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Skip to Planning and Review for my first time through Year 4 in 2022 with M
2025-26 School Year Plan for AO4 – Completed and Reviewed
This will be my second time through AO4. Em is in Year 4 and M is in Year 7
- Overview
- Weekly Schedule
- Bible
- History
- Biography
- Language Arts
- Foreign Language
- Geography
- Citizenship
- Science
- Nature Study
- Mathematics
- Art
- Physical Education
Overview
Though there are some basic similiarities with how I went through Year 4 with M and what Em will do, there are so many differences that I feel like I am planning for a completely new year I’ve never done. I’ve swaped out multiple books, either because Em did them earlier or I found ones I liked better. Also, Em is able to do much more independently than M did, so the daily schedule for Em’s year 4 looks a lot different than the daily schedule M had. This is good news, because as Em is becoming independent, M still needs a lot of one-on-one help and read-a-louds.
Year In Review
In the fall of this school year my husband was offered a position on the other side of the country. This meant that we had to get our house ready for showing (including painting kitchen cabinets and storing a Pod’s worth of what the realtor called clutter – mostly our books!), pack, drive across the country, live in a VRBO for two months while searching for a new home, then finally move in and unpack that new home. This took us from November through May.
I tried to keep as much of a normal school schedule as possible. We took less time for Christmas break than planned and had to drop some items from our schedule – such as anything we needed the packed microscope for or plant growing projects. I downloadeed as many e-books as I could to replace packed books, then shipped the remaining three boxes of books via bookrate to our temporary address (they got there before we did!). There were a couple of weeks right before the move and while moving into the new house when all the school that happened was independent readings (history, biographies and free reads) and math review worksheets. I did that so I could be working on moving tasks while they worked completely independently.
On the drive across the country, we did “road trip school,” where I had Em track the mileage every day and graph it at the end. We kept a journal of all the states we crossed through. In several states we stopped at historical or cultural sites. We read the maps and planned our drives together. And we listened to the entire Chronicles of Narnia (Em didn’t remember the first time we went through them).
In the end we finished most of the history and literature readings I had planned. Morning school and science experiements were reduced. I kept up with counting the school attendance per California requirements and in the end we had more school days than necessary. This included my counting of “field trip days” when we visited museums etc. It was a tough year, and we’re still not totally unpacked, I’m behind in planning for next year, and we skipped some things I had hoped to cover. Our normal weekly schedule also changed a bit once we were settled into the VRBO and again into our new home. Since we moved to an area with so many museums and historical locations, I decided to do a field trip once a week as often as we could. We also joined a homeschool group that went on nature walks on Fridays which meant shortening the Friday schedule. So we were doing lessons 4 days a week, with the fourth being slightly reduced to make time for the nature group. But I’m calling it a successful year.
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).
Bible
AO Bible Reading Schedule Here
Bible is split up into Together Time and Vespers and then by the time of the year. This year we will cover the following:
| 2025-26 Bible Plan | Together Time | Vespers (see Liturgical Year for details) |
| Aug – Nov Ordinary Time | Finish up Ezra, Nehemiah, and Jonah ; Weekly Proverbs | Joshua |
| Advent | Hallelujah by Cindy Rollins | Advent Readings |
| Christmas | N/A (no school) | Christmas Readings |
| Jan/Feb | Special Study: (TBD) ; Weekly Proverbs | Luke |
| Lent | The Sacred Sacrifice by Hannah Paris | Lent Readings |
| Easter | Job ; Weekly Proverbs | Acts |
| Jun – Aug Ordinary Time | n/a (no school) | Judges |
Check Out the Other Guides pages for Bible Reading schedules (I’ll post them as I create them).
Sunday Readings during Vespers we’ll continue with 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 AO4 and AO7.
Bible In Review
When we started packing, Bible in was our Advent readings. When January and intense packing started, morning time started to suffer. We kept up with prayer and memory verses, but I didn’t have time to prepare a special ordinary time study. We did make our way through a good portion of The Sacred Sacrifice for Lent, but then we moved into the new house over Easter weekend, so further Bible readings didn’t happen. Our Vespers time also ended up being mostly listing what we were thankful for that day and prayer. My husband gets home later from work, baseball practice goes late, and dinner is later. So our evening time is more rushed than before. We are missing our full Vespers time and hopefully will settle into a new routine here and bring it back soon.
