Homeschool: Our Schedule and Curriculum for 2021-2022

It rarely looks like this, but it can feel just as beautiful!

This will be our 5th year homeschooling and I can honestly say it gets better every year. I continue to learn what works, what doesn’t, what gets us excited about learning and keeps us consistent, and what to tweak. It feels like carving a sculpture in a way. I have no idea what I’m carving just yet, but like Michael Angelo said, “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”(Forgive me for comparing my half-baked homeschooling ideas to the mastery of Michael Angelo but the principle really resonated.)

Come visit on any given school day and you'll find me doubting myself, kicking crumbs under the table covered in open books, a toddler pulling things out of kitchen drawers and a whole lot of learning going on. I know that it’s my responsibility to train and direct my children, to introduce them to God through his word and beauty of the world, to help them cultivate their unique interests and strengths, and equip them to become strong, healthy human beings. (I just don’t know which grammar resources are going to be a part of that journey. Or how many hours we’ll spend outside on the way…) Each year, I’m praying, chasing down interests, learning more about the way I teach, the way my children learn and piecing it all together into something unique to our family. That’s one of the greatest joys and privileges of home education, and perhaps one of the greatest frustrations. It would be so much easier if there was only one right way to teach and learn. All we would need to do is take someone else’s plan and follow it to the letter, no tweaking or critiquing or wrestling- that sounds nice in a way, but as Charles Spurgeon said, “anything is a blessing which causes us to pray.” (Even if that 'thing' is a grammar book or a math program, rigiht?)

I digress.

I want to share our resources for this year in hopes of inspiring and encouraging you in your homeschooling journey. I will also add that for the first 4 years of our journey I used "open and go" curriculum (My Father's World was a favorite). This gave me the security of knowing I wasn't missing anything and provided all of the structure I needed to be able to experience different resources. **I'd definitely recommend starting with this route if you're new to homeschooling and your kiddos are older than 7, since this is generally when "formal studies" becomes more structured.** Slowly I became more confident and comfortable making tweaks, eventually making so many adjustments that an open-and-go resource wasn't suitable. The point is: every family is unique, every child and parent and their relationship is precious and worth high consideration in planning curriculum. We are all free to change, explore and adjust without needing to compare or feel trapped by a dogmatic approach which only ever seems to serve pride and approval of man. I’m still learning and growing beside my children every year, as are the majority of homeschooling mothers. (I highly recommend a community of good homeschooling friends or at least a couple veterans to take the journey with you.)

Bearing all of this in mind I’ll share our resources for this year and what our schedule looks like as I teach 4 kiddos whose ages range from 9 - 1 year.

If you’re new to the homeschooling world, you’ll start to notice some specific “philosophies of education” floating around, things like: Unschooling, Charlotte Mason, Traditional, Classical, Montessori, etc. A philosophy is what decides HOW you teach whatever it is you teach. You can Google “Homeschool Philosophies” for a fun rabbit hole. If you’re already familiar with some of the basics- I like to claim that our homeschool is Charlotte Mason Inspired. I put a strong emphasis on “inspired” because a lot of purists out there despise when you take a well known philosophy and cherry pick or mix it with another philosophy…or two. (This is what eclectic homeschooling is and what I’d be labeled, though I still claim Charlotte Mason Inspired).*For a quick dive into the Charlotte Mason Method I highly suggest the book "For the Children's Sake" by Susan Schaeffer Macauly. Because of our educational philosophy we place a high value on good literature, life skills and handcrafts, time outdoors and character development. We also practice family style learning, meaning multiple ages/grades are learning about the same thing in different capacities. This applies to subjects like science and history that don’t require individual attention and specific skills/development, unlike Math, spelling, reading which require one-on-one development. Because of our faith as Christians, we believe it’s our highest duty, honor and privilege to raise our children with God‘s word as the source of truth and wisdom pertaining to all things for life and godliness- this shapes every aspect of what we teach and how we approach different resources as well.

Our school schedule is probably the one aspect of our school that has stayed the same since the start because of how well it works for us! We love using a 4 day school week, for 4 days we do our typical book work and lessons and reserve the 5th day for field trips, interest led learning, creative pursuits and errands. We also school year-round, 6 weeks on and 1 week off. (Different states have different requirements for scheduling. Check yours at hslda.org)

Before I share our subjects and resources it's important to note that we don't do all subjects every day. We utilize something called a "loop schedule". This means we "loop" subjects we aren't doing every day like history, science, grammar, art etc. The only subjects we do daily are: bible, reading/writing, and math. Rather than assigning the other subjects to a specific day of the week we decide how many days a week to do them and create a list. When we complete our regular daily assignments we move on to the next subject in our "loop" list, and we'll complete 2-3 subjects from that list for the day.

For example each morning we'll read scripture and pray before moving onto our "morning loop" of additional topics, which include: Hymn

Art Study

Memory Verse

Poetry Devotional

Fable/Hero Tale

Composer study

Our afternoon study loop will include: Science

History

geography Science History Nature Study

History (listing them multiple times ensures they get done multiple times a week.)

