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2023-24 School Year – Completed (with Em) and Reviewed
M was in Year 6 while Em was in Year 3. This was my second time through Year 3 (though only time writing about it).
Weekly Schedule
Every week I will make a weekly schedule for Em to follow (see Planning and Scheduling for further details). I plan out what he will do independently and what he will do with me and make sure it can all fit into the school time allotted. This is not all of his work since we also spend 45-60 minutes in Together Time first thing in the morning (Together Time template here).
Year in Review
Unlike what I have had to do with M, this year I actually ended up adding in extra readings with Em. His (and my!) favorite part of the school day is when we cuddle in our oversided chair and I read aloud or we listen to an audiobook while he follows along in the book. The original weekly schedule had 20 minutes alloted for history or literature each day and then another 15 minutes of a “daily reading.” In reality, the 20 minute history/geography/literature readings rarely took that long. To give us more cuddle…er, reading time, by the end of the year I was scheduling two history/literature readings plus the “daily reading” slot. When we finished what was in the original 36-week plan, I found new books to add in to keep the schedule the same. Here is a sample of what the weekly schedule looked like by the end of the year.
Bible
Bible is split up into Together Time and Vespers and then by the time of the year. This year we will cover the following:
Bible In Review:
For Sunday Readings, we only made it through a handful of stories from Parables of Nature, so we’ll continue with sprinkling in those stories throughout the year.
For Bible Memory, we made it through: Philipians 4:4-9, Ephesians 2:2-8, Psalm 129:1-12, Psalm 40:1-2, and Deuteronomy 6:4-9.
Edits made to chart below
| Together Time | Vespers (see Liturgical Year for details) | |
| Aug – Nov Ordinary Time | Continue I & II Kings Study from AO 5 Reading (see Other Guides for Kings Study) | I & II Samuel |
| Advent | Hallelujah by Cindy Rollins | Advent Readings |
| Christmas | N/A (no school) | Christmas Readings |
| Jan/Feb | Finish Kings, Start Daniel | |
| Lent | The Sacred Sacrifice by Hannah Paris | Lent Readings |
| Easter | Acts | |
| Jun – Aug Orinary Time | n/a (no school) | Continue with Acts |
Check Out the Other Guides pages for Bible Reading schedules (I’ll post them as I create them).
Sunday Readings during Vespers will be Parables of Nature.
For Bible Memory, we work through one or two passages a term in Together Time. I will use the suggestions from AO for Bible recitation for AO3 and AO6.
History
We’ll be following along the with the scheduled books with no changes. As I did with M, I will read these to Em and refer to maps as applicable.
History in Review
Em continued to enjoy Island Story, and recommend it to all his friends. He chose it as one of his favorites reads for the year. I had the pull-out poster of the timeline from Kings and Queens of England and Scotlandhanging above his desk again this year. He enjoyed referencing it all year. For TCOO, I used the updated version by Donna-Jean Breckenridge and was very thankful I no longer had to make changes as I read like I did with M from the original version (see my notes from Year 4 with M).
As I mentioned above, by the last half of the year we were reading more every day. So I added in the following:
- Colonization and the Wampanoag Story by Linda Coombs. After we finished Landing of the Pilgrims, I decided to add in a book from the indiginous perspective. This book tells the story of a year in the life of the Wampanoag before colonization. The author is a historian and member of the Wampanoag Tribe of the Gay Head and tells an engaging story of the every day life of survival, family, and nature of her ancestors. In between stories of the the Wamponaoag are stories of how the colonizers came and the effects thier coming had on the native peoples. We read about the first half of these chapters, but by the end of the year we were running out of time and only read the Wampanoag chapters so we could finish their part of the story before the end of the school year. Em often chose these readings as his favorite thing in school for the day when telling Daddy about his day.
- Seven Voyages: How China’s Treasure Fleet Conquered the Sea by Laurence Bergreen and Sara Fray. Em enjoyed Marco Polo so much, that when I saw this is a list of books somewhere on Instagram, I added it to our reading. I did not pre-read it so ended up having some interesting conversation in the first couple chapters about what a eunich is (the book goes into details). The first part of the book describing Zheng He’s years before going to sea were not as interesting to Em as the later chapters that described the voyages, but he still was engaged and enjoyed getting out the globe and googling places we couldn’t find. We only got through the fifth voyage before the end of the year, but Em says he wants to finish the rest.
