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 24Like 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.
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She also enjoyed some fundamental Pre-K skill practice by playing matchy socks (her name for pairing sock I hide around the room), lacing, and cutting. These were great skills for her to work on while I worked with her sisters and she finally was willing to do them this week. Yay!
Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 7
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 Hearts for His Glory: Unit 4 (1st half)
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.
This week was good. A nice refreshing week after last week...and then as I was finishing up this post our upstairs toilet overflowed...So the end of our week didn't feel quite as refreshing as the rest of it, but that's life, right?
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