Back to normal this week after having a lighter week definitely takes some adjustments for us all!

I really need to give a shout-out to my sweet husband this week. I teach English to a wonderful group of homeschool junior highers. It is so wonderful to be a stay-at-home mom and still have an opportunity to use the skill I learned in college. I love how good God is to orchestrate all of the moments of my life to coordinate together in such a beautiful way!

Rose attends the learning center where I teach, but Grace and Beth are still too young to attend. So my preacher-husband takes his day off so I can teach and offered to teach the younger girls their lessons to help me out. Wow! I have to be honest and tell you I wasn’t certain how it would go, but he does so well and even does the fun stuff with the girls. The Heart of Dakota curriculum is in part a huge reason this succeeds. He is completely comfortable opening the guides and teaching the girls. At the same time I really appreciate his willingness to do something totally out of his comfort zone to help our homeschooling experience be a success. This Daddy really loves his girls and is a bigger support for me than I ever imagined!

Little Hands: Unit 6
Thankfully Grace’s “phase” seems to have lessened some so school with her went quite well. She really did well both during her school time and when it was time for her to play alone. I just love hearing her play pretend with her Little People. I sometimes sneak behind her so I can just watch and listen.

Now on to school 🙂

Unit 6 was a lot of fun. She particularly liked the song for this unit from The Singing Bible. It was a really fun song and she danced around the room every time we played it. I wanted to get a picture, but they all came out blurry because she was moving so fast! I finally did get one picture of her back, but you can even see in this how much fun she was having. You have to love those bouncing baby curls!

Another highlight of the week was studying Joseph. She loved playing “Joseph-May-I” when we studied Joseph being in charge of Egypt. Another fun activity was when she had to choose 10 stuffed animals (she opted for cars and a Lego bug) to be Joseph’s brothers. I love our curriculum more and more each week! Here are the brothers coming to ask her (as Joseph) for food and she very politely told them they could have some.

She brought them a toy bananna and two scoops of ice cream, then made sure they all got to eat some. Grace did insist on calling him Josephy, but it was so cute I decided not to correct her. She just makes me smile!

Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 9
Beth is just charging ahead and doing so beautifully! She never struggles in any of her subjects and I usually only have to explain a concept once. We started learning to tell time this week. She quickly picked up on learning the o’clocks. Half past took a little longer to master, but by then end of our lesson she had mastered the concept. The only issue she had was remembering to look at the number behind the little hand. This confused my oldest daughter too so I suppose this is normal.

She continues to do really well at her handwriting and waivers between coloring the picture to match the one exactly in the handwriting book and making it rainbow colored. I find it very interesting that her handwriting on manuscript paper is very neat, but when she is just writing for fun it looks very different. I’m sure it’s a maturity thing, but since this is my first time around teaching kindergarten I am finding all of the nuances to be quite intriguing.

This was the first week Beth wrote down spelling words as I dictated them. She was hesitant at first, so I had her spell it aloud while I wrote it down and then she copied it. We did a few this way, then she asked to try it on her own and away she flew! It is such a joy to see her moving forward with such great strides. This weekend she came to me with a note she wrote to her grandma. It said, “I love you because you love me.” Because was spelled correctly!!!! I was shocked! Now, it did traverse across two lines, but all the letters were there in the correct order. Way to go Beth!

Bigger Hearts for His Glory: Unit 8
Rose is quietly moving ahead with her work and becoming increasingly independent. This is very exciting for me because next year she will move into Preparing Hearts for His Glory which will require more independence for her. She does get a little frustrated that her school day is longer than her sisters’ sometimes, but this week did a great job staying focused.

We discovered a new technique to make math go quicker. I wouldn’t recommend this for everyone, but Rose requested I try it and we found out it worked! Over the last few weeks her written math has begun extending to a longer and longer period even though she isn’t learning any new concepts. This has frustrated both of us since it is extending the day much longer. On Tuesday she asked me to set a timer because she felt she could focus better. I agreed and gave her 15 minutes. I told her it was more important for her to get the right answer than beat the time. She finished in 8 minutes what has been taking he 45. Not only that, every answer perfect where she had been making numerous careless errors. For Rose having a time limit really helps her focus. She asked me to continue this and for now we will. I’m just glad we found a solution!

