Week in Review: Week of April 25-29

We had fun this week with my husband's parents from Florida here visiting with us for a couple of days. They and my parents, who live about an hour away, got to see the girls' art work displayed in the art show at our Homeschool Learning Center. They were very excited to have both sets of grandparents be able to see it! 

 

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory

Unit 11

 

 Even though it is not scheduled in the guide we have continued on with the ABC series from Rod and Staff. It is such a sweet set of workbooks and all three of my girls loved them! Grace will be starting the last one in the series next week. I love to see how she is growing and learning!

 

 Grace illustrated a beautiful picture to go along with her poem for the week. She is really beginning to enjoy the poetry. She missed the straight forward nature of the poems in Little Hearts for His Glory at first, but she's now really enjoying listening to the new poem each week and trying to come up with a title for it!

 Preparing Hearts for His Glory

Unit 19

 

 

 During the typical week my husband teaches the girls on Monday while I teach my English class and the girls have a science class on Wednesday mornings. We also really like to only have an hour or so of work on Fridays so we work very, very hard during the first four days of the week, fitting all the days of the unit into Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Beth has started reading some of Grandpa's Box on her own. We still discuss the chapter, but this helps us stay on target. She really enjoys it and as we are drawing near the end I know she will hate to say goodbye to this book!

   

Beth is becoming quite a little artist! When we first started the timeline activity last year she just wanted to rush through, but now I'm seeing a greater effort and love for what she is creating. 

Resurrection to Reformation

Unit 3 

 

 Every year when I keep thinking homeschooling can't get any better, we enter into a new adventure with Rose in a new Heart of Dakota guide. Seriously, I can't believe how rich my kids' learning experience is! It is way more in depth (And fun!) than I could ever plan on my own. Rose has kept her same Common Place Book since we started it in Preparing. I don't have her do every single one of the copywork activities, but she does enjoy looking back on it every now and then. She is now beginning to copy her new chapter she is memorizing this year from Scripture.

   

Who knew the Byzantine Empire could be so fascinating? One of the fun thinks about homeschooling is enlarging my own understanding of history. I'm as engaged and interested in what they are learning as they are, maybe more sometimes! The writing assignments are a lot of fun for Rose. She looks forward to them every week. I'm continually impressed with her beautifully constructed sentences and look forward to seeing how she progresses in writing this year. 

How was your week? Post a link from your blog if you have one in the comments or just share a little below!

Week in Review: November 30-December 4

It's been a few weeks since I have written about what's been happening in our homeschool! We've been around, but we were off our typical schedule for a little bit. During that time we had the chance to visit Washington DC as well as some of our families! Visiting Mt. Vernon was a HUGE highlight, especially for Grace. She was so excited to see both where George Washing slept and where he ate his breakfast! 

When we got home from this trip we were all a little ragged. A week of field trips will do that to you! So we took the week off from Heart of Dakota and just worked on some follow up activities from our DC trip as well as some math and language arts. The following week was Thanksgiving so we had school the first three days of the week, but kept it simple again and didn't delve into our normal workload. 

Finally we are back to normal! And believe it or not, this week was what I consider normal. We didn't have any out of the ordinary circumstances (doctor visits, field trips, illness, etc.) and it flowed so very smoothly. No doubt three weeks away from our routine had something to do with that! 

Grace: Little Hearts for His Glory Unit 33

One more unit! Only one more unit and Grace will be graduating on from Little Hearts. This guide has been so precious this third time around. I can appreciate it with her more for so many reasons. I know what to expect and having done the activities and projects twice already I'm very confident in knowing what to do (usually!). Her older sisters are able to work independently and I do not have any younger littles who need Mommy's attention while I'm teaching her. Most of all, she has devoured the history. I have a feeling growing up hearing her sisters learn history has given her an edge in this regard even though both of my other girls also really love the subject. 

Handwriting is going beautifully and Grace is finally at the point where she is making her letters neater and can work on regular lined paper. We're continuing on with Handwriting Without Tears (which was so generously given to us by a friend!) at the pace of 2 pages a day. 

