Our Boxes Came!

We were so excited to come home today and find 2 boxes waiting for us on the porch! I knew right away what they must be. Let me tell you, I placed both the Heart of Dakota and the Christianbook.com order on Tuesday and they both arrived today! That's with standard shipping. Pretty impressive! Natalie was very excited. Taylor on the other hand, was a bit disappointed. The boxes everything came in were not big enough to fit his entire body...

Looking through everything, I am pretty happy with this selection. Initially, I am a little disappointed that the Heart of Dakota teacher's guide is bound, rather than in a spiral or 3 ring notebook. I was hoping to put it into my own binder. O well, minor details.

Pictured above is an inside view of the Heart of Dakota teacher's guide, and below is a side view.

I had a quick feeling of regret for buying the complete Horizon's Math kit. My thought was, could I have made do without the teacher's guide and saved a lot of money? But, after looking through it, I think the teacher's guide is going to be a very nice thing to have (it includes answer keys, scope and sequence, assessment tests, worksheets, and daily lesson plans).

Being a very visual learner myself, I love that Horizons is colorful and visually appealing. My only gripe about the teachers guide, is that it too is not spiral bound and includes reproducible worksheets that will be a pain to copy. Horizons does offer these worksheets in an unbound format on their website for an additional $10, but I'd really appreciate a free PDF version since I did already purchase the curriculum!

None of the books are overwhelmingly huge. They are all lightweight and colorful from what I can tell!

Pictured above is the American Pioneers and Patriots history textbook we will be using (though the word "textbook" may be a bad word to use because I instantly think: dry and boring) This book is pretty small and colorful!

Pictured here is the Boys and Girls of Colonial Days. 

The God's Wonderful Works science book, pictured below, looks fun! I like the way it is set up, to cover earth science by focusing on the 6 days of creation and what God created on each of those days.

Pictured above is the Stories of the Pilgrims book.

Of course I will be adding in a stack of 20 or so, other early readers, biographies, and literature books to go along with this pile! I will refer in later posts, to the book lists I will be using. It's nice to know though, that this is my core. Everything that needs to be covered is right here. There will be days we only cover the basics. However, throughout the year I also hope to add in and enrich these core subjects with activities, stories and projects that will speak to Natalie's specific learning style, interests and gifts. After all, that is one of the best parts about homeschooling!