Tag: Heart of Dakota

We were doing so well…just so so good! We were on track, everyone was having fun…it was fabulous!

And then the fevers started on Tuesday…sigh.

So what did I learn? For all my good intentions, for all my planning, life still happens. And it is okay. Grace for every moment is how I try to live. I used to get really frustrated when we got off, but this past year has taught me so much about leaving room for life and being flexible.

Unfortunately because of their fevers the girls have not been able to spend as much time with Diego as they usually do. He is our sweet neighbor who is currently battling cancer. Click here to read more about his story.

Little Hands to Heaven: Unit 24

We’re getting really close to finishing up the About 3 series from Rod and Staff. I have loved these books for helping her fine motor skills. They are age appropriate for preschoolers ready to learn to write. They progress well from the beginning to end of the four book set and they are inexpensive. Grace loves these too and will even go back and do the pages again.

Grace’s favorite new show is Peg Plus Cat on PBS. It’s a funny little show and she was thrilled to find a game online she could play!

Beth was the first to succumb to the fever of the week, which started the evening after these pictures. She’s so very easy to teach. She may sometimes ask if she has to do work, but when I say, “Yes,” she goes right to it with a good attitude. She is also often the first one to have her school books out on the table. (…Or on the living room floor!)

She very happy to move on in her cursive book. She loves the artistic aspect to what we’re using now from Classical Conversations. I’ve encouraged her to be more careful and take her time using her colored pencils for the fine details. I’ve told her it is better to take a break and come back to it if she gets tired of coloring than to just scribble. This seemed to be an incredible revelation to her and she is much more willing to do fine detailed work now.

Life of Fred continues to delight and we finished up with our 3 times tables. Next week will be review of 0-3, which I anticipate going very well. Rose started Butterflies from the Life of Fred and is happy to be moving on through this new book. She’s already on chapter 5!

Rose was also excited to get back to history and continue on with her notebooking pages. She has loved history so much! I understand now why so many on the official Heart of Dakota message board rave about how Preparing is their favorite guide. We are also looking to start full-speed next week. We did the last two days of the week at full-speed and it went very well! I just have to include several short breaks and be willing to do some work after lunch if needed. 

Playing Kids of Catan with Grammy and Grampy. This was actually the previous week, but it was fun!

Beth lost her 2nd top front tooth. Now we’re working on learning All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth. If it goes well I’m sure you’ll get to hear it!

And of course the sickness. Poor sweet Beth got the worst of it and has a fever which keeps spiking throughout the day and night. Her sisters tried to make her feel better by surrounding her with their favorite stuffed animals. Poor thing…she felt so bad, but gave me a sweet smile in this picture anyway!

We had a good week! Everyone was more focused, especially Grace, which made learning so much easier for all of us. We started off the week with a field trip. It was actually a kids concert on Sunday evening before our week actually started, but I’m including it for this week. We had a great time with Mrs. Kate! Check out the post to see just how much fun!

Little Hands to Heaven: Unit 24

Like I said before Grace was much more cooperative this week when it came to lessons. She is very happy to do her work, especially her reading lessons. She has caught on much more quickly to reading than I expected. All my girls were reading at about a 1st grade level before they turned 5. Grace didn’t beg to read the way her sisters did because she was convinced she already knew! Now that we’re almost 20 lessons into Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (I’ve used this for all of them) she has really caught on well. She can already sound out words without any trouble as long as they include letters she has learned.

I’ve really enjoyed using the ABC Bible Verse devotionals each week with her this year. This is one book I never had with the set and I purchased it used this summer. Grace really likes the little stories that go along with the verses. It uses KJV which we don’t usually use, but I’m not absolutely opposed to either. I love the flexibility of HOD and being able to use whatever version I prefer!

Grace finished up capital F in Fundanoodle. I really wish I’d found this handwriting curriculum for my other two. She loves getting to put the sticker at the bottom of each page. Her handwriting is really good for a just-turned-four-year-old! Although she isn’t consistent, about 1 in every 6 letters looks amazing well-written. She also is easy because she doesn’t get frustrated that it isn’t perfect yet.

Beth read Buffalo Bill this week. Sometimes she read aloud to Grace who absolutely loved the story! Beth loves reading. I’m so blessed to have bookworms!  

One of my favorite aspects of the Heart of Dakota Curriculum is the early integration of poetry. The first two guides uses rhyme and poetry to teach, so by the time the third guide comes around they are very ready to listen to classic poems and think about what they mean. One of Beth’s favorite part of poetry is making motions that go along with words! She is just so sweet!

