Heart of Dakota review

I began "officially" homeschooling in 2008. That first year, Gabriel was in kindergarten and I pretty much just pieced our curriculum together (a little bit of this, a little bit of that). I didn't totally know what I was doing so while some of it was great, some of it was... well... not so great.

[For the record, I think the not-knowing-what-I-was-doing is somewhat par for the course, and if I could tell new homeschooling moms one thing, it would be that it's okay if you always feel a bit in over your head, especially in the first year(s)!]

By the end of that first year, I was glad to celebrate our beginning attempts together, my boy's and mine-- we MADE it!-- but I looked ahead to the coming school year when I would have to actually report our work to the local school district, and I felt overwhelmed. Due to my pieced-together approach, I didn't have the sense that first year that I could really measure our accomplishments. There weren't any clear objectives and, consequently, in the end I wasn't really sure how we did.

This works for some people, but for me, it left me feeling a bit floundering and uncertain.

Not to mention, I was going to have two students and not just one that next year, and I wanted to make sure I had clear targets we were aiming for so that I didn't just have a constant sense of being lost.

I began looking at Sonlight and My Father's World because I knew they are complete curriculum options with laid-out lesson plans, but beyond the cost of those options not being practical for me, I wasn't sure how either would work to combine both Gabriel & Bronwyn's work as much as possible, which was something I was really looking to do.

My friend then introduced me to Heart of Dakota. I was sold almost immediately! I purchased Little Hearts for His Glory, which Gabriel worked through as a 1st grader and Bronwyn worked through as a kindergartener. It worked flawlessly, gave me the confidence as a young homeschooling mom that I needed, and the kids enjoyed it.

The next year, I used Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory which I liked even better!

Here are my pros and cons:

Cons

1. The website is terrible. Request a free catalog ASAP and don't go to the website again until you understand the curriculum and want to place an order.
2. The curriculum is set up in 34 5-day lessons, a system that can easily make you feel like you're falling behind (if you're prone to that).
3. We didn't love the devotionals from either year, so we quickly abandoned them and used our own Bible story books and devotionals.
4. I didn't love the textbooks they chose for science or the way they assigned the use/reading of the books.

Pros

1. It is so. easy. to. use. I would open the teacher manual in the morning as I sat down with the kids and start working through the assignments with no prior thought or planning on my part. Everything is laid out in the two pages you're open to and categorized very plainly. It also felt easy to elaborate on certain things while slashing others as I felt appropriate from day to day-- and if I felt comfortable doing that, anybody will!
2. Combining grade levels is really very simple, especially if they're back-to-back grades (like Gabriel & Bronwyn's). Being able to do the majority of our work together (and even involving Jack & Aubrey) was exactly what I was looking for.
3. The books they use for history and daily read aloud are wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
4. I loved that I could choose from handwriting programs, various grades of math, and phonics from what they offer-- or even just use something altogether different (which was exactly what I did for teaching reading). It's easy to swap things in and out and find what fits your child best, while still taking advantage of easy and ready-to-go lesson plans (alternative math assignments, etc. are in the appendix pages of the book).
5. Scripture memorization is included in the weekly lessons and that was so helpful at keeping it a priority with the kids. I love that.
6. The Rhymes in Motion from Little Hearts for His Glory seemed cheesy to me and so I wasn't using them until one day the kids asked why. We tried it and they loved it. They memorized the days of the week, continents, etc. so painlessly through these!

We didn't ever purchase the music portion of the curriculum because the kids get plenty of music through daily family devotions, weekly piano lessons, Friday Program, and church, so I can't comment on that.

So, with all that said, if anybody ever wants to look through the teacher manuals for either Little Hearts for His Glory or Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory, let me know! I own both and have no plan on getting rid of them any time soon because I can very easily see myself using them with some of the younger kids at some point.