Timeline
Em will continue to fill in his Century Chart book with items from the readings. For Year 2, I printed one chart for each century starting with 0 AD (CE). I used these pre-made charts created by Lesley Manning at fromtheCMtrenches. Then after readings, Em found the year for significant events. We had a set of timeline stickers that we could use for some of the entries, but sometimes he drew or wrote an entry. He will also complete a century chart for both Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare. When I did this with M he filled in a square each week. This helped with the recap and narrations each week. I will follow the same process for Em.
Biography
As I’ve mentioned before, we are putting off Trial and Triumph until M and Em are a little older and we’ll read it together in either Together Time or Sunday Vespers. Instead of reading about either Michealangelo or Leonardo, I will do both Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth. We read a Leonardo biography when we studied him in Artist Study, and will do the same with Michaelangelo. I have a schedule for the two biography books on Other Guides. He will also complete a century chart for both Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare. When I did this with M, he filled in a square each week which, helped with the recap and narrations. I will follow the same process for Em. For the Pilgrims book I will have Em read along with the audiobook.
Biography in Review
We blew through the Queen Bess and Bard books and Em wanted more. So we ended up reading both the Leonardo and Michaelangelo books by Diane Stanley and then adding in a book on Raphael (which was not as good as the Stanley books).
Language Arts
Literature
I’m rearranging the readings for Em a bit because we listened to Princess and the Goblin and Jungle Book as our car audiobook within the past year or two. I asked Em if he wanted to read them again and he requested something new. So, I am going to include him in the reading of the Hobbit with M and add in Children of Odin by Padraic Colum. We will be listening to the audiobook of The Hobbit performed by Andy Serkis.
I have decided to use an audiobook for Heroes and Children of Odin and have Em follow along with it in his independent reading time. This will be the first year that he will do that independently, so I will judge from his narrations how well this works for him and make changes as necessary.
For Shakespeare we are following my own 12-year schedule (see Other Guides) and will do the following: As You Like It, Comedy of Errors, Measure for Measure, Love’s Labor’s Lost, Merchant of Venice, and Taming of the Shrew. As ususal, we will read from either Lamb’s or Nesbit’s retellings and use our wooden peg people for narrations. The first one of each term will be done in Together Time because I will be reading the full play with M that term.
I’ve rearranged the schedule a bit since I’m adding in the Hobbit to be read every day most of Term 1, so Tall Tales are going to be put in Term 3 on weeks Heroes is not read. I will see how well he does with his other readings and might have him read these independently.
We will finish up reading through Pilgrim’s Progress in Vesper’s time during Em’s year 2. As I’ve mentioned above, we will be starting Parables of Nature as our special reading for Sunday Vespers. I only read a couple of the stories with M and decided to wait until he was more mature. Now that both boys are ready for it, I’m looking forward to reading through it as a family.
At bedtime, Daddy will read through Rosemary Sutcliff’s King Arthur Trilogy.
Literature in Review
As much as I added in other readings this year, I fell behind on our Shakespeare. Last summer we read the Lamb’s retelling of As You Like It and then we got to see it performed at Griffith Park by The Independent Shakespeare Co. It was their first live Shakespeare and they loved it. Em go to feed Orlando grapes as he wondered through the forest writing love poetry. We read Lamb’s retelling of Measure for Measure with M in morning school and I forgot how adult themed that one was. Comedy of Errors was a great hit though. But those are the only three we did this year.
Em thoroughly enjoyed joining M for the audio performance of The Hobbit. I am looking forward to a year or two from now when we’ll have a family listen to LOTR. And then, of course, a marathon watching of the movies. M listened to an audio version of The Heroes while following along and when he finished that in record time (never listening for only the 10 minutes assigned!), he made is way about half-way through Children of Odin also following along to the audio version. To fill in some time in the cuddle schedule (see above, revised weekly schedule), I added in the audio version Swallows and Amazons. He loved it so much, he’s asked for us to listen to the sequel(s) in the car.