History
We’ll continue on with TCOO. For some chapters I have references (posted in Other Guides) that I found helpful when I went through it with M. I will read these aloud to Em once a week per the AO schedule. For George Washington’s World I have decdided to start reading one story per day in term 1. When I read through with M, we did not make it through the book. And there were often more than one story a day scheduled, which was a bit too much for M to handle. One story a day (unless they are the really short ½ page ones) made for an easier day. For M we used the WHAT COPY, but for Em I have purchased the revised editions by Donna-Jean Breckenridge. I have been enjoying the updated readings so that I don’t have to do so much research and substituting language in like I did with the original version with M.
The note on timelines on the AO Year 4 page indicates to “keep a simple timeline” and the footnote says that Miss Mason recommended to start the Book of Centures at about age 10. Em is definitly ready for one, but I’m wondering about the transition from his century charts and stickers. That timeline has really filled in and he likes looking at all the things that are close to each other. I am wondering how he’ll feel about starting fresh in an empty timeline. I didn’t do the simpler timeline with M, so this will be a first. I’ll report back how it goes!
History in Review
I ended up having Em keep his more simple century chart timeline, adding stickers and drawing in events when he wanted. He was loath to start fresh, so I purchased a new set of stickers and we’ll spend the first several weeks of next year adding in everything from his old chart system to a new book of centuries. He enjoys the timeline and is looking forward to a “real” one next year where he can more easily add in more than one event per year.
We finished up TCOO (a bit early even!) and it ended up being so much fun. Em was really into all the Revolutionary War battles and people. I had him start a “Revolutionary War Journal” that followed along with the readings from TCOO so he could keep track of which battle happened when and where. After every reading he would spend sometime 10 or 15 minutes drawing detailed journal entries. This made our school time go a little longer on these days, but it made his history readings more fun for him so it was worth it.
Even though I scheduled one story from George Washington each day, it probably ended up being only 3 stories a week for much of term 2 and 3. Still, we almost made it through with only 3 or 4 left unread.
Biography
- As I have mentioned before, we are holding off on Trial and Triumph to possibly do it together in morning school later.
- For Answering the Cry, I have scheduled all of the readings for Term 1. I will do one reading per week for weeks 2-10.
- In Term 2 I will read Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans by Kadir Nelson in the schedule slot where ATC was.
- In Term 3 when the scheduled slot for ATC and Heart & Soul is free, I will read aloud Young Readers Edition – Never Caught: The Story of Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar and Kathleen Van Cleve. I have pre-read this and found it facinating and a revealing picture of the Washingtons and their friends and family. There is one paragraph in Ch 1 at the bottom of pg 11 that I will probably skip because Em is so sensitive and not mature enough for the topic of rape.
- Though I did not really enjoy reading Poor Richard with M, I think it is a valuable story. So, I will be reading it aloud along with the AO schedule. The assigned readings are sometimes a bit long, so I have scheduled in two days of reading per week so we’ll finish in Term 1.
- As I did with M, I will be reading Abilgail Adams to Em for about 5-10 minutes every day so we can finish it over terms 2 and 3. The weekly reading assignments are long, so splitting them up helps get through them. I’ve decided to do this as a read-aloud because this book is still a little above E’s reading level. Also, I remember there often being things that we could stop and discuss for a better understanding of the culture.
Biography in Review
I’m glad I scheduled in Abigail Adams in for small readings everyday as we just barely finished it. Em finished his independent literature readings early, so I had him switch to following along to an audio version of Never Caught independently after I read aloud the first several chapters. This ended up being a great book for discussion along with the other readings. We were able to Visit Mount Vernon while he was reading it and see the buildings and places described in the book. It made our visit to Mount Vernon so much more meaningful. (Sidenote: I recommend using the audiotour narrations from the website for many of the outbuildings if you ever visit).
Em finished Stories of Rome and Isaac Newton early so I added in Galen and the Gateway to Medicine by Jeanne Bendick. Em resisted a new book at first, so I just told him I thought he’d be interested and if he didn’t want to add it in, that was fine. He ended up reading the entire thing pretty quickly.