Rose continues to enjoy history and science, although I’m not doing as much of the science as I had before. One of the classes she takes at the learning center is science so in order not to make our days too long we only do science if we have extra time. She hasn’t seemed to miss it and this will leave some fun experiments and activities to do during the summer. History continues to fascinate her and we often look up locations and people online together to get more information.

So this week was good…really, really good. No one is sick, for the most part everyone was obedient, and they all enjoyed school. I suppose I should bookmark this week for the future when we have a less than stellar week and I’m feeling discouraged!

I gave my girls their report cards this week. I debated whether I should actually admit this or not because I am very well aware this is rather controversial within the homeschooling circles. I decided to share this and explain why because I like doing it for several reasons.

1. It give the girls an opportunity to feel good about their successes.

2. It helps them see areas they need to work on.

3. They know they are being held accountable for their work and it matters.

4. It also keeps me accountable to gauge how well they are doing in any particular subject.

A really good example of this happened last year. There was a particular subject I felt like Rose was struggling with, but when I calculated her grade it was actually pretty good. It helped show me that, yes, this wasn’t her strongest subject, but, no, I didn’t need to do worry about it.

I’d love to hear if you give your child a report card and why…or if you don’t and why! Just like with everything else in homeschooling each family is uniquely structured and what works for me won’t always work for your family. I do firmly believe you should make the decision based on what you really believe, not just what someone else has convinced you is the right thing to do.

If you’re interest in getting a nice, already made, report card I found mine at Just Mommies. I’m hoping at some point this year to make my own form and have our school name on it, but for now this one worked quite well.

I have also chosen to keep the week after report cards a little lighter. We will still do the basics, like grammar, reading, handwriting, and math, but everything else will be lighter. We missed some science last week (oops!) so I chose to catch up on that.

Did you know Thomas Jefferson was an avid natural scientist? No one ever told me this when I was in school! He studied specimens and fossils, wrote for scientific journals, and advocated in Europe for the scientific benefits of Colonial America. In conjunction with studying more about this fascinating man we made fossil impressions with our toy animals.

The girls had SO much fun with this! They made impressions of animal footprints, heads, and bodies. Rose was particularly interested when she realized every detail was noted, even the intricate hair patterns. (Pardon the camera shadow! These pictures didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped.)

We also celebrated Grace’s 3rd birthday this week! I can’t believe how quickly she has grown. The girls think it’s great that birthdays are holidays since we homeschool. What about you? Are birthdays a holiday from formal lessons at your house?

Grace thoroughly appreciated her much anticipated Hello Kitty Cake! She’s a bit of a fanatic when it comes to Hello Kitty. She was in awe of the cake and I have to say I’m quite pleased with how cute it turned out!

So our week was light, but next week it’s back to full-speed-ahead!

And don’t forget to check out the giveaway this week! It ends on Monday so hurry and sign up!

Oh the sweet moment of homeschooling! Some days can be really tough…but I know I don’t have to tell anyone who homeschools that! We’ve been have a rough round with my little Grace the past few weeks, but she’s starting to calm down a bit. My older girls have been so very understanding and don’t seem to mind at all when I take a moment away from their lessons to spend some time reading with their little sister. They stay focused and on task most of the time, but I certainly don’t mind when they wander over to read with us!

Don’t forget to check out the giveaway this week from Make, Take, and Teach! It’s a great one!

Little Hands to Heaven: Finishing Unit 5
Since Grace is settling back in to a more calm routine (translation: She’s not pitching as many fits as she was two weeks ago every time I have to tell her, “No!”) She happily listened as I read her Bible stories. Then she read them again to Piglet. These are such precious moments, I am so grateful I get to spend them with her!
She continues to enjoy her Rod and Staff books, About 3. I’m continually shocked at how well she holds her pencil and crayons, traces lines, and understands relationships between objects. This portion of her day is something she loves because she feels so grown up…just like her big sisters!

 And we of course had some letter review fun! She remembered all of her sounds and finger-play reminders…Yay! Her current favorite letter is X. She LOVES the letter X!

Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 8
My Beth continues to amaze me and show me just how much she absorbed by sitting in on her older sister’s lessons. She is so well behaved and focused during our lesson time. She eagerly begins each day and stays so well focused. She also lets me know when she needs a break, but never complains when the break ends. I pray this wonderful attitude lasts for all of her education! (Notice the puppy in the corner? Each day this week she had a special friend join her for lesson time!)