Beth’s handwriting has suddenly matured! I am not using the traditional copywork with her because we have a lot of handwriting each day through All About Spelling, her HOD spelling, and the journal activities we have recently begun. You can see at the top of this page where I showed her how to write a small r, but usually this is just a reminder because she likes to write them fancy. She’s also working on learning cursive so she sometimes likes to try to curly-cue her print letters.

Preparing has been such a fun guide and we’re only 4 units in! There is so much solid material here and we’re really enjoying it. We are unashamedly believers in a literal Genesis account of creation and I appreciate that Heart of Dakota falls in line with our beliefs. Rose loves the history and so do I! The last three guides have had a sweeping view of history from the explorers to early America. I have enjoyed starting at the beginning with Rose and seeing how Scripture is right in line with history. 

 Ahhh vocabulary…Rose really doesn’t like this part for some reason although this week has been easier than the others. I’m currently only having her do 3 of the 5 words, but I’m planning to have her up to all 5 by January. I’m also hoping we’ll be full-speed by January, but if we take this guide for 2 years I’m okay with that. Math and English will remain on course no matter what. 

We’re half-way through All About Spelling Level 3 and I’m seeing wonderful application beyond our lessons now. As I remind her to proof-read she will break down the words she has written into their individual phonemes and figure out on her own the correction. I’ve also caught her mumbling some of the All About Spelling rules under her breath. “This letter has to be doubled to protect the short vowel.” It is so wonderful to see a curriculum cross into life application! 

Poetry is one of my favorite parts of the unit! We’re studying poems all by Robert Louis Stevenson this year, one of my favorite poets and authors! I love that as we are studying the poems we also learn a little bit about the poet’s life. 

Oh my voracious reader! This picture was actually taken after our lessons for the day were over and I caught her reading her book for literature because she just had to read one more chapter! I struggle to get her to pace the books we read so I can discuss them with her, but I can’t really complain. I’d much rather see this than have rolling eyes when I mention literature!

We won’t have too many more days when the ice cream truck will come through the neighborhood. We usually do this once or twice in the summer, but this time the girls decided they wanted to use their money so Daddy took them down. This was a fun mid-week break in routine!

Grace turned 4 on Friday! She’s so very grown up. Her favorite gift was a digital camera. Her older sisters each got a camera at 4 and she’s been anxiously awaiting her turn. She already knew how to use it because Rose has been teaching her with her own camera. She took over 200 pictures on the first day! We enjoyed spending the day with my parents, especially since my mom shares a birthday with my littlest sweetheart! It is so special that they have this special bond. 

Another week has come and gone. We read, we calculated, we learned. Maybe this should be our mantra!

Little Hands to Heaven: Sigh…

That’s all I’ve got: a sigh. Grace is almost four and she’s been testing me in a lot of areas. It isn’t that she doesn’t want to do school, there were just other things which needed attention this week! We didn’t really go through a terrible twos or threes. She of course tested us, but not to the extent her older sisters did at that age. This week there was a lot of time spent seeing if Mommy and Daddy really mean what they say.

She’s spent a long time at the kitchen table after refusing to eat the very thing she asked for breakfast just minutes before and time in her room for being sassy with her responses to me. She’s told me she’s mad at me for making her lay down for her nap and yelled at her sisters for not doing what she told them to do. It’s tough being almost-four! Although at the moment I think it is tougher being the mommy of this almost-four-year-old!

We did manage to get a few reading lessons in and she enjoyed some more time on the computer using Reading Kingdom and a handful of other learning games. I’m hoping this week will go better since Friday she seemed to be quite cooperative.

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 6

I think I am enjoying Beyond Little Hearts as much as Beth! This is my second time going through the guide, but the first time was with Rose during our first year of homeschooling. I had a hard time enjoying and appreciating it then because I felt such pressure. I’m really having fun with all the history readings and activities.

She did a “scrubbing day” just like the ladies in Holland did and she really enjoyed it. She scrubbed our stove completely and now it is shining!

The poem we studied was about the months of the year. She really enjoyed putting the poem in the correct order and showing off her knowledge of the months!

She is really enjoying her timeline now! At first she was so nervous about being able to do it correctly, but now she just goes right ahead. I usually write it out for her on another piece of paper so she can see just how to space it and to give her a sample of the picture.

For grammar this week we looked at question words. She was supposed to draw a question word from the pile and ask a question starting with the word about what I had hidden in a bag so she could figure it out. 
She picked “what”. 
Her question?
“What is in the bag?” 
Well played little girl. Well played.

