I don’t think I’ve ever been more expectant as I am for this homeschool year. The more years of home education under my belt, the more confident I am that this is exactly where we’re supposed to be and what we’re supposed to be doing. My oldest daughter, Lavender, will be starting Form 2 this year, or 4th grade. This means adding some additional subjects that will be brand new to our family, but I welcome the challenge. My second daughter, Lyon, will be starting Form 1, or 1st grade. She has been chomping at the bit to start formal lessons, even going up to random people and telling them all the different subjects she’s going to get to learn now that she’s in first grade. They both have been asking me each week if it’s time to start “school” yet. For them, there’s only so many pool days and lake days until they’re ready to dive back into their lessons. I can’t say I blame them- we’ve found a rhythm that truly makes our “school year” such a delight. Let’s dive into what we will be using this year.

Charlotte Mason Philosophy

We follow the Charlotte Mason philosophy of education, which focuses heavily on living books, short lessons, the Holy Spirit as our Ultimate Teacher, nature study, training good habits, Bible and history at the forefront of the education and very few workbooks used. I talk in-depth about this philosophy and why we chose to glean from this style of education here.

Personal Bible Time

For my 4th grader, this will be her first time having her own devotion time upon waking. I want her to get in the habit of reading the Word before her day even begins. I also want her to start having her own time with the Lord consistently. She has been reading her Bible on her own, but without any real guidance and not necessarily every day. For her birthday, she asked for the Daily Bread Kids journal from Ariel Media. Stephan and I both read the adult version of Daily Bread and listen to the accompanying podcast, Daily Bread for Busy Moms. As Lavender has watched us, she’s been so interested in having her own podcast and reading time. I’m really believing that Jesus will encounter Lavender in greater ways as she studies His Word daily on her own.

Family Bible Time

This year, we are going to be moving our family Bible time to nighttime before bed. This way, my husband can lead the readings and I can support, giving them consistency in gleaning from their Dad. He will be using the A Gentle Feast Morning Time Cycle 2. He will just focus on the Bible readings and the Scripture Memory from this curriculum, while I will do the Artist Study, Composer Study, Poetry, etc. from this curriculum in the morning at the breakfast table, mentioned next.

Morning Time

Morning Time, which I call Maranatha Mornings, will include Hymns, Artist Study, Composer Study, Poet Study, Recitation and Fables/Tales. As mentioned above, we will be using A Gentle Feast Morning Time Cycle 2. This Morning Time guide made our mornings run so smoothly last year and felt like just the perfect amount. I’m excited for all we will learn together as a family over breakfast. I’m adding in just a couple things to the Morning Time routine- on Fridays, we will read from a book called The Ology by Marty Machowski. Once we finish that, we will start reading from the YWAM Missionary Biographies. We have quite a few, so we will just pick one at random.

Spanish

Spanish will also be a part of our Morning Time this year, done as a family. We be using Speaking Spanish with Miss Mason and Francois. It is mostly oral with short written assignment here and there. If all goes well with this curriculum, we will move to Volume 2 after this.

Geography

For Geography this year, both my Year 4 and my Year 1 will be using two of the Holling C.Holling books- Paddle to the Sea and Seabird- and mapping as we go through each chapter. I got my sweet friend from Humble Heart Press to print me oversized maps that follow along with these books.

For Physical Geography, we will be using Ambling Together’s “Geography Topics” Plan, which pulls from Geography from A-Z, Elementary Geography and Home Geography, plus lots of added videos to help illustrate the topics. I will also be using Nicole Williams from Sabbath Mood Homeschool‘s idea of using brown, blue and green kinetic sand during Physical Geography lessons to mold and form the different geographical concepts, i.e. cove, peninsula, bay, hill, mountain, lake.

American History

For American History this year, we will be studying the 18th century up through the Revolutionary War. I created my own history plans this year that I am super thrilled about, and shared them all free of charge in this post.

British History

We will start incorporating some British History into our lessons for my 4th grader this year, as it so clearly and powerfully impacts American History. We will be reading the first twenty chapters of Our Island Story by H.E. Marshall, as well as George vs. George: The American Revolution as Seen From Two Sides.

Nature Study

Nature Study is divided into four sub-categories, which are object lessons, special studies, nature lore, and nature walks. I talk about how to design a beautiful year of Nature Study here. I couldn’t be more excited to try a new curriculum for Nature Study this year called Nature Explorers Level 1 by Sabbath Mood Homeschool. This curriculum is the stuff of dreams, with weekly nature lore book lists, guided nature walks, weekly nature journal prompts and video object lessons done by Nicole Williams herself. I’ve been listening to Nicole Williams, the creator of Sabbath Mood, on The Delectable Education Podcast, and I cannot vouch for her enough when it comes to all things Charlotte Mason. I can’t even articulate how much I’ve gleaned from her, so I’m thrilled to be using her curriculum this year!

Nature Lore

For Nature Lore, I will be reading three off the Arabella Buckley books to my first grader: Insect Life, By Pond and River, and Wildlife in Woods and Fields. Each book has about 12 chapters, meaning it works perfectly to read 1 chapter per week and complete a book per term.

Nature Lore for my 4th grader will be an independent reading. She will be starting The Storybook of Science by Jean Henri Fabre, which she will carry on reading for the next three years. The book is dense, numbering a whopping 80 (albeit short) chapters. Thus, she will be reading between 8 and 9 chapters per term or 27 chapters per year.