These were the books Em used for his written narrations. I started out only requiring on a week, but he did them so well that I went ahead with one each day.
Language Arts
Shakespeare
This will be Em’s first year reading the full Shakespeare plays. With that in mind, I have scheduled Love’s Labor’s Lost for Term 1 because our local Shakespeare in the Park will be performing it this summer. I will read the Lamb’s version to M and Em before we see it so they are prepared for the story. Then we’ll listen along with the full play in morning school during Term 1. In Term 2 we’ll read The Young Reader’s Shakespeare: Julius Caesar a retelling by Adam McKeown, and then listen and follow along with the full play. In Term 3, we’ll read Lamb’s retelling of Much Ado About Nothing before listening along to the full play.
Shakespeare in Review
Love’s Labour’s Lost was a huge success. We read the Lamb’s retelling with our friends the week before we went to the Indie Shakes performance. We went on a night when they did a little workshop for kids before the play, so they got to learn about actor warm ups and learn some lines. They enjoyed the play so much, that they begged to watch the full movie version after we had finished reading the full play along with the Argo Classics audio version. In fact, just last week (in June!), M was wishing he could watch it again – to which I replied that he was welcome to anytime he wanted! (I mean, I’m not going to put restrictions on screen time when he’s asking for Shakespeare – even if it’s ridiculously silly version). It was Em’s first full Shakepeare play and we read a scene, or part of a scene, several mornings a week. I’ve found that if we only read once a week we loose the flow of the story and spend too much time trying to remember where we were.
We also read Julius Caesar. We read through the longer Adam McKeown retelling and then slowly worked our way through the play. Working around The Move, we finished it in April so did not have time to start another one. The boys followed along and enjoyed the YouTube clips of some scenes we watched.
Literature
- I had decided not use Bullfinch’s with Em (at least for this year). I made it through a lot of it with M, but the retellings are so dry and full of references to literature that he had not read that both of us dreaded the readings. And then AO announced they are scheduling in Norse mythology for AO4 and starting Bullfinch’s in AO5 using a new guide by Anne White. So I can put off the decision on whether to have Em read Bullfinch’s for another year! Since Em read through Children of Odin in Year 3, I have chosen several other folk and fairy tale books to replace Bullfinch/Asgard to Athens this year. I have not read any of these yet – I’ll write a review when I do.
- American Indian Fairy Tales retold by W.T. Larned
- An Illustrated Treasury of Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales by Theresa Breslin (recommended by Read Aloud Revival)
- A Bilingual Treasury of Chinese Folktales by Vivian Ling, Peng Wang, and Yang XI
- I have scheduled Robinson Crusoe for independent reading for Em to read along with an audiobook. I listened to the story along with M and think Em is ready for it. We’ll see how it goes. If he needs me there to help him understand what is happening, then I’ll take it out of the independent category. I have scheduled for him to listen to the recording 10 minutes per day in order to finish it by the end of Term 2.
- In Term 3 I will read Rip Van Winkle, Sleepy Hallow and Paul Revere’s Ride to him.
- The other indepenent reading Em will do is to read Johnny Tremain along with an audiobook in Term 1 and then read Incredible Journey on his own in Term 2 and 3.
- Kidnapped will be read by Daddy at bedtime.
Literature in Review
My plan for fairy tales did not work out. I scheduled them in as read-a-loud practice for Em. He enjoyed the stories, but he hated the reading aloud part. The funny thing is, he reads well and loves trying voices and dramatic readings, but he just goes really slowly. Instead of getting through one story on the one day a week I had it schedule for, we would get through a third or a fourth of the story. Needless to say, we didn’t make it through the first book by the time Term 1 ended and by then we were in the middle of The Move. I dropped the reading aloud from the schedule and just never added the fairy tales back in.
I was happy to see that reading Crusoe independently worked well. His narrations were thorough and engaging. Bedtime reading started in term 1, but then was dropped so he never got to Kidnapped. I’ll add it to a future year. However, he finished Crusoe so quickly, we had time for another story. I chose Treasure Island. He started out listening to an audiobook independently, but he was having trouble following the story after a bit. I switched the daily schedule to have him listen and follow along with me. That way we could pause and discuss what was happening whenever he needed. Which ended up being not very often. He ended up thoroughly enjoying the book and he started to catch references to it in other things. And then begged to watch the muppet version of it when he came across it on the Disney app!