At bedtime, Daddy finished King Arthur and moved onto Little Britches.
Poetry
During our morning Together Time we will read through the AO assigned poets for both M and Em. We enjoy reading the poetry together and don’t mind that we’ll go through each poet twice by the time we’re done. We also add a diverse poetry pick on Fridays. Using HeritageMom.com recommendations, I have chosen Gladiola Garden and Poetry for Young People: Maya Angelou for the Friday readings this year.
Poetry in Review
For Term 1, I ended up alternating between Frost and Blake during our Morning Time readings. In term 2 I just read a Sandburg poem three days a week, alternating with the Folk Song the other two days. I did this because our Morning Time was starting to run long and it was one of the things I changed. In Term 3, we read a Hughes poem three days a week. For the Frost, Sandburg, and Hughes poems, I read from the Poetry for Young People series. For Blake I read from Songs of Innocence and Experience. We also did an ocassional Poetry Tea Time where the boys choose any poetry books they want and read a favorite or new poem. Or request I read it. And often guests are invited.
Reading
Through Year 2 I included reading in Em’s schedule where I would have him read aloud to me from a Free Read book of his choice. I allowed him to choose from a selection of books that were a little above his reading level so I could help him with the harder words as he gained confidence. He also had independent Free Read time from books that were more on his level. For Year 3 I am no longer going to include the reading time with me in his schedule. Instead, I am going to have him read aloud to me from one of the assigned readings. For the first term, that will be from Queen Bess. As mentioned above, I’m going to have him start following along in audiobooks for some of the readings, so I am hoping this will take the place of me helping him while he reads aloud.
Reading in Review
As I was writing up my review, I saw my plan above to have Em read aloud some of his books to me. I completely forgot about that plan! And now that I see it, I realized I should make sure he gets some read-aloud practice in. Note to Self: do this in Year 4!
This year Em finished the following books during his Independent Free Read Time (in order of his reading, as documented in his Reading Log):
- Skylark by Patricia MacLachlan
- The Drinking Gourd by F.N. Monjo
- Horrible Harry and the Ant Invasion by Suzy Kline
- Firefly by Paul McCutcheon Sears
- Ninjas and Samurai: A Nonfiction Companion to Magic Tree Hous #5 by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce
- A Big Day for Baseball by Mary Pope Osborne
- The First Book of Bugs by Magaret Williamson
- The Story of Barack Obama by Tonya Leslie
Books we have read together or listened to on audio in the car this year:
- Harry Potter and the Prioner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
- A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus
- Call of the Wild by Jack London
- The Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett
- The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling (Book 1) and The Hidden Gallery (Book 2)
Cursive and Copywork
Em will start learning cursive this year, so part his copywork time will be used for this. Two days a week he will continue working through one of the copywork books such as this one he used in Year 2. For cursive, he will spend three days a week and start with the book D’nealian Cursive Handwriting Workbook. If he makes it through that, we’ll use Cursive Handwriting Workbook for Boys for cursive copywork. He will also continue with typing.com lessons that he started last year.
Recitation
We will follow along with the helpful new suggestions from AO. In the past he has done recitation with me. I did this so I could help him with any words, but also to keep him accountable to practicing. This year I will have him practice on his own three days a week and then with me on the fourth.
Foreign Language
Em has shown real interest in learning American Sign Language. Last year we just used You Tube Videos to work our way through basic words and phrases. This year I am looking into one of the flex classes available on Outschool to help us progress.
Foreign Language in Review
Em wanted to continue with ASL, so we signed him up for Lingvano for the year. He spent 5 to 10 minutes every day and enjoyed learning new words. The problem is that he doesn’t have anyone to practice with, so he’s not learning it as well as he could. I think this is going to be a problem with any foreign language, and I haven’t figured out how to deal with it yet.
Geography
We will be using the Komroff biography of Marco Polo and following along on the Seterra map of Asia that I’ll have printed on larger paper. Before M started Year 3, I decided to use the Komroff version after reading through comments on the forum and pre-reading both the Freedman and Komroff books. I enjoyed the Komroff version and since M did too, I will be using it again this year. See Other Guides for my reading plan and resources.
