I stumbled across Heart of Dakota six years ago as I was looking for something to help me include my second grader with the two older boys. I immediately fell in love. It had everything that I was looking for in a homeschool curriculum– a lot of great literature (that was thoughtfully picked out), fun activities, wonderful resources, poetry, art, music, and, most importantly, a strong emphasis on Bible and character. And all these were broken up into small segments and scheduled out for me so that I didn’t feel overwhelmed or miss things.
And I loved the beautiful note book pages that were included with the older grades where your child can record what he’s learning.
How We Came to Use Heart of Dakota
At the time, we were using, and enjoying, Mystery of History by Linda Hobar for all three but I thought the second grader was being short-changed since a lot of it was going over his head. I saw that Heart of Dakota used Mystery of History III, which we were ready for, and I thought it might be perfect for adding in more age appropriate books and activities for him.
Upon further research, I saw that this was not the case. Heart of Dakota’s Resurrection to Reformation was truly written for ages 10-12 with extensions for older students. Again, he would be the one left in the dust.
It was then that I noticed their second grade program– Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory. It was a perfect fit for him! I felt I had pushed him too hard the year before and was drawn to the simple history activities, charming read alouds, engaging emergent readers, and fun math activities in Beyond.
He was so delighted when I told him I was going to get him his own guide. I found the guide used at such a reasonable price and ended up purchasing Little Hands to Heaven, HOD’s preschool program, for the four-year old, too.
I put the two oldest boys in Heart of Dakota’s Creation to Christ program, making the decision on age and not on the time period covered, and everything was pretty close to perfect.
Since then, we have put the older two boys each into their own guide and haven’t looked back. HOD’s guides cover such age-specific skills that I feel that we are profiting most when each child is in the guide that corresponds most closely to their age. I know that many mother’s combine children in the same guide and the guides are written to span several grades, but this is where God has led us and it’s working great for us.
We’ve been using Heart of Dakota for five years now and my oldest boy says that the guides just get better each year. And I agree. I’m so glad we discovered them.
How about you? What’s been one of your best home school discoveries?
Do you have a post about how you organize the work for R2R? I feel like people use a lot of binders and I’m trying to figure out the best way to be organized, while taking the least amount of space.
I’m sorry I don’t have one. Have you checked in any of the HOD Facebook groups for ideas?
Hi Suzanna,
Did you find Mystery of History I to be more thorough than The Story of the Ancient World? Which was easier to comprehend? MOH is so beautifully written but TSOTAW seems a bit dry. I want the history to be thorough.
I think they’re both thorough. I actually prefer MOH because it is more Christian focused, but we ended up using both because they are scheduled in HOD.