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!

Noah is doing wonderfully!  Every day he amazes me with his language skills.  He has pretty much learned all of his letter symbols and before I know it he'll have the sounds too.  I'm very proud!  I'm thinking we'll start some simple reading excercises in the late summer or early fall.  Just about the time her turns 3.  If he takes to it... great!  If not... we'll try again later.

I'm just so proud of this guy!

Oh, and my other little guy!  I cannot forget about him!  Ezra is also doing very VERY well!  He is now scooting backwards and forward, rolling like a champ, sitting up on his own, and nearly getting from his belly to a sit all by himself! 

What a proud Momma I am these days!

A new week begins. We will start a more systematic approach to letter recogintion and letter sounds this week.  Noah and I have been working on this skill for about ever in a very relaxed and fun way. He has foam letters he plays with in the bathtub.  We sing the ABC song a lot and I made up a song for letter sounds.  When we are out and about or even around the house I point out letters that are in his every day world.  He has picked up a LOT by doing these kinds of activities.

In the third month of HOH 2 year old curriculum you start studying a letter a week.  I have a lot of mixed feelings about this.  My own education and experience has taught me that some times kids need a day for a letter, other times they need a month!  I also know that teaching letters and letter sounds in ABC order is not the most appropriate method.  There is a lot of research that backs up teaching them out of order.  For example, teaching b and d too closely together can cause confusion for little ones.

BUT, since my goal isn't exactly totaly memorization of all the letters and their sounds I decided to follow the curriuculum and teach them in order.  I'm still really just trying to wet his palette I guess.  Give him an idea and let him run with it.  We'll see what he takes in and what he doesn't.  Then when he is 3 or 4 I'll probably follow my own plan that is more research based.

On another note, after laying a bit low last week and putting away some of my supplemental activities I found we are both much more refreshed this week.  Today Noah was eager to do some of our folder games and writing activities.  He was eager for the stories and such as well. And I was too.  We'll probably follow that pattern... a few weeks gung ho and then a week that is more laid back.  It just might work for us!

In the three weeks since I've been working with Noah in HOH I've seen some GREAT things.  First off, he has finally finished up some great but basic skills.  He now has a strong grasp of colors, most shapes, and number symbols up to five.  He has pretty much had most of these for a while but they were all still sort of shaky.  He's also begun to memorize letter sounds and he's picked up quite a few letter symbols as well. 

He is definately listening to our daily Bible stories.  He can ask and answer BASIC questions about what we are reading.  He also talks about the stories at various times even two weeks after we last read it.

These are all very exciting things to me.

This week I've backed off a bit.  I was adding a lot of activities to the ones in HOH.  He loves them and it was working well.  But I don't want to burn him or myself out.  So this week (week four) we are just doing the basics.  Also, his Daddy has jumped in and taken over a few things in the evenings for me.  One of our activities this week was focused on science and the air in balloons. They did that one together and it seemed they had a GREAT time.

Since I started HOH in Mid year and I'd like to get through as much as I can by the fall when I plan to either start the 3 year old version or move on to something else I have decided to skip the second month in the curriculum.  I flipped through it and I feal confident that Noah has the skills.  The third month begins letter recognition and such.  We'll start that next month.

So, that's us for now!