We’re drawing near the end of our final term using Ambleside Online year 2 which means it’s time for another year in review!
I’v structured the year in review by subject, as I believe that’ll be the simplest and easily readable way to break down our Year 2. That way, if you want to see how we’ve done a particular subject, you can just skim the post and find the subject heading.
As usual, in order to respect AO’s terms, I’ve linked Ambleside Online’s scheduled books we are using to their website above. One of the tangible ways AO users can give back and support the generous AO team is by purchasing the books through their affiliate links.
All other books and resources that I refer to in this blog post may contain affiliate links, which means at no additional cost to you when you click through a link and make a purchase, I might make a small commission. Thank you for supporting Our Cooper Nest in this way!
Now, onto the review!
Bible
We went through the books of Genesis and Matthew without any/or little commentary. I have an ESV study Bible so when we needed any additional explaining, that is what I turned to. The children’s bible we used was this one and we will most likely continue using it. I required narrations for each reading and there were many fruitful conversations and questions that stemmed from this.
History
When I shared our second grade curriculum picks in a previous post, I mentioned that I’d be using a history guide from Beautiful Feet Books to supplement along side our biography readings, but we actually never ended up using it. Our Island Story was a little less engaging in the beginning, but we persisted and found enjoyment for it once more in the end. I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t just as confused as my year 2 was at times, especially going through so many Henrys. We took each reading and narration slowly, and I was thankful that each reading was short. We enjoyed A Child’s History of the World and I especially appreciated the introduction to Marco Polo as I know we’ll be reading about his travels in Year 3. My year 2 student loved Joan of Arc!
After the second half of term 2, we dropped The Little Duke unrealizing it until term 3. I almost decided to just leave it as that until my daughter asked when we’ll finish it, so now we will be finishing the scheduled readings over the Summer.
Literature
Shakespeare continues to be a faovirte reading for us, especially using the paper puppets to follow along from RachelKiwiDesigns on Etsy. We ended up listening to term 2 and term 3’s selections since I didn’t have some of the readings in our book.
My daughter read Understood Betsy during her afternoons and it quickly became a favorite. Wind in the Willows and Robin Hood were read over lunch time by me and my daughter engaged with the readings quite well.
We read through this version of Pilgrims Progress and while I might get some backlash that it wasn’t the original, we personally loved every bit of it and still discuss Pilgrim’s journey, comparing it to our own journey. We also read this version to my 4 year old and it was fascinating hearing the connections my daughter would make between the two. There is no doubt these children’s versions are rich, full of living ideas after hearing her ask such in depth questions about humanity, good, evil and God’s Kingdom.
Natural History
Burgess Books will always have a special place in our home. We delighted in learning about the different animals from the Burgess Animal Book, even more than Burgess Bird Book. I found a few chapter books by Thornton Burgess on some of the animals we read about, which became some of my daughter’s favorite books to read to me. She would read them for fun, and they helped concrete some of the living ideas we read together in BAB. I enjoyed Tree in the Trail and my daughter was able to follow along on her map each week. We were unfornuately unimpressed with Seabird during the later half of our second term and third term. The story following Nate was a worth while read, but because it was meant to be read as our natural history book, it was hard to follow along for that purpose. In a way, I almost think it missed the mark for this type of reading, and it felt like we went weeks without map work or geographical or nature connections from our readings. Something I will be considering for my second child’s year 2 schedule (which is a few years down the road).
Geography
We really enjoyed reading and learning about the compass this year from Charlotte Mason’s Elementary Geography and Long’s Home Geography selections. The questions given in the chapters were especially helpful for giving further context. My daughter also worked on drawing the US map with this book and we really loved it. She will finished it in the next couple weeks!
Poetry
My daughter definitely favored Christina Rossetti selections over others from the year. It was a delight to memorize and recite several poems together in our mornings. Every once in a while I would ask which poem she would like to start with in our poetry time and it was a great way for her to pause and remember the ones that stuck out to her the most.
Math
We continued on with Right Start Math Level B and it’s been a good program for my year 2. I noticed my daughter needed some additional practice in addition facts so during our 3rd term, we worked through Additon Facts that Stick and I am so impressed with the outcome! By the second half of our final term my daughter was quickly answering her addition problems and it made lessons go much more smoothly. During that time we were working with addition facts that stick, I halted on our Right Start lessons. We played math games, she did drills, and we trusted the process. Now I feel she has a stronger foundation for moving forward. We are projected to complete level B in RS math by the end of May and then we will move right along into level C.
One thing I’ve learned in our home education journey is that even with the highest quality curriculum and guides, it really boils down to the child and their learning pace. If I notice that my daughter is grasping a concept quicker than what’s on the schedule, we will move ahead. If there’s a concept which she hasn’t fully mastered, I don’t mind spending another week or so for stronger understanding. I know there are gaps in everyone’s education, but it was a blessing to see this gap be filled-in for my daughter; something I think would have been overlooked if we weren’t homeschooling.