Science

This will be our first year doing formal science, as science in the Charlotte Mason philosophy doesn’t start until Form 2 or 4th grade. We will be using the Form 2 Living Science Guides from Sabbath Mood Homeschool, which my Lavender cannot wait for. We chose Magnets, Tech and Engineering (Machines), and Botany as our three science guides for the year, each guide running for a 12 week term. I have high hopes that we are going to absolutely love Science with Sabbath Mood, and use it for our science all the way through high school. It looks THAT amazing. I will be reviewing it throughout the year to share more with you guys!

Math

I shared an entire post about this here, but we are switching our math curriculum this year. We will be using Richele Baburina’s Charlotte Mason Elementary Arithmetic Series. We will be using it for both girls, using Book 1 for the 1st grader and Book 3 for my 4th grader. We will also be incorporating some math games into our weekly lessons and I share all of those details in the full math blog post as well.

Language Arts

Language Arts in the Charlotte Mason world looks quite different, and is broken up into: copywork, dictation, reading lessons, oral/written narration, literature and grammar. For my 1st grader, we will be using Emma Serl’s Primary Language Lessons. This simple curriculum has more than enough copywork to last her the entire school year. She will begin narrating after every reading I read to her. She will also continue in her reading lessons by just reading aloud picture books we already own, hopefully working up to her first chapter book. For my 4th grader, things get a little more in-depth. I’ll list below.

Grammar

For Grammar, we will be using Simply Grammar by Karen Andreola once a week. If we don’t get through the entire book, that’s okay with me.

Copywork and Dictation

We will be using Spelling Wisdom by Simply Charlotte Mason this year, which will cover both copywork (handwriting) and dictation(spelling).

Literature

Literature will be an indepedent subject for Lavender. We have a running book list that she can choose from this year, and simply check them off as she reads them. Some of the books on her Literature list include:

• The Courage of Sarah Noble (read this Summer) by Alice Dalgliesh
• The Bears on Hemlock Mountain (read this Summer) by Alice Dalgiesh
• Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare
• Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright
• The Horse and His Boy (read this summer) by C.S.Lewis
• Prince Caspian (just finished) by C.S. Lewis
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
• The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
• The Last Battle by C.S.Lewis
• The Story of the Treasure Seekers by E.Nesbit
• Far Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
• Frightful’s Mountain by Jean Craighead George
• Carry On, Mr.Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham
• Om Kas Toe by Kenneth Thomasma
• Tolliver’s Secret by Esther Brady
• Girls Who Looked Under Rocks by Jeannine Atkins

The list keeps going, and I’m aware we most likely won’t get through all of them! It’s more so a list to pull from than a list to be completed within a year.

Narration

She will continue orally narrating every reading to me, but also this year we wil be doing a weekly written narration or a notebooking page. With other means of writing throughout the week- nature journal entries, science lab notes, and copywork, I think she will be covered in the writing department. I’ve done an entire blog post on Notebooking and how to incorporate this lovely practice into your homeschool here.

Handicrafts

This year, we will be working through three different types of handwork: sewing, sloyd, and basket weaving. For sewing, we are going to pull projects from Sewing School 2 by Andria Lisle. This is something my Mom usually does with the kids and I’m so grateful! She sews as a side job and has for many years. She’s taught them the basics of sewing and will continue to more difficult projects with them this year.

Sloyd is the art of paper folding. The kids will be able to make things like an envelope, dollhouse furniture, a box, a pinwheel and a book cover all out of regular computer paper. I’m using Paper Modelling by Mildred Swannell to guide us.

Basket Weaving I don’t have as much of a plan for. I’m thinking of just buying kits from Amazon like this one. I’m thinking perhaps we will make 2-3 different styles of baskets and leave it at that!

Poetry

In addition to studying certain poets, I also want to familiarize the children (and myself) with all different types of poetry. I’m going to try to read a poem daily for the entire school year from Sing A Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year. I won’t do anything to “teach” or “break down” the poetry. I’ll simply read it and move on!

Singing and Instrument Lessons

Solfa Lessons will be integrated into our Morning Time, and we will be using free lessons from a Youtube Channel called Children of the Open Air. For piano lessons, we will jump back into free lessons with Hoffman Academy. We didn’t do piano last year because our piano had to be put in storage, and we truly miss that addition to our homeschool.

Extra Curriculars

We are continuing for our second year with American Heritage Girls. We are also jumping back into dance at a Christian Dance Ministry that’s local to us. Lyon will be doing ballet, tap and jazz, while Lavender will be doing Christian Hip Hop. Halston, our youngest, will just be along for the ride as he’s not quite ready for anything like that yet.

Closing Thoughts

I understand that if you’ve never seen all the subjects within a Charlotte Mason education, it seems like a lot. But something to note is that most of these are only done once or twice a week, with some subjects only taking place once every other week. Also, each subject takes a maximum of 30 minutes, with most taking 5-10. The whole load of daily work is under three hours, giving us our afternoons to do things like nature study, piano lessons, handicrafts and outdoor play.

If you’d like to look more into the Charlotte Mason philosophy, my first two book recommendations would be For the Children’s Sake and The Charlotte Mason Companion. If you want to go deeper after these, read Charlotte Mason’s Home Education and School Education, and check out the podcast A Delectable Education.

I’m prayerfully entering the new school year in early August, and I’m believing for joy-filled lessons, hundreds of hours of connection, light-bulb moments, depth in our personal relationships with Jesus, and growing in our own unique gifts and talents. I’m honored that I get to do this job, truly. It’s exceeding abundantly more than the dreams I had planned for myself. Cheers, sisters.