For Geography Topics, we will be doing the AO 6 topics in Together Time. I have written up a 36-week guide for these topics. It is posted on the Other Guides page. We covered the AO 3 topics together with M, and Em paid attention and knows all of ideas well. There is no need for us to go over them again formally.
Each year we choose a continent (or one year, the State of California), to work our way through. We cover the map, physical features, history, original peoples and/or current peoples, and sometimes mythology or folklore for each country on the continent. We’ve spent a year on Africa, a summer on Australia, two years on the U.S.A., and one year on California. I used Heritage Mom’s Amazing Africa!, and I’ve posted my guides for U.S.A. and California on Other Guides. Maybe I’ll get around to writing up what we did for Australia and share that too. This year we are going to look at South America. I am tentatively planning on using South America by Nellie B. Allen as a spine. I’ll post my plans on the Other Guides page when I complete them.
Geography in Review
Em loved Marco Polo and chose it as one of his favorites of the year. He enjoyed the story and following along on maps. We finished it a bit earlier than scheduled because on the weeks when only half a chapter was assigned, he wanted to read it all.
I did end up creating a 36-week study for South America (See Other Guides). We enjoyed our virtural travels through the continent, though with only 20 minutes a week there was so much more that I had included in the study that we never got to. Em loves maps, so he was able to learn all the countries and major landmarks of the continent.
Though we worked throught he geography topics for Term 1 and 2, I did not do them for Term 3. It was just one of the things that had to be dropped because we kept running over time in morning school.
Nature Study and Science
We’ll be using the books from AO. Our Nature Study topics will be Cultivated Crops, Soil, and Insects. I’ll be posting my plans for these on the Nature Study page.
I have scheduled both Pagoo and Drop of Water as independent reading. This is experimental and I may change back to reading to or with Em for one or both of these. For Pagoo, I wrote up a reading guide that includes videos of the animals discussed. I plan on showing these to him after his oral narration to me. Drop of Water has several weeks where there are experiments. I will prepare those to be done after his narration with me or as afternoon activities.
I am planning on scheduling Secrets of the Forest for me to read aloud, but I may work him up to reading aloud to me and then reading independently. I’ll see how he’s doing when Term 3 gets here.
We also do science in Together Time. This year I am going to use the Archimedes text from M’s year 6 readings. Em is so interested in science and physics, I knew he’d be listening in and doing the experiments along with us anyway. So I decided to just make it official and then find something different for him when he gets to year 6. When I did my pre-reading, I wrote out a 12-week reading schedule with experiments and other resources (see Other Guides). I am spreading the book over 19 weeks, so each week one reading day in the guide is assigned. On my AO 36-week chart, I’ve noted “activity” to each week that I’ll remember to get the suppies assembled. We’ll do this for the first two terms during Together Time.For Term 3 we will do a magnet study using Magnets by Rocco V. Feravolo (also available free in a previous edition from archive.org). I’ve written up a 10-week guide for this that includes the science demonstrations and necessary supplies (see Other Guides page).
Science in Review
The independent reading of Pagoo worked out. When he came to narrate, I would show him any pictures or videos from the Reading Guide (see other guides). He also read Drops of Water on his own and narrated well. But since he was reading this during independent time, I didn’t get to do the experiements with him. He had participated in them when M did it three years ago, though he didn’t remember them. If I had it to do over, I would have scheduled time the day after each reading to make sure I did the experiments again with him. He enjoyed reading Secrets of the Forest and narrated them well, though he did not make it through the entire book.
M was doing anatomy in Year 6, and would be covered the Reproductive System at the end of Term 3. I decided to include Em in these lessons because I knew that not only does Em usually listen in to the anatomy lessons anyway, even if he didn’t, this interesting topic would definitly get shared. And instead of Em hearing about the reproductive system second hand, I went ahead and officially included him in the lessons so that we would all be discussing these topics together. Tackling this subject like any other science topic worked out well – I was able to get through it much easier than I ever anticipated (though there were a few mind-blowing moments for the boys!). And Daddy got do to some followup during his weekly lunches with them!
Mathematics
We will continue with the Saxon Math 3 book we started in the middle of year 2 and probably end up starting book 4 by mid-year.
