HOD BLHFHG - Unit 21

A special Valentine's LoVe week here in school! 

We celebrated with sweet treats, fun activities, & showing love to others all throughout the week. 

In Unit 21 of Beyond, the verse was Philippians 4:8.  We talked about the importance for us to think about good & admirable things when we are afraid or worried.   The early pioneers such as the ones we talked about this week trusted in God and prayed about everything and it helped them thru many hard times.

The cursive keeps getting better and better with my ds!  One would never be able to guess that copy work was such a battle for us at the beginning of the year. We have stuck with it each week and it's definitely paid off.  No more delaying... he just gets it done beautifully.   

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In history, we read about the French pioneers as they settled near the Great Lakes in Fort Detroit.  One of the Frenchman was named Cadillac. We read about how the French discovered the Great Lakes and travelled down the Mississippi River in canoes. The Indians taught the French how to build canoes out of white birch tree bark that they peeled from the trees. The birch tree bark canoes were very light weight, very strong, and easy to carry from one river to the next. They would also sleep under them on the banks of the river for shelter. 

Our art project was to build a canoe! The kids made homemade air dry clay by measuring and kneading their salt, water & flour mixture.  

                 Pour it in & Mix it up! 

     "Ewwww...  Mommy, this is squishy!"

They mixed it all together and kneaded it making sure it wasn't to dry or to sticky!  

They rolled out the dough mixture and molded it into the shape of canoes! 

We had to let them dry for a few days and by the end of the week the kids painted them!

They both made designs on their canoes and made cute little dough people and paddles with the extra mixture that we didn't use for the canoe. 

They both enjoyed making their canoes! 

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We read a story about a little girl named Marie who floated in a canoe with her family and she had a special doll. She almost left her doll behind during the portage and others were carrying items to and from the canoes. When she ran to find her doll, she found there was a small hummingbird nearby that she watched. 

In Science, we read about different kinds of birds including hummingbirds and learned that God designed bird beaks differently on purpose so they could eat different things.  We talked about how hummingbirds have long and narrow beaks and suck the nectar from red flowers. Woodpeckers have tweezer like beaks and are good for getting insects. A sparrow has a beak like a clothespin and is best for cracking seeds. A pelican has a beak like a slotted spoon and is good for scooping creatures out of the water! 

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The French became good friends with the Indians and they traded goods often.  In our story, it was raining on the last part of their journey together to Detroit.  The sun came out as their canoe landed and a rainbow appeared in the sky. We talked about different types of clouds:
Cumulus, Cirrocumulus, Stratus, Sirrus

The kids folded a blue piece of construction paper into fourths and used white chalk on blue construction paper to draw the different types of clouds.

We added the French settling in Detroit to our timeline.  We talked about how America is great because many kinds of people came from different lands and discovered new beginnings. 

We located the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River on our state map.  We continued learning on our track through the states and talked about Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine & Maryland this week.

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We finished out the week baking & decorating Valentine cookies to give to our neighbors and friends. The kids had fun of course and the smiles on the faces of those we gave to were well worth it! 

And...

Our traditional valentine breakfast of Cupid Faced Peanut Butter Waffles!  The little one even decorated the table with red construction paper hearts and our special roses! 

Enjoy your little sweet hearts this weekend! Happy Valentine's Day! 

See you next week! 

Be blessed!  

HoD BLHFHG - Unit 20

It's been another exciting week with Heart of Dakota! 

Our verse this week was Proverbs 12:24.   We talked about what it means to be diligent and lazy.  The kids really stepped it up this week with their work and showed me just how diligent they could be. I was very proud of them! 

We added the word diligent to our vocabulary.  I loved hearing the kids trying to use it and having to explain what it means several times during the week. We are working hard to be very diligent in all we do.  

A couple of weeks ago, we added these simple round tokens to our school days. These little wooden circles have been amazing at keeping the kids on task and they love the immediate rewards. I purchased them at AC Moore and used sharpie markers to add creative rewards like:  15 minute computer time,  pick out a Netflix movie, choose their favorite cereal at the store,  stay up 10 minutes past bedtime, sweet treat, pj day,  sleepover with friend... Game night their game choice, etc.  

