I knew that, while I was using some of the same resources as Little Hearts for His Glory, it wasn't working the way I knew it should. So, I decided to get back to Heart of Dakota. We used Little Hands to Heaven for Megan's preschool, and it was awesome! Megan was totally ready to begin learning phonics after completing Little Hands to Heaven.
I thought I could make up my own Kindergarten plans. After all, it's Kindergarten! How difficult could it be?
Well... my lessons were B-O-R-I-N-G!!! Megan was advancing in skills, but she was starting to not enjoy learning.
I was going to begin the new lessons on Monday, but we couldn't wait that long. Both Megan and I were so excited to start.
I transferred my plans over to the HOD guide. For the things I do differently, or the extras I have planned, I just use post-it notes right on the page. It works wonderfully. HOD has this awesome two-page layout with boxes for different skills and subjects. While switching to HOD requires Megan and I to re-read some of the science and history we have used, the addition of the art activities, dramatic play, and motor skills activities makes the repeating worthwhile. It's those activities that Megan loves and remembers to this day. We had a blast doing the first day.
The only concern I see is that Megan is so far ahead of the math activities in the beginning of the book. However, we are using the Singapore Essential Math for Kindergarten, which has suggested activities listed on most of the workbook pages. I plan to scan the HOD pages further in the book and see what coincides with the lessons Megan is working on. I did add in today's activity in the guide just because it looked fun. While it was easy for Meg, she enjoyed it anyway.
I plan to stick with Hooked on Phonics for now. I thought about switching to one of Heart of Dakota's choices for phonics, but since Hooked on Phonics is working for Megan (and I already own it), I figured there was no reason to switch. Heart of Dakota works with any incremental phonics program. I've added in lessons from the McGuffey Primer also.
I am still going to finish up the G-H-I Series from Christian Light Education. I love these workbooks! We are nearly done with the series. A couple of the books from the series (Do It Carefully and Finding the Answers) are the Kindergarten choices for Heart of Dakota. Since Megan has completed them, I picked the Heart of Dakota 1st grade choice, Thinking Skills.
Today was fun. After a semester of kinda boring, I am so relieved that today... and from here on out... school is fun again!
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