heartofdakota.com

We are starting September 4th this year. This summer has been really crazy and I have been sick. My 9 year old ds will be starting PHFHG, dd(6) will be finishing BLHFHG, and dd(4) is going to finish LHTH.

Started about 2 weeks ago half days, because it is way to hot outside to play...

we'll take a nice long break in November.

We will be starting on the 20th. My dd will be doing CTC and my ds will be doing Bigger.

We started school July 28th, since they begged me to.
To kick it off - on the Friday before, we went to the Zoo storytime at our library, then onto City Park for a
picnic and playing in the 'splash park'. On the way home we stopped at the store and bought ice cream sandwiches.
After a good long rest we finished off the day at our County Fair.
My children loved it! They thanked me repeatedly for taking them out if the house (for fun)

(Which was good since on the first day of school my kindergartner jumped up after 15-20 minutes of work and said:
" I'll save this for later. I'm done." )

Hope y'all have a great start to a fantastic year!
(y'all= you can take me out of Texas, but you can't take the Texas out of me! )

Mikki

Hope y'all have a great start to a fantastic year!
(y'all= you can take me out of Texas, but you can't take the Texas out of me! )

That is funny! Actually, you can tell I'm from the south as I read "y'all" (spelled correctly I might add) in your post, and I didn't even notice!

We've been trying to school throughout the summer as we received our LHFHG guide back in May. But, we are finally getting into the swing of things now going at full-speed with LHFHG.

Our public schools started back on Monday, so to celebrate her first year of Kindergarten at home we visited the local Children's Museum and ate lunch at the Varsity! I actually got a little teary eyed and emotional this weekend when she found a pack of erasers she wanted in the dollar section. I bought them for her and told her that was a special going back to school surprise for my big Kindergartener. I was so glad I didn't have to shed those "first day of school" tears that I always dreamed I would shed by sending her off to school on a school bus though.

Now I just need to take some time to take those "going back to school" pictures before she grows up too quickly on me!

I am new to HOD and looking forward to starting Preparing and LHFHG on September 13th! The books that arrived are just wonderful. We have enjoyed looking at them, and I have been having fun looking at the TMs and organizing things for Preparing.

We are finishing our 4th week back to school tomorrow. We are using and LOVING Preparing Hearts and Rev to Rev.

ETA: Lord willing, we will begin school September 10th. Here is the line-up:

DS10 Preparing +ext.
DD6 and DS8 Beyond
DS3 LHTH as this boy is more than ready and I think he'll love it.

We started at the end of June. This summer we have schooled an average of 3 days per week. We will pick it up to 4 days a week soon. Preparing Hearts is wonderful. My boys who are 8 and 10 are combined in Preparing. My little girls are doing Little Hands to Heaven.

For our First day I took Pictures of the kids with a chalkboard that said "First Day of School." I make a yearbook on Mixbook.com for them each year. We then went over our schedule and exactly how to do each box. That way the next day when we actually started everyone would know what to do. It was nice to do a First day of School without all the work. It made our real first day run much more smoothly.

We are finishing up our VBS at church this week and we need a couple of days to recoup from that. We will begin next Wed, Aug 22. I know it's the middle of the week, but we start slowly and it helps us get things moving. My son will be in CTC and my dd will be doing MTMM on the high school level. DD will start with her math, Dithr , Typing, and Grammar studies, then her co-op class which meets once a week for Spanish and Biology begins Sept 6. Once MTMM gets here, she'll be in full swing! It will also allow me a bit more time to spend with ds as he gets into his groove with CTC. Praising God for another year with HOD!

We are starting on Monday.

My 12yo daughter will be doing Rev2Rev.

My 10yo son will be doing Creation to Christ.

My 8yo son will be doing Bigger Hearts.

My 6yo daughter will be doing Little Hearts.

My 4yo and 3yo daughters will be doing Sonlight's PreK 3/4 (did Little Hands last year, and I like to wait til first grade for Little Hearts).

I take pictures of each child holding a printout with their name, first day of school 2012-2013. We'll also have banana splits for an afternoon snack. Those are our two first day of school traditions.

We are excited to begin our first year with HOD. We start back August 20 with the BLHFHG. We also take pictures with a sign that has that year's grade level. A new tradition that we are starting this year is a special dinner that ds chooses.

This has been such fun to read! I am praying that we all find our strength and purpose in the Lord this homeschooling year, and that HOD helps us homeschool with Christ at the center, with joy! May we all look for the good in our days homeschooling our dc, finding delight in the the little moments we tuck away in our hearts of this fleeting time in life home with our dc. And may we also turn to the Lord when challenges arise, knowing He has called us for this purpose, and He will provide whatever we need. Thank you so much for each of you who shared here, and God bless!

In Christ,
Julie

P.S. I am thinking I need to step it up a notch when it comes to kicking off our year. Such great ideas for that are in this thread!!! Thanks for that inspiration, ladies!

First Time HOD'er starting on Monday (August 27) with BHFHG & DITHOR!!

Hi there! Starting Beyond after Labor Day, and will start LHTH with my younger after we hit our 1st grade groove.

I'll have a 1st day surprise for them (pencil box and candies) and their picture; and we'll go out to lunch (IHOP probably, their favorite) after.