Heart of Dakota BLHFHG - Unit/Week4

What a challenging week....

Second guessing my decision telling the kids we were only schooling 4 days this week and 4 days next week due to the holiday.  It gave them a case of the cRaZiEs all week!  It is important to me to have days off when Daddy is off work too though, so we can do things as a family. We pulled through and combined a couple days and made it work.

This weeks verse was Matthew 6: 19-21. 

We shortened it a little here to go along with the song on the 'Hide Em' in your Heart' CD. 

We took a mini field trip to the zoo since the weather was so incredible.  I'm pretty sure I was the only parent there quizzing my kids on the continents, oceans and pilgrims journeys on the huge globe at the entrance of the Norfolk Zoo! They made me proud though!  Lol! 

It was great to have them write in their journal about the field trip to the Norfolk Zoo. We saw lots of animals. 

           Journal Writing

In art we made self portraits with a head template I found on Pinterest.  The kids thought this was a fun project and it was a great opportunity to reinforce that everyone is unique and special in God's eyes. 

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In Science, we talked about light and how some things block out light completely and others show light through. The kids made their predictions and experimented to see which objects! 

We also experimented with water and learned that it doesn't have a shape of its own but takes the shape of whatever contains it. I didn't have a chance to get pics because I was keeping up with the kids on this one. Nonetheless, they love experimenting and it's fun watching them learn! 

The kids favorite part of homeschool is still getting to go to school barefoot and in their pajamas!! She decided she needed a blanket at her desk while doing her rainbow copywork!  HA!  She's getting it finished so...  Ok, fine by me! 

Believe it or not... Rainbow Copywork with colored pencils is still one of their favorites! 

In history we learned about the Pilgrims creating new lives in Amsterdam, Holland. The women and children were finally able to join their husbands and were amazed with the new land surrounded by water. We made a dike from playdoh to show how it held back the water from the land.  They rang their bell and patched the holes when the water leaked just as they did in Holland. 

Mason worked on multiplication tables with dice for Math. He understands the concept and enjoyed using the dice to learn. Kenlyn is working on addition and subtraction. 

We finished out the week reading the parable of the rich man in Luke 12:13-21. We made red barns and copied our memory verse inside the doors to remind us when we open the doors that we shouldn't store treasures here on earth. 

We learned that the rich man built bigger barns when his crop was terrific and would no longer fit in the small barn.  He stored up his earthly treasure but, he wasn't prepared when his time on earth was over. We learned to be careful what we treasure and how we spend our time. 

After finishing our Helen Keller biography, today we watched Disney's version of her story called, The Miracle Worker. The kids really enjoyed the book, her story and the movie. They both also showed interest in learning sign language. 

See you next week!

Be Blessed! 

Heart of Dakota BLHFHG - Unit/Week 3

We had a great week with HOD.  The memory verse was a little longer this week, but we worked on it all week long.  The kids enjoyed song track #5  'God is Love' and the action verse games... Hopping/galloping/skipping around until we freeze and say the verse together.  

We were still struggling with the motivation to do copywork and so I decided to let them write rainbow style.  :)  That worked wonders! Amazing how they got excited to do their poetry & bible verse with colored pencils. 

We enjoyed reading about the Brewster's and their Palace Inn in the 'Stories of Pilgrims' book. The kids had fun making the Palace Inn wall as the story described by tracing stones with white chalk on black construction paper. The kids then painted green vines up their walls and made red bushels of roses.  

In history, we also had fun playing the dice game several times to see who would end up in prison for worshipping who they wanted or in King James court doing just as the king ordered. Many laughs were had as both kids wanted to go to prison to be able to have the freedom to worship God how they wanted and not required to obey the Kings demands.  The reading of 'The Stories of the Pilgrims' has opened up many discussions  with both children. They are so curious and I love being the one who gets to answer all their questions! 

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In Science we used Cheetos as Pollen! 

The Cheetos were a little messy but made great pollen for our Science Exploration. Their favorite part was eating them of course and  they completed their worksheets with little orange fingers! 

          The Dice Addition Worksheet

A favorite activity to do while the other child is finishing up their work.  I printed these sheets off of my Pinterest Homeschool page and the kids reuse them with dry erase markers.  Here is the link for the worksheet:

http://pinterest.com/pin/98938523036793869/

For Storytime we continued reading our biography about Helen Keller.  The kids were both amazed by her interesting life.  We talked about the character trait -responsibility and learned that we all are responsible for our actions.  The kids made an outline of her life events. 

