Peek at our Week: November 28- December 2

Grace-Filled Writer
 Back to “full school” as the girls call our regular studies! We will have one more week and then a break from the regular for about a month. Between our Christmas celebrations, recital, vacations, and general busyness of the season I love that we can take a break this way! 
The girls were working really hard Wednesday morning to get their work done before their science class at our local homeschool learning center. On Wednesdays and Fridays we only do basics: Math, English, and Bible. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday are reserved for our Heart of Dakota curriculum. 
 Grace: Bigger Hearts for His Glory Unit 25
Grace is enjoying learning cursive! She has been wanting to do so for a while. We are using Handwriting Without Tears mostly because it was given to us by someone who decided not to use it. I’ve used various handwriting curriculum. We loved Fundanoodle for print and this was a good transition for cursive for us. 
She is happy we are moving into more about colonial America with our history studies. She loves learning about kids from that time period. She’s also excited about our history and science activities. She also loves reading and spelling. Not to mention grammar…Okay, so you can see this little girl just loves to learn no matter what it is about! 
Grace begin cheer leading with Upwards Sports this week. It is exactly her niche and we feel comfortable with the program as opposed to some of the other cheer programs we have seen.
Beth: Preparing Hearts for His Glory Unit 33
 Beth has become so very independent! This is great as we will be very soon moving into the Creation to Christ which is very independent. We will do some work together, but most of this history will be independent with just check-ins with me. I’m so happy to see her growing this way. 
She told me today how much she loves spelling, especially All About Spelling. I’m glad to hear it, but I’m trying to rework how and when we do those lessons. It is getting harder to fit it in as they have more and more work to do. I’ll be trying to figure this out over the next weeks.
Rose: Resurrection to Reformation Unit 17
 
Half-way through!!!! We are using this guide for 6th grade and she is flourishing! We will probably end this before the year is over and start the next guide. Rose is getting much better about completing her work more diligently and with greater effort. I’m sure this will ebb and flow, but for now we are in a “flowing” season. Yay! 
She’s continuing to read Anne of Green Gables and seems to enjoy it. I’m in the process of creating a list of classics for her to read. Math is stable too which is a nice reprieve! She’s growing up so very much, but still very much a kid at times and that is exciting. She will begin basketball with Upwards this coming week and she cannot wait for that!
Happy December!

Christmas Lights!

Grace-Filled Writer

We had such a fun time on Sunday night visiting a park about 90 minutes away that has an incredible light show! I went when I was a kid and it was about a mile long. Now there are four amazing miles of this beautiful wonderland!

 

 
We shopped afterwards for some unique Christmas gifts at the shop. 
 The girls fell asleep on the drive home.
 Grace is faking being asleep. She was in charge of the phone at the moment while they listened to Adventures in Odyssey.

Rose picked out a new Adventures in Odyssey while her sister slept on her lap!

 It was a wonderful way to end our Thanksgiving celebration week!

Peek at our Week: November 21-23

Grace-Filled Writer

You’ll notice the shortened week. I’m sure quite a few of you take off the entire week and we have done that before. Recently on our off weeks we have been learning, just not with the intensity of study we do the rest of the weeks. I have collected all sorts of wonderful books, unit studies, and activities throughout the years so I’m finding ways to utilize them better. This was the perfect week to really delve into the lives of the pilgrims! There are some great resources we used. I’ll list the books here and some links if I can find them, but no affiliate marketing is contained within those links! Click on the pictures of the books to see where you can purchase them.

All week we listened to Adventures in Odyssey through the Odyssey Adventure Club app which were themed to Thanksgiving. This is such a great program that I listened to when I was a kid in the 80s and now my kids can enjoy it as I did! We are huge fans of this production and we absolutely LOVE being part of the Odyssey Adventure Club! If you want to give it a try they have a 2-week free trial offer.

Easy Make & Learn Projects: The Pilgrims, the Mayflower & MoreOne of my favorite places to find unique activities for elementary and middle school is Scholastic Teacher’s Express. I have purchased quite a few pdf books from them and use them frequently to supplement our regular curriculum or for units like this. This week we used this book. The girls made fold away Mayflower ships, maps of the Mayflower’s journey, and a comparison of old world and new world life. You’ll want to get on their mailing address because there are periodically $1 ebook sales. That is how I’ve amassed my collection from this company!

