I’m so excited to now have a dedicated school room! It still doubles as my piano studio for giving lessons, but since school is out by then it’s not a problem. I still have some more to finish, but I’ll be posting pictures once it is finished!
Weekly Update: August 6-17
We had a couple of strange weeks.
We had made plans for the girls to stay with their grandparents for the week, then a stomach virus hit. We postponed the plans by a couple of days and spent the early part of the week getting well and celebrating someone turning 7 years old! We didn’t do any schooling for the younger two, but Rose desperately wanted to work on her history before she left. So we did the entire weeks worth of history in one afternoon…by her choice! We didn’t do any other work, so here are some highlights from her history activities.
And we also had some fun!
We tried some homemade bubbles with this recipe:
2 quarts water
1/3 cup dish liquid
1/3 cup corn starch
1 tsp baking powder
They were a hit!
Child Training Bible – Review and Giveaway on Monday!
Rod and Staff Tot School: About Three
So imagine you have an adorable almost three-year-old who is watching her big sisters work hard at school every day. This little sweetie is begging you, “I want to do lessons too Mommy!” in such a darling voice you can’t bear to deny her! So you do what any good homeschooling Mommy of a pre-preschooler would do…you let her learn!
This looks different for everyone. I had already made busy bag ideas like these for our previous year. They worked well for a while, but they just didn’t hold her attention anymore. I was planning to make some more bags with a few harder skills when she brought me a paper she had been working on. It was an early letter tracing worksheet and she had traced all of the letters. My kids continue to amaze me with their abilities which I have never taught! This set me on a quest to search out something which would be easy enough for her to complete, but challenge her enough not to bore her!
I searched several places and settled upon Heart of Dakota’s Little Hands to Heaven (check here for my review!) and Rod and Staff’s 3/4 preschool curriculum, About 3.
The Rod and Staff curriculum includes four books which are just right for her because she already is able to hold her pencil well and have some control. They are also very inexpensive. The drawings are simple. I appreciate they are not so flashy as to distract her from the task she is completing.
The books are completed A-D with very gradual skill progression. I appreciate that teach a skill by example in very small steps. So far she has loved these books and becomes frustrated when I tell her she is finished for the day in the books! I have started allowing her to color the beautiful pictures which has helped this some.
I highly recommend this company’s materials. I have read some reviews which cut down their materials for being too old fashioned. I happen to think this is a nice side-benefit. We will talk about farming, sewing, cooking, and other more traditional skills which are often forgotten. All of the curriculum from Rod and Staff is also very Christ-centered. I appreciate that what we are teaching them about the Bible is reinforced through all aspects of their curriculum.
You can check out these books and more from Rod and Staff publishing here. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have!
Weekly Update: July 30 – August 3
Little Hands to Heaven – Unit 2
Grace thoroughly enjoyed the Finger Play and poem this week. That will probably be her favorite part all year! I’ve started having her draw pictures while we listen to the song and she made a beautiful rainbow picture too!
Little Hearts for His Glory – Unit 3
My sweet Beth was camera shy this week, so no pictures! She did have a great time with this unit, although she was disappointed there wasn’t more reading from her history book! She giggled at me when we “Praised Him when you stand up, and when you’re sitting down” because she thought I looked funny getting up and down. I guess I’m getting old!
She is FLYING through her math workbook even with the manipulatives and activities. I’m not slowing her down, just enjoying how much she is enjoying math! She also has latched on to an old Dick and Jane 1st grade reader she can’t seem to get enough of! It was given to us by her great-grandmother so it is very special and she thinks it’s the best book ever right now!
Bigger Hearts for His Glory – Unit 2 (Week 2)
It made Rose so happy to do science this week! I’m going to admit I was a bit of a slacker last year in Beyond. She attends a two-day-a-week class that focuses on humanities and science so I just let it slide. Alternating science and history this year makes it much easier! She was so excited that both of her experiment predictions were correct!
She is quite the artist and does very good at the drawing in her notebook. The only problem is when she gets frustrated that it isn’t perfect like in the book. This is a constant battle with us so we’re working through it together!