They are SO motivated! :)

They can earn them by doing things before they have to be told, listening the first time, showing Godly character traits, and getting their work completed on time. 

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In history, we read that Colonial children often attended school in homes or in one room schoolhouses. We learned that the schoolhouse had a fireplace on one end and the windows were not glass but of oil paper.  There were long benches and the older children would sit in the back and younger children closer to the teacher. We learned that if the children did not do their lessons they would have to stand on a chair in the corner wearing a DUNCE hat.  I think both kids jaws dropped to the floor when I read that! 

We read about how the Puritan children were given awards monthly and the ones who did their lessons got a colored ribbon and the others got a black ribbon. 

We made our own ribbons in art! 

My optimistic daughter said in regards to students that got the black ribbons... "Well, at least they got a ribbon at all! They should at least be happy about that!" Lol...  

On the way home from school that day, two of the  children were surprised when an Indian jumped out at them. He wanted to steal from and capture them. The young boy thought quickly and stood up to the Indian with his bright, red ribbon.  He gave it to the Indian and told him to run & go tell his village. The Indian did just that!  The children ran home as fast as a rabbit! 

We talked about how rabbits are known for their quickness. We learned God made each animal special. The kids nor I could twitch our ears but, we did try to jump like a kangaroo, hold our breath like the sperm whale, and flap our wings like a small hummingbird. 

We talked about as the sun sets we see different colors.  We did a science experiment & placed a drop of milk in a glass to cloud the water.  We were able to see different colors on the wall when we shone the flashlight thru the glass. 

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We finished our book review on First Flight. The kids were excited to learn this was actually a true story. We also added the Wright Brothers to our 1900 timeline when they first visited Kitty Hawk. 

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We began reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. We made it to chapter 3 and the kids were begging me to read more.  It is captivating their little minds each time I read to them.  They really enjoy this and look forward to our story time.    

I found some great Valentine math sheets reviewing shapes and addition with double digits. You can get them too from my Pinterest homeschool page here.

We are progressing on our state study. The kids are enjoying the state coloring pages. They show state flags, birds, flowers and give other pertinent information. They are keeping the pages in a special "state folder" and find & color the actual state we are working on a US  map as we go.  This has been a fantastic and lively addition to Beyond during our winter blues.

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We started reading the Christian Liberty Nature Reader.  This week we talked about several different kinds of wasps. The kids learned that social wasps live in a colony and isolated wasp live alone.  The kids both decided they would prefer to be social like a paper wasp in a colony rather than being isolated as a digger or mud wasp. 

We also talked about spiders and how God made them. Since I DEPiSE the little creatures... this was a good lesson for me. We learned how God gave them special ways to stay safe and protect their babies. This book really has us saying, "God sure thought of everything!" 

We wrapped up the week by reading from 2 Thessalonians 3:7-9. We read how Paul showed by example how to work diligently. He warned not to be idle. The Puritans followed this example and worked diligently during the week and rested on the Sabbath. 

Our activity was to assign the children a task and have them work diligently on it and not be idle.  This was an awesome activity for me to get some extra help...   :)   Even if I had to show them exactly where it said in the guide they needed to unload the dishwasher! Lol! 

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We have started to go back thru the Early Readers Bible and this time the kids are finding a quiet spot and reading the stories on their own.  They are taking a closer look at the stories. I ask them questions and we talk about the stories after they've read it. 

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In our journal writing, I gave them the following prompt:

                 Have you ever wondered why...

and this was my dd response:

                "...God made his only son Jesus die on the cross for our sins?"

This really touched my heart and am so very grateful that I'm able to homeschool these little ones. How amazing it is to be able to teach them about God and pray with them. This journal writing was my encouragement for the week. Makes all the struggles disappear when you see such a sweet innocence come out in their writings.   Be encouraged homeschool friend...  I know there are bumps in the road each week.  If I could only count the times someone has responded to me when they hear I homeschool, "I don't know how you do it!"  I always say, every day is a new day and in the end... it is all worth it! 

I can't seem to say it enough.... Heart of Dakota has been such a huge blessing to our family and has me anxious to see what is in the next unit!  

Hope you've each had a great week. 

Be blessed. 

