A Peek at Our Week: June 1-5

We had a really fun week! School was great, but the real fun began when my sister-in-law surprised the girls by bringing their cousins to visit!

First off school...

Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 16

Grace almost always wants me to allow her to read her history on her own now. She can always narrate to me about what she read so I'm allowing it to encourage her independence. I still read to her, but I appreciate that she wants to learn! This week we learned about Christ's resurrection. While she has been told this beautiful truth from history from the time she was first born, it is always meaningful no matter how many times we hear it.

Grace like her older sister loves our old Dick and Jane reader my husband's grandmother gave us. She thinks it is so much fun! She's close to finishing this book and I think she will find it sad. I've looked at getting more of these old books, but they are a bit pricey on ebay so I'm hoping to stumble upon some at a book sale sometime.

She's moving along quite well with All About Spelling. Teaching three different levels isn't as hard as I expected! I'll chat more about that later, but for now if you are looking for what to follow up with for your phonics instruction I think All About Spelling is the best choice. It take what your kids learned with phonics and helps them reverse the process while learning to spell and solidifying what they learned. My older daughters are both reading 3-4 grade-levels high with excellent comprehension and feel their solid phonics and reading instruction through the Heart of Dakota Emerging Readers set.

Bigger Hearts for His Glory: Unit 27

Beth is doing really well with her cursive handwriting. She is now working towards writing on her own in cursive without having a model. It is a process through which I have learned to be patient. I'm very pleased with how well she is doing as she finishes up 2nd grade.

This is her picture after studying imagery within poetry this week. She very much enjoyed this assignment!

Beth looks bored here, but she really loves math. Honestly, she may be a bit bored too! She's coming to the end of her curriculum and as we study money she is probably finding it a bit tedious. This is the girl who watches the purchases ring up, asks how much we are giving the cashier and tries to figure out the difference before the change comes up on the little screen. Yeah, she's math-minded! 

Creation to Christ: Unit 10

Rose is really enjoying this guide. It wasn't a huge jump for her from Preparing and we didn't even have to start at half-speed like I did with Bigger and Preparing. She really likes learning about ancient history. We talk a lot about what other cultures believed and why. 

For a girl who doesn't love math, Rose loves long division. Who knew? Somehow all those multiplication facts which couldn't seem to stick suddenly make sense to her and she really likes it. She's doing quite well and we're just moving right along. We aren't even needing to take the lessons at half-pace anymore. I think one of the biggest reasons is she received and enormous boost in confidence when she received her standardized testing scores which showed she is working 2 grade levels higher. She suddenly brightened up and math isn't quite so bad any more!

She's recently discovered the Little House books and is almost finished with her second one. I'm moving her own to a new series soon and allowing her to read these on her own time. I love how she is drawn to these books, but I try to expand her exposure to different types of literature and authors. She tends to focus in on one and devour everything in that genre or by a particular author so I feel it necessary to help her branch out. 

#LearningTogether

If you follow me in Instagram you'll see this hashtag quite a bit. My girls are all working in different guides at different levels, a true one-room schoolhouse. Yet one of my favorite blessings on homeschool is how much learning takes place together. Here are a few pictures of that taking place...

This is what my desk looked like during spelling one day. All three levels of spelling at once. Yikes! I do the main instruction separately and then call out the words. Sometimes we do this separately but on this particular day I tried out juggling the three levels at once. It actually worked quite beautifully. I'm training them to put their pencils down when they are done writing what I have called out so I am cued to give them another word or sentence but they at the same time do not distract their sisters by talking out loud. So far it is working and although I won't always do three at once, it is sort of fun when I do!And now for the visit! We had so much fun having family here. My sister-in-law was my roommate in college and we are very close. It is always refreshing to spend time together and it is so much fun to see our kids playing together. 

First the surprise! 

Then the fun!

They stayed from Tuesday through Thursday and it was a really fun diversion during the middle of our week.