Here are some of the books we enjoyed during the week
Product Details 
Magic Treehouse Research Guide: Pilgrims
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The Pilgrims of Plimoth
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Three Young Pilgrims
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Giving Thanks: The 1621 Harvest Feast
 Product Details
On the Mayflower
 Product Details
…If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620

These  have all been given to us by friends, grandparents, and retired teachers. What a blessing it is when people give us goodies like these! I have several others, but this is what we used for this year.

We also used several wonderful resources that I pieced together to complete our unit of study!

Draw to Learn Psalms

While I read the girls worked on their project by coloring, cutting, or taping.

 
They loved the detailed coloring of their projects and Grace only needed a little help with the cutting.
  Learning in this creative way is so much fun. All three girls have studied the Pilgrims extensively through Heart of Dakota so much of what we talked about was review. Still, there were some new things the girls learned especially about how difficult the voyage really was, that surprised them. 

We had an enormous Thanksgiving feast with my parents and then decorated the tree. My girls are so sweet to pose for me! I couldn’t get a good picture in action because there was soooo much action with the decorating! So they very sweetly posed and giggled for my picture! 
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving week and are excited as we head into this most joyous season of celebrating Christ’s birth!

Peek at our Week: November 14-18

Grace-Filled Writer

One more week until we get a break for Thanksgiving! I have mentioned before we follow a 6-week schooling schedule, but we do take special breaks for holidays! Thanksgiving is coming and I have some fun stuff planned for the week!

The girls are at their grandparent’s house for the weekend. They get to visit with them about every 4-6 weeks. It’s wonderful for them to spend that time with them and nice for us since we are around one another 24-7 it does us all some good to have a little break. My mom is an amazing cook and has been teaching the girls about baking and cooking. Dad plays a lot of games with them and Rose especially enjoys playing basketball against him. I am spending the weekend decorating for Christmas! We will save the tree for the girls to get home though.

Here are a few highlights from the week!

Beth: Preparing Hearts for His Glory Unit 32

I’ve just realized almost all of my pictures of Beth are of her working on math! She really does other work, but this is one of her favorite subjects because it come easily. She does frustrate us sometimes because she hates to do extra steps which she feels are unnecessary, like writing out the operations she used for word problems. Since she rarely ever makes a mistake it is very difficult to explain the reason why she needs to do this!
We are edging nearer and nearer to the end of the guide. I asked her what her favorite part was and she responds, “All of it!” That is honestly how we feel about this particular guide and really all of the Heart of Dakota guides. I do know that one of her favorite portions is poetry. She really enjoys the writing and practicing rhyme scheme (which I assign every week). Interestingly enough, as much as she enjoys and genuinely understands the poetry, she much prefers to create prose for the writing assignments. Even so, it is quite creative and full of beautiful imagery. 
Grace: Bigger Hearts for His Glory Unit 24

 I’ve been working really hard recently to make sure I get the extra activities in for Grace. Because she is the youngest and my older girls have more in depth studies sometimes I would forget to do these with her. It wasn’t intentional, but I realized I just wasn’t giving her all that she really needed and I’ve been striving to do this better. I reworked the days we do some of the activities and that has helped tremendously. We are all over the place with completing the guide in that we do not follow the strict day-by-day scheduling anyway. So all history activities occur on Tuesdays (usually) and all science activities on Thursdays (usually). 
She read about King David hiding in the caves this week to correlate with some of her history readings about the early years of our country. Here she is using oatmeal to create some of the different rock formations mentioned in Scripture. There is something so very meaningful and creative about learning through touch this way.
Rose: Resurrection to Reformation Unit 16
Rose has very much enjoyed the maps she works on every week. I love that Heart of Dakota utilizes the Map Trek maps from Knowledge Quest. They are assigned in the older guides, but I purchased all of their sets one year when the were on sale one year and we use them with all of the guides when I can. I also love their biographies and often supplement with those as well. 
We are very close to the half-way mark in the guide which is very exciting! Math continues to be her least favorite subject, but taking time away from our main curriculum to solidify the concept of fractions and how factors/multiples relate to them has been incredibly beneficial. I truly believe that second to the discipleship training I am able to give my girls this is the best part of homeschooling. I can make sure the girls can master the concepts they struggle with in any subject and help them to grow at a pace which is most beneficial to them!
We are beginning to focus more on reading classics with Rose. This week she began Anne of Green Gables and I am on the lookout for classic stories she can read. She devours the written word so other “fun” books are easy for her to get into. This will help stretch her vocabulary and prepare for harder works of literature in the coming years.