It was fun to see him recognize Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle references while we were reading those at the end of the year. He would stop me and say “This reminds me of…” all througout the readings.
Poetry
We do poetry in morning school, so we read from poets assigned to both years. I alternate poetry and folk songs, so we only do poetry three times a week. One day a week we will read the AO7Lite list of poems from the Oxford Book of English Verse that is assigned to M. I will use the document I created (see Other Guides) with the original and AO paraphrases side by side as well as the linked readings when they are available. For the longer poems, I will split them over several days. The other two days we will read from Em’s assigned poets. I have substituted Angelou for Dickenson since we read a lot of Dickenson when M was in Year 4. We didn’t get to all the Tennyson and Wordsworth poems the first time, so I’m keeping them.
The schedule will be:
- Maya Angelou for Term 1,
- Alfred Lord Tennyson for Term 2,
- William Wordsworth for Term 3
Poetry in Review
We went through as planned. Though I had pre-read and made the side-by-side printout of OBOEV, it was still a little tricky getting through it. I mostly ended up reading the tranlated versions. We did make it all the way through because when it was scheduled to spread a poem out over several weeks, we just did it in one reading or two readings in one week.
Grammar
For Grammar we’ll use Fix It! Grammar. M has been using it for two years now and I think Em will do well with it also. Since this is his first year doing Grammar, we will do one lesson a week. I put it in rotation with Latin so that one day I will do the lesson with him, and the next day he’ll do the independent work. The other days will be latin.
Grammar in Review
I can’t remember when I made the change, but I ended up doing something completely different the combined grammar and dictation. Em and I worked through Using Language Well Book 1. We did the lessons together several times per week. For the section of the lesson used for copywork, I had him cover the quotation and write it.
Recitation
AO Recitation options and Shakespeare recitation
This year I will combine recitation with Em and do it in morning school. This makes sense for us since I already combine poetry and Bible and Em will be joining us for reading full Shakespeare plays this year. We will work on recitation together twice a week and they will work on it independently the other three days. The peices I have chosen are:
- The Cuckoo Song from the Oxford Book of English Verse
- A piece from Love’s Labor’s Lost Act 1 Sc 1 from the AO Shakespeare Recitation page
- Break, Break, Break by Alfred Lord Tennyson
- The Eagle by Alfred Lord Tennyson
- Praise of Women by RobertMannyng from the Oxford Book of English Verse
- The True Knight by Stephen Hawes from the Oxford Book of English Verse
- Several Julius Caesar quotes listed on the AO Shakespeare Recitation page
- I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth
- A to be determined passage or two from Much Ado About Nothing.
Here is a document with all the recitations for the year.
Recitation in Review
We made it through about half of the recitation selections listed above. But my plan to have us work on it once in morning school, once with me on their own, and then independentely the other days worked out well. Em enjoys performing the recitations for me and learning when it is best to take a breath, how to pronouce and emphasize words, and ended up memorizing most of the selections.
Dictation
We will continue using The Modern Speller by Kate Van Wagenen during morning school. I switched to this in term 1 of last year and it’s been helping improve M’s spelling. I included Em because I felt he was ready to start working on his spelling. As before, I’ll have both M and Em do this in morning school with one new lesson Mon-Thurs. They will review and practice the lesson in independent time and then I will do a dictation lesson with them on Friday using the new words. While M is still catching up with spelling, and Em is just starting dictation, I think this is a good option. I hope to move to picking passages from their reading in the next year or so.
Copywork
Em will continue choosing a short passage to copy from his daily readings. He learned cursive last year, so I will have him do the copywork in cursive.
Copywork in Review
I had Em work though Cursive Handwriting Workbook for Kids: Jokes and Riddles for his copywork. Not exactly high language, but it was an enjoyable cursive practice for him – he actually looked forward to it! He’s doing well with spelling, so I did not think he needed a separate copywork as well Using Language Well.
Free Reads Completed This Year
I add books to a “free read” shelf for the boys to choose from. These are some of the books Em read this year (he forgot to write them all in his reading journal). Every day I include 15 min of free read time in their independent work schedule for this.
