heartofdakota.com

Ladies,

I hope all of you had a good Christmas and start to the New Year. We enjoyed ours but are ready to move back to a more structured, less goodie-eating, schedule!

As we are hard at work on the new guide Revival to Revolution, we thought you may enjoy a few more sneak peeks into some of the various areas of the guide. The target age range of the guide will be ages 11-13 with extensions for ages 14-15. So, here are a few peeks!

We are planning a twice weekly composer study to be included in this guide that will be completed with the parent's help. At this point we are planning to schedule the 4 cd set "The Story of Classical Music", which is a narrative of the book by this same title (with musical clips added). It includes 4 and 1/2 hours of listening. Here is a description from the publisher of this wonderful set:

"Alsop, a well-known and respected conductor blends a historic time line in chronological order, replete with facts about the Magna Carta, the bubonic plague and the industrial revolution, together with a colorful who's who of composers, spotlighting more than 90 artists. Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, etc. and more contemporary composers like John Cage and Philip Glass are included. Alsop serves as a welcoming tour guide offering fun facts and interesting biographical sketches for listeners. Each era of history and composer's bio is paired with famous, representative snippets of music—150 in all—performed by world-class musicians. A fourth enhanced CD in the package contains such extras as quizzes, sheet music, photos and ancillary articles."

We plan to pair this audio cd with Amy Pak's Composers' Activity Pak which you can view here: http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com/HTT ... posers.htm

We are very excited about this combination and feel it will provide a wonderful chronological view of the history of classical music in a narrative, storylike way. The Amy Pak Cd also contains many full-length musical pieces by famous composers which will be integrated into our scheduled listening, so no outside music resources will be necessary to complete the composer study.

We have decided to include the study "Who Is God and Can I Really Know Him?" as a worldview discussion study to be done with the parent twice weekly as well. The composer study and the worldview study will alternate within one box as part of the "Teacher Directed" time in the Revival to Revolution guide. We spoke about this truly excellent worldview study in a previous post and are excited to include it. We believe it will lead to many heartfelt discussions and guide kiddos to view the world through the Biblical lens that God has provided for us.

Another exciting component of this guide will be the option of doing a study of the 50 states using the excellent Christian state study "Fifty States under God" by Joy Dean. We will schedule this study three times weekly for students to do independently. This resource covers all 50 states in an interesting, well-researched Christian way. We have used several other resources for studying the 50 states currently on the market and found that we preferred this study far above all the rest! We pray that you will too! We are thrilled to be partnering with the Deans to be able to offer this state study through Heart of Dakota. Here is a link to more information on this study: http://www.statehistory.net/fifty_states

If you haven't had a chance to read some of our other discussion on the resources in our upcoming guide, I'll link some threads with previous discussions on this topic below. So far areas of discussion on the new guide have included the following: history spines, science plans, math projections, and Bible study.

Scroll down on this thread to see the history spines: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7575

Here's a bit more information about the mapping, poetry, worthy words, and period artwork: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8295

Scroll down on this thread to see the science offerings: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7683

Here is a response on the math plans: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7945

Here is a response on the grammar plans: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8175

Here is a thread on the Bible Quiet Time (and on the two possibilities we were pondering for the Bible Study, which have now been decided): viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7761

If you have additional questions on the science path, here is one last thread explaining our philosophy for our choices for science for the middle school years (which contains a link within it to a previous very active discussion on a similar topic).: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7880

We hope you enjoy this sneak peek! We are excited about Revival to Revolution and are enjoying seeing it come together!

Blessings,
Carrie

Looking good Carrie and thanks for the sneak peek! Happy New Year to you and yours.

Fabulous Carrie! I LOVE the choices! I am always saying one of the reasons I LOVE HOD is you pick items that I want to use.
Thank you for your time and sacrifices you make. I am more excited to finish Preparing to get to Rev and Revolution.
I know I have a few years but it is great knowing where we will be in a few years. Blessings to you and your family!

