heartofdakota.com

If you have completed "Creation to Christ", please share your experiences with us. It will be such an encouragement for other homeschool parents to hear from you, and it will be especially helpful for those who are prayerfully considering whether Heart of Dakota is well-suited for their family.

Blessings,
Carrie

We have used CTC from HOD twice now. It has been such a blessing. We had a wonderful time learning what it was like to be a Christian in the times of Christ, and how it was for the Jews who saw Jesus as Messiah. This is such an important time in history and yet before HOD put out CTC I was deeply disappointed in how it was covered by other homeschooling companies. So many glorify the false gods and false prophets far beyond what I felt was necessary to understand the time period. HOD has done a wonderful job taking the student there to the time period to be an eye witness. Learning what the law was like in the time and how people lived in those times. This, as Christians, is our heritage and it is an era I wanted my children to understand through the eyes of God. HOD has done a marvelous job of giving them that glimpse. They were able to see how the world was when God sent Christ as Messiah and they are able to see how now we have glimpses of the same issues in our society today. I loved that my children made that connection rather than feeling like the practices of the Egyptians are worthy of being glorified. They were able to put it all in perspective and see the grief in false gods and the glory in the One true God.

Also CTC is the first program where there is a formal notebook. What a keep sake that turns out to be! It is a wonderful way to take what they have learned just that step farther. My children were able to see the prophesies of Christ in the Old Testament are indeed fulfilled in the New Testament. That knowledge really helped to deepen their faith. There is also deeper work in narration in CTC and the students do become more independent. But even though they are more independent I really enjoyed our together time. There were so many opportunities see how the Word of God really does apply to their life now as much as it did as much as it did the day it was written to the lives of those who followed Him then. We had so many wonderful moments from our together time in CTC. It was a chance for all of us to grow closer to the Lord and closer to each other. CTC is in my opinion the absolute best program covering the Ancient time period ever written. Nobody covers it better than HOD!

I used CTC with my 11 year old ds and what a great year it was. I loved how he could see this time period as it connected to biblical history. All the books were fantastic. He was challenged with the reading level of the history books, but it was a good challenge. It made him slow down and think about what he was reading, which is a skill he made gains in as he worked through CTC. I learned so much right along with him. We now both understand why Jonah was afraid to go to Ninevah. One of his favorite parts of the program is Draw and Write Through History. This in itself is amazing because he has mild Cerebral Palsy that makes writing and drawing a challenge. He would cheer any day he knew he was going to use Draw and Write. I also watched his ability to do written and oral narrations improve. He loved the science and I saw his love and appreciation for nature grow. He has always loved animals, but has never really paid too much attention to birds. He has become an avid bird watcher because of the science in CTC. I was nervous about using Write with the Best for him, but wow did he make some great gains using this program. The program does things in such small steps that they seemed very manageable to him. I feel like CTC covered history in a way that made it come alive and it also gave him the perspective that biblical history is real, not just "stories". The one other life long skill that he learned in CTC is how to have a bible quiet time. I look forward to RTR where I know that will continue. I am just so thankful that we found HOD at the beginning of our homeschool journey. Preparing and now CTC have been huge blessings in our house.

We just completed our first year of homeschooling. I have a 10 yr old son who attended public school from K-3. We used the Heart of Dakota Creation to Christ curriculum this past year for 4th grade & he loved it! The teacher's guide was so easy to use. Everything is very well laid out & easy to follow. I only had to spend about 15 minutes each week prepping for the coming week.
The history books and lessons were terrific! My son learned a ton and even my husband & I enjoyed reading them as well. The history projects were very creative and my son especially loved the air dry clay projects. I especially loved how the history stories were tied into the Bible times...so interesting. There were also many opportunities to tie into the lessons the similarities between things that happened in the past with our current times. Loved that!
The read-aloud story time was very special. This is something that I haven't done with my son since he became an independent reader & we both really enjoyed it. The book recommendations were excellent and were not ones we would have chosen on our own.
The geography book was very interesting. It focused on the Middle Eastern countries. It was very informative, respectful of the Muslim culture & religion, but stayed true to Christian beliefs, which I appreciated. Genesis was a little harder for me to get through, but my son enjoyed the lessons & especially the timeline activities.
For language arts, we used Drawn Into the Heart of Reading, which is a great program! We also used Easy Grammar, and IEW for writing. The IEW program is top-notch & I'm so excited it's the writing program for Resurrection to Reformation. It has helped my son immensely!
My son loves science & really enjoyed many of the books & especially the experiments we did this year. I am shocked at all he retained as he just quoted something from the Galen book to me & we haven't studied that for a couple of months.
Finally, the poetry & watercolor paintings were a highlights of our weeks. My son, who is not usually artistically inclined, LOVED doing the paintings. The tutorials on the message board are a total lifesaver!
I don't typically write reviews, but I felt very compelled to this time. It took us a couple of years to decide to homeschool & we were very nervous about picking the right curriculum. I can't begin to count the number of curriculum reviews I read in trying to make this decision. This curriculum is very thorough, easy to use, Biblically oriented, flexible, and is academically rigorous. Heart of Dakota has been such a blessing to us this year & we are super excited about starting Resurrection to Reformation in a couple of months! Thank you to Carrie & her team for putting such a great curriculum together!

