Year 2 and Year 0 Prep
We will officially start in 2 weeks and like last year, I will blog updates to our education (mostly for accountability to myself and to share my cute kids with our family!!!)
We will be using Ambleside Online as the "bones" of the curriculum. I have been reading through the Charlotte Mason Volumes over the past few years and I'm starting to feel like I have a better understanding about how all of this looks in the big picture! I may modify as the years go by and do more of an individualized feast as I see the need for my kids but still stick to the standards written in the volumes.
Prep this year has been gathering all the books!!! Many books on the booklist are in the public domain. You can find them reprinted at Amazon and might even be able to get original vintage copies from booksellers on the internet. I also decided to get some of the books printed from the public domain and spiral bound. I'm planning on writing in the margins on some of these books to build our vocabulary through reading. Finding a parent-teacher store or other resource center can be great for binding printed copies! I'm all about frugal!!!
I will list and link to some helpful downloads by subject area if you are new to Charlotte Mason/Ambleside and love organization like me!!!
First, the curriculum. Go get it HERE (click the link.) If the site looks too overwhelming, check out this article HERE! A LOT of work has gone into creating this curriculum for free and it is amazing! I'm so blessed to have quite a few local friends who are all using the same resource and we are able to draw on each other's strengths and advice! It's awesome! If you are diving into Charlotte Mason and Ambleside I encourage you to find others to connect with and meet to share stories and encouragement!
Now, if you are like me and like additional organization, you can download these schedules I made for Y2 (click here) and Y0 (click here). These are customized to what I felt my family needs!
YEAR 2 RESOURCES BY SUBJECT
Bible/Christian Living
We are still in the early years where short Bible readings and memory verses make up the main part of the subject. We have not gone into any catechism or reading of commentaries but I do plan to make a list of "lists" that I would like him to memorize! For example, the 10 Commandments, Fruit of the Spirit, etc. That will fall into our memorization and recitation time in the morning! Last year we worked on memorizing the books of the Bible and they were doing very well! I hope to continue the good work!Pilgrim's Progress is going to be part of our Christian Living subject and I bought the audio version from Orion's Gate as well as the coloring book. I've listened to a few tracks and they are great!
Trial and Triumph will also be read as part of our Bible/Christian Living subject as we learn about some of the martyrs of the Faith. I will read the chapters aloud to the kids together.
History
Everything we plan to use is listed on the curriculum website. The only thing I needed to put together was my own Timeline book. This will be the first year that Christian makes entries into the book each week. Last year we did a century chart and talked about the years that each of our family members were born and would reference it if any sort of "time" question came up in casual conversation. This year he will enter dates/people/facts/events into the journal as we read the scheduled selections from the books. If you need to find out more about a Book of Centuries or Timeline notebook, click HERE.Geography
Last year I created a map to go along with Paddle to the Sea and I plan to do the same with Tree in the Trail and Seabird. We'll also use all the geography suggestions from the curriculum. I want to do a bit more study on our own as we memorize States and Capitals from our big U.S.A. map in the school room and maybe get a "how to draw the U.S.A." instruction book!Literature
Books! Books! And more Books!!!! I am loving the list for this year. In addition to our booklist from the curriculum, we are going to perform a Shakespeare play with our Charlotte Mason Co-op (first semester is Tempest) as well as attend a TON of plays based off of books and Shakespeare. Our Nashville Shakespeare in the Park is in September and our Nashville Children's Theater and Tennessee Performing Arts Center will be performing plays based off books and fairy tales! Not to mention the amazing Wishing Chair Productions Puppet shows that will be performed for free at the downtown library! Talk about a FEAST!!! This year is going to be amazing! I'll also continue the poetry of A.A. Milne since we didn't finish. I bought a poetry book of animals and we'll also work on that together as a family.Science
Our focus is on mammals and order classification. I will be using the two resources listed under footnote #24 on the AO site HERE. I tried to order the Peterson Field Guide coloring book but can't find it anywhere! (I accidentally got the bird field guide but that's ok since our nature study in Term 1 is on birds!!!) I do love the book "Animals Do the Strangest Things" and will use that alongside the Burgess book this year. We'll also have weekly nature study walks and meet ups to observe and document what we discover!Math
I continue to use Miquon until we finish the series! We'll probably finish either this year or the first semester of his 3rd grade year. I also ordered Calculadder for drill practice! It's what my mom used for us when we were kids!!!Language Arts
The Charlotte Mason way is through LOTS of narration. We will be learning cursive this year which will be part of our copywork. I'm ordering Pictures in Cursive from Queens Homeschool. I'll also read ahead in some books to pick out vocabulary that I would like my son to remember. I'm going to work on creating short lists of spelling words for each week that will be taught aurally/orally only!Foreign Language
This is an exciting topic!!! Christian was chosen as a Lingo Bus ambassador since I am a VIPKID teacher!!! In the mornings 2-3 times a week I teach children English through a video relay service on the computer. The kids I teach are in China and the parent company of this program has developed a Chinese language program for English speaking kids! So, Christian is taking private Chinese lessons twice a week on the computer and we will have daily practice at home! (I had previously planned to teach Spanish and have some books to use but we will continue with Chinese as long as we have this amazing opportunity!Music and Art
We will continue to follow the Ambleside Online rotation! I may add a few things here and there to supplement especially when it comes to planning classes for our co-op! Another project I have been doing is putting videos together for solfa drill! Check them out here! It's called Solfa Sofa! :)Now, on to Kindergarten!!!!
This is a very light year but we will be focusing on reading, copywork, and math. Along with listening to some awesome stories!!! If you didn't see the link above, the curriculum I made for her is for Year "0" (click here) which is Kindergarten! She'll also be participating with Christian on a lot of the subjects listed above!!!
I hope you enjoyed the synopsis!!! Stay tuned in a few weeks when we update the middle of our Term 1!!!
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