We are at the end of term 1, and with just a few more weeks left, I’ve nailed down our plans, books, and resources for term 2. While I spend a good amount of time months before the beginning of the homeschool year mapping out our entire year, there are always places in the schedule I prefer to leave semi-open to any pivots or tweeks that we may need.
You can read more about our Charlotte Mason Curriculum Plans for 2024-2025 right here.
You might also check out a review of week one of term 1 right here.
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Family Studies + Morning Collective
We begin each day of our week doing family studies subjects like the Bible, poetry, artist and composer study, recitation, literature, natural history, geography, and science topics. These subjects are on a loop schedule throughout the week.
Bible: Exploring the Bible by David Murray, and Parables of Jesus by Lithos Kids You can read how I’ve scheduled these into our week here. I’ve personally found great joy in reading The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions in my quiet time, so this term I will be introducing and reading a prayer a week with my children. It won’t be my aim to have them memorize it, but merely a way to meditate on the prayers together before we begin our day
Poetry, Recitation, Composer/Music Study, Artist Study, Folks, and Hymns: For all these subjects, we follow along with Ambleside Online’s Schedule for 2024-2025
Literature and Shakespeare: Our literature selections come from Ambleside Online Year 1’s schedule. While we aren’t reading everything from AO Year 1 Literature, we have been and will continue to read through Aesop, and Just So Stories together. We are also continuing AO Year 1’s schedule for Shakespeare and will read As You Like It, and Winter’s Tale for term 2.
Vocabulary: We’re continuing to use 365 Words for Clever Kids, reading and creating sentences together of the words we learn. This has been a simple but fun way to connect, often in laughter with the sentences the kids come up with using our new vocabulary words.
Geography/Earth Science: We will be reading and learning about the water cycle, bodies of water, erosion, coasts, etc. for term 2, similar to Ambleside Online Year 4’s geography topics, but we will not be reading only from Long’s Home Geography book. I am still looking through books and resources for our schedule, but I also know I plan to utilize YouTube as a resource for some weeks.
Natural History: As we learn about the water cycle and the different bodies of water on Earth, I thought we’d enjoy Among the Pond People and learn about some of the creatures that live near or in the pond.
My year 4 student will continue to read Minn of the Mississippi as scheduled in AO Year 4, and I will continue to read Paddle as scheduled in AO Year 1 to my Year 1 student.
Science: We’re moving along in year-long Anatomy study together! We’re continuing to use Delightfully Feasting’s Anatomy curriculum as a guide. For term 2, we’ll be focusing on bones/joints, muscles, the heart/blood, and lungs. Though, not part of DF’s book selections for the anatomy guide, we’ve liked reading through books by Simon Seymour on the brain and will probably add more of his books to our term 2 schedule for the heart, lungs, and muscles.
Nature Study: Following Ambleside Online’s nature study schedule, we will be learning about Cultivated Crops for the Fall. I plan to use a weekly schedule guide from Ambling Together and incorporate some of the resources Lisa suggests in her guide.
Individual Studies
I’ve shared plans for subjects like math, reading, writing, typing, coding, logic, and grammar in the blog articles I referenced at the top of this article already, and we will continue to keep those subjects the same as term 1 into term 2.
History: For Term 1, we studied Ancient Egypt instead of following the AO Year 1 curriculum for our family studies. I made this choice because I was unsure whether I should combine history lessons for both Year 1 and Year 4, and I was ok giving up a term of AO Year 1. I’ve seen the benefits of combining subjects for more family-style learning and we do so for many of our subjects. However, since there’s a significant age and level gap between my two children and because I only have two kids (unlike larger families where combining history might be more practical), it makes more sense for us to keep their history studies separate. My Year 4 is already well into her history cycle, while my Year 1 is just beginning. My Year 4 student is progressing with her reading independently, whereas my Year 1 student is learning the art of oral narration as I read aloud and needs a little more attention. So, as we embark on two different historical periods, here are our term 2 plans:
Year 4: We’ve followed along with Ambleside Online’s Year 4 history schedule (late 1600 to the American Revolution) and will continue to do so. The only changes we made in our AO history schedule was removing Trial and Triumph and extending Abigail Adams through the entire year instead of beginning in term 2. I’ve also decided to add Light in the Darkness: A Story About How Slaves Learned in Secret by Lesa Cline-Ransome into our schedule for this term.
Year 1: We’re continuing with our Ancient Word History topic, now focusing on Europe this term. From Ambleside Online Year 1‘s schedule, we will read 50 Famous Stories Retold, and Our Island Story, however, it will not follow AO’s reading schedule exactly. This term, we will read AOY1’s term 1 schedule for 50 Famous Stories Retold, and for Our Island Story, I have removed the first chapter from our schedule, and combined terms 1 and 2 AOY1 reading schedule, reading chapters 2-11. Because Our Island Story has short chapters, the readings will not be overwhelming to do 2 a week. Other stories we will read throughout term 2 include Alexander the Great, The Trojan Horse, and the mythological tale of Pegasus.
Plutarch: Last term my year 4 student and I started reading Publicola together. About 4 weeks in, I decided to stop our readings for the time being, with plans to revisit it next term. After sharing on Instagram how difficult it was to understand, narrate, and read Plutarch (yes, even with the guides), and after browsing the AO forum, I decided to go ahead and shelf Plutarch for the remaining year, and instead, read Mrs. Beesly’s Stories from the History of Rome for the remainder of our homeschool year.
I look forward to having a good portion of term 2 (about 8 weeks) under our belt before the holidays roll around and we take a long break. I don’t believe we will do any formal Christmas-schooling this year while on our break, but rather I anticipate us embracing the Christmas season with Scripture, songs, and slow rhyhtms woven into our mornings and evenings as a family.
I’ll continue to share term 2 scenes and updates in stories on Instagram, but if you have any questions about our homeschool, don’t hesitate to leave a comment!
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