Weekly Update: September 17-21

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!