Preparing Hearts for His Glory: Unit 3 (2nd half)
Rose finished up the second half of unit 3 in Preparing this week and begged me to start going full-speed because she just couldn’t handle not reading more for history! I explained part of the reason we were still going half-speed was because it was taking her so very long to do her work each day and honestly to even get started! We’re doing at least one more 1/2 speed unit and we’ll see how it goes.

Math is finally going really well. I found a wonderfully large pdf collection of math fact pages for her so she doesn’t have to copy the problems while she’s learning the facts. While addition facts seemed to take forever, this is going much better! I’m not sure the difference, but at the moment she is flying through her times tables! Click on the picture to the left to see the website. I happened to stumble upon it one day and I’m so very glad I did!

This is the newest book we’re reviewing for the TOS Review Crew. I seriously can’t tear her away from this! She loves this novel and has been taking it with her everywhere she goes. She very much takes after her mother and both of her grandmothers. I am just thrilled to watch her world open up as she continues to devour great literature!

Rose once detested spelling. She now loves it and actually asks to do spelling. We follow the HOD suggestion for dictation twice a week and do a unit from All About Spelling twice a week. I really believe both methods have improved her spelling and am grateful for the change in her attitude this year. She doesn’t always get everything right the first time, but she now has the skills to make corrections without me just having to tell her how it is spelled. She has also started proofreading her own writing better and checking herself for mistakes. Yay! 

We are studying a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson during each unit this year. She is supposed to share the poem in a special way so she rewrote Rain using the quill pen she got from Williamsburg. She’s getting pretty good at it although she does have to make lots of cross-throughs and corrections! 

I’m hosting another wonderful giveaway from Applewood Books through this coming Friday. Make sure you take a minute to enter by click on the link! The choice for the winner is going to be difficult. We loved all four books so much!

We had the chance to have two field trips in one at the end of this week! Take some time to read my review of the Children’s Museum of Alamance County…

…and the Art of Brick exhibit hosted by the Alamance County Arts Council. 

Fall is here! This is my favorite season of the year and it seems to be coming early to the south. The leaves on our trees are starting to fall, something that doesn’t usually happen until mid-September at the earliest. My girls will soon be outside raking up leaves and we’ll be enjoying the cooler air. I decorated last week for fall inside, something I’ve done since we lived in Florida where fall simply does not exist! I’ve also been enjoying my favorite Yankee Candle, Pumpkin Spice…mmmmm!

School has finally seemed to hit its groove for us this week. We have the normal bumps, but much less dragging things out and a lot of

Little Hands to Heaven: Unit 23

This week’s letter was S and the Bible lessons focused on Jesus performing miracles. For our math activity Grace practiced choosing which group had more or less. I even had groups of smaller numbers, like 5 and 7, and she was able to tell me that the group with 7 had more. I continue to be surprised by concepts she already grasps and continue to see the benefit of doing school with older siblings. Both Grace and Beth have learned many things I’ve never had to teach them simply from observing Rose.

We are also reviewing a new handwriting and letter recognition curriculum that is so much fun! I can’t wait to share it! As you can see, Grace’s fine-motor skills are really accelerated for her age. She’ll be four in a few weeks and already can write almost all of her letters without any help or guidance from me. There are a couple she forget or gets confused, but so far she hasn’t needed a lot of help.

This is my favorite picture of the week! After reading about the little boy Jesus healed Grace said, “That was so sweet. Jesus is really sweet to make the little boy well.” Then she asked to pray for our friend, Diego, who has cancer that Jesus would heal him too. I was again surprised at the depth of her connections to real-life.

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 5

We have continued to study about the Pilgrims and I was reminded again this second time we are going through Beyond that there is so much I just wasn’t taught in school. I can’t help but wonder if it was intentional. I mean I know the whole argument of there is only so much time we have to teach and something has to be left out, but if they are going to spend time on the information in class, shouldn’t it be accurate and complete? The Pilgrim’s frequent imprisonment and hardships in Holland were never mentioned, but merely glossed over. My husband and I watched Kirk Cameron’s documentary, Monumental and there is much which we have learned included in it. This documentary is excellent and I plan to let the girls see some of it as we continue to study about the Pilgrims.

Math has always been a favorite part of Beth’s day. She frequently requests to do more than one lesson in a day and I usually let her. I’m happy for her to move at her own pace and she rarely makes any mistakes! This week she learned how to read a thermometer which is marked of by twos. Rose didn’t remember learning this before so Beth volunteered to teach her! It was so sweet to see her be the teacher and she did a great job! She explained the concept clearly, did an example, then had Rose try one. Since her answer was correct Beth followed it up with lots of encouraging words! Sweet moments that make homeschooling such a wonderful blessing!

