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Hi, my name is Melissa. Pour yourself a cup of tea and stay a while. I'm completely devoted to my Savior, madly in love with my husband, and joyously raising my daughters. I'm so glad you stopped by and I hope you enjoy your time here!

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Week in Review: October 28 - November 1

This week was mostly finishing up from last week. Everyone was still recovering from the fever/cough virus which infected our home last week so we took it easy. I'm thankful everyone has improved dramatically!

Little Hands to Heaven: Unit 26

We took our time finishing up Unit 24 in Little Hands to Heaven. Grace just loves her time for lessons. She was not as excited about school this week, but this was mostly is because she still felt pretty bad. One of her favorite things to do is play with our All About Spelling tiles. She likes to mess up the order and then rearrange them! 

She is doing so well remembering the letter sounds from what we have already covered in Little Hands to Heaven. Sometimes because of her age I don't always know if she is retaining what she is learning. I shouldn't ever worry about this. I really ought to know by now just how wonderful this preschool program is and how much my littlest sweetheart is learning! 

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 8

I am so pleased with the new maturity I'm seeing in Beth. Beyond Little Hearts has really helped her mature spiritually. Each week we have a new Bible verse to study. Her understanding of what the Scripture means grows daily. One of the things I absolutely love about Heart of Dakota is how discipleship is built right into the day. Although I always look for ways to encourage my girls in their walk with God I know what they study throughout all their years with Heart of Dakota is intentionally bringing them to a closer relationship with Christ. 

We spent some time this week talking about countries, states, and cities. This will obviously take some repetition and review, but she had a lot of fun finding the locations on our globe. I find it interesting how a child's awareness of their location in the world develops in stages. I can't simply explain the concept of continents and countries and expect Beth to just suddenly understand. I know from going through this guide previously that we will revisit this idea. 

Beth is one unit away from finishing All About Spelling Level 1! Yay! She does really well with spelling now and takes time to think about how the phonics she has learned relates to spelling. I also think her handwriting is improving a lot. She was trying out a finger-grip just for fun, but found she preferred not using them.


Preparing Hearts for His Glory (Unit 4, 2nd half)

Rose is anxious to move through the history at a quicker pace so I'm planning to start her at full speed through the guide next week. This will mean we need to get our day started earlier, but no doubt the time change will help!

Math continues to be more fun now with Life of Fred. We'll plan to continue this along side Rod and Staff and see where things go. We've been very pleased with the more traditional approach. 



Rose loves to read and has been enjoying an American Girl book called Mia as her selection for realistic fiction. She has enjoyed this and is getting very good at identifying the various aspects of novels. Literature has become something she really loves!

When it comes to school Rose is incredibly serious and focused, she does have fun and enjoys it, but she is so very studious! I can't say she looks incredibly happy in these pictures, but she really does enjoy school.

The timeline entries have been a lot of fun for her this year. We're using index cards taped together for a stretched out timeline. She enjoys each entry and I appreciate that they often give her a chance to practice what she drew earlier in the unit from Draw and Write Through History. My little artist loves this fact too!







Here are three fun reviews recently posted...

IXL.com
Rosie's Doll Clothes Patterns
If You Were Me... book series

I hope your week was as fun-filled as ours!


3 comments:

  1. She looks like she is so very focused!

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  2. Looks like your girls are learning and growing so quickly.

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  3. It looks like a great week of homeschooling with HOD! I had to smile at your studious oldest - my oldest is the same! I to think the Lord equips these oldest dc of ours to lead. I'm so glad your little Grace is remembering her letter sounds well. We found Little Hands to Heaven to be a huge help in this endeavor as well. Your young Beth doing Beyond Little Hearts has lovely writing! I am doing Beyond with my son, Emmett, right now too, and I could not agree with you more about being glad the discipleship being built right in the daily plans. I find that I need this help with my second and third dc more and more. It seems I am better at focusing on these things with my oldest the first time around, and needing more reminders to do so with my next dc the second and third times around. I am oh so thankful to HOD for this, as it really is where my heart is, but my head can take over and lead too often if I'm not careful! HOD helps me balance the need for academics AND faith-building matters of the heart. Preparing Hearts is a favorite guide of mine to teach. "Grandpa's Box" is an all-time favorite book of ours. I am glad you and Rose are enjoying it together! Our dc loved their PHFHG timelines so much that both of their timelines (completed 4 years apart) remained hanging up staircase style inside our closet together for years. Only the tearing down of that closet on a recent house renovation was reason enough for them to 'let' us take them down! You are doing such a terrifc job homeschooling your dc - keep up the good work, and may God bless you with many more happy days such as these in the weeks to come!
    In Christ,
    Julie

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