LHTH Unit 4 - Isaac and His Sons

I finally feel like we are in a routine! I know, it has only taken me months to figure this out! The peace I feel with this curriculum is absolutely amazing. I had my mind set on using Heart of Dakota for Annabelle's Pre-K year only, and then I planned to switch to My Father's World in the Fall 2012 for her Kindergarten year. I originally wanted to use My Father's World from the beginning for even her Pre-K year, but I truly think God had other plans for us.

When we first started using the Little Hands to Heaven guide back in the Fall, I began every lesson reading the Bible scripture listed from The New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, The Beginner's Bible AND my NIV Life Application Study Bible. And then somewhere along the way I decided to add my new favorite Bible, The Message. But then I realized we were never able to get through the lessons within the 30 minutes or less average time because we had so much to read! It probably took 30 minutes alone to read all of the different versions of the Bible. Of course, she loved reading all of the different versions, and she truly understands so much even from my NIV version. I am actually quite concerned that her favorite story when we first started was Cain and Abel from my NIV Life Application Study Bible.

So I changed the scope this week and last, and we only read from her "school Bible" (The New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes). Until I realized that she remembered more about the Bible than I did! We were reading "Jacob Lies to His Father," and I was trying to explain the picture to her. This was another one of those cases where Mommy was talking too much. I pointed at the goat skins that had been placed on Jacob's arms and told Annabelle that his arms were probably not that hairy as it was probably just part of his clothing. "I know Mommy," she said as she began to rattle something else off that I dismissed. "I'll show you Mommy. It is in my other Bible. Can I show you?" I agreed. She brought the Bible to me and I learned that Jacob's mother, Rebekah, had tied goatskins around Jacob's arms so that Isaac would think Jacob was Esau. And I just read Genesis back in September in our Disciple I Bible Study! If only I had the memory of a child!

So this morning (Wednesday) we changed things up a bit. Last night (Tuesday), I read through the Bible passage in my NIV Life Application Study Bible first just so I was completely familiar with the lesson again. Then this morning (Wednesday) during breakfast, I read the previous day's lesson from the NIV Life Application Study Bible to her. She listened intently, and she truly seemed to follow what I was reading. And then again on Friday, I tweaked our routine again. I made sure I had my breakfast before the girls, so while they ate, I read the scripture from all 3 Bibles. That really seemed to work the best despite the fact that the little one cannot keep her mouth shut at all while I am reading anything. And she is so loud! Very, very different from Annabelle at this age!

We worked again on our number page that I designed for Annabelle to trace the number for the unit we are studying as well as the written form of the number. This helps not only with number formation (which she really already has down pat), but it also helps her develop some sight words along the way. She already knows how to spell the numbers one, two and now four. Yes, we skipped three as I didn't actually think of encouraging this until I read this suggestion while working on phonics using The Reading Lesson. She is anxious to learn how to spell the number three now.

She also cut out a picture of two women, one man and one boy. The activity in the LHTH guide called for four women, but Annabelle decided to use the aforementioned to resemble Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah.


And wearing her tea party hat during school is yet another joy of homeschooling!


She decided to copy the words from one of the school workbooks used with the K curriculum titled "Do It Carefully." She has loved to write ever since she learned how to form letters at the age of 3 years.

We wrote our names and then tried to hide them as Jacob had done when he pretended to be Esau to get Esau's blessings from their father Isaac. We learned that it is better to just be ourselves! I can already tell who is going to be the better liar of my two girls. As you can see, I never was a good liar at anything! That explains why I kicked the windshield out of my parent's car as a teenager with my mom sitting in the backseat and immediately said, "A rock hit it! But I'll pay for it!"  Believe me, I paid for it alright! My measly savings was depleted, and I do believe I received the silent treatment from my mom for a week! She doesn't remember giving me the silent treatment though. But I forgive her and thank her for a lesson learned!  And just for the record, there is much, much more to that story as I was actually a very, very good teenager.  My parents do not even know how good they really had it!