Very nice! It's exciting to see what we have in store in a few years. All of the resources are sounding so wonderful that it will be difficult to wait the several years that it will be until we get to Revival to Revolution!

This sounds so wonderful Carrie. Thank you so much for all the research and hard work you put into the guides. May the Lord continue to guide you as you put all this effort in to getting this guide written. I am so excited about the devotion time, composers study, state study. This is the company I was looking at using if we would have to do our own state study!
We are enjoying Bigger Hearts and have a few years before us, but I have noticed that while the guides just keep getting better I am also enjoying doing the guides over with the younger kids!!!
Blessings to you and your family and also praying that the Lord will give you much rest and family time in between your research and writing time
Can't wait to get to Preparing, CTC, RTR and Revival to Revolution (will this be called RTR-2??), and do it all over again times 2

Wow Carrie it all sounds great! I just love all the resources you pull together to give such a complete education.

Looks wonderful!,
The Lord works in mysterious ways..lol. I have been searching for threads about this program to use for my 8th grader next year! thank you so much for putting it all together in one place. Looks amazing!

Everything looks great. I wish that I had waited on the Apologia book. I am using that this year. It is a great book. I was wondering when you might post a sneak peak on what writing you are planning.

Jan

What grade levels will this guide be geared toward?

I am so excited about seeing the new guide! You are helping me provide my daughter (& eventually my son) with such a well rounded education. Thank you for all the hard work & prayer you put into this curriculum. HOD has truly been a blessing to my family.

I'm thrilled that you are enthused with the peeks into the guide. We are so excited about the way it is all coming together and are looking forward to using it next year with our second son in line too! As to the question on how to abbreviate the guide, I think we'll abbreviate the guide as RevtoRev for our board purposes, as it will be confusing to have another RTR. The target ages for the guide will be ages 11- 13 with extensions for ages 14-15. I'll add those ages to my initial post as that is good information to include.

As far as the writing program goes for RevtoRev, we are currently planning to use the The Exciting World of Creative Writing by Ruth E. McDaniel. It is published by Christian Liberty Press and is such a God-honoring way to teach kiddos to write creatively for the glory of God. The text includes many terrific examples from both classic authors and lesser-known authors to illustrate the various writing lessons and techniques. Since grammar will be scheduled daily in RevtoRev, it will be important for the writing program to be somewhat less intensive. Writing lessons are also included within the Rod and Staff's English text. The plan at this point is to omit chapters 3-4, as they are more grammar focused and will have already been covered through Rod and Staff. However, we plan to use the rest of the book in its entirety.

We like to change the writing approach and focus from guide to guide so that kiddos become well-balanced writers who have been exposed to all sorts of writing techniques and practice. We feel that after using Medieval History-Based Writing Lessons in RTR (and enjoying its step-by-step more formulistic style thoroughly for one year), the switch to a more creative writing program in RevtoRev will feel fresh and exciting just as the title says... The Exciting World of Creative Writing!

Blessings,
Carrie

Thanks Carrie!!! After reading this I am super excited !!! I had purchased 50 states under God at this years convention because I loved the way it was done, but just put it on my shelf until I could figure out how and were to fit it in. Now I don't have to !! We will be doing RTR next, but I will just keep it on my shelf until Rev. to Rev. were it will be nicely scheduled in !!! Thanks for all that you do to make these guides so wonderful!!!!

Wow! I am so excited that you are scheduling in that 50 states study, I have always wanted to use it but have never been able to fit it in...My daughter Keri will be 13 and a half by the fall, I think this would be a great option for her if we can manage it! Did you say grammar is scheduled daily? Is R and S 6 scheduled in the plans? I know she would fit into that level of grammar by then. Thanks for the preview!

Wow! How did I miss this! It looks awesome. And truly I should never buy anything new again because all the thing I love buy and don't get scheduled you end up covering for us. Really excited about the directions HOD is taking. Always something to look forward to and be excited for the future!

This looks awesome, Carrie! My family is so thankful for you and your family and your commitment to bringing us the guides each year. We're in Preparing this year (& LOVING it!), and are so excited about all the goodness to come!