Heartfelt Home**school** 2009 Update!

I have been researching home education for about 5 years now. I have tried different methods, adhered to various philosophies and grown immensely! The greatest lesson I have learned is not to get uptight or anxious, but to give thanks in everything, pray without ceasing, and rejoice evermore! (I Thes 5:17-19)! My main goal in educating my children is to prepare them for the Lord’s service on earth and for their Heavenly home that awaits them.

I recently read an awesome book, Heart of Wisdom by Robin Sampson. I gleaned many useful tips from her book! Exploring how Hebrews educated their children and how to use the Bible as the main text in your homeschool opened a door to a place where I finally felt comfortable. She is also very pro-unit study using a Charlotte Mason approach (if that makes sense). I aspire to be the unit-study homeschool mom, but am not there yet! I just don’t know if I will ever be that organized and disciplined to cover all subjects in one unit.

So, this is what Heartfelt Homeschool looks like in 2009:

Because the Bible is so very important we use it as our main text. My desire is to root my children’s hearts and minds in God’s Word. I want them to have a good grasp of Biblical history and God’s Word, coupled with hopes and prayers they not be led astray by false doctrines. Once this foundation is set, we will explore world history as it fits into and is intertwined with Biblical History. This is where we are currently.

Biblical History:
We have composed a timeline on our wall (and within a 3 ring binder) with these categories: Creation, Patriarch, Exodus, Conquest, Judges, Kingdom, Exile, Return, Silence, Gospel, Church, Missions. Each time we read a Bible story we place our coloring page in the correct category. We are currently studying Patriarch showing how Israel, through a promise from God, became a people, nation and state. We are also studying church history through the book of Acts and am looking forward to how the Bible ends again with the Jewish people (and the Gentiles ; )!

We are also learning and celebrating Biblical/Jewish Holidays!

Physical ED!
Being physically healthy is another great importance! I am always trying to learn better cooking/eating habits. And daily exercise via walking/running otudoors is a HAVE TO at Heartfelt! If it's bad weather, then we're dancing indoors to Praise and Worship Music.

Memorization/Copywork/Reading:
Each child has their own Bible verse that they handwrite weekly, read daily, and recite daily for memorization. Sweetness is copying and then reading her verse in cursive! Cursive is becoming a lost handwriting art, but still many use it and I want my children to be able to read cursive!

Read Alouds / Phonics
Aside from our daily Bible reading, we are reading Missionary Stories by Mildred Martin and Sweetness and I are reading the Merry Adventures of Robin Hood! I am reading the unabridged version by Howard Pyle and Sweetness enjoys reading the abridged version. Bethanie is also continuing phonics practice with Explode the Code.

Cutie Pie is learning to read using Explode the Code for phonics and reading his Bible verse along with me as I run my finger under the words (whole language approach). We enjoy reading various picture books together and making crafts or acting out the books.

Narration
This is a tool used for comprehension (instead of multiple choice questions!) Sweetness and Cutie Pie retell the stories from our read alouds. Some days I copy each word the child dictates then have them illustrate or color a page relating to their narration.

Dictation/Spelling
I am amazed at how well Sweetness’ spelling is progressing! I dictate a sentence from one of our read-alouds. Sweetness writes from my dictation. We review her writing and I praise her efforts of correctly spelled words. Then I show her the misspellings,give her rules or helpful hints, and word build with other similar spelled words. We compare the words she spelled correctly with incorrect spelled words and she is pleased to see she spells really well! Then she re-copies the corrected version! This is working very well!

Cutie pie is spelling up a storm in his own little story making world. I am translating and saving all his little writings in a little notebook. We won’t start correcting his inventive spelling for a few more years.

Math!
Sweetness is working on memorizing her addition facts using Math - It Game. We are also exploring multiplication.
Cutie Pie is doing a workbook titled Word Problems with Fantastic Frogs.
Of course they learn math just using it everyday -- measurements, calendar, shapes, etc… we did an awesome geometry unit not long ago from Hands on Math and I am thinking of ordering their Clock - Telling Time Unit next.

Science:
This is the area where I feel I fall short. We are getting better at reading our Ranger Rick and Backyard Magazines that G’ma B subscribed for us. But when the days of winter are 50-70 degrees our science time is literally spent in the backyard. Treasure Hunter does various electrical experiments with Cutie Pie!

But more snow is on the way….

Foreign Language
We are learning Latin using Song School of Latin 2-3 times weekly. But realy would like to learn Hebrew and Greek as these are the original languages of the Bible.

Language Arts/Grammar
This is a subject we are not currently covering formally. I emphasize capitalization and punctuation during writing exercises. And we talk about nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs while reading. Classical literature is an awesome introduction to grammar as the word pictures authors create are so vivid and imaginative! “WOW that was an awesome set of adverbs”. We will be more formal with this subject in the middle-high school years.

Did I cover it all???? Last but not least I must say that having your children with you all hours of the day presents many learning opportunities. There are so many character building and life skills they learn from being at home doing chores, playing together, building bonds etc. And I set the example for them each day! The best example is how we all, in our sinful fallen state, fall short each day and must ask forgiveness and thank God for His mercy!

And may I NEVER forget to thank God for the privilege to thank God for the privilege to home educate our children. And for my hardworking husband who supports our homeschool choice!