We have been homeschooling officially for 3 years about, and I feel like we are finally getting into a homeschool groove, who knew that it would take this long to feel confident! We have decided to go with Ambleside Online for a few reasons but mostly because its free, my kids love reading and its great literature.
We almost started this last August, but I got cold feet; with just reading books. How would that be enough? How would they actually learn from just reading living books? Why don’t we need 10,000 parts to make a curriculum whole. I was feeling like I was going to make the kids miss something because we weren’t going to buy all the new fancy curriculums that I see plastered all over the internet. We had actually bought almost all the books for year 5 and 6 and then I sold them on Facebook. Now I am kicking myself in the behind.
On one hand it is good that I actually second guessed myself, because I have learned to just trust myself and go with it. It has taken me much longer to de-school then it has taken my boys.
Now that we decided we are going to go this route, I was looking over all the years 0-7 to see what books have been missed, and to see which kid is suppose to be reading what. As I was looking I discovered that boys would be missing a lot good books that they will enjoy and learn from. So, to go with our crazy plans of changing mid year and actually focus on what we want from the rest of the year I have picked a few books from years 1 to 6 that they will read.
We have decided to finish this year with the books that we have in the house, and finish all the interesting books that I want them to cover and any that they choose next school year. Then they will do 7/8 year lite and then high school in the three plan or little quicker, depending if they decide to enroll in junior college while still in high school.
To finish out 2017-2018 school year this is what we plan to use.
For A – year 0 ( she will be the only one on schedule) she will be reading and using:
Beatrix Potter Series
The Little House by Virginia Burton
The Story of Ping by Marjorie Flack
The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper
Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
Make Way for the Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey
Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
Ox- Cart Man by Barbara Cooney
Stone Soup by Marcia Brown
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
The Story of Little Babaji by Helen Bannerman
Mother Goose Collection
Lots of Poetry
A is also using All About Reading Level 1,Reading Literature Primer and McGuffey Eclectic Primer, a whole bunch of science readers and Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans and in math she is using Mathematical Reasoning A
For E and M (suppose to be years 6/5, but we decided to do a mash up to finish out the year): some selections are just based on what we had in the house, we will buy recommend book for next year
Christian Liberty Reader Nature Reader #5
Paddle to the Sea H.C. Holling
Trail in the Tree by H.C. Holling
Child’s First Book of American History by Earl Schenck Miers
The Burgess Animal Book for Children by Thornton W. Burgess
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Albert Einstein and the Theory of Relativity by Robert Cwiklik
Pocahontas by Ingri & Edgar D’Aulair
Abraham Lincoln by Ingri & Edgar D’Aulair
George Washington’s World by Genevieve Foster
Augustus Caesar’s World by Genevieve Foster
Greek Myths by Olivia Coolidge
Tales of Greek Heroes by Roger Lancelyn Green
Story of Inventions by Anna Claybourne 7 Adam Larkum
Math: Teaching Textbook Year 5 and 6
Each child is able to pick any self interest book at the library weekly and each child has projects they work on by themselves.
We also follow a Bravewriter literature style, which does cross over into other areas of study.
This is what is planned to finish out this year, we are excited and ready for Monday morning to start.