Morning time:

I like to use this time to set the tone for our day, root us in truth and spend some extra time on beautiful things that can tend to get pushed aside later in a busy day. Our Morning routine consists of:

Scripture

Devotional/Catechism

Prayer

Hymn

Memory Verse

Art Study

Poetry

Composer Study

Scripture: I’m following a Bible reading plan that I was able to print from ligonier ministries. You can find all sorts of plans for free online. My readers will follow along in their own bibles and the younger ones will color/draw or play with things like blocks/play doh while I read aloud. I’ll also be selecting 1 larger passage per term as our memory verse. Catechism: This year we’re using catechism cards from @honestyouthpastor based on the Westminister shorter catechism. Each card has a question, an answer and the corresponding scripture and they come in a hard plastic case which i really appreciate. Hymn Study: We’ll be studying/singing 1 hymn per term. I decided to start by choosing family favorites, though in the past we’ve used and loved happy hymnody for their hymns of the month. We’ll be using “Then Sings my Soul” to study the author/background and our favorite hymnal to sing from. Poetry: For Poetry we’ll be selecting 1-2 poems per term from one of our poetry books. (Rhymes and Verses Walter De La Mare, Poems to Learn by Heart by Caroline Kennedy, A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Lois Stevenson) These will be read frequently enough for the older children to have them memorized and ready to recite at the end of the term.

Art: 2 artists per term selected from "Discovering Great Artists" We’ll create a piece of art inspired by the artist from the Usborne Art Treasury (Pre-read any excerpts on the artists life before reading aloud, some contain info that I wouldn't deem appropriate for young children. Van Gogh was a really troubled guy..) We'll learn about the artists and admire 3-4 curated pieces over the course of study.

Music/Composer Studies: Selecting 1 composure per term I’ll create a playlist. When I introduce the composer we’ll read a short bio, sometimes watch a short video and then sometime during the day I’ll play music from that playlist. *With the artist and composer studies I'm not expecting my children to be able to remember and recall all of them and their stories. Right now the focus is to fill their minds with beauty and inspiration and expand their appreciation for fine arts.

Before we get into the remaining subjects I like to take time to do “school” with my preschoolers. I have a 4 year old and a 1 year old. These two provide the most, erm, excitement during the rest of formal lessons. That being said, giving them individual time with mom first thing usually goes a long way in enabling them to play independently for a longer stretch of time. I focus on individual lessons working from youngest to oldest for a couple reasons: 1. the younger they are the shorter the lessons. Finishing these early enables them to "run off" and play the rest of the day. 2. The older ones can wait longer, work on some independent work and do lessons while the younger ones nap. For my 4 year old we’ll sing the ABC’s, count, identify letter and numbers and I’ll read him a picture book. This will take us 10-15 minutes total and completes his ”school” for the day, though he always joins us for family learning and often sits in on his siblings lessons.

Math:

I try to dive into this one earlier in the day when we’re at our freshest, also because it requires a lot of individual attention. This year we’re doing Dimensions Math. Last year we switched halfway through from Primary to dimensions and I definitely feel like this curriculum is more friendly for homeschooling. Especially if math isn’t your strongest subject and you need some guidance on how to teach certain concepts. I love that they move through concepts by using concrete>pictorial>abstract to really solidify the students' understanding of the concept and engage with it in several different ways that enable children of different learning styles to understand. The 4 year old is counting and learning numbers with Kumon dry erase flash cards. We’ll also be reading through math books from the library and reading stories from the Life of Fred Series as needed.

Language Arts: This is really 4 subjects in one. (Reading, Writing/Composition, Grammar, Spelling) This is where we lean very heavily Charlotte Mason for our oldest. Her Reading will be from our scheduled literature (I’ll share our booklist below), Composition will be a “free write” based on what she’s reading, writing/penmanship will be copywork of a selected passage/poem. Spelling will also come from selected words within the weekly copywork passage. We’ll have a grammar workbook from Cottage Press (you can purchase a teaching guide to go with it) for her to work through at least once a week, but she loves grammar and workbooks so she may end up doing a little each day on her own. One of my boys has all the marks of dyslexia (though we haven’t gotten an official diagnosis) so we switched him from the reading program we used for our oldest (and plan to use with our youngers as long as it works for them) to an Orton-gillingham method, All About Reading. He’s absolutely loved it and made wonderful progress in multiple areas. If you have a struggling reader I can’t recommend this program highly enough. It does require more prep work on Mom's end but it’s been Incredibly worth it! This covers his reading practice/phonics and spelling. This year he’ll start copywork for penmanship and I’ll write out his oral compositions. He’s an avid story teller but his writing abilities haven’t caught up to his story telling abilities just yet. He usually illustrates the artwork for the compositions as part of his independent work.

My preschooler will be doing these prewriting pages from The Good and The Beautiful whenever he feels like joining in for book work.