Math in Review
Em finished the Saxon book 3 from last year, completed book 4, and got about half way through book 5. The kid eats it up. The hardest part of teaching him math is getting him to do the repetative work. He understands the concepts, but like all of us, makes errors in the execution because he’ll forget a step. Making him do the work to remember the process is difficult. He is only interested when there is something new to learn. This is why I sandwich Math between cuddle reading times. It helps reset after making him do repetitive work that he understands in theory but needs practice implementing.
Art and Music
Artist and Composer Study rotation
This year we will be using the Albrecht Durer study from A Humble Place for Term 1. For Term 2 we will do a study of Augusta Savage using the resources from Heritage Mom. I am considering doing the Gainsborough study from Simply Charlotte Mason for Term 3 since the Huntington Library has many Gainsboroughs for us to see in person, but I haven’t committed yet.
When I first started doing composer study, I was not following along with the AO schedule – I found it intimidating. So we read through Opal Wheeler’s Beethoven and Vivaldi: First Discovery Music and The Story of the Orchestra: The Four Seasons in a Day. I realize now that following along with the You Tube videos on the AO page is actually much more simple! I have also been extremely thankful for the guides Christie Russell is posting on the AO Facebook page that give more information about each piece (5 stars, highly recommend!). Since we’ve already studied two of the artists on the AO schedule, this year I have planned Wagner for Term 1, Joplin for Term 2 (using the resources from Heritage Mom) and Term 3 we’ll do Chopin along with AO.
We will continue to work learn new hymns and folksongs along with the AO rotation and use Hannah’s lovely YouTube postings at folksandhymns. I support her on Patreon and receive a monthly email with an mp3 of the music and a pdf of the lyrics. It makes my life so much easier! And with the mp3 I can create a playlist of hymn on my phone so we can listen to all our AO songs.
The monthly hymn is added to our family hymnal that is used during our Vespers time in the evenings (See Liturgical Year for how we have family readings and singing each evening). The folk song is learned during Together Time in the morning. We rotate the folksong with a hymn from Heritage Mom’s Collection of Multicultural Hymns. She provides links to different versions of the same hymn and we work our way through each version. Then we pick our favorite one to sing along with and add it to our Vespers Hymnal.
Art and Music in Review
For Artist Study, we did Dürer and Savage as planned. In Term 3 I did end up doing tge Gainsborough study. We have visited The Huntington many times, but it was fun to see how the boys enteracted with the Gainsborough and Reynolds portraits this time after the study. Every week after looking at the prints, I hang them on the bullitin boards above the boys desk so they can look at them. That way we always have the two most recent prints hanging in the schoolroom.
This year I also added in the Lumen study from Goldberry Press . We all enjoyed the Lumen study of Lines in art throughout history. The concepts of line stuck with the boys and they enjoyed pointing them out in subsequent prints. The prints were lovely and the art that was chosen to illustrate the concepts was moving. I now have new favorites that I hope to see in person some day. After studying the prints, I hung them on the bullitin board in the family room so we could see it all week.
I also added in an architecture study using Cathedral by David Macaulay. We went through this slowly over the entire year, reading two or three pages at a time. See the Other Guides Architecture page for details on how we did this study.
I managed this in the Morning Time schedule by having a 10 minute slot three days a week for Picture Study, Lumen, or Architecture. And since none of these take a full 36 weeks to complete, there was flexibility for weeks when there was more in the schedule such as a science demonstration or a longer nature study object lesson or a field trip day.
Composer
After I wrote up the plans for composer study last year, I started looking for which resources to use for the three composers. Wagner was scheduled for Term 1, so I started there. And never left. After looking at the different options for listeneing to Wagner’s music and reading about him, I came across Benjamin’s Ring: The Story of Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung for Young Readers by Roz Goldfarb. And after finding subtitled performances of the 15-hour opera on YouTube, I decided to spend the entire year on Wagner. I wrote up a schedule with what to read and which minutes of the videos to watch for a 120-day study. Since the boys enjoyed the term on opera the previous year, I hoped that they would like this. And it ended up being their favorite part of the school day. You can find my study guide on the Other Guides page.
Ambling Together 