Homeschool Reveal 2021-2022 Year
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2020-2021 Recap
I’m going to start by quickly recapping our 20-21 year. Which was a doozy for most everyone, but in different ways for different families. We had a family member living with us for part of the year and had a lot going on with house hunting for her and moving, etc…. I also had a 2 year old at the time, which made for a different dynamic. You can read about what were were planning on doing HERE.
What ended up happening was that we slowly moved through Beautiful Feet for history (the Early American pack), didn’t manage to utilize Playful Pioneers as much as I’d hoped, and randomly switched to Ambleside Online in January. (Don’t ask me why I made that decision. lol! I’m going to take better notes this year!). We worked through those books, A Gentle Feast reading and handwriting curriculum and Brighter Day Press Morning Time plans.
I’m going to chalk up some of the wonkiness to 2020 in general, but also realized that I need to work on my own consistency and shiny curriculum hopping! lol
I discovered The CMEC in June/July and decided to try it for the upcoming year. I’ll be doing a walkthrough video on my Instagram account if you would like to see what books we are using, etc…. The CMEC creates a plan for the year based on Charlotte Mason and the PNEU and then creates guides for each form and different subjects, has videos on planning, prep, and educating yourself, form meetings where you can ask questions, and just a lovely community of women that have been such a support and encouragement already.
It seems like a approach that is teaching me how to fish instead of just giving me fish and while some of the other curriculums were helpful for where I was then, I’m glad to be learning more about the why behind Charlotte Mason and how I can improve as an educator for my children. It gives me the structure and guidance I need but with the flexibility and knowledge I need to be able to tailor it to my own family and season. They close registration on August 30th, so if you want to check them out as an option for this year, do it before then.
I’m very excited to see how this year goes and my plan is to stick with it the whole year (which means, trying not to look around too much at what other people are doing/using) so I can see the fruit of consistency and really give it a good go instead of jumping off course at the first bump or new shiny curriculum I see.
The 2021-2022 Plan
I’m going to use most of the CMEC’s plan for the year with a few modifications.
I will use Brighter Day Press’ Morning Time Vol 2 for our memory verses, hymns, devotional, and optional read alouds. I’m also going to stick with A Gentle Feast’s 100 Gentle Lessons for reading.
For math, we are using Right Start C for my son, and Right Start A/B for my daughter.
Because they are doing American History from 1650 to 1800’s, I’m going to use my Beautiful Feet books for extra afternoon reading to supplement. (we hadn’t finished them, so it will work out well)
This is the first year that I have done any pre-reading and this much prep, so I am interested to see how that impacts the smoothness of our lessons. It’s also the first year I’m implementing a timetable, so I’m excited to see how that works for us.
Last year I got a homeschool planner, which I ended up not using very much, so this year I am following the CMEC leaders suggestions and created a logbook for lesson plans and for taking notes on what’s working, how the day went, what needs to change, etc…. You can watch an IGTV video walkthrough of my logbook on my Instagram account.
I did another IGTV video of the Pro Click binders I made for each student and myself, how to create the covers in Canva and what I included in them in case you are interested.
My eldest son will be 8, my daughter 6, and my youngest son will be 3 in September to give you and idea of where we are at. I’m putting my daughter in Form 1B and my son in 1A, so most of their lessons will be done together which will greatly help as we add in a second student. My little guy will be folded in where he can either with an activity we are doing, or something else he can do at the table with us. He will also have some special toys/activities just for “rug time” when I need to concentrate on the older two.
I have no idea how this will go with my youngest, but I was able to get some wonderful ideas from the CMEC’s Kinderleben guide that I can use for him even though he’s not technically that age yet.
I am sure that there will need to be some tweaking of timetables and how we do things as we start up and get used to our new rhythm/routine, so I’m going to be ready with my logbook to take notes and see where we can iterate and be flexible.
Curriculum Breakdown
Common Subjects: We will do together
Bible Devotions (together as a family):
-Morning Time Plans Vol 2 by Brighter Day Press
Bible (as subject of study):
- Moses & St. Mark books with a Bible Atlas
History:
-CMEC book choice (this is an area I combined my two kids. We are using his 1A book choice for both of them)
-Beautiful Feet books from the Early American pack as supplement/afternoon free reads since it corresponds with the time period we are doing with the CMEC
Tales and Literature:
We are following the CMEC here, with a couple substitutions for books we’ve already read. Some Fairy Tales, Aesop, A Wonder Book, Tales of Troy and Greece, and some classic literature starting with Heidi & Little Britches
Geography:
We’ll be using the CMEC book picks along with kinetic sand, the Collin’s atlas, and time outdoors. We’ll supplement with Draw USA, some other geography books like Me on a Map, etc… And we’ll use Pin It maps for practicing. We LOVE Pin It maps! (We’ve already done our first geography lesson at the request of my son and both of them LOVED using the kinetic sand with their lessons.