Preparing Hearts for His Glory: Unit 3 (first half)

This history in Preparing has been so much fun for us! I had heard that it was a favorite guide for long-time Heart of Dakota families, and it is fun to finally experience it ourselves! Rose loves our history readings. She loves them to the point that she is incredibly disappointed that I don’t keep going. She also really enjoys the drawing for her notebook. She loves art anyway and it has been fun for her to do the independent history.

We have continued on with both dictation and All About Spelling and she’s doing great. We had taken a bit of a break from All About Spelling for the summer and have had a little trouble staying consistent with it, but that has been my issue with planning for all three and I’m getting the kinks in our day worked out. We started working with suffixes which gave us an entirely new set of tiles to work with! They’re pink and pretty. What more can I say?

The Rest of the Week

I’m trying to make sure I take time to enjoy my girls. This week we enjoyed more read-aloud time, playing Kids of Catan, and playing some putt-putt in the backyard. It is easy to get distracted with the duties I have, the work I must complete, and the things I would like to do, but I’ve decided missing out on time with my kids is just not going to be an option anymore. I will stop and take time to enjoy them, learn about who they are. I will not make it just something I check off a list or try to claim school-time is the same as spending time with them just having fun.

Next week will be a break for us and I’m looking forward to a really fun field trip at the end of the week!

Phew! I’m one tired mama! I’m always tired by the end of the week, but it is a good tired. Can you relate? This week has been good, a bit more relaxed and felt more in routine. We have one more week before Rose and Beth start classes at Deerstream Learning Center and I’m enjoying the slower pace.

One of my major goals this year is to make story time with the girls a priority. Until this year I have found it very hard to have a consistent story time. Not only am I doing the girls’ individual story times with their own guides more consistently, I’m also trying to do group story time. I let them color, draw, build with legos, or whatever else to keep their little hands busy. Right now we’re reading through the Felicity American Girl books in anticipation of a trip to Williamsburg coming very soon!

Little Hands to Heaven: Unit 22

Sooo…I forgot to take any pictures of our Heart of Dakota work in Little Hands to Heaven this week! Our letter was R and Grace enjoyed the Bible stories about Jesus as a boy and the early part of his ministry. We also continued with reading lessons. Some days are easier than others, but she’s doing great. The biggest challenge is that she is convinced she can already read after 10 lessons and sometimes balks at doing a lesson each day!

We got a chance to review the sweetest little book about safety while crossing the road. All three of my girls loved it even though I think it was geared more towards Grace. You can read my full review here.

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 4

Beth has matured an amazing amount from last year to this year.  A lot of this just has to do with age, but I also credit Little Hearts for His Glory. The beauty of Heart of Dakota for my goes far beyond the wonderful history readings and delightful activities. It reaches farther than the outstanding weekly poetry selections. Heart of Dakota has been a wonderful asset as we teach our girls of the grace of God. Beth accepted Christ as her Savior just a couple of weeks prior to beginning her kindergarten. Our curriculum’s primary focus is pointing our children back to their Savior. Yes, academics are major, but seeing my girls’ hearts seek after Christ is primary.

I clearly got distracted this week and flaked on taking pictures! Beth’s handwriting is becoming quite lovely and I am so happy with her efforts! Spelling is also going smoothly. Our pretest usually reveals a couple of words she needs to work on, usually rule breakers, and this has been going well. I tried orally quizzing her on her words this week, and this didn’t go so well…and back to our original quizzing it was!

Preparing Hearts for His Glory; Unit 2 (second half)

Rose is loving this year’s guide! I am seriously having trouble holding her back in history. I am going to go with at least one more week at half-speed, however, as we adjust to the schedule once her science class starts. As we move through our sweeping look at history we have continued to focus on the Ice Age.

She is enjoying every subject this year…except math…until this week! I am not a fan of changing curriculum for math or reading. There has to be a rather big problem for me to be willing to make a major change. The reason for this is because although math and reading are fundamental, no one curriculum teaching in the same way or order. I am, however, more than willing to try something new to supplement. Enter Life of Fred.

In addition to shortening the amount of work she does each day, Rose also has been reading a chapter (or more!) from Life of Fred. This is a very unique approach to mathematics instruction. While inteded to be a stand-alone curriculum I am choosing to use it as a supplement. Math is no longer an issue. In fact, for the first time in I’m not sure how long Rose is now asking to do her math lesson first each day. I typically find her giggle over something she’s reading about Fred. I’m not sure how far we’ll continue with Fred, but I’m thrilled he is now part of our homeschooling!

