Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory

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Yes, Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory is a complete, Christ-centered, literature-based program that covers all necessary academic areas. These areas include history, geography, read-alouds, Bible, music, science, art, poetry, reading, spelling, grammar, handwriting/copywork, and choices for math.  All subjects are scheduled in the daily plans.

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Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory gives a chronological overview of early American history from 1565-1865. The history stories are meant for you to read aloud. They focus on pioneers, pilgrims, colonists, and patriots. The stories emphasize God’s plan throughout history. Our next curriculum, Bigger Hearts for His Glory, revisits early American history biographically and then moves forward in time to wrap up the American history introduction.

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After having our oldest son move through the time periods chronologically from the Ancients to the present, we found that we would have preferred to wait to discuss myths, legends, other gods, and pagan cultures until he was older and more ready for these concepts. We also found the study of the early time periods was often filled with weighty topics, barbaric behavior, and many stories of cruelty. Even in watered down fashion these didn’t seem to be appropriate topics for young children.

Instead, we wanted our young children to be inspired by stories of American heroes. We wanted to lead them to see God’s providence in the history of our nation. It seems more natural to surround them with stories that are closer in time to where they are today. So, we begin our history study with the patriotic heritage that surrounds us daily.

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Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory features 34 units with complete daily plans.  Each unit contains 5 days of instruction. The program is not tied to any specific day of the week, month, holiday, or season; so it can be started at any time. 

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Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory has engaging daily lessons that take approximately 2 to 2 ½ hours to complete.  More time will be needed if you linger on activities or draw out discussions.

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Little to no preparation is needed to use Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory. It is designed to be open-and-go, so you can simply wake up and teach. Plans include supplies that are common to most household kitchens or art supply areas. Substitutions for supplies are also suggested. For this reason, there is purposefully no required supply list in Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory. Simply read the “Introduction,” first week of plans, and “Appendix” of the guide, and you will be ready to start.

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Beyond Little Hearts His Glory is written to mainly be teacher-directed, recognizing your child’s need for guidance and instruction at this crucial stage of learning.

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We carry Real Phonics, Reading Made Easy, and The Reading Lesson. You can also choose whether to add Miss Rhonda’s Readers to supplement your program. If your child is a struggling reader, we offer a choice of Learn to Read for Kids with Dyslexia, Blast Off to Reading, and Sound Bytes Reading. Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory is not tied to a specific phonics program, so any program can be used.

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Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory offers two different book sets for emerging readers, along with a daily schedule for using those books. Each day includes 3 questions from the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy to guide your reading discussion with your child. For ease of use, we sell these sets on our website.

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For oral language, students memorize and recite weekly memory verses and choral read poetry. For handwriting, students copy a portion of a poem to reinforce manuscript handwriting daily in Copy the Classics. For spelling, students practice one of 2 spelling lists each week with a variety of short spelling activities.  Students receive a gentle introduction to basic grammar, usage, capitalization, and punctuation weekly. 

In literature, students listen to daily read-alouds from a variety of genres. Brief, daily literature lessons emphasize story elements, genre study, Godly character traits, and narration practice.

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You can easily substitute those programs into Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory. Just be sure that any substitutions are not overly time-consuming, or you will quickly lengthen your school day beyond the time we expect Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory to take.

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These book sets are meant to be used with the Storytime part of the plans as you read-aloud to your students. The Storytime plans work with your choice of books, so you are welcome to select your own books to read-aloud in order to economize. A list of excellent read-aloud titles for each genre is included in the Appendix of the Teacher’s Guide. The Deluxe Package groups these recommended titles into a Classic Set, a Boy Interest Set, or a Girl Interest Set.

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If you have more than one student using this curriculum, you will want to order additional copies of items that are consumable (one-per-student). In our website’s online store, we list all the consumable items for each guide, as well as the package where each item is included. In this way, you can decide which consumables to order based on the packages you chose to purchase.