For one of the math activities this week, we pretended to be Jacob and jumped from our masking tape D's to Rachel (aka Big Girl) to see who could jump the farthest. This activity was written to compare the jumps using words such as shorter, farther, and closest. Key Idea from the LHTH guide: "Jacob traveled a long distance before he met Rachel." She is already very familiar with these words, but she still really enjoyed the activity, and I think it drove home the Bible story even more. We used different colored Legos to mark our jumps. It was Annabelle's idea to use the Legos.



And Sophia joined in on the fun too! And the best part, I just noticed this week that Sophia has actually started jumping with her feet actually leaving the floor! So I was able to capture one of her firsts for this week on camera.




And we pretended to be Jacob and the angel by wrestling an inflated balloon back and forth. We tried it first standing up, and we then tried it sitting down to illustrate how hard it was for Jacob to wrestle with God after his leg had been injured. Oh the joy in her eyes was wonderful!


And she thought it was hilarious that I captured an up close picture of the balloon, so she insisted that I get an even more up close and personal picture. Crazy girl!


And Jacob (aka Raggedy Andy) wrestled with the angel (aka Bunny). Annabelle chose Raggedy Andy to be her Jacob because she needed a boy for Jacob.  Her Raggedy Ann (compliments of Nonnie) and Raggedy Andy (compliments of Grandmama) have become favorites in our household in the last month. We have just recently completed reading Raggedy Ann Stories by Johnny Gruelle and have moved onto Raggedy Andy Stories by Johnny Gruelle to use as our daily read aloud. We read a story from the book a day during Sophia's naptime though she often begs for more. These are truly wonderful classics to be loved by all little girls!


And Sophia got to do the simple joy of ripping up the masking tape D's and C off the carpet. She ripped these up for me on Saturday, and Sissy has yet to notice!

LHTH Unit 3 - God Blesses Abraham

So we are not very far along on our homeschooling journey, but we are (hopefully) getting into the swing of things now. I am feeling completely at peace with the curriculum I have chosen for Annabelle. The guide I chose is a bit simple for her as it is geared for 2-5 year olds, but the Biblical aspect is so very rich that I do not want to skip it! So we are just beefing up the lessons a bit. In my opinion, I think 4-4.5 years old would be the perfect time to teach the lessons in the Little Hands to Heaven guide. Of course, every child is different.

This unit we learned how God blessed Abraham. Above, the girls are acting out the three men from heaven sent to Abraham. Annabelle did not want to be Abraham for some reason, so Sophia received the honorary role. Annabelle is one of the three men from heaven. She told the one acting as Abraham (aka Sophia) that God was going to give him a son. Sarah is right outside her tent (aka sand box) in the background laughing. If you don't remember the story, reread Genesis 18:1-10.

I was able to expand on the lesson for this day as I found information online on customary meals and practices during Abraham's time. We enjoyed bread (aka sandwich thins), honey, olive oil, raisins, cheese and milk for our lunch with Abraham and the three visitors under a tree. We did not use any silverware, and we washed our hands after eating. Annabelle reminded me that we forgot to wash our hands before lunch as was customary back then. And now for that matter! Oops! I doubt Abraham had a very cute tea tray and cute serving dishes back in his time though! Not to mention, he lived in a tent, so I doubt any brick houses were in sight!

I plan to update this post within the next week with more pictures from this lesson. It was such a fun and God honoring lesson!

We've also been chugging away on The Reading Lesson. Annabelle is currently studying Lesson 2. There are twenty lessons total, but each lesson is approximately 20 pages long. The recommended pace for a 5 year old is only 2-3 pages per day. I have been so impressed with how well she is doing so far. We started reading short sentences this week with consonant-vowel-consonant words (page 2-9), and she actually comprehended the story that she read without me even asking her to narrate. These are some very exciting and amazing times!