was so cute. It was about a boy who was very into George Washington and wanted to know what he ate for breakfast. So he researched and researched and finally found out. Both the kids were so into finding out what a hoecake was that we looked up the recipe and I made some. Well, lets just say that they DO NOT cook up like a traditional pancake, nor taste like one, smell like one or look like one. Shoot I had to use OIL to cook them. Ok, ladies, I almost NEVER use OIL! They do not taste bad, but it would not be something I think I would do again. But it was a fun experiment for the kids.

Once again, we had a good school week. My daughter is better and today we walked down to Rite Aide and got ice cream. I look forward to week 15.

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