Handwriting/Copywork
We started with these free make-your-own handwriting worksheets, but part way through term 2, I kept copywork very simple, using only a blank lined notebook and our book selections. She copied reading selections straight from the books once a day for ten minutes. Usually the books would be Bible, poetry, literature or history, picking one different from the last day. We also began cursive practice daily using A Reason For Handwriting. I love the way this book is laid out, beginning with individual letters (upper and lower case) first, and then half way into her book she will begin forming words and senetences.
Phonic/Reading
We began using Learning Language Arts Through Literature (red book) and really enoyed it this year! There was quite a bit of what I’d consider “busy work”, but the actual work was useful for my student in her reading progression. I also had purchased Explode the Code 2 and 2 ½ to test out, which she thoroughly enjoyed on her own time and completed before term 2 was over.
Because my daughter is reading on her own at this point, I only required her to read to me out loud 2x a week for 10 minutes simply for building the skill of reading aloud. Her favorite books to read on her own time are Ballet Stories and Anne of Green Gables.
Free Reads
I had my daughter complete a few free reads during our afternoon rest time and she especially enjoyed The Enormous Egg and Little House on The Prairie with following along to a reading from Youtube. I think next year we will include more free readings from AO’s selections and designate a time for her to dive into those selections on her own each day. One thing I let slip in the middle of our year was reading time in the afternoons so that’s going to be coming back into our home rhythm.
Timeline
Timeline entries went hand in hand with our history readings. We would make any entries which discussed dates, significant events or battles 1x a week. We loved using this accordion style timeline where she would write her entries.
Nature Study
I found that our best nature study time was when it wasn’t planned. Birds were very easy to follow with since we have so many feather friends visit our home. The daily exposure to noticing birds, carefully and quietly watching, and then identifying the birds were the extent of our lesson.
Since we were reading Burgess Animal Book this year, it was also a little easier to just pair our nature study (mammals) with the week’s animal reading. We would read about an animal, and then with the help of youtube we were able to find many great videos of close up observations. Spending time at our zoo had also been a great way to learn about different mammals. I would have liked to read up on the Handbook of Nature Study and prepare an actual object lesson, but it seemed to have worked out in the end.
1x a week we would all go outside and make entries in our journals. It’s a practice that has slowly become easier to accomplish, and a delight to partake in together. Spring time was a fun entry as we are beginning to get blooms on our bushes. The kids had picked a select few and we took notice of our desert’s way of telling us it’s a new season.
Drawing
We have been loving our brush drawing lessons from Bestowing the Brush! We will continue using her program and build on the skills we’re learning. We would watch the initial lesson video together, and with some assistance, my daughter would complete a lesson 1x a week and then practice (formally) 2-3x in our week.
Exams
During our 12th week of each term we would complete exams using the questions on AO’s website for year 2 and then lay out all of the term’s materials, notebooks, and books and do a sort of show-and-tell to my husband. My daughter would then also recite her poem and bible verses she memorized as well as sing her favorite hymn and folk song from the term. Up until now, I wouldn’t document her responses to the exam questions since they were done orally and our state doesn’t require documentation to be submitted for record keeping. Beginning next year, I want to do a better job at recording her responses, and maybe include a few pictures of the show-and-tell day with dad. I do keep a select few of her narration notebooks and illustrations in her binder, but may try keeping the exams separately moving forward.
Final Thoughts About Our Year 2
While this year would definitely classify as one of the more challenging years (illness, scheduling, habit formation, transition to a new home, some books we didn’t care for, math struggles), it is satisfying to look back on our schedules and my planner to see what we actually accomplished. Her narrations have flourished since year 1 and somehow we balanced it all with sharing the table and my time with my 4 year old. There were moments I noticed in which we needed to work on better habit formation, and patience. There were also moments in our week which I could tell had a little too much screen time and less time outside. Our homeschool is not perfect Instagram squares, but the more I reflect on the year, the more clear it is to me that this is still the best situation for my children and our family.
Our favorite memories were when I would try to pronounce french names in our history readings and we would all laugh hysterically because it was way off, or the time we cheered for my 4 year old who wrote his first letter B in pencil or drew his first heart shape.
My daughter continues to love reading, continues to improve her habit of attention in our short lesson times, and has grown to be such a help with encouraging her brother that homeschool, or learning in general, is actually a delight. Her recent endeavor has been creating book covers to her own stories, and has also written her own poetry book. She will often point out the shapes of random things or food and declare they look like certain shapes of US states. Though we have hit many bumps this year, I can only look back and see how far she has come and be grateful for this living education that doesn’t stop when the books are put away.
I will be sharing our Year 3 and Kindergarten curriculum/resource picks for 2023-2024 soon!
The French names in Joan of Arc! I was constantly flipping to the glossary and still butchering them!