Here are our sweet pets! Lucy and Penny love laying in the sunshine when I open the front door on these cold days. We live in the south, so I know cold is very much relative!
I’d love to hear how your week has gone!

Peek at our Week: November 7-11

Grace-Filled Writer
 Our routine is pretty much down and the girls are doing well with that. Our six weeks schedule (6 weeks of school and one week off) has done so much to settle our year and the girls’ attitudes in general. If you are struggling in your year to make things really mesh I’d suggest you give this a try. 
And onto our week!
Grace: Unit 22 Little Hearts for His Glory
 

 As always little miss Grace eagerly dives into everything we do no matter what it is. All of my girls loved this guide and I’m sort of sad to see it come to an end this third time! She absolutely loves poetry and though sometimes she doesn’t understand it, she is excited to learn! 
We used the tile number board for math this week to practice odd and even numbers. A dear, dear friend n our church is a retired 2nd grade teacher. She has blessed us with a wonderful assortment of manipulatives, curriculum, folder games, books, and more. Such a blessing!
Beth: Unit 32 Preparing Hearts for His Glory
 

As we continue to creep to the end of the guide, it just keeps getting better! It has been a little harder to get through since we finished up Grandpa’s Box. I’ve never been very happy with A Child’s History of the World, but haven’t found an age-appropriate replacement that we aren’t using in a different guide. I’m currently searching out options as I think ahead for when Grace gets to this guide in another year-and-a-half or so. 
Beth is much more patient these days with herself and understanding that as she gets older she will have more work. That was incredibly frustrating for her at the  beginning of this guide. It has taken nearly the entire thing, but she has resigned herself and even jumped on board with the idea of maturing in her education. 

Rose: Unit15 Resurrection to Reformation

Rose is growing up so quickly. Those around us notice it and I hear about it all the time. I have moments where my heart squeezes so tightly as I realize my oldest baby is growing up. Even though I’ve seen this many times over as a teacher of middle schoolers, it’s a strange feeling to watch it unfolding in my own house. She’s becoming more independent and I’m giving her a few more freedoms. It’s beautiful to see her growing into the young lady she is becoming, but also difficult. I know other mamas reading this can relate! 
She has absolutely loved studying the medieval period. She made a coat of arms online with the recommended website in the guide. This was great except for the fact that our printer decided to start acting up and we couldn’t get it to actually print. I’m hoping my husband can help out with this and we can get it printed soon.
We’ve hit a little hiccup in math in studying common denominators. So we’re taking a little break and working through the process through Math Mammoth. Hopefully this will help cement the concept for Rose. We’ll be right back into Principals for Mathematics when we finish this side unit. We own the entire Math Mammoth program and I love that I can use it as grade-level or as units. 
As the week ended we spied the super moon!

 
I hope you all had a great week! 

Peek at Our Week: October 31-November 4

Grace-Filled Writer

I had two very exciting opportunities open up this week! I was invited to be on the 2017 Old Schoolhouse Review Crew and to be on the Creative Team for the digital scrapbook designer Libby Pritchett Designs! I was on the Review Crew in 2013, but had to step away from that for a season. I was also on a digital scrapbooking creative team several years ago, but when the designer’s stores closed I never really actively sought out another team. Both of these opportunities were a great encouragement for me this week! I was feeling inspired and finished quite a few pages in the evenings after the girls went to bed.

For the most part school went well.We completed my list so that means it was a good week!

Rose: Resurrection to Reformation Unit 14
We finished up the Middle Ages and are anticipating moving into the Renaissance period. This is really such a rich program for history and it only gets better as the kids grow. Rose is learning independence also means accountability in a different way and she’s growing in this area as well.

Applying her love of art to creating a replica flag from the Middle Ages

 Math is still our most difficult subject to wade through together. We love Principles of Mathematics, but when we get to something that is a more challenging subject we review through the topic again with Math Mammoth. I like having this freedom. I wish I could find a magic solution, but I’m finding that since this is not a subject she enjoys we just have to keep moving and have patience. My husband helps out in this a lot as I don’t always know how to explain a mathematical concept in a way she will fully understand, especially if the way the book presents it doesn’t quite take. 

Beth: Preparing Hearts for His Glory Unit 31
Beth is becoming more focused in her studies and wanting to dive more deeply into what she is learning. Up until recently she completed her work without much complaint (usually!) but just did the minimum I asked and never offered to ask any further questions or see out anymore information. Now, it’s very different. We have a shelf of history books that are arranged by order or historical period. I’m finding her more and more asking more questions and seeking out information on her own. She’s also picking up more books on her own beyond the reading I require. 