History: Probably our favorite subject! We utilize a lot of biographies, literature/novels for the time period we’re studying. (*booklist below) This year we decided to add a “textbook” to help us dive even deeper. We went with notgrass, "Our Star spangled story" at the recommendation of my history loving, 20-year homeschooling veteran, mother-in-law. (Aka Grandma Lori!) I love that this resource comes with student workbooks (my children love workbook pages, as did I at their age!) a book of rhymes, songs and dances and a timeline book to see history at a glance. Everyone sits in on these lessons and participates according to ability and listens to the read-aloud. My preschooler may participate in coloring or a craft, my 2nd grader will narrate orally and copy key words, my 4th grader will read portions aloud for us, narrate orally and answer the workbook questions, and do any other additional activities we decide to work on from the suggestions.

Science:

We’ve done nature studies pretty much exclusively for science with a heavily inspired Charlotte Mason approach, reading from resources like the Burgess Bird book for Children, spending time outside every day, going on weekly nature walks and recording discoveries and interests in our natural journals We’re still focusing on nature studies because we enjoy it and it’s a great way to learn about our local plants and wildlife. We’ll be diving deeper with Apologia Science Zoology book “Flying Creatures of the fifth Day” These come with coordinating student notebooks for my children to dive deeper and record what they’re learning and finding. (We have the junior notebook for my 2nd grader and the regular one for my 4th grader.) My preschooler will sit in on lessons at his interest and I’ll print out coordinating coloring pages for him to work on so he can be included if he chooses. He’ll also participate in any experiments with my help.

Geography:

We don’t have a singular plan or curriculum for this subject. I’ll be working with the younger ones on telling direction (left, right, north, south, east, west) naming the continents, learning our address and State info like the bird, flower, capital, major landmarks etc. for my oldest we’ll continue naming continents/seas and refreshing on all 50 states and capitals. We’ll also learn about the states as they are mentioned in our history and literature books using map outline pages she can fill in and color. These are the books we keep within reach for any additional information and help: Atlas, The 50 States, Our 50 States

Handicrafts:

A Charlotte Mason approach to “crafting". This is time dedicated to teaching the children and handcraft skill according to their interest and ability level. These crafts will help them create things that are useful, beautiful, skillful and worthy to be gifted, or sold if they so choose. "The end-product should be useful. The children should not be employed in making futilities such as pea and stick work, paper mats, and the like.”- Charlotte Mason My preschooler is doing beading so far. My 2nd grader is doing beginning leather working by using a kit we purchased for him through Etsy and he’ll dive into beginner woodworking with a kit from Annie’s later in the year.

My 4th grader has enjoyed sewing and embroidery and has been hand sewing projects from various project books for a while. This year we’ll move to a machine as her goal is to be able to see herself a simple dress. She also loves cooking and can prepare simple meals but this year she’s going to continue learning more complex kitchen/cooking skills with the goal of being able to plan and prepare a dinner on her own.

Handcrafts also include skills such as gardening, cooking, and cleaning. (Here's a great list of examples!) Chores are a daily expectation from everyone. I demonstrate and help them learn how to properly execute a job and then it becomes one of the chores in their rotation. Even the 1 year old enjoys tossing his toys into the basket while we sing the cleanup song. The preschooler helps unload utensils, sweep small messes, makes his bed, cleans up after himself and dusts/wipes. Pinterest is a great place to find a list of chores children should learn by different age groups. Generally I’ve found they’re capable of a lot more than we’d think and when they’re young they genuinely love to make meaningful contributions. Don’t sleep on this!

Electives:

These are purely interest led at this point. We haven’t introduced foreign language yet as our days are pretty full and it hasn’t been a huge priority. This year my 4th grader wants to learn keyboarding and my 2nd grader wants to learn some beginning coding. For keyboarding we’re using these typing books from The Good and The Beautiful. I love that this is a workbook and it’s not gamified I’ve found that typing games are fun but the skills don’t necessarily translate to actual proper keyboarding. I'm waiting to see how our second grader feels about his workload before adding in a coding/robotics resource, but I'll keep you posted.

Health/P.E.:

Our kiddos spend some time outside every day, barring stormy weather. They love to play tag, ride bikes, skip, climb, race etc. they also enjoy exercising with me. We also do our weekly nature walks which are typically easy hikes in the warmer months and walks in the winter. My 4th grader and I just finished working through some basic puberty books and will move on to a couple additional resources including this book for online safety . I’ll be reading these books on body safety for my younger ones.(1,2,3) We start body safety as young as 2 here, though I’m sure the younger ones have heard it even before. It starts simply with proper hygiene and using the proper names for body parts, teaching consent, and privacy etc. (I’ll be doing a more detailed post on this in the future.)

Book List: Here is the list of books we're using for our History, Literature and Family Read-alouds for this Year- though its ever growing.. Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin Farmer Boy

Toliver's Secret Freedom Crossing

The Year of Miss Agnes

The Peterkin Papers

Caddie Woodlawn The Secret Garden Mountain Born *I haven't pre-read any of these titles yet, so I can't really provide a review. Putting it all down to paper really feels like a lot, and yet working in all these subjects in the rhythm of our school days it ends up feeling varied and well rounded. Of course, this is my first year piecing it all together on our own, so I'll be sure to update as time goes on! My hope is that you've been inspired, introduced to some new resources, or found a few things you might like to add to your own school year this year. Let me know if you recognize any favorites or found something you're eager to try! Warmly, Abbey