Week in Review: January 13-17

Don't you just love it when you have wonderful plans, plans certain to keep your children enthralled with their education, exciting plans you can't wait to get your hands into? I know I do. I also know that is often when life intervenes and nothing goes as planned! Our week started out rough with Mommy catching a virus. Blessedly, (I would say miraculously!) no one else in the house came down sick and we were able to get back to normal and even catch up a bit by Wednesday.



Little Hands to Heaven: Units 32-33
I've been trying to finish up this guide for what feels like forever! We finally did it and I mushed two weeks into one and we're done. Grace was very excited to finally learn the motions and poems for Y an Z. She kept saying, "Mommy! We have to learn Y and Z!!!!" for the last few weeks.

We hit a couple of milestones this week! Grace finished up the About 3 series from Rod and Staff so she'll be moving on to the ABC series next week. She also reached the half-way point in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons...Yay!!! She is now able to read some words in early reader books. Her favorite one right now is Pizza Pat. There is absolutely nothing fancy about our reading program, but it works and is very solid, especially if you are on a budget.

Grace frequently asks me to do spelling with her. While she is doing great with both writing and reading, she isn't exactly ready for spelling. She has been known to make very good attempts at sounding out words, but she is too young to do spelling like her sisters do with All About Spelling. For now she enjoys using our Cookie Sheet Challenge activities and I call it spelling. I have some other tools like this I plan to use with her and I'm sure she'll love it!

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 13
Beth was very happy to have a new book from Rod and Staff in their ABC series. These books are intended for use before 1st grade, but Beth has loved them immensely. When she saw I was ordering a set for Grace she asked if there were any more she could use. When I told her there was one new one her sweet response asking if I could get it for her I absolutely agreed. She enjoys problem solving which involves cutting, coloring, and thinking.

We read Seabiscuit which she very much enjoyed because it was about a horse. Sometimes she does not care to narrate to me, but she's getting better at this. When she is agreeable she does quite well. Beth is my little story-teller complete with voices and inflection. Her problem is she would much rather read than tell me about what she read. If she's particularly resistant I will ask her to act it out with toys and then her face lights up. I believe I will be asking her to do this more often.

Beth is very, very close to finishing up her 1st grade math curriculum from Rod and Staff. Math has always been easy for her and we have yet to hit any bumps. I'm letting her proceed at her own pace and she's very much ready to move into her 2nd grade material soon.




Preparing Hearts for His Glory: Unit 8 (2nd half)

We're working our way through multiplication facts quite well. I am very pleased not only with how well she is catching on, but how quickly she is memorizing them. This seemed to be a struggle for her with addition facts and I'm not certain why except I have taken off the pressure of timed quizzes. I do plan to introduce them again later, but relieving her of this pressure has enabled her to learn without fear of mistake. Her perfectionist tendencies were one reason we started homeschooling and they are still a constant struggle to help her balance. So instead of quizzes we use Math Rider to test speed. It is fun and feels like a game rather than a test.

History is always wonderful, but even better with Zoe around! Our sweet kitty just loves hanging out with the girls during school hours. I think the fact that they are quietly engaged makes her more amiable towards them because we rarely see her when they become more rambunctious in the afternoons. I'm very pleased with Rose's written narrations and she was very proud to be able to write her very own this week about David. She articulated very well what she read and it is exciting to see the Charlotte Mason way of teaching writing blossoming for her. Sometimes I am afraid that what I read sounds great in theory, but not practicality. I love seeing how well these methods actually work!

You can see from the pictures we were away from our schoolroom for much of the week. That's what happens when someone isn't feeling well in our house. But I love the freedom of movement which we have. The girls now each have their own canvas bag with the books we will use for that week they can carry to whatever location where we will be learning.

I posted three reviews this week as I'm trying to catch up from over the holidays! In case you missed them...

Girls of American History Curriculum - Felicity

Mere Christianity Critical Analysis Journal Review

Six Days (a book on creation)

Week in Review: January 6-10

Back at it again...

It is good to be back at routine, isn't it? I enjoyed our break very much, but the girls were long overdue for some structure. Everything started back up this week, which made for a really busy start, but it was quite smoothe actually. You can read about our Christmas to see all we did!

While I was busy undecorating and redecorating Grace helped Daddy put together a rolling cart storage for me. I've always thought these looked great for crafting. My girls love to be given a bunch of supplies and creating whatever they are in the mood to do at the time. The school room isn't set up for this type of creativity because of space issues and now they can roll their supplies to the kitchen table with ease.