HoD BLHFHG Unit 19

This week was full of distracting SNOW!   :)

We did find time to complete Unit 19 this week. The kids had so much fun playing out in the snowy winter weather after our daily lessons. They were so motivated to hurry up, get their work completed, and get back outside! 

Our memory verse this week was 1 John 4:10-11. This verse was particularly helpful in talking to the children about getting along with each other. 

In History this week, we read about the colonial days and learned that the children had many more responsibilities and chores to do back then than the children in 2014.  In our story, a mother left her child at home just before Thanksgiving while she attended a sick neighbor several miles away. While the mother was gone, the child perfectly cleaned the home from top to bottom and even scoured the floors.  Apparently, after everything was clean, she sprinkled sand on the floor in a design.  This was common in the 1700's.  Not sure I understand the reasoning behind what they did back in the day.  This tradition has faded over the years but, the kids had fun making their sand designs on construction paper with glue! Bet you can tell who did which one.... LOL... I love having both a boy and a girl!  

I won't lie.... this was a very messy project and I almost decided to skip it but, I'm so glad we did it! The kids had a lot of fun with it. 

As the child, Remember Biddle, completed her cleaning, she realized she had used all the soap and decided to make more. Once the soap was made, she saw an Indian in the distance.  He appeared closer to her and the little girl was afraid as there was no where to hide in their small home. He barged in and she offered him trinkets and other items.  He wasn't interested.  He did see the soap she had made and thinking it was food he tried to taste it. She stopped him and showed him what soap was by washing his stained hands for him.  She offered the soap to him and he traded it for 2 turkey's he had with him.  To her surprise, both her parents rode up on their horses just in time for Thanksgiving dinner together as a family. 

SCIENCE 

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We learned that the sun doesn't actually go down but, that the world is spinning and when our side of the Earth is sunny... the other side is dark.  We used a flashlight to demonstrate. 

We also talked about time and learned about the clock; that there are 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day, and 7 days in a week. 

We talked about keeping the Sabbath day holy for The Lord. We learned that on the Sabbath, the Puritans would drum so all could hear when it was time for the church meeting.  We demonstrated by banging on our homemade drum and listening which direction the sound was coming from. We learned that sound is vibrations and we talked about the different parts of the ear. I printed this from my Pinterest homeschool page and had the kids label and color.   You can print this HERE!

MATH

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We worked hard this week in math. I originally praised  Times Tales  (a multiplication program) when we used it  in the fall to help my 3rd grader. I noticed he has been getting a little rusty (over the break) with the answers in moving forward for division and my 1st grader has been begging to watch the video since the fall when big brother learned! So, for review and to let my daughter excel, I decided to let them watch the video together.  To my surprise, my 6 yo learned her 3,4's tables. She was very proud of herself and I must say how proud of her I am too. Guess we are moving right along with math and will learn more next week. 

If anyone has children struggling with multiplication, I highly recommend Times Tales.  After watching the video, we played a short game with the dice included in the purchase, did a crossword puzzle to help with the story memorization and went thru the flash cards. Next, I gave her this practice test. 

She got them all right!! I love how the numbers become characters and give their little brains stories with the answers hidden to help them remember their math.  For division, the children just have to know what part is missing from their stories. Such a great concept for multiplication and division.  My 6yo might not always write her numbers the correct way but, she is well on her way to knowing her facts so far! Lol! 

I'm very proud of her willingness to press forward. She wants so badly to know everything that big brother knows. How have you dealt with that with your children? Hoping I've made the right choice to let her go at her own pace. 

SPELLING

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In Spelling, we learned about words with the -ay sound.  I let the kids practice their words outside writing each of them in the snow with colored water.  This was a hit for sure and it gave them a last minute review before our test! 

MUSIC

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This week in music we learned to compose our own rhythm and melody using quarter notes, eighth notes and quarter rests. Our piano lesson was one that we practiced all week!  They clapped out their rhythms first.  4 beats to a measure....  Then, they wrote the rhythm they chose on their heartbeat paper and looked for a good melody on the piano.  They tried different notes to see what sounded the best for their melodies.  They recorded the letter names of the notes they chose on their paper and played them for all to hear.  