Over the Moon! This is the best way to describe how Grace felt this week about learning to tell time on a "real clock" as she calls it! Just last week she told me she thought she would just stick to digital clocks. She said, "I don't think I'll learn about circle clocks, Mommy. Number clocks are easier!" She did enjoy our first few lessons about time though.

If you are looking for a good way to review math facts, I highly recommend Math Rider. I reviewed this with the Old Schoolhouse Review Crew three years ago and our family purchased the game once the review period was over. It has been worth every penny as all three of my girls are solidly able to recall their math facts. They enjoy the story scenarios and I love how I can track their progress and see which specific facts are still an issue. All three use this several times a week and sometimes even play during their free screen time! 

Beth: Preparing Hearts for His Glory Unit 7

FULL SPEED AHEAD! This was the week! I moved Beth into unit 7 at full pace and she did a fabulous job! I didn't tell her I was doing so because I didn't want her to worry about whether she could handle it or not. My husband teaches the older two girls while Grace and I attend/teach classes on Mondays. When I came home at lunch she said, "Mommy, it seemed like more work today, but I didn't mind and I still finished early! And this was true for the rest of the week. I'm glad we were able to go ahead and begin full speed before Christmas because while we are all ready for routine after the break, getting back to steady work isn't always the easiest. 

Math is very easy for Beth. In all honesty, everything is easy for Beth. I rarely see her struggle except in areas of neatness or following directions because she is in a hurry. So even though she doesn't necessarily struggle with her math facts, I have her complete Math Rider exercises and it has only benefited her. I caught her working on division the other day even though we haven't covered this concept even a little bit yet. She has a mind which grasps mathematical concepts quickly and just from hearing me teach Rose about division she has caught on and quickly moves on. 

One of the things I had held back on was the copywork in Preparing. This week I gave Beth her very own Common Place Book where she will write quotations, Scripture, and meaningful facts from what we are learning. Her's is covered in panda's on the cover because they are her favorite animal. 

We are continuing on with All About Spelling and Beth actually really loves this program. Again, spelling is very easy for her, but she loves using the tiles and enjoys learning all the rules. 

We also still work through the dictation as written in the Heart of Dakota guides and I'm very pleased with her progress. You can see her adorable panda journal in the bottom left corner!

Rose: Creation to Christ Unit 27

Rose continues to excel in this guide. She loves learning as much as her younger sisters and sets an excellent example of diligence. Because I create at weekly grid for them to check off their work for each day there are often times she gets up and begins schoolwork on her own without my prompting. She knows what she can manage independently and likes having this freedom. In fact this week she helped her younger sisters get started on work while I was still getting dressed for the day. They were so proud to be able to tell me the 2 or 3 things they had accomplished before our official start time of the day and I know Rose had a lot to do with prompting this. 

Until Math Mammoth came into our home I struggled to find a fit for my oldest. I have a feeling part of her struggle with math is due to my own inadequate feelings about teaching it. However, she now smoothly flows through the lessons each day and when we hit bumps there are fewer tears, more patience, and lots of smiles once it is conquered! 

My girls can be found reading in any number of rooms around the house or even outside when the weather is nice! One of Rose's favorite places for reading history and literature now is on the couch snuggled up near the Christmas tree. Can you blame her? 

We do not us the recommended Bible along with Creation to Christ because we own so many Bibles already! Instead we use Illustrated Bible Stories from Masterbooks. While it doesn't match up absolutely perfectly we use it when it does and just read the passage directly from Scripture when it doesn't. This is the main reason I love Heart of Dakota. My girls are learning to study God's Word on their own, consistently, faithfully, and deeply all the while on their level.  