Little Hands to Heaven: Off Week
I only have 2 more weeks to complete in this guide and I planned on squishing them into this week, but wouldn't you know it, Grace came down with a cold and really wasn't up to a lot of formal work. She really wasn't all that sick, but she was incredibly tired and not in the mood to focus a whole lot until the end of the week.

On Thursday she finally asked to do some work. Her first request was the animal activity cards from our Fundanoodle sets. She loves these and so do I! They are really fun and I've seen firsthand how much they help her focus if we do them first.

I have quite a few file folder games I have put together for the girls to play alone or together from the dollar sales at Scholastic. Grace is now at the point where she can do a handful on her own and actually enjoy them. This one matches letters which are randomly placed on the board. While it isn't anything fancy she really likes the activity and is good practice for letter recognition.

(You have to love a 4-year-old's sense of style!)

After being away from our reading lessons for almost a month I wasn't sure how our first one back would go. I love how well young minds retain information because she recalled most of the letter sounds on her own. She struggled with the one she learned most recently and after concentrating on it for a few seconds said in her chirpy little voice, "Mama, I don't bemember that one." After I reminded her she said, "Oh yeah...I actually did bemember that!" I have so enjoyed teaching reading this time around.

Here she is all ready to go out into the snow...of which we had none! We did experience a lot of cold, but no snow in our neck of the woods. I thought it was very cute how she bundled up in one sister's hat, another sister's scarf, and my boots to go play in the snow. Then I saw what "snow" she meant. She had taken Styrofoam out of my decoration boxes and crumbled it everywhere in the living room while I was teaching her sisters! Oy...

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 12

Beth has begun asking me, "Do we have to do school again today?" I'm grateful when I affirm that we do her answer is most always a cheerful, "Oh, okay Mommy! I just wondered." Even though she asks she rarely complains about any of her work. We studied about Thanksgiving this week and she has really loved reading so in depth about the Pilgrims. I read how some families feel their children tire of the amount of time spent on this particular period of history, but neither of my daughter's have expressed this. Rose frequently pipes up during our history readings with comments about what she remembers or a particular part she liked the first time around.

The Bears on Hemlock Mountain has been as much fun for Beth as it always is for me. I love this story and I'm really glad she does too. She does a great job at narrating what she reads although I don't even ask her to very often! She just really enjoys telling me about her reading for the day. I'm sad we are done with this one, but I know her next book will be a lot of fun too! Just like her sister it seemed to be Christmas break which was the magical moment when she felt grown up to read other chapter books on her own. She's been picking up just about everything she can get her hands on for her afternoon quiet time and voraciously reading it! Of course it did help for her Sunday School teacher to give her a Barnes and Noble gift card for Christmas. Each of the girls' received one. It was such an incredibly thoughtful gift for our family!

She struggled a little bit more with her spelling words for this unit than she has, but they were much harder words. Since we use both All About Spelling and the Heart of Dakota spelling I'm not at all concerned. I know she will cover these words again and so we will move on and revisit them again later.

There are two areas which I add a little extra which isn't included in the Heart of Dakota guide. Don't get me wrong, I strongly feel the guides are full programs without any additions needed. My personal feeling, probably because of my background as an English teacher, is I like a bit more focus on creative writing and vocabulary. I have books from Scholastic for both areas which I do really like for these areas of language arts. She especially enjoys the word laddre vocabulary activities because they have a lot of riddles.


Preparing Hearts for His Glory: Unit 8 (1st half)

After some evaluation of how things were going for the 3 weeks of this guide we moved forward at full-speed I decided to go back to half-speed for the rest of this year. I think this slower pace fits where Rose is at the moment and is allowing both of us to enjoy the guide more fully. We are continuing with math and language arts at a full-pace speed, but all else is slowed down to half speed. Rose seemed to greatly enjoy history this week and it is good to see her excited rather than overwhelmed. Being at the young end of this guide I don't mind at all as I am trying to learn to follow the needs of my children and not push forward simply because I want to get done.

Rose is incredibly mature when it comes to her understanding of the Word of God. I think many people think it is innately in her simply because she is a pastor's daughter, but this simply isn't true. Although we have always made Bible reading as a family a priority I believe Heart of Dakota has prepared her heart to be more tender towards understanding Scripture. It is so gentle, but so clear and guides children to become more spiritually mature. I've seen it before my own eyes and this one reason is why I can't imagine using any other curriculum.

I informed her before our break that I would expect all of her work except spelling to be in cursive. She's met the new standard without much complaint and I'm very pleased that after two years of cursive instruction her handwriting is quite lovely. She sometimes has to check how to write a letter, but this is becoming less frequent. We've also moved to doing all 5 vocabulary words for each unit instead of only 3.

