Tag: Heart of Dakota

Weekly Update: September 10-14

Grace-Filled Writer

First of all…don’t forget about my All About Spelling giveaway! If you haven’t entered you still have plenty of time! Heart of Dakota uses dictation as the primary learning tool for spelling and we have chosen to add in All About Spelling because of the rule oriented nature of my oldest daughter. The balance of the two has improved her spelling on so many levels!

You can read my review and enter here! (And spread the word!)

Now on to our week in review…

Deerstream Learning Center

This week we got down back to our regular, full-time schedule including Deerstream Learning Center. I teach Junior Division English which includes literature and writing. I started teaching at Deerstream before we were homeschooling and it feels like my dream job! The picture is from 2 years ago, but that’s me teaching my wonderful students on the left! The video is a promo for my class. I’ve been a little shy to share it, but here it is!


Rose is in the 6/7 year-old class with Mrs. Smith this year. She has so much fun and is excited to see her friends again! Her favorite activity of the week wasShe also made a poster this week all about the things she loves and I learned even more about my daughter. I am so grateful for Deerstream. It feels like the last piece of our homeschool puzzle which makes everything else just fit right!



Little Hands to Heaven
This week didn’t go quite as planned. I found it very hard to keep all the plates balanced, so school didn’t happen exactly as planned for little Grace! But we did do some fun things together, like sorting colored frogs I found in the dollar bin at Target a couple of months ago!

She enjoyed reading books with her sisters and we made it to story time at the library for the first time in months! She chose three books and Beth read them all to her as soon as they got home!

I used another fun Target dollar bin find for a little game! Every year they have pocket charts of various colors. They are a mini version, but great for manipulatives! I have a set of matching alphabet cards (Thanks Grammy and Grampy!) I’ve used with all three girls. I put one set in the pockets and Grace matched up what was left. She had a lot of fun with this!

Little Hearts for His Glory
We finished unit 6 this week! Beth also had her yearly check-up at the doctor this week. Ouch for shots! But she was brave and did really well!

Unit 6 was a lot of fun filled with a lot of fun! The poem was a hit as always. She snuck into Jericho, climbed up the wall, and walked around to make the walls fall down all to the tune of Row, Row, Your Boat. She loved all the weekly activities and did very well with Daddy taking over the teaching on Monday. One thing I love about Heart of Dakota. My husband can take over the teaching while I go and teach once a week. It truly is open-and-go in its best form!

She also practiced putting letters into ABC order for spelling lessons. She loves this! The only trouble was when I mixed up the letters and some got upside down. I was very seriously informed I should know better!

Something new I started 2 weeks ago was having her write words on her own word wall. A retired teacher friend was cleaning out her teacher stuff and gave me these great word wall folders! We’ve been finding words each week for a specific letter. She chooses all the words to put on her word wall, and Beth really enjoys going on a word hunt in her books. Sometimes she gets so caught up reading the book she forgets to look for words!

Lastly is a little teaser for a fun giveaway coming in about two weeks. It’s great and my girl had a blast playing this sight word game! I love she sees learning as fun!

I know you can’t wait for this giveaway!

Bigger Hearts for His Glory: Unit 5
Full speed is beautiful! Even with our added co-op full speed is definitely where Rose is at! The only part of the day she really doesn’t like is cursive practice. It isn’t that she dislikes it, she just likes everything to be perfect and she’s still learning this skill, so it sometimes frustrates her.

Heart of Dakota follows a Charlotte Mason style of learning which incorporates living books and teaches students how to narrate. This has been a new way or learning for both of us, but I think we’re finally getting the hang of it. This week she also did very well with her vocabulary assignment! This is another area she has complained some and it was good to see her complete the activity and have a little fun at the same time!

Science is always Rose’s favorite. I considered not doing extra science this year because it is covered so very well at Deerstream, but she loves it so much we went ahead! This week she was learning about vertebrates at the beginning of the week. Then we moved on to science which centers around life in colonial America. She learned about the spreading of germs and why it’s important to wash our hands!

We finally got around to doing some art projects this week. (Don’t judge!) Scroll down to see that post! Overall it has been a great week!