Just this morning as we were working on finishing up the work for the week we had something new occur. I was listening to Grace read her literature for the day and Beth asked if Rose could teach her grammar lesson instead of waiting for me. I knew the topic was something Rose had already mastered and was also actually review for Beth so I thought it was worth a shot. Wow! It was so beautiful to hear the girls interact in this way. I'm not planning on giving over teaching responsibilities to them or anything, but I think it was a very neat thing for Rose to take on the role as teacher. She corrected gently and Beth patiently listened. It made my heart smile to see them working together and I know it benefited them both. 

We had a fabulous week. Not all of our weeks are this lovely, but this one was. I'll need to tuck it away in my mind to pull out and remember on those days when my plans fall apart!

If you have a HOD blog make sure to link up below!

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Week in Review: October 12-16

The beginning of this week was a little harder than usual. My husband was away at his annual District Conference for all the pastors in our district of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. We did just fine on our own (It was only one night after all!) but my husband is a very hands on dad, so even just a night away left my girls missing him a lot!

We kept our routine as usual for the most part. Daddy did come home with a cold that is now making its round among the rest of us. Thankfully it doesn't seem all that serious so we're hoping to bounce back soon.

Here is a peek at what school looked like this week...

Rose - 5th Grade: Creation to Christ Unit 22

Rose has really enjoyed the notebooking pages in Creation to Christ. We really like the erasable gel pens from Frixion and there are often coupons for these in the Sunday paper. For coloring pictures and the timeline portion we use sharpie markers. We have worked towards neater handwriting without lines as well as proof reading. One of the best ways we work on that is for me to read her work out loud phonetically. This helps her hear both her grammar and spelling mistakes...and sometimes it gives us quite a giggle! This is also a little secret way I'm helping my perfectionist daughter treat her mistakes a little lighter. When we can laugh about it together she doesn't take it so seriously. 

We started reading about Cleopatra this week. Rose reads her story time assignments to herself. Running three guides and a part-time business from my home teaching piano every afternoon means we have made a few changes to how the Heart of Dakota guides are done. I don't mind because we still discuss the reading selections. I like how much my girls are learning independently. 

Here are my girls working on their weekly history projects. They were so sweet chatting away as they worked. Rose kept telling Beth how much fun her project was going to be. My girls get really excited about seeing one another do things. I used to wonder what it would be like when the were all doing projects and if they would wish they were doing each other's. I certainly would understand that, but they seem to just take it as a matter of "this is how we do things around here". They also are really great about complimenting each other's efforts which is sweet to observe. 

Beth - 3rd Grade: Preparing Hearts for His Glory Unit 5 (1st half)

Beth never really seemed interested in art until this year. She was not at all excited when we first began Draw and Write Through History, but now she really seems to like it. She takes more time with her drawings and I even catch her drawing the same thing later on just for fun sometimes. 

 

Cursive is getting much, much easier. It's just a matter of time. Her letters still seem a bit awkward, but I know it will come. Her printing seemed to improve overnight this summer and we will keep plugging away at cursive!

Here she is working hard at her Egyptian hieroglyphics project. She was frustrated at first because it wasn't turning out like she expected. So I helped her see how best to etch in the hieroglyphics, she smoothed out my work and did her own pretty quickly. And yes, her body position is just about as awkward as it appears in this picture! The way my kids contort themselves while they study amazes me, but I'm glad we have the freedom for this. Beth is typically the one wanting to work on the floor. Rose likes to sit at a table Grace would rather dance her way through her work!

Grace - Kindergarten: Little Hearts for His Glory Unit 28

I love this picture! While Grace and I were working on Spelling Beth couldn't help but listen in. She was supposed to be doing her copywork I think, but I didn't really mind. Every time Grace spelled something correctly she would say, "That was good!"

    

I have a favorite handwriting program (Fundanoodle!) but, when you are gifted a handwriting series for free, you say, "Great!" and fly with it! My girls have honestly all used something different and they've all done fine. Grace is now in the second handwriting book for Handwriting Without Tears. I was having her do 1 page a day, but she has been asking to do more, so I think I may plan more for this coming week. 