It's our third year homeschooling, but our first year of enjoying it! It's because we have found HOD. My oldest has been doing CTC this year, and for the first time she finally enjoys school! She loves that she can be independent, and she loves to challenge herself by getting ahead in her independent work as much as she can. She also looks forward to our school time together, as do I. I love that everything we're learning and reading points us back to Christ! She loves doing the watercolors. We are learning so much about the Bible, and ancient times, than either of us ever knew! We would be very sad that it's coming to an end, except that Resurrection to Revival looks like it might be an even more amazing year! Can't wait to find out which one will be our favorite!

I did this curriculum for my 6th grade year, which was a crazy one with moving and other things going on throughout the year. But I got caught up on about a month of school in a week because of how much extra time they allow you to get everything done. So far I would say this a very good curriculum, especially for homeschoolers who are busy!

maxsmom wrote:We just completed our first year of homeschooling. I have a 10 yr old son who attended public school from K-3. We used the Heart of Dakota Creation to Christ curriculum this past year for 4th grade & he loved it! The teacher's guide was so easy to use. Everything is very well laid out & easy to follow. I only had to spend about 15 minutes each week prepping for the coming week.
The history books and lessons were terrific! My son learned a ton and even my husband & I enjoyed reading them as well. The history projects were very creative and my son especially loved the air dry clay projects. I especially loved how the history stories were tied into the Bible times...so interesting. There were also many opportunities to tie into the lessons the similarities between things that happened in the past with our current times. Loved that!
The read-aloud story time was very special. This is something that I haven't done with my son since he became an independent reader & we both really enjoyed it. The book recommendations were excellent and were not ones we would have chosen on our own.
The geography book was very interesting. It focused on the Middle Eastern countries. It was very informative, respectful of the Muslim culture & religion, but stayed true to Christian beliefs, which I appreciated. Genesis was a little harder for me to get through, but my son enjoyed the lessons & especially the timeline activities.
For language arts, we used Drawn Into the Heart of Reading, which is a great program! We also used Easy Grammar, and IEW for writing. The IEW program is top-notch & I'm so excited it's the writing program for Resurrection to Reformation. It has helped my son immensely!
My son loves science & really enjoyed many of the books & especially the experiments we did this year. I am shocked at all he retained as he just quoted something from the Galen book to me & we haven't studied that for a couple of months.
Finally, the poetry & watercolor paintings were a highlights of our weeks. My son, who is not usually artistically inclined, LOVED doing the paintings. The tutorials on the message board are a total lifesaver!
I don't typically write reviews, but I felt very compelled to this time. It took us a couple of years to decide to homeschool & we were very nervous about picking the right curriculum. I can't begin to count the number of curriculum reviews I read in trying to make this decision. This curriculum is very thorough, easy to use, Biblically oriented, flexible, and is academically rigorous. Heart of Dakota has been such a blessing to us this year & we are super excited about starting Resurrection to Reformation in a couple of months! Thank you to Carrie & her team for putting such a great curriculum together!

maxsmom, this is the very situation I face at this time! Never home schooled, 10 yr old child who has attended public school K-3, mom who has done EXTENSIVE research (almost to the point of confusion), etc. I know this post is a little dated, but I was wondering...
1. Did you purchase the entire Creation to Christ package including the add-ons?
2. If not, what other curriculum did you use (i.e. math or other subjects)?