Friday Art Projects: September 14

Grace-Filled Writer

I’ve already confessed I’m not really into art projects with the girls, but I also know art is a necessary part of their education, so I’m really trying hard to be better at this! Our week is packed full and I try to keep Fridays lighter, which now is including our art projects. No matter what day the project is scheduled in our Heart of Dakota Guide, we all do them together on Friday.

There are a few reasons for this. First of all it’s one big mess, but it happens all at once and it just takes one good clean-up. Secondly the projects are very much skill-level friendly and although I know my younger daughter would enjoy some of the things my oldest is doing, they won’t really get a lot out of it. If we do it all together they are each working on their own unique project. Last, I think it’s good for them to see different skills and for them to have an opportunity to discuss what they are doing differently.

So her we are…many weeks now into homeschooling…and I’m finally getting to the art projects. Tell me what you think!

Grace: Little Hands to Heaven Unit 3
Abraham’s tent and a starry sky

Grace loved loved loved counting the stars in the Bible picture about Abraham’s decedents! The art project for the week was making a starry sky and Abraham’s tent. We had to modify…I didn’t have the supplies I needed (note to self: CHECK YOUR SUPPLIES!!!!) so she used a white crayon to make starry circles and    then painted over them with blue. She liked it. We made Abraham’s tent with a folded index card which she drew stripes on and we taped it to the starry sky. She did get a little distracted by her sisters’ projects and was slightly perturbed that she wasn’t allowed to participate in what they were doing, but she was incredibly proud of her art project and couldn’t wait to show it off to Daddy when he got home from the office!

Beth: Little Hearts for His Glory Unit 6 
Jericho brick wall with mortar and Rahab’s cord
(Pardon the hair-do. Someone gave her self a trim in the center of her bangs.)
Beth likes to do things her own way. She doesn’t typically like to follow prescribed directions, but today she did fabulous. I once again didn’t have the right supplies, but we modified and had a lot of fun! She colored all the bricks I outlined herself, then filled in the “mortar” (made of toothpaste and glue). I used an icing bag which ended up being a great choice! It took some time for her to learn to control how it came out, but it was really nice! She also liked that it smelled minty. She did not, however, remember anything about Rahab from our week’s lessons. The spies? Total recall. Rahab? Who is Rahab? So it was also a great time to review since that portion didn’t click!

                 
Rose: Bigger Hearts for His Glory Unit 5 
Native American Sand Art

Rose is the real art love of the my three girls and just enjoys any way she can be creative. She very much enjoyed making sand art this week. We first colored the sand (actually salt) with colored chalk instead of food coloring as recommended (Thanks Pinterest!). Rose then made her design on a paper plate, then traced  it with watered down glue. She did a section with glue, we put the colored salt on, shook off the extra, then she did another section with a different color. Such beautiful creativity!

Conclusion: Art is a must!
I learned several things today as a result of of our art lesson. 
1. The mess isn’t so painful to clean up
2. The skills they are learning aren’t just glorified cut and paste projects
3. There is an added dimension to our learning when art is incorporated
4. We’ve really been missing out on some fun stuff!
Will the projects always go as planned? 
Of course not!
Will we have fun and learn something along the way? 
You better believe we will!

Weekly Update: September 3-7

Grace-Filled Writer

After 3 weeks of being off our routine because of vacation and sickness it was good to be back to our normal days. I took lots of pictures and thankfully the girls were in a mood to be photographed!

Little Hands to Heaven: Unit 4
Sweet little Grace loves her daily work so much she begs for more every day! She loves everything we do and is just sad when it’s over for the day!

One of her favorite activities was “meeting” and greeting her favorite stuffed animal, Hoppy. She had so much fun asking Hoppy questions and answering Hoppy’s questions to her.

She also loves her workbooks! They are a set from Rod and Staff called About Three. She loves these and they are teaching her to draw straight lines, matching, and same and different. They will become progressively difficult as she goes through all four books. She wants to do them all right now and it has been hard for her to hear that she has to wait!

Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 5
Beth is already growing more mature as we move into a more regular routine. She works so studiously and seems to enjoy all that we do! I do have to remember to give her more breaks because it’s easy for me to just forge ahead without them! Reading anything and everything is her favorite thing to do! Here she is reading one of our favorite stories: The Best Nest.
She is progressing well with spelling too! Beth has mastered all of the basic phonemes in All About Spelling and we have moved on to segmenting words by each sound. She caught on so quickly! She once again loved her poem! She learned about the 10 plagues and 10 Commandments. She wasn’t so interested in actually learning about the specifics of those things, but she REALLY loved poem! Math is still a favorite subject and it’s been very hard to tell her we have to stop for the day! I’m basically letting her go at her own speed and we’ll just move on to 1st grade math a little early and maybe go half speed with that for a while. Over all I am just so pleased to see how grown up Beth has become!

Bigger Hearts for His Glory

Rose studied the poem, “The Arrow,” by Richard Henry Stoddard this week. I was pleasantly surprised by her insights into the poem. She is still very young and needs help guiding her thinking about what the poems we study mean, but this week she was able to catch the message more than before. Just for fun she practiced her archery skills after we worked on the poem the first day.

Creating the Pocahontas acrostic was a highlight of the week for both of us. Rose really enjoyed Pocahontas and understood now why we had chosen not to watch the cartoon version. She agreed that she wanted to learn the true story about her and was so excited to know that one day she’ll get to meet Pocahontas in heaven!

I’m learning more to use the white board for teaching. It was good for her to be able to brainstorm her ideas and then write them on paper rather than trying to do both at the same time.

We also tried out full speed this week. Everything went so beautifully! We started our schooling around 7:30, took a 30 minute break at 9:00 and was finished by 10:00 most of the days. She loves learning and doesn’t need a lot of breaks so for now this schedule is working for us!

Overall our week was great for school! Our only snags came with getting along when we weren’t schooling. It would be nice if our kids got along all the time, but then I remember my days as a full time teacher and how the kids rarely all got along. I try to give them each some attention from me individually as well as some time alone. They don’t always like the idea of alone time, but it really is good for them to be apart from one another.

Next week start Deerstream Learning Center and our full school-year schedule will be in place. It will be busy, but good!

Weekly Update: August 20-24

Grace-Filled Writer

Well…life happens, right? My girls got to spend the previous week in Florida with their grandparents and two of them came back with colds. Then they graciously shared those germs with me! So needless to say, I wasn’t at the top of my teaching game! We got through the week and the girls learned, it was just a little less exciting than normal.

Little Hands to Heaven: Unit 3

We completed three days of unit three and will finish the unit this week. I’m still trying to tweak how we do this program. I’m not trying to rush through it, but our schedule makes it easier to only teach it three days a week. I’ve tried squeezing all 5 days into 3, which was doable, but not as much fun. This week was much better, so we’ll see how it goes.

Grace is really enjoying the rhymes which teach about our Bible story as well as reinforce letter sounds. Her other favorite thing is the Bible story. She enjoyed counting the stars on the page with Abraham over and over again!

Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 4
Beth did not ask one time this week why she couldn’t go to school for kindergarten and I’m so happy! I hate for her to feel like she is missing out on something, but we know this is the right thing for all of us during this season. Next year she’ll get to be in a class at Deerstream Learning Center where her big sister attends and which is something to look forward to.

She continues to amaze me with how quickly she picks up on reading. We are working with a 1st grade phonics curriculum now and she is breezing through. Even though it is easy, I feel the reinforcement is necesessary to cement some of this in her mind. Her favorite part is still reading Dick and Jane. I would love to get her some more of these, but they are so expensive because of their value.

Math is also an easy subject for her, probably from listening in on her sister’s math lesson last year, but we have finally reached something new in her math book! Place Values. I was all prepared with our manipulatives, but forgot to snap a picture. I picked up some little erasers from the dollar bin at Target which were perfect for sorting. groups of 10. This picture is from an earlier lesson when she was counting. I’m also excited to see how nicely her handwriting is coming along!

Bigger Hearts for His Glory: Unit 3
This week was a lot of fun for Rose. She really loves science and it was our week to work on science! I’m going to try full speed next week for her because we are finishing so fast. I’m glad we started at half speed, but now that she is back into school mode she is working quickly now.