Math at the doctors office! Gotta love homeschooling on the go! Abeka Math is going great! 

In Language Arts, the kids learned about 2 parts of a sentence. Subjects and Predicates! They both wrote their first short stories in their journal!

They were both so excited when they finished. 

All in all, it was a terrific week and they both completed it with 100% on their spelling tests! 

Feeling thankful for the opportunity to homeschool.  Each week is getting better and easier as we establish more of a routine.  

See you next week!

Be Blessed!

Heart of Dakota - BLHFHG Unit/Week 2

This week was just as exciting as week 1! Just to boost my confidence as a newbie teacher...  I started the week out with a worksheet I found on Pinterest to use as an entry in our journal. My daughter is just precious and this sweet girl brightened my day!!

 Totally made me realize its all worth it!! 

The memory verse was perfect and the kids enjoyed the song that went along with the memory verse. Galatians 6:9 I sure referenced the "do not give up" message all week long! 

They learned about Jamestown this week  in history and that many pioneers came to the new land to hopefully find gold. We talked about John Smith and have been reading a biography, Pocahontas. The hubby and I decided it was time for our first field trip.... to Jamestown! How great it is to live so close by this part of our country that is filled with history! The kids had so much fun at Jamestown!  

And it was a fantastic place to review everything we have talked about so far! 

It was awesome getting to go on the ships after we had just studied them last week! We even got to see someone sewing sails for the ship! Very neat! 

                 Trying on the armor! 

                      It was heavy! 

The Jamestown Fort was a perfect place to visit with this study! 

We read the story in history about Richard and Sally and how Richard got lost and went outside of the fort. The kids drew a map of where Richard went. 

Cursive is going great for my 3rd grader and printing is getting much better for my 1st grader. The copy work has been somewhat of a battle that I hope will get easier the more we do it. 

The bible story about Ruth was a great finish to week 2 and an example of doing what is right and not giving up... God rewarded her for her faithfulness.  The art project was to make fields with grain bundles. 

They enjoyed making their fields. 

Still feeling blessed to be the mom and the teacher! Cherishing these moments so far and hoping for many more throughout Heart of Dakota. 

See you next week! 

Be blessed! 

Heart of Dakota BLHFHG - Unit/Week 1

What an amazing week we had together for our first week of homeschooling! It was such an incredible joy to watch the kids learn new things and light up as we talked about the world, continents and early settlers that came from Spain.

We used a big ball to tape on the locations of the oceans and continents. The kids also enjoyed putting together our continent puzzle several times. They both did a great job and got really quick at putting it together! 

We worked hard on the memory verse each day. To help them, we listened to the CD, (which they both loved and sang all week) and we used the verse for copy work.  I also cut the verse into sections and they put it together by memory. They both got a special gold star at the end of the week for knowing the verse.  Psalm 4:8

We talked about ocean currents in Science and I decided since it was raining outside that we would just go play in the rain with our little boats we made and droppers to demonstrate currents. The kids really enjoyed this or just playing in the drizzly rain!  :) 

Don't pay any attention to my sweet son who dressed himself quickly to run outside to do the experiment! Lol! Stylin'! 

We colored a picture of a storm to go with our poem "The Storm."  The kids loved Pablo and Catalina's story in the storm as they crossed the ocean. 

We did a little more experimenting this week with our Science Exploration on Blubber! The kids thought this was awesome. Tip of the day is to put the lard/shortening in a bag around another bag that the kids hand is in like a glove to avoid mess.  It was great because it was obvious the blubber helps keep whales insulated because the hand without the lard just couldn't stay in the ice water! 

They wrote about the experiment on their science exploration worksheets. 

We made ships using construction paper and Popsicle sticks to show what Columbus ship may have looked like  as they sailed to Florida and finished up celebrating a good day at school with a snow cone! 

The sweet girl needed a bit of extra practice writing her numbers. Somehow they just keep getting backwards! So, she traced the highlighted numbers I wrote out for her... 

But she seems to have the hang of it much better now! 

We started our timeline and love the pictures that we found under the HOD Facebook files. I printed the timeline sheets, slipped them into plastic sleeves and taped the pictures on because my kids are crazy about wanting to move them around to different spots. Guess I could've laminated them but, it works. 