Little Hands to Heaven
Little Hands to Heaven is an all-inclusive preschool curriculum I discovered when my oldest daughter was almost 2! That was way back in 2007 and I’m using it again this year for a third time!This is the youngest guide in the Heart of Dakota Curriculum series. It includes all of the elements of a solid preschool program including Bible, letter recognition, pre-reading instruction, number recognition, counting, art, pattern recognition, color recognition, music, drama, thinking games, and much more! The interactive activities are lively and creative allowing even very young children to participate fully.
Each unit is 5 days long and includes a unique poem to teach basic phonic sounds while reinforcing the Bible lessons for the week. A special motion is assigned to the letter and sound for easy review. Daily music selections retell Bible stories and weekly drama games are included which allow children to explore their emotions. Number recognition and counting is also reviewed weekly. The art projects are simple enough for the very young with optional older child instructions.
The thing I find most beautiful about this curriculum is how all of the learning disciplines connect together. This is a feature found in all levels of the Heart of Dakota Curriculum. I appreciate the time the author, Carrie Austen, took on even the youngest guide to connect Biblical truth to all other aspects.
I used this with my older two daughters, but wasn’t very committed either time. I had a new baby in the house with both of them and it just wasn’t a priority. Now that we’re officially homeschooling until further notice my youngest daughter begged to begin lessons. I was more than happy to pull this guide out once again, this time with better focus. It has become such a sweet time for my little girl and I to play and learn together! I’m so grateful for guidance as I would be lost as to what to include for preschool and definitely wouldn’t be able to connect it all together the way Carrie has!
Child Training Bible: Review and Giveaway!
Who could use a fabulous resource for teaching your children Spiritual truth in an instant? When I first read about the Child Training Bible on facebook I was intrigued. I sent my husband a quick e-mail with the link to website assuming we would talk about it when he got home. Within 10 minutes he responded with a note telling me he had already ordered the kit and we could go look for a Bible the first chance we had!
The Child Training Bible is an inexpensive way to put the Word of God at the fingertips of you and your children. In an instant you can address such issues as pride, anger, or lying straight from the Word of God. We all know the principles Scripture has laid out, but how many of us can flip to the correct verse the first time, every time, we need to address an issue with our children?
Not only is this an excellent resource for you as a parent, this gives your children an opportunity to find appropriate Scripture to address issues they know they are dealing with. Young children cannot handle a concordance very well, but the color coded system presented here makes the Bible so easy for a young reader to use on their own!
This is what you receive when you order a child training Bible in addition to instructions for how to make one. The laminated pages are 9 x 6 so you’ll want to measure the inside cover of the Bible you choose. The first page will be taped or glued into the front cover. Double sided tape worked beautifully! The last three pages are tucked inside for reference when needed.
The other materials you will need are highlighters in each color shown, post-it flags in each color shown, and double sided tape. There are multiple verses for each topic, hence the highlighters and tabs! The directions guide you through the process of highlighting and tabbing.
We chose to use the New King James Version Bible because this is the version the kids memorize Scripture out of for Awana. I spent about a total of two hours over the course of a week working on this in the evenings. The girls anxiously waited to see what I was making! They asked a lot of questions and enjoyed flipping through the tabs.
I learned a couple of important things in putting our Bible together. We bought a Bible with Jesus’ words in red letters. Now this is not a major problem until you get to the portions highlighted in red. This only affects a handful of verses, but in hindsight an all black letter Bible might have been a better choice. I have heard some people use crayons or colored pencils and find this works fine on the red lettering. Also, the highlighters can tend to bleed through the page so I learned to keep a tissue handy to “blot” the ink as soon as you highlight.
The small investment made in this project has already been returned in full from the responses in my children. Being a pastor’s family they have been trained in these truths from early on, but seeing it written in the Bible means more to them, just as it should.
This is my first ever giveaway! Don’t forget to sign up below and there are several ways to earn entries! I wish you call could win! If you don’t head over to their website and pick one up!
(Here is our completed Bible. Three girls meant a nice girly purple/pink Bible. They love it!)
Weekly Update: July 23-27
Our third week of school went really well! I’m now running three separate guides, but lots of planning ahead has made this week run so smooth! If you are interested in seeing our schedule you can check it out here.