Once again her favorite part of the day is her weekly rhyme. This week she really got a kick out of the motions for the temple building. I’m not sure what struck her as so funny, but she melted into giggles every time we got to this part! I love seeing her enjoy learning so very much. I just can’t get over how much she is maturing!

Bigger Hearts for His Glory: Unit 7

Rose continues to blossom and mature as the year goes on. She is getting used to the idea that she is older and will have more work than her younger sisters. She really enjoys history and this week told me one of her favorite parts was vocabulary and learning the new words. She’s not a big fan of copying the definition, but she likes to draw a picture of the word and use it in a sentence. She’s really excited when she can use them both in the same sentence!

Our week got a little hectic, so we missed out on some of our science, but I’m planning to make it up this week. We have a weekly class she attends where she learns science, but she loves it so much! So at least for this year we continue to study science.

This was a good week! It’s nice to finish out the week and feel like everything went as it was supposed to. Our weeks aren’t always this way, but the longer we homeschool, the more fun we have. It’s nice to feel so solidly settled in our homeschooling this year!

Congratulations to our winner, Michelle T, of the All About Learning Press giveaway! Thank you so much for entering this contest! There will be another contest coming up in a week for a really fun reading resource!

 

Only 2 more days to enter my All About Learning Press giveaway! Don’t forget to stop in and enter!

On to our week!

Little Hands to Heaven

Little Miss Grace has hit a phase. Do you remember those phases? Maybe you have a little one going through a phase too! Half of the time she wants to be grown up, the other half she says she is a baby. I remember this with the older two girls as well and the most frustrating part is the baby talk. Oh well. We didn’t do much in her Little Hands to Heaven guide, but we had fun!

Although I am prepared to teach her every day from Little Hands to Heaven I’m also prepared with other stuff to occupy her. Sometimes she is happy putting together a puzzle or looking at a picture book. When she needs something more to do I pull out some fun little file folder games I made over the summer. The best part about this week was I discovered Grace already knows her numbers! I had no idea she recognized numbers already, but she does. I’ve learned it’s a part of homeschooling I hadn’t counted on. My kids are learning from one another as we do school together.

Little Hearts for His Glory ~ Unit 7

Beth has a fun week again! She’s excited to begin using the tiles in All About Spelling just like her big sister does. She has fun arranging the letters and makes them dance across the tray to get to their spot. She also did a fantastic job recognizing phonemes by sound. I was planning on doing this for several days, but after getting them all perfect on the first try two days in a row we moved on. It was just another example of how much I love the go-at-your-own-pace feeling of homeschooling!

Our Heart of Dakota Curriculum was a hit as usual! Beth enjoys the history stories which centers around the Bible this year. She has started asking to read portions aloud which is a lot of fun to hear! This week we missed out on a lot of the more fun activities scheduled in our guide because she helped me keep Grace occupied by playing with her. I appreciate how willing she is to play with her little sister! As always Beth’s favorite part of the day is reading. She read her first chapter book this week! It was a Little Bear book called Father Bear Come Home. I remember reading it when I was little and it’s fun to see her get so excited about it!

Bigger Hearts for His Glory ~ Unit 6

Rose has really learned how to work more independently and still stay focused! I have come to rely on her working independently for the first while in the morning so I can effectively teach my younger two. Handwriting and writing in her journal are done completely independently. I will teach a new mathematics concept, but her actual written work is typically done independently. She will also complete her reading while I teach Beth and Grace. I will ask her questions to assess comprehension after she finishes. Beth also has some independent work, but since she is in Kindergarten much of her lessons still need more hands on teaching from me.

After the younger girls are finished Rose gets to work on history and science, two of her favorite things! This week in history we studied William Penn and Benjamin West. She enjoyed the stories about these two men and especially Benjamin west as a child. Science was a lot of fun this week! We learned about how illnesses were treated in colonial days, why germs spread, and how infections are taken care of within our bloodstream! This is Rose tossing antibodies into the bloodstream after the T-cells and K-cells arrived. she had a lot of fun doing this!

So that was our week. I have to say I never have trouble with our curriculum not going over well with my girls. They always have fun, and I can’t take a bit of credit for that. Heart of Dakota makes teaching stress free and learning boat-loads of fun for the girls!

I’d love to hear how your week went!

So…. what do you think? I wanted something that looked a little cleaner in style and I also wanted to branch out from just our own homeschool name. I designed this background and my header so I’d appreciate your feedback.

Don’t forget about the All About Learning Press giveaway! Only 4 days left!!!!!