This was quite entertaining and I am very pleased with what they have learned from the lessons on  www.freepianolessons4kids.com  It is a great place to begin if you are looking to get your kiddo into music of any sort.

We have also been working on the song, Fifty Nifty United States and both kids know it all even though we are only on Idaho on our daily state coloring pages... coloring the flags and other important state info! Yay!  Loved that we found this on YouTube with the lyrics to help us learn in alphabetical order. You can listen to it HERE!

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The snow is finally melting today after a good 2 weeks of it on the ground. I'm thankful that our school went on despite the weather conditions and didn't get us to far behind schedule.  It's also been great exercise sledding and running up and down the hills throwing snowballs at each other!!  Our puppy hasn't been able to find sticks in the yard so, he decided to eat the arms off the snowman! 

Hope you are all staying warm and cozy in this winter weather! 

Tell me about your week!   

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Taking Off with Homeschool

HoD BLHFHG Unit 18

What a fun week with Heart of Dakota!  Have I told you how happy I am with this curriculum? It is such a blessing to our family. 

Our poem this week was Jesus Bids Us Shine by Susan Warner.  Here is the first page of the Copywork for my 6yo.  She decided to draw a candle burning on her paper. 

Here is my ds cursive Copywork.  I love his effort and enjoy seeing his improvement.  He has been doing so much better just getting the copy work completed.  I'm so very proud of him lately!

Continuing with the Stories of the Pilgrims, we read about Joseph and Isaac being followed and tracked by dogs. We talked about how dogs are able to follow scents. We did a science discovery and tried to follow scents with cotton balls, vanilla and peppermint oil.  The kids were able to follow the scent to the water. 

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We read more from the Stories of the Pilgrims and learned about a widow who lived in the pilgrim village with her children, Benjamin & Mary. The widow was very kind and the Indians adored her.  She often served them food & cider.  One Indian, Warmsly  particularly liked the hard cider and the widow soon realized he liked it because it made him drunk. Warmsly became upset when the widow would no longer give him the hard cider he demanded.  He barged into the widows house during a party the children were having. 

The pilgrim children, Benjamin & Mary made a sparkler candle with a quill feather, gun powder and wax for special fun at their party.  They lit it and when it went off, it exploded and frightened the Indian away. 

We acted out the scene with a flashlight as recommended and while the kids were enjoying their 'fruit party', I remembered that we had real sparklers! The kids ran around the circle and then said their verse once they got back to their spot. They loved the sparklers of course!  Lots of giggles with this one for sure! 

Our art project was to make a sparkler candle.  I will say this was a definite parent help ... must! The kids really thought this was neat after it was all finished.  The kids ended up drawing the parts they wanted me to cut out and I used a knife/cutting board to cut out the pieces for them.  We then placed aluminum foil behind the colored paper to make their sparkler candle shine! 

Our next story was about a maid that was at a pilgrims house watching the babies while the parents went to a meeting. As the maid admired the beautiful butterflies fluttering in the summer sun she saw an Indian outside the house with a gun and she feared for their safety. She quickly hid the babies in brass pots to get them out of sight and then she ran upstairs to get a gun.  The babies were crying in the pots and it made a loud, strange noise. The Indian looked into the house to find the awful screeching sound and he saw the brass pots shaking & coming towards him.  He fired his gun at the pots and to his surprise it did no harm. The pots with the babies inside kept coming towards the Indian and he thought it was a terrible monster. He was frightened and ran away. 

We learned that the pilgrims had great faith in God despite their trials with the Indians.  They cast their cares and worries on God and knew he would keep them safe.  1Peter 5:7

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We talked about the stages of a butterfly and are looking forward to ordering our baby monarchs soon!  In the meantime, we cut out tissue paper butterflies and hid them around the room. The children had to hunt and find them as they were camoflauged and disguised by their surroundings. Of course, they hid them many times and searched for them!  They learned that it was harder to see the butterflies that were on the same color object and easier to find them when they were on something of contrasting color. 

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We finished reading the Emerging Reader level 4 First Flight; The Story of Tom Tate and the Wright Brothers.  I think both kids are reading at this level well and have enjoyed the book. I honestly would love to take a weekend trip to Kitty Hawk area to spike the kids interest and since my hubby is a pilot. Any one else visit or enjoy a field trip to the area? 