Her creative writing is progressing well and I'm pleased with how well her thoughts are translating into writing. She does very well for her age and grade-level. This is an area I add in addition to what we do with Heart of Dakota as well. I have a harder time teaching her writing because I am used to working with older students so teaching the writing process from the beginning is a bit of a challenge at times. We're working through it and I am learning as we move forward. I appreciate having experienced homeschool moms who are kind enough to help me through this process as well. I am looking at other writing programs but haven't found anything I'm completely sold on yet.

Our first week back was full-force, but still a lot of fun! We ended the week with a fun day of play with a family of girls still on break from year-round school. Fun times!

I'd love to hear about your week!

Week in Review: November 18-22

Before I get into our week I just wanted to thank everyone who voted in the Homeschool Posts Blog Awards. The winners are up so take the time to go see who this year's winners are!

There is also plenty of time to enter the Homeschool Helper App Giveaway! I've really enjoyed this app and have found it to be very compatible with Heart of Dakota. Click here to find out more.


And now onto our week...

Nothing really spectacular about this week, but that is a good thing. We had some bumps, a few successes, but mostly it was just a regular week and blissfully uneventful!

Little Hands to Heaven: Unit 29

Grace learned about the letter X this week. Her older sisters both have a class on Wednesdays and she has really enjoyed the time we get to spend together one-on-one. It is also nice to have this time in case things don't go as planned earlier in the week.

I particularly like how the devotional book, My ABC Bible Verses, is preparing her little heart for discipleship. After a brief story involving children and written in a beautifully simple way, short questions are presented to help the children recall and think deeper about the Scripture. I know I write a lot about how much I appreciate the Biblical training and instruction, but it really is my favorite part about this curriculum. Even in the preschool guide children are led to the throne of God in a very gentle way.

Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 11

Beth read the chapter book Tornado this week and spent more time learning about the Pilgrims. I find it particularly excellent timing with Thanksgiving next week. She has very much enjoyed this even though we've been studying the Pilgrims for several weeks now. She does not find this at all boring and is even enjoying reading some on her own. She really enjoyed Tornado as well and Rose mentioned remembering reading that book and how much she liked it.

This is Beth's 1st grade math with which she is almost finished. You may notice her writing on the left-hand page while the right-hand page is already finished. It may seem as if I was posing her for this picture, but I wasn't! While I don't have my girls "pose" for these shots I do sometimes say, "Freeze!" and they know they keep still so the picture isn't blurry since I'm really not that great of a photographer! Anyway, while she is "freezing" this is how she has been doing math recently. She may start on the left side, do a few on the right, move back to the left, and so forth. It may be a little unorthodox, but as long as she knows what she is doing I'm fine with it! She did have a little trouble with one section where she was supposed to write the number preceding and following the given number. The reason for this was that she did the jumping around thing. It was this lesson when I realized what she was doing and hadn't given her directions for that part yet. She was only mildly frustrated when I erased the one section and made her redo it.

I only add in two items to our week which are not included in the early Heart of Dakota guides. The first is paragraph writing. As an English teacher it is very important for my girls to have a solid writing background. While I do feel the path for writing in Heart of Dakota is very well planned out, I wish it were started slightly earlier. There are very good reasons given by the author about why it is structured the way in which it is, but I just decided to add in my own writing. We're using a Scholastic book which I purchased during a $1 sale and I'm really enjoying it, as is Beth! This week she wrote about what she would put in a mystery bag and had to include clues about what it was. She wrote: I have something special in my bag. They build nests. They eat bugs and worms. We like to hear them sing. She came up with these sentences, but we spent time throughout the week brain storming before she actually wrote them into a paragraph form.

Preparing Hearts for His Glory: Unit 7

Rose is checking out our beautiful map of the United States for math...that's right! Math! I cannot emphasize how much we adore Life of Fred. I'm so glad I borrowed the first book from a friend to see what we thought. If you lean towards a Charlotte Mason style of schooling you should really check this out. I use it alongside our traditional math curriculum. I love how it takes math and crosses it into other subjects like geography, science, and history.

We both love love love Vocabu-Lit! This is our second unit with the book and I prefer it far and away over Wordly Wise. Rose said it is also more fun and actually asks to do this first!

Grandpa's Box continues to be a highlight during the week. We are alternating between this and a Child's History of the World, which I'm not as excited about reading to be completely honest. Rose does though so that is good. She is reading at a very high level and sometimes like to read on her own. I do like to read with her, but she is very good about reading passages if I get interrupted by her little sister.