We finished out the week making our shields! The kids really loved this project and they turned out SO cute!! 

It's been a great first week and we can't wait to see what exciting things HOD has planned next week!  I love how the history is woven carefully into the biblical principles. Deciding to homeschool is the best decision I have made for my kids in a long time. It's been pure joy watching them learn, seeing their lights turn on to new ideas and discover new things. I feel like I've been missing out! 

First Day Homeschooling Jitters...

After a busy summer of traveling and swimming, it shocked me to hear my kids begging to start homeschool.  I found 2  awesome desks on Craigslist and found some great buys at the local teacher store to finish out our homeschool room.

They got as excited as I did with all the boxes coming in with new books! We couldn't hold out and we started our homeschool adventure on the morning of August 5, 2013. 

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I only had a narrow glimpse of what I was supposed to be doing as their teacher.  I prayed for God's strength and thanked him for the easy, open and go curriculum with Heart of Dakota.  The kids were overwhelmingly encouraging as they watched me closely to see just how exactly this homeschooling thing was going to go. I knew it was what I was supposed to be doing though. I giggled to myself with joy as they sat at their new desks with their big attentive eyes.  Here we go! 

Let's Homeschool! Now what?!?!!?

Once we decided to homeschool, I soon got bogged down with the tons and tons of curriculum choices. The only thing I was certain of was that I wanted a Christian based program. That did narrow it down some but do we buy new or get used books? I leaned on my sister in law and friends for guidance and was loaned an amazing book that really helped sort through my doubts & questions.

100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum: Choosing the Right Curriculum and Approach for Your Child's Learning Style  by Cathy Duffy Link: http://amzn.com/0805431381 This book helped me narrow down each of my children's learning styles and gave me additional information about the different  ways to homeschool. I would highly suggest anyone who is having trouble deciding to check this book out!  After months ... Ok, it was maybe just a few weeks but it seemed like months of back and forth on deciding what to use, we decided to go with Heart of Dakota.  It is based on a Charlotte Mason style and intertwines a biblical perspective into history, poetry and learning.   Heart of Dakota We decided on Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory as a medium for our kids. It made me extremely happy to unite the basic curriculum for both our 1st grader and 3rd grader.    *************************** Once we made the important curriculum decision, then I started to get organized  so I could be ready for the school year!  We loved finding the HOD files online that made it super easy to put together their folders.  You can find many of the helpful free printable files here:  HOD Printable Files I made the children their own 2" folder. This helps keep all their work in one place!  I placed tabs in their book to divide it into the following 5 different sections:  Daily Work Bible Poetry History Science   At the beginning of the folder before the tabs, I placed a book reading tracker so that the kids can be rewarded for the books they read on their own. They get a sticker for each one and a pizza party after 40!   Daily work consists of the little extras that I like to hang onto including math worksheets, writings, spelling word practice, book evaluations and artwork.  Bible section is next and this is where their bible Copywork is kept each week after it is completed.   I printed these sheets from the Hod files page here. I hi lighted the lines at first to make it easier for my daughter learning to print and as the year went on she made great improvements.  Next is the poetry tab. This is also from the Copywork pages that I printed from the Hod files above.  We read the poems daily and the kids draw a picture of something from the poem. History is the next tab and we printed the notebooking worksheets from the Hod files above and the coloring pages. I merged these 2 together and the kids color and do the notebook pages as we go thru their history stories each week.  The last tab in the notebook is Science.  Again, we printed the pages from the files above and put them in the folder and completed them as the guide directs.  These Science Exploration pages are not a have to but, really worked out great for the kids to process the experiments. Timeline and Images In addition to this main folder, we also printed the timeline images and sheets. We place the images onto the timeline as directed in the HOD guide.  You can get the images here:  Timeline Images Spelling   Each week the kids have a spelling list. I make flash cards, they practice, and after they test on Friday we tape them on our word wall.  This has been fun for the kids to reference back to when writing and to see how the word wall grows bigger and bigger each week.   I also created a rise and shine folder for the kids to do morning work if they get up super early or are bored at any hour. This book consists of fun coloring pages, craft ideas, worksheets requiring minimal supervision and other fun activities.  There are so many great ways to personalize and make HOD special for your family. You can add to it very easily.  Good luck with your year!  Hope this helped to see how we decided to do things! Be blessed!