We are still working on Encyclopedia Brown in the mystery genre. The kids are really enjoy helping to solve each of the mini mysteries! 

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We talked about and located the next few states Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado & Connecticut!  

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The kiddos worked their spelling lists & flash cards with these awesome play doh letters! 

It definitely makes studying for our spelling tests less painful with play doh!  ;) 

Although, we started the week at the park enjoying the beautiful sunshine, we finished it off playing in the snow! Gotta love Virginia weather! 

We did have a homeschool snow day and it was great motivation to get them moving on their school work so they could get back outside in the snow!  We were fortunate enough to spend the day sledding with friends. It was super cold and we did have to take a few breaks to warm up with some hot chocolate but, we all had so much fun! 

I hope you are staying warm, healthy and enjoying  HoD as much as we are. You can also follow our daily homeschooling journey by liking our new Facebook page: 

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Enjoy your weekend!  

Be blessed! 

HoD BLHFHG - Unit 17

A fresh new start in a brand new year!  One of my goals this year is to create a Facebook page where you can follow more of our daily journey.  

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Our memory verse this week was 1 Peter 5:7.  We talked about giving God all of our worries and concerns because He cares for us. 

We picked right up where we left off in the Stories of the Pilgrims book.  We read about two young boys, Isaac & Joseph who were working in the fields. They decided to stop to rest and drink from a nearby stream when they were captured by Indians. The Indians kidnapped the boys and had planned to sell them to the French in Canada! The boys trusted God, were brave and eventually they escaped from the village.

On their journey, Isaac & Joseph noticed a beautiful sunset reflecting on a lake.   Our art project this week was for the kids to paint a sunset with watercolors, cut out silhouettes of the trees, and add an aluminum foil reflection of the water at the bottom.  

The kids both did a wonderful job on their art project and it just so happened that driving in the car one evening the kids pointed out that we were getting to see the real thing!

We talked about how God made fish scales to be reflective to help camoflauge them in their surroundings to keep them safe from their predators. To demonstrate, we cut out an aluminum foil fish and held it up to different items.  The kids loved holding their fish up and seeing their fish change different colors.

My dd princess wanted her fish to be pink and ds wanted a blue fish... so this actually worked out rather well!  

In geography, we talked about rivers and learned about the different parts of a river; source, bank, bed and mouth. We made a clay model, labeled the different parts, and the kids enjoyed pouring in the water. 

We also talked about how things appear bigger when they are close and smaller farther away.  Much like the sun, we know that the size doesn't change but, seems smaller than it is to us because it is so far away.  

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We are beginning to learn about the 50 states! This isn't covered in HoD just yet but, my kids were craving something new and this is what we decided to go with.  There is a lot of state info and lap books on Pinterest but, we decided to use these state coloring pages I found free on the Crayola website. They also both enjoyed working on the US floor puzzle together.  We started talking about each state individually using the coloring sheets that show the state flags and other fun fact information about the state. 

You guessed it... I introduced them to the Fifty Nifty song and they loved it! You can listen to it too by clicking here:  Fifty Nifty United States Song


-AR-  Spelling word practice! The kids did great this week with their spelling word lists.

They also are loving this spelling monster app for iPad!  It is a great way to get them playing practicing their words without them realizing it! 

Also, we invested this week in reading rods with a learning phonics activity set.  I think this will be a fun way to get the kids thinking about the parts of sentences and learning to build sentences. We worked on it some and they were challenged at being creative and coming up with sentences on their own.  This is definitely something we will be working on more and I think we will use it often. 

You can find the reading rods here if you are interested in purchasing them or learning more about them:  Reading Rods on Amazon

We finished out the week with a beginner gymnastics class! We found a great one hour weekly homeschool group that is perfect for getting these kiddos moving! They really enjoyed their first class and it will fit in perfect between their other activities. 

It's been an incredible week and getting back into our routine hasn't nearly been as tough as I thought  as long as I had coffee in my cup!  I hope everyone is having a great start to the new year.  Comment below and tell me about your week! 

Be blessed!