And so ends another good week. The girls are right now having their weekly slumber party in their playroom. I’m so blessed our girls enjoy one another. Today they told me they’d formed a club of which they were all a part. My girls are truly friends, not merely just sisters. Do they bicker? Yes. Do they get tired of each other sometimes? Absolutely! Yet, at the end of the day, there is a love and a bond which cannot be missed. I frequently pray their relationship continues to grow as they grow up.

In retrospect, this was not the ideal week to begin school. I had these wonderful visions of what our first day back at it would look like with eager faces shining up at me begging to be enlightened…yeah…and I’m not even a newbie anymore either! My girls were coming off a 2-week vacation with their grandparents, I was only 2 1/2 weeks out from having thyroid surgery, and I started one of my two part-time jobs teaching piano for 2 1/2 hours every afternoon. I obviously didn’t think this through! Yet, when my mind is made up to begin something, I have a very difficult deviating from that thought.

Our first week was not what I had planned, yet it was still pretty good. I learned some things, tweaked some things, and regrouped more than once! We ended the week with a fun field trip giving us some much needed family-time as well.

We’re using three guides from Heart of Dakota once again…

Grace – K4

Beth – 1st Grade

Rose – 3rd Grade

Little Hands to Heaven: Unit 20

Grace did a little over half the guide of Little Hands to Heaven last year for K-3. I had originally intended to do this guide twice in a row, but plans changed, life happened, and here we are. This unit was a review so it was a perfect starting point for Grace. All of the letters have special motions and a rhyme to help out with remembering their sounds. I was so pleased that even though she didn’t remember all of them she did recall them quickly when I reminded her of the motions. 

We are moving fairly quickly now through the About 3 series. Rod and Staff is an excellent company and very solid, although not flashy. Much of their curriculum focuses on rural life and has given us some great discussions we may not have had otherwise. My grandfather was a farmer so it has been fun to explore things like farming tools as well as less modern conveniences such as oil lamps. 

We are also reading through Master Book’s N is for Noah. I am loving being a Mom of Master Books! (Click on the picture for my full review!)

Grace is also starting to learn to read! We’re using Reading Kingdom (A TOS Review product) and Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons…but more will come next week!

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 1

Beth has grown up so much in the last couple of months. She has decided to grow her bangs out and is typically the first one starting her lessons, most often without my even saying anything to her. She loves to learn and never, ever balks at her schoolwork. I have no idea if this will last, but believe me, I’m going to enjoy it while I can!

She is finishing up the last few pages of the Inside Outside Rod and Staff workbook, which she is sad to see end. J, the next book in the series has just been published and I may just have to get it for her! 

She was a bit hesitant about history last year, but by the end of Little Hands to Heaven she really enjoyed our readings. She couldn’t wait to get started with history this year. Living history is one of the beautiful aspects of the Heart of Dakota curriculum modeled after Charlotte Mason’s style of learning. 

Beth did her first timeline entry today! Timelines are a big part of Heart of Dakota. Beth was very certain she could never do a timeline entry…then was so proud of herself when she did! Everything is her own writing and drawing. I did give her an example of what she could draw to get her started though. 

We are also continuing with All About Spelling (close to finishing level 1!) as well as cursive instruction. She has started the year off quite well! 

Preparing Hearts for His Glory: Unit 1

Rose was not quite as eager to get started this summer as I expected and I think it may have been my fault. I over ambitiously assumed since she completed Bigger Hearts for His Glory on such a high note we could dive right into Preparing Hearts for His Glory at full speed…and after two days I saw this had been a big error! I believe from now on I’m going to need to start every guide at half speed and then see how it will go. Since Rose is at the younger end of the age-range for the guide I had to be reminded by other Heart of Dakota moms that I need to give her a bit of time to grow into the higher expectations of this guide.

Rose’s least favorite subject is math. I’ve been having her continue with Math Rider which is really helping with this. Rod and Staff is our math curriculum which has a lot of practice. Since I feel it is more at this level than she needs I have been having her do just the even or odd numbers on the page. If she has any trouble we go back and do the opposite the following day. So far this has been a great plan and has eased her anxiety over this subject. 

Draw and Write Through History: Creation to Jonah is definitely her favorite part so far! These creation based history lessons excite my little artist! 

Dictation is alternated with All About Spelling, level 3. She does well with both, so I combine the two with an alternating schedule. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are for dictation while Tuesdays and Thursdays are All About Spelling. I have been so pleased with her progress in this area. She still has some letter switching issues, but this seems to be most prevalent when she is less focused or tired. I just try to make sure she is fresh when we cover these subjects from now on. 

Over all the week was good. I did have to change up my plans and back off a bit on Rose’s work, but otherwise it was a good week.