One of her many talents is drawing and she is really enjoying the notebooking assignments. This week she drew pictures of two animals from different areas near the shore. She enjoyed picking them out from the book and worked hard to make them look like the pictures.

The highlight of the week for me came from highlighters! I decided to try something new with poetry to help her see rhyming patterns and it worked! We highlighted the words that rhymed at the ends of the lines with the same colors. I ran out of colors, so I know now to use the same colors from stanza to stanza. This helped her see the pattern easier. Since I’m also a junior high literature teacher I introduced her to rhyme scheme using the alphabet which she caught on to very quickly. This idea is DEFINITELY a keeper!

Little Hearts for His Glory

Grace-Filled Writer

We use Little Hearts for His Glory from Heart of Dakota Publishing as our Kindergarten curriculum. The first time I completed this as a K-4 program to prepare my un-preschooled daughter for public school kindergarten.  It definitely suited my needs at the, but after using it for kindergarten I enjoy this program even more.
One of the nice aspects of the entire Heart of Dakota curriculum line is they can be used for various grade levels. You simply choose the options which best suit your needs. This also allows students to be combined for history and science while still working at their own level for math, handwriting, and reading. I prefer not to combine my girls within guides, but I like knowing I have the option one day if I ever choose to.
P1020257
Grace often draws while I read her history aloud.

I love that the curriculum is all-in-one and very cohesive. History readings are the core of the program going along with the Charlotte Mason idea of education.  All other subjects are connected to this core with the exception of handwriting, reading, and math. Each week activities for science, history, rhymes, and Scripture memory are completed. Showing my children how all the subjects relate seems to bring a deeper understanding to what they are learning.

P1010919
Heart of Dakota activities get my girl excited!

I appreciate that the history spines are biblically grounded and we even read quite a bit of Scripture as part of history. Teaching my girls history and science from a biblical worldview is something I will never take for granted. As we were studying creation during the first week I was thinking of how much I had prepared my older daughter, thinking we would be sending her to public school, that she would be taught things that were different from what we believe the Bible teaches. Knowing I don’t have to tell my children anymore that they may be taught fallacy is an added benefit to homeschool I had not considered before.

Two of our favorite parts are the weekly rhymes and read alouds. Each week we learn a new rhyme which emphasizes a concept learned from history. The read alouds are classic American folk tales which involve characters from Thorton Burgess, Uncle Wiggly, and Beatrix Potter. These classic stories are enhanced with questions to get little minds thinking about right and wrong choices as well as predicting what will happen next in the story.
As with the entire Heart of Dakota line, math, handwriting, and thinking skills have suggested items, but are not required to make the program work. The recommended programs are Earlybird Singapore, A Reason for Handwriting K, and Rod and Staff books D and F or 1st grade Thinking Skills.
We are using the Singapore math, but will switch over to Rod and Staff for 1st grade. I also am using A Reason for Handwriting, but will also begin using Rod and Staff for this when we finish the book.

**Update 2015**

For my third time through this guide we are using Math Mammoth (Our final settling ground for math!) and a combination of Fundanoodle and A Reason for Handwriting for the handwriting. 

P1010893

Finally we have chosen to use the 1st grade Thinking Skills because she completed the Rod and Staff D and F options in K-4. I really love the ABC series from Rod and Staff and have allowed her to continue with G,H, and I for this year as well. It is only a couple of extra pages and provides extra critical thinking activities.

**Update 2015**

The 1st Grade Thinking Skills book is no longer in print and so we have stuck strictly to the Rod and Staff ABC series. 

Because we complete Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy lessons prior to Kindergarten we use Abeka’s K-5 and 1st grade reading really cement her phonics solidly. We also use All About Spelling, level 1 as it is a phonics based spelling program. In addition to these allow my girls devour any books they want. I am thrilled to have avid readers who can’t get enough reading to satisfy them!

**Update 2015**

With Grace after finishing the Abeka Phonics we moved into the Emerging Readers used in Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory and Bigger Hearts for His Glory. She was ready and has loved reading all of these classic stories included. 