-Elementary Geography & Ambleside 2 by Charlotte Mason
Reading/Language Arts:
-100 Gentle Lessons Level 2 (from A Gentle Feast)
I LOVE AGF's reading. We also will be working through the set 3 readers from Dash Into Reading, and have the kids practice reading from Early Readers like Frog and Toad and our Usborne readers. They come in levels 1-4 and the kids really enjoy them. I’ll be doing some book flip throughs on my IG stories soon so you can check them out then.
Writing:
We are finishing up 100 Gentle Lessons in Handwriting from A Gentle Feast and then moving to Beautiful Italics for Children. I may add in some things from Brave Writer’s Jot It Down here and there as I feel like it. Letter writing, projects, etc…
Nature Study:
We are using the CMEC book picks for this (including the Burgess Bird book) as well as nature journaling and supplementing with Exploring Nature with Children, and a special study on seed dispersal and stars/weather. As the weather cools off, we will be doing a Nature Walk once a week, and I’m hoping to start a Nature group, so if anyone lives in the West Valley area and would like to have a meet up, let me know!
Composer/Artist/Poetry, etc…
We are using the CMEC picks for Artist Study, Folksongs, Solfa, and Dancing but decided to stick with our Brighter Day Press hymns from our Morning Time for Composer Study. We have a Spotify playlist with all the songs we need. We will be covering 1 composer/artist per term and I am using the Simply Charlotte Mason Picture Portfolios for our Artists and following the CMEC guides.
Spanish:
We are using Flip Flop Spanish which I am really excited about. It comes with picture/word cards and audio lessons that make it so much more simple for me to know what to do. I tried just using the Usborne 1000 Spanish words book (which my kids love) and a basic lesson plan, but I never really got far doing it. I think the format of Flip Flop will make it a lot easier for me to make it happen! And from the first lesson or two, the kids seem to LOVE it!
Music:
Piano was off and on for us last year. I’m going to be using Hoffman again this year (the free version at least until my kids are in a good habit and doing it consistently, then I might subscribe again). I also have the Bastien books that my Mom used for me and I’ll probably supplement some with those as well. I’ve heard good things about the Curwen method, but I’m not ready to try to switch yet.
Art:
We will be following the CMEC plan for this and doing brush drawing, chalkboard drawing, and clay modeling. We are going to use Bestowing the Brush for brush drawing and I have a watercolor class for kids from Emily Lex that I might use as well.
Handicrafts:
We are going to be doing raffia work along with the CMEC and possibly paper/cardboard modeling as well. Some other options I’m considering for later in the term are crochet, finger knitting, basic sewing, embroidery, cross stitch, paper sloyd, and whittling with a bar of soap. We have the videos for crochet, knitting, and sewing from Simply Charlotte Mason to help the kids (and myself!) learn.
Simply Charlotte Mason handicraft videos
One on One:
Math:
We are sticking with Right Start Math this year. My son has moved up to Level C and my daughter is finishing Level A and will be moving into Level B soon. I’m still figuring out how we will juggle this subject, but I created a Math Basket with various manipulatives for my daughter to use while I work with my son and then once he’s doing his independent math, switch over to her lesson. Again, this is one of those areas I’m probably going to have to just try out and tweak as necessary.
Honestly, this is probably the only thing they aren’t doing the same this year. My daughter jumped ahead in reading and is close to where my son is, so I can do one lesson for both of them there too.
There will be more required of my son, than my daughter but the general lessons will be the same, which I’m hoping will help me ease into having 2 children to teach!
Whew! I’m so excited to start this year and for everything we will be learning. Just today my son was asking when we were going to start because it sounds fun!
I’d love to hear what you are doing this year! And I’ll be doing periodic updates on how our year with the CMEC is going on my Instagram and a few posts on the blog, and if you are interested, you can check them out for next year or before Aug 30th for this year.
If you have any questions, I love to hear from you!
God bless!
Heather