Grace is so excited about her history now and sometimes enjoys reading it on her own. I have a feeling watching her big sisters do this is part of the reason, but I'm grateful she finds so much joy out of learning on her own. We actually call her our little dictionary because she loves to define words and if she doesn't know what something means she's quick to ask. She is always thinking and driven by curiosity. Her eagerness to know more is contagious!

Did you have a good week on your own journey through Heart of Dakota? We'd love to hear about it! Don't forget to link-up below!

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Week in Review: Ocober 5-9

Our weeks are in a nice routine now so that when we do deviate from the "normal" like last week it really isn't a big deal and feels more like a break. The only frustrating thing for the girls this week was that their year-round school friends from across the street were on break and we kept plugging away. It was nice that their friends didn't have homework in the afternoon and could play longer! Especially once the rain subsided. We certainly got a "wetting" as Winnie the Pooh would put it! 

Beth - 3rd Grade: Preparing Hearts for His Glory: Unit 4, 2nd half

Beth has settled into our routine with Preparing much quicker than I anticipated. She seems to take added workload a little more in stride than her older sisters. Perhaps knowing what is coming helps her in that way. The only thing she does not love doing right now is the cursive copy work. We did however manage to get through it this week with minimal sighs and no complaints. This may have been due to the fact that she lost certain screen-time privileges for pulling out her complaints the week prior. 

When it comes to whining and complaining I take the timeless advice of Barney Fife...

 

Beth really loves her history projects. I'm doing much, much better this year about making sure they happen but it is easier that she is taking two weeks for each unit. We'll see if I continue to do this well once we move to full-speed! 

Grace - Kindergarten: Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 27

 

Grace loves studying her Bible verses out of her "real" Bible as she loves to call it. She can read them on her own and seems to feel very grown up as she studies in another room and comes back to recite to me. We talk about what the verses mean, but she needs much less help from me. While it is a little bitter sweet sometimes I love that she, and her sisters, are becoming independent learners. I'm facilitating the process, but they are understanding how to discover and discern for themselves which is really what my purpose is. 

History is so much fun with this little sweetheart. She has such a passion and excitement for life! We spent some time learning about George Washington these last couple of weeks and she is very much anticipating our visit to Washington DC very soon which will include a visit to Mt. Vernon. 

A couple of years ago we were gifted a set of Handwriting Without Tears. While it isn't the program I recommend most often (I really like Fundanoodle handwriting!) I can't complain about free! She does tend to rush a lot when she writes and we are working mostly on taking time to do the best she can. I tell her, and her sisters, quite often that I do not expect perfection, but I do expect their best effort. 

Rose - 5th grade: Creation to Christ: Unit 21

 

When we started Write With the Best I was a bit nervous. I kept seeing comments that people did not like it so I was a little nervous. My background as an English teacher tends to make me very, very picky about what kind of Language Arts materials we use. I can say now we absolutely love this program! Here are some of my reasons...

1. Using the model of classic literature

2. Editing practice

3. Focusing on one concept in each lesson

4. Small steps for longer lasting projects

 

Rose has also been excited to get back into the Draw and Write Through History books now. She loves these and her art is improving all the time. She usually uses a pencil to draw, then outlines with an erasable pen and colors with sharpie markers. The results have been really beautiful. 

The girls finish up math and language arts after their science class on Wednesdays. This was one of the first days of sunshine in the south after all that rain! They enjoyed a honey lollipop on the back porch while doing their reading. All three girls are here, but Grace is sitting on a little stool in between the older two lower on the ground. 

Great week for us! How about you! 

If you are an HOD blogger make sure you link up below! 

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Week in Review: August 24-28

Fall is almost here! Actually, we are already seeing leaves turning even though it is a bit early in NC to see this. I'm over-the-moon to see fall come! I appreciate all seasons now after living in Florida, but Autumn will always and forever be my favorite with winter/Christmas coming in at a close second.