Little Hands to Heaven – Unit 1
Grace has been begging me to, “do lessons,” since last January. I had lots of manipulative activities for her, but it just wasn’t enough in her mind! So we decided to begin Little Hands to Heaven with her this year. We also added in Rod and Staff workbooks called About 3. She was so excited to begin her own work this week! She acted so very grown up.
Little Hearts for His Glory – Unit 2
We moved on to unit 2 in Little Hearts for His Glory with Beth. She was a little disappointed that we weren’t going to sing the continents song, but still enjoyed our rhyme called All Because of Sin. Her favorite parts of the day are math and reading. She has fallen in love with the Dick and Jane book her great-grandmother gave her.
Bigger Hearts for His Glory – Unit 2 (Week 1)
Since we have decided to use this guide at half speed we are on a history week. Rose is really getting into her notebooking activities. I wasn’t sure if she would enjoy it, but she likes anything she can draw. She’s also once again creating a timeline she will add to weekly.
One new piece of curriculum we have added is a weekly writing assignment. She is learning how to build a paragraph and types it on Fridays. She is enjoying this and is especially enjoying being able to type on the computer!
Weekly Update: July 16-20
This was our 2nd week with Bigger at half speed and 1st week with Little Hearts at full speed. The only hitch was my 2 1/2 year-old daughter complaining about not having work. We’re starting Little Hands to Heaven next week for her 🙂
Bigger Hearts for His Glory – Unit 1 (Part 2)
Rose is in Bigger Hearts for His Glory and she LOVED the science notebooking and experiments. She also is doing quite well at narration after only 2 weeks. She will turn 7 in 2 weeks and since narration is new to me I wasn’t sure what to expect. She is doing lovely!
Little Hearts for His Glory – Unit 1
Beth, in Little Hearts for His Glory, is quite taken with the continents song! She taught it to her little sister and they went around singing it all week. I incorporated a map and pointed to the continents. She now knows them very well! She also loved memorizing the Bible verse and quoted it ALL DAY LONG to anyone who would listen…even strangers at the store!
It was a fabulous week and I’m glad things are starting out well. I know we’ll have some not as exciting days and weeks along the way so it will be nice to remember how well we started!
Weekly Update: July 9-13
I didn’t plan to start school this week…but my daughter talked me into it. How can I turn her down when she loves learning and begs me daily to start lessons back? In hindsight I probably should have waited another week because this week was Bible School every evening at our church. Even with that the week went off with only a few hitches!
We are working through her guide, Bigger Hearts for His Glory, at half speed for a few reasons. There is a big skill-level jump between this guide and Beyond Hearts for His Glory which she completed earlier this year. She’s learning how to look up and define words using a dictionary, recording scientific hypothesis then evaluating that hypothesis, analyzing literary elements, and learning to write more formally.
The second reason is she will once again be taking a two-day-a-week class at Deerstream Learning Center. The environment at Deerstream is everything I want for her. She will be studying humanities and science. I am also blessed to be teaching at Deerstream again for a third year.
Bigger Hearts for His Glory – Unit 1 (Part 1)
I let the girls sleep as late as they wanted since everyone was up past their bedtimes and running around getting thoroughly exhausted. She has been working on math daily because she was asking to, but adding in all the other work, including new skill levels, tired her out quickly.
We will be alternating history and Bible with Science and Poetry weekly. This week was our first week of history. She enjoyed the stories about early explorers and especially the little tidbits which helped her to think about them as human.
Memorization is one of her strongest areas so she challenges herself to memorize the Scripture verse in one day. The verses this year are longer, causing her to be stretched more, but she still memorized it in one day!
The best part of the week was when I questioned her about how she felt about math. Last year math was a struggle. The curriculum we used was more abstract than concrete and she often did not understand the concepts we were learning. Insecure is the best way to describe how she felt. That sent me on a search for a new curriculum. We landed on the very traditional and solid Rod and Staff math. It is straight forward, builds on itself quietly, and left my girl feeling confident about her math skills to the point that she is begging to go ahead in her book. I asked her why she liked this better. She said, “Because I know I can do it.”
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