Today marks day 1 for us.  Ok, sort of.  We've been working in our Heart of Dakota Little Hands to Heaven off and on for a few weeks now.  We'll do a piece of it here and a piece of it there.  We got through several units that way.  Noah just LOVES it!

But today marks the day where I take it more seriously and we start to work it more systematically.  I decided to back pedal a couple of units and review them.  So today we started with Unit 3 which is the letter 'C' and Abraham.  Noah didn't seem to notice the back tracking. 

We do our Bible story over breakfast.  I read ahead a couple of days.  We'll read it again some time later today - perhaps at nap or at bed time.  We went through the finger play.  The finger play is designed to teach the child the sound of the letter of the Unit.  It pairs the sound with a motion.  I LOVE the idea and I love that it pairs it with a motion.  That truly helps children learn.  BUT, I don't like how the curriculum teaches the alphabet in order.  The latest research will tell you that this is absolutely not the best idea.  You end up teaching letters that are too similar too close to each other.  For example, B & D.  They are only seperated by one letter (C).  They look similar and they sound similar.  Teaching them so close together can really lead to confusion. 

Also, the finger plays leave a bit to be desired.  This week's finger play involves the child practicing the hard 'C' sound as in CAR or CAT.  But in the finger play the child goes C-C- CLippity.  I have two beefs with this.  A young child might have difficulty saying CL together.  That is a tricky tongue movement.  And I think it distorts the hard C sound.  The proper way to teach that sound is to get the child to open their mouth wide like when they say AAHHHH and then direct them to use the back of their throats to make the sound.   That is impossible to do when saying CLippity.  I might have to redo some of these finger plays.

After breakfast we have a little play time and then do our chores.  Once those are threw we begin our school work.

So far I am supplementing LHTH with www.starfall.com.  I'd like to find some great Math stuff to add to it too.  Perhaps we will start Math U See.  At the beginning of September I'll start with thematic stuff - perhaps we'll begin with Apples.  I'm not sure yet.  I have some handwriting pages we'll begin shortly as well.

Noah and I absolutely love the Bible lessons and that is the heart of LHTH.  So we'll keep it up.

Until Next Time!