Rose: 5th grade ~ Creation to Christ Unit 17

Like many homeschooling mamas before me I'm always concerned if I'm doing enough. Rose tends to get the brunt of this because she is my oldest and with her it is always new territory! As I discussed this years curriculum with my husband he did a great job of helping me think through what was necessary and what was fluff or overkill. One of those areas was vocabulary. I guess the traditional school mindset of a set of weekly vocabulary words was just stuck in this English teacher's head. We have been using Vocabu-Lit for the last few years and I really liked it, but I realized my voracious readers don't really need a formalized vocabulary system in addition to what Heart of Dakota does throughout the guides. So we've dropped that. Rose was disappointed at first, but I think she likes having one less assignment, especially since the reality last year was that she knew every word before we even did the lesson!

Dictation continues to go well for her now. It took us a while to really get that, but she is progressing more quickly now. I do think All About Spelling has had a lot to do with helping her see spelling patterns more clearly, so we will continue through that entire program. She's almost done with level 4 and we will soon move on to level 5.


We seem to be hot or cold with math. She loves it, or hates it. Geometry has proven to be delightful for her and I anticipate beginning back with Life of Fred for supplement very soon.

History went well this week, I just forgot to take any pictures! History is never an issue with my girls. For them, that is the frosting on our homeschool curriculum cake. They love all of the books we read and tend to pursue history outside of our schooling as well. Although my husband and I both love history I really give most of the credit for this to our curriculum. Rich literature and engaging activities is what has drawn my girls to love learning about our past!

Beth: 3rd Grade ~ Preparing Hearts for His Glory Unit 2 (2nd half)

Beth is settling into our routine with this new guide. My goal is to have my girls independently reading the history by the end of the guide to prepare them as they move into Creation to Christ. This made the transition smooth as silk for Rose so I'm planning to take the same approach with Beth.


Beth loves activities that are hands on. I really appreciate that even as the guides mature in learning there are still hands-on components. I was also pleased that she remembered all of the continents and where they were! This is something we have learned and reviewed since Little Hearts for His Glory. Seeing the progression and retention of something as simple as this helps me love Heart of Dakota even more.


Timelines are a favorite in our house. While many other programs give pre-printed timeline pictures Heart of Dakota encourages students to draw and create. It doesn't matter how advanced of an artist they are, just that they draw a meaningful representation of the picture idea given. This week Beth drew Noah's ark and it was neat to see how she drew it much like the Draw and Write Through History book showed, which is much more accurate than many traditional drawings.

Just like her older sister, history is the icing. She has loved reading about the Ice Age and is anxious to get back to Grandpa's Box soon!

Grace: Kindergarten ~ Little Hearts for His Glory Unit 23
Grace has so much energy! This girl dances everywhere she goes. She has so much joy for life and that translates into her learning as well. Usually, no matter what we are doing, her response is, "Math? Goodie!" or "Handwriting? Yay!"


This week we learned about the Pilgrims and she really enjoyed the activities. On this one she scooted along the floor pretending she was on the Mayflower and then landed on Plymouth Rock, which was supposed to be a pillow, but she wanted to use a real rock from her ever growing rock collection.



First math test....drum roll...100%!!! Grace still just gets effort based grades from me since she is technically in Kindergarten, but since she is working on 1st grade math I want her to get used to seeing it graded. She loves math and I really like how Math Mammoth lays out the teaching. All three girls are thriving with this which is pretty amazing considering they have very different learning styles.

Learning Together

We are doing more "together" learning this year. Since we don't utilize Heart of Dakota science after Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory we are going to do that together throughout the year as we have time. We are also going through a sweet little health course from Rod and Staff. It is very traditional and I personally love it. Not to mention it is a great price! All three girls are participating and it was a fun first unit. Even though it is graded for 2nd grade it didn't feel too old for Grace or too young for Rose. it will be a great fit I think and they seemed to really like it. My girls don't typically balk at our schooling except for the amount. Every once in a while they feel I give them too much, but that hasn't come up yet this year. 

How was your week? Don't forget to check in with the Weekly Link-up!