Creating a Medieval Pendant out of clay. She then colored her design with Sharpie Markers
Beth continues to enjoy the projects and is really progressing with her narration both oral and written. It’s been so fun to see her growth from when we paused at the beginning of the summer to now. Math comes very easily to her and for a kid like that Math Mammoth is wonderful. She usually understands the teaching without much input from me. I have her explain the concepts and she always seems to know what she is doing. My theory is the reason for this is Beth has been homeschooled from the beginning, so her math had a more natural flow upwards rather than the every-kid-in-the-same-box traditional schools tend to follow. I can’t prove it, but it seems to be the reality for our kids. 
Grace: Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory Unit 22
Grace is excited every week: The end. What else can a parent want besides a child who jumps at the chance to learn, no matter what the subject. This girl loves rabbit trails! 

Daddy helps out with school on Mondays and in the afternoons if we don’t finish everything.
She is very patient and understanding that I can’t always give her my undivided attention. I do make sure I give her enough time, but since her guide doesn’t take as long it isn’t difficult. I am excited that we are moving on into the Revolutionary War period of history. She’s learning about Boston and many of the historical places connected to the birth of our nation. I hope to take the girls on a trip in the next couple of years northward so we can see some of these places in person. 
Some other things we did this week: 
1. Voted Early 
2. Watched Annie (The original)
3. Dressed up and played pretend

What fun things did you do this week?

Digital Scrapbook Layouts Week of 10/31

Grace-Filled Writer

I’m so thrilled to have been invited to join Libby Pritchett‘s Creative Digital Scrapbooking Team! You’ll start to see lots of things from her amazing collection in my pages.

I’m currently working on 4 different scrapbooks. I’m finishing up our family 2008 scrapbook, working through 2016 so I don’t keep getting behind, a Disney trip, and my husband’s 40th birthday celebration book. Phew! You’ll see all sorts of different things here because of that!

 
 Libby Pritchett’s Zipper Lips
 
Template: Fiddle Dee Dee Designs
Shoe Element: Magical Scraps Galore’s Get Fit
 
Template: Traci Reed’s 365 Unscripted
 
Kit: Little Rad Trio’s Tie A Yellow Ribbon
Template: Cindy Schneider  
Template – Tinci Designs Feb 2016 freebie

Week of October 24-28

Grace-Filled Writer

The start of this week was the end of my husband’s parent’s visit with us. They are from Florida so it’s  pretty big deal when they get to come and stay with us, which means school gets modified a smidgen. Often times we do our basics (English and Math) on modified weeks, but this week we stuck to history and Bible as well as their Wednesday morning science class.

Rose: Resurrection to Reformation – Unit 13 
I have no idea why, but I missed snapping a shot of Rose being her studious self this week. This is probably because she’s mostly independent in these subjects. She checks in and we discuss what she’s learning, but I’m not as hands-on in her actual learning process. It’s beautiful really. One of my main goals is to teach my girls to love learning and become independent in their learning. This is still a process, but we’re on the way. We did have to have a conversation about being careful to following all the directions and completing her notebook correctly. These are good conversations that were bound to happen and I love that I get to have them with her in a more gentle environment. 
Grace: Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory – Unit 21
To keep our schedule manageable we are squishing her 5 day units into 3 days. This really isn’t that hard logistically or academically for either of us. We’re continuing through the early colonial days of America and she loves it. We don’t always follow the sequence, but we get through the units at a manageable pace and Grace makes the connections beautifully.

Grace reads a small portion of her history now. She is reading well above grade-level and this is how I start to teach independent learning. Little by little they become ready to take on a bit more. Currently Grace only reads a page or less. Eventually in the next guides we’ll move to where she is reading more and more until she is ready just like her oldest sister was.

I’m trying to do a better job of completing the science. Because the girls take a class science isn’t always the priority, but this little girl loves science and has a passion to become a nurse. Yes, I know she could change her mind, but I also want to guide her in her passions as much as possible. So I’m striving to fuel this desire.

Beth: Preparing Hearts for His Glory – Unit 29

We’ve used through 7 of the 13 guides available from Heart of Dakota. Although Preparing Hearts has been my favorite so far, it is also definitely the most challenging. The great news is I’m confident Beth will be completely ready for Creation to Chris in a few short weeks.