P1020695
Already learning geography in Kindergarten!

I have found a home in Heart of Dakota Publishing. I feel so very confident teaching my daughters because of the easy open-and-go setup, unit cohesiveness, and overall simplicity of the activities. I could not ask for a more well rounded and balanced curriculum. 

Bigger Hearts for His Glory

Grace-Filled Writer

I use Bigger Hearts for His Glory for our 2ndgrade program. As with all of the Heart of Dakota curriculum guides all other subjects are tied to the history spines. For this guide we are focusing on the period of explorations to the early 1900’s.
One of the nice aspects of the entire Heart of Dakota curriculum line is they can be used for various grade levels. You simply choose the options which best suit your needs. This also allows students to be combined for history and science while still working at their own level for math, handwriting, and reading. I prefer not to combine my girls within guides, but I like knowing I have the options one day if I ever choose to.
Studies of history include weekly entries on a timeline, narration, vocabulary work and notebooking entries. This is the first guide in the series where narration is formally used. This concept took some getting used to as I had never experienced narration before Heart of Dakota. It is briefly touched on in the previous guide, Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory, but I felt like I was floundering a little bit at the beginning. The biggest help I found in this area was searching for YouTube videos for examples of narration.
In addition to history read alouds there are weekly activities which explore geography, historical life, and more. These are always hands on and very engaging. I try to always take pictures of these activities because my girls have so much fun!
Science always relates to what we are learning in history and includes weekly narration, experiments, and notebooking entries. The experiments are very hands on and include written record of a question we are answering, a hypothesis, a picture showing the experiment, and finally a conclusion statement. This seemed like a lot at first, but I do appreciate that my children are being exposed to a formal scientific process even before they realize that is what they are doing.
A weekly poem is studied as well as introduction to some of the more formal aspects of poetry like rhyme scheme and symbolic meaning. With my background in literature I truly appreciate this gentle approach to teaching poetry at a young age.
Bible study focuses on a passage to memorize (1-2 verses) from Proverbs and daily discussion about the verse. These verses have brought out some great discussions, but more importantly I see the principles learned showing up outside of our school time. I am so encouraged when I see my daughters begin to follow after Christ on their own. The Scripture also always relates to something learned about in history that week.
Spelling is learned through a Charlotte Mason method called dictation. The students study a short passage (usually 2 sentences and several extra words) then try to write the passage without any punctuation or spelling errors as it is dictated to them. This was another part that is new with this particular guide. I like the way it is taught, but also wanted to give my daughters more formal rules and so I have added All About Spelling in addition to the dictation. We work this out by doing alternating days of dictation and All About Spelling.
Finally is something near and dear to my heart…grammar! I know that sounds a little crazy, but my background is teaching junior high English. I cannot begin to tell you the struggle I had with grammar when I was teaching full time before the kids came along. I am so pleased with the grammar choice from Heart of Dakota which is Rod and Staff. There are no frills or fancy gimmicks, but it is very strong even in the earliest level which is taught along with this guide.
I believe my favorite part about the grammar is that it is very biblically based, which honestly surprised me. The very first lesson teaches that God created language, that He is a God of order, and that our language reflects this order. That is just so beautiful to me!
As with the entire Heart of Dakota line, math, handwriting, and reading/literature have suggested items, but are not required to make the program work. The recommended programs are Singapore, Cheerful Cursive, and Drawn Into the Heart of Reading. We have chosen different programs for each. For math we are using Rod and Staff grade 2, for handwriting we are using A Reason for Handwriting T and C for cursive, and for literature I am using a more informal approach. We are reading the recommended books from Drawn Into the Heart of Reading for the 2/3 level, but are simply discussing the book as it is read. You can click on the various links to read reviews about these differentiations in our program.
We have found our education home with Heart of Dakota. Without these guides my girls would still learn all they needed to, but it certainly wouldn’t be as much fun!

Weekly Update: August 6-17

Grace-Filled Writer

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!

Weekly Update: July 30 – August 3

Grace-Filled Writer

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

Grace-Filled Writer
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!

Weekly Update: July 23-27

Grace-Filled Writer

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!