Grammar is going well...extremely well actually. I remember groaning with my classmates in grade-school whenever my teachers pulled out the grammar book. I didn't really feel that way inside, but you know, peer pressure and all that jazz. Rose seems to like the logic and order grammar provides. I have also seen a bit more order and structure to her writing aside from grammar. She is providing beautiful written narrations each week (scheduled in Preparing Hearts for His Glory) and wonderful 3-paragraph non-fiction pieces (another Scholastic resource).

And here is my favorite shot of the week. Yes, gum is allowed at Lighthouse Christian Academy, as long as it doesn't interfere with learning or speaking. Rose recently learned to blow bubbles and I snapped this just in time! Gum chewing also seems to help the girls focus sometimes and curbs the urge to snack. I'm curious, do you allow gum chewing?

I have my own space at our school table. We're learning in my MOPs group this year about how life is a beautiful mess and our homeschool is no exception. I am fairly well organized, but the actual process of teaching three little girls often looks quite messy. I'm beginning to think the bigger the mess, the more learning occurs. My struggle is getting things cleaned up afterwards, but I'm getting much better at it!

So how was your week? 

I'd love to hear about your ups, downs, and in-betweens!

Week in Review: November 11-15

First off, there is only a little time left to vote for Grace-Filled Homeschooling for Best Encourager Blog over at the Homeschool Blog Awards hosted by The Homeschool Post! There are lots of other blogs to vote for as well in many wonderful categories. Don't forget to take time to vote for your favorites! 

We also got to have a very unique field trip this week with our sweet friend Diego who is going through chemotherapy for cancer. Click on the picture to read more about that. 








Here is a bit of what we did this week for school...

Little Hands to Heaven: Unit 28

We're getting very close to finishing up Grace's Little Hands to Heaven curriculum. This week we worked with W and she loved the poem which was done to the tune of Jesus Loves Me. This is her absolute favorite song and so learning our rhyme for the week was easy. We're still mostly doing tracing, but will be moving to more formal handwriting soon.

Grace is doing amazingly well with her reading lessons. The only problem is she thinks she can read absolutely anything now and gets frustrated when I try to gently tell her what word is correct. I'm grateful she enjoys reading and am grateful to have three girls who love the written word!.

The older girls have a class on Wednesdays. Grace and I are really enjoying our time together. We usually do her lessons in the living room and this has been a very special time for us.

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 10

Beth does not have a formal vocabulary curriculum for 1st grade, but I like for her to use vocabulary worksheets from a couple of different scholastic e-books. She especially enjoys the word ladders.

We continue to study the Pilgrims for history. This has turned out to be absolutely wonderful timing with Thanksgiving coming. The first time I worked through the Beyond guide with Rose I felt like the Pilgrim portion went on  for a really long time. I don't feel that way anymore and I appreciate the great detail put into knowing more about the Pilgrims. I was even more grateful after I found out some of my girls' friends in traditional school are not studying any history.

I just love how Heart of Dakota bring my girls along in their walk with the Lord. In just 10 units Beth has gone from feeling as if she can't possibly understand what a Scripture is saying to openly discussing a short verse or two with me, even asking some of her own questions. Discipleship is so very important and I'm thankful to have the resource I do with these guides.

This week Beth wrote her paragraph about singing. She did a great job and then drew a picture of singing birds. In her paragraph she added that she really enjoyed singing Amazing Grace. We heard a song this week on the radio which is fairly new but has the words, "Amazing Grace," in it. She got very excited and said, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Is that the same amazing grace I like to sing about?" What a fun conversation which led to about how God's grace is for everyone and it is the same for us all.

Preparing Hearts for His Glory: Unit 6

Although we did seem to find our stride last week we are still adjusting to the pace of this guide at full-speed. It is where we need to be as Rose is definitely ready, but keeping everything on track is a moment-by-moment task. Rose has very much enjoyed our study of the Ancient Egyptians. She said to me more than once this week how sad it was that they thought there were so many gods and weren't interested in knowing the One God who is true. Hieroglyphics have been enjoyable to study and she even wrote Deigo a note in hieroglyphics for him to decipher with a key she made.

We have continued to work through our new vocabulary curriculum, Vocabu-Lit and I have found this to be a favorable change over Wordly Wise. Rose has also said how much she is enjoying this change.

A fun activity each day for Rose is her history notebooking. She enjoys art so very much and this week she drew the Sphinx and Joseph using Draw and Write Through History. She is very precise and the only trouble I ever have for this assignment is when she becomes frustrated at the lack of perfection in her art. She is, however, becoming more patient with herself every day.

Here is the fun announcement: Tomorrow a review and giveaway for my favorite new homeschool tool will go live! Don't miss out on your chance to win it!