She’s really growing in her writing, not handwriting so much, but the content of her writing. She’s learning to write main points of her reading in her own words that are quite creative. Until this year she hasn’t really made effort in her writing beyond the minimum requirements I gave her. Now she’s creating beautifully crafted sentences and more of them than the requirements.

 So there is our week. Just the basics!

Recent Layouts…

Grace-Filled Writer

Don’t be jealous, but I had some alone time this weekend. Unheard of, right? My parents keep the girls for the weekend about once every 4-6 weeks and that is great for my husband and I as well as them. This weekend my husband took the girls to his sister’s house. I encouraged them to go a little early since their cousins had Friday off school even though I needed to stay home and teach piano. Did I miss hanging out with the family? Sure…but I also didn’t hate being alone. I had an introvert’s vacation!

I did some housework, worked on some lesson planning, and of course did some scrapbooking! Here are some recent layouts. Not all are from this weekend though!

Week in Review: October 17-21

Grace-Filled Writer

After a couple of weeks  away from normal we were ready to be back at our regular routine. I’m pleased to say that our week off did everyone enormous good and school was so very easy. We accomplished everything quickly each day and we all stayed focused for the most part.  It is really nice when something we choose to do is validated! Now, let’s see if I get the same validation after the next break…because if I can just find that one perfect formula homeschooling will suddenly become a breeze, right? Right…

On a more realistic note, the sun is shinning more brightly now and I’m ready for the time change. I love the fall time change, absolutely hate the spring one. I never feel like my body ever actually adjusts to the spring forward thing. We’ve adjusted our desks a bit this year and that has helped some, but my girls often wander away from the designated school room to study which suits me just fine.

Here’s a peek into what we were up to this week…

Grace: Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory Unit 19

My sweet girl is going to be so disappointed when we leave Beyond Little Hearts behind! She loves all of the activities and although will be excited to move on up into Bigger Hearts, there is something about this particular guide that all of my girls have loved dearly. Here she is studying poetry and drawing a picture to go along with her poem for the week. We are continuing to learn about the early American settlers with lots of opportunities to talk about how some did this in a good way, and others not so much.

Math is going very well and she is thriving with using both Math Mammoth and Math Lessons for a living Education from Master Book. Since she is a full grade ahead in this subject I am trying to keep her from getting to mathematical concepts which she is not developmentally ready for. She’s still xipping right through and is on track to finish second grade math early.

Beth: Preparing Hearts for His Glory Unit 27
The end is in sight! Not that I’m anxious to leave Preparing Hearts with Beth, but there is something exciting about accomplishing what we set out to do. Since all the girls are in different stages of their guides, I get to have that start to the new year feeling more than once a year! 
Beth loves her math and story problems in particular. She forces herself to get through the rest of her math assignment just to get to the story problems. 
For history we are moving towards the end of the Middle Ages and are charging ahead into just a few areas of history after that. She is very excited to begin studying the beginning of time again when we finish this guide. 
Do you see how she is sitting? I can’t figure out how she is comfortable, but she is constantly sitting in odd ways. For whatever reason this is comfortable to her and the beauty of our environment is that it is ok. I don’t think traditional schools would be so quick to allow her to throw her leg up onto the neighboring chair! 
Rose: Resurrection to Reformation Unit 12

We are diving right into the period of the Reformation now. Rose is telling me frequently now how excited she is to learn about so much history. She realizes our focus is unique compared to most school settings in that she has had a lot of history up until now. Unfortunately from what I hear from our friends with kids in traditional schools it is becoming harder and harder for teachers to include meaty history in the elementary years. I can understand having taught full time in the past. She is grateful for the opportunity and tells me often. 
Rose is happy to work independently as much as she can. We have a few subjects which are still very much the both of us studying together, but quite a bit of her work is on her own and she just checks in with me.This is excellent for her as she is learning to budget her time and balance how to get it all done. 
We also carved pumpkins and are participating in an online literary pumpkin patch. The girls loved this! Unfortunately our pumpkins started rotting after two days.Here are their entries…

Rose – Glimfeather from The Silver Chair

 Grace – Wishbone’s pawprint from The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde

Beth – One of the orange tabby cats from The Cats in the Doll Shop

Another great week went into the books! 
And then Grampy and Grammy came for a few days along with my husband’s sister and her five kids! We had a houseful, but it was such a fun weekend!