- A Lion to Guard Us by Clyde Robert Bulla
- Junior Scinence Book of Pond Life by Alexander Crosby
- The First Book Of Bees by Helene Carter
- Stranded! A Mostly True Story from Iceland by Aevar Pór Benediktsson
- The Mysterious Voyage of Captain Kidd by A.B. C. Whipple
- Johnny Tremain by Ester Forbes
- A Triumph for Flavius by Caroline Dale Snedeker
- How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
- Winter at Valley Forge by James E. Knight
- Nathan Hale by Susan Poole
Foreign Language
As suggested by AO, Em will start Latin this year. We’ve had success with the Getting Started / Keeping Going with Latin books with M, so I’ll use the same for Em. There are You Tube lessons by the author and pronunciation helps that have been a great resource. I plan on working through one to three lessons per week. The books include 10 practice sentences for translation in each lesson. For M, I transcribed each of those lessons into a word document with space for him to write his translations. So I will use those for Em as well. This sounds like a lot of work, but it kept me accountable to learning Latin along with M. As I transcribe the sentences, I read through the lesson and practice translating them myself.
If he continues to show interest, we will continue to have Em learn sign language with the Lingvano App.
Foreign Language in Review
We worked through the Getting Started book to lesson eighty-one. Since this was my second time through, we only used the YouTube resources on the more complicated topics that I wanted Em to hear from the author’s perspective. I am impressed with how quickly Em learned the new vocabulary and new grammar concepts. I often used our light Fridays to assign a review of vocabulary he completed on his own or assigned time on vocabulary app made to accompany the books.
He decided he did not want to continue with sign language, so Latin was the only Foreign Language he did this year.
Geography
Each year we choose a continent (or one year, the State of California), to work our way through in morning school. We cover the map, physical features, history, original peoples and/or current peoples, and sometimes mythology or folklore for each country on the continent. This is where map questions are in our schedule. We’ve spent a year on Africa, a summer on Australia, two years on the U.S.A., and one year on California and South America. I used Heritage Mom’s Amazing Africa!, and I’ve posted my guides for U.S.A., California, and South America in Other Guides. This year we’ll go through the U.S. Territories, the Carribean Islands, and Central America. As I complete them, I will post these studies in Other Guides.
When I read Minn of the Mississippi to M, I was disappointed. We had enjoyed Paddle, Seabird, and Pagoo, but this book did not measure up. It was hard for M to follow the readings, even though I read them to him. To be honest, it was hard for me too – there are so many passing references to historical things and events that it sometimes took me a minute to figure out what he was saying. So, I decided to find a new book about the Mississippi that would be more interesting. I chose La Salle of the Mississippi by Ronald Syme (archive.org) which describes the adventures La Salle went on to be the first European to travel from Canada to the mouth of the Mississippi. I have written a study guide (see Other Guides) with chapter summaries, maps, timeline info, and resources that I will use as we go through the book.
The other AO geography selections Em participated in when we went through them with M, so there is no need to do them again. You can see my Year 4 & 5 Geography topics guide on the Other Guides page.
Geography in Review
What I had planned out for geography changed as I got into preparing the lessons and realized there was no way to do Mexico and Central America in one term. So I split it up into term 2 and 3. Geography is one of Em’s favorite subjects. He reads maps well and is always able to quickly answer the map questions. We were not able to do much map drawing this year, so I hope to be able to incorporate that more next year.
Em also enjoyed the LaSalle reading and following along on the map for it. When we drove over the Mississippi River and stopped in New Orleans on our cross crountry drive, he made connections to the readings.
Citizenship
In Term 1 and 2, Em will read Stories of Rome. Instead of moving into Plutarch, he’ll read these first, just like M did (though I read them to M). I wrote up summaries with maps and references (see Other Guides) and I’ll be following the 24-week schedule. I’ll use the summaries and maps during his oral narration time.
Science
- I have scheduled the Storybook of Science for twice a week since some of the readings are a bit long. This should keep us on the AO schedule.
- I am replacing Madam How and Lady How with Isaac Asimov’s Guide to Earth and Space. It has 111 short chapters, so we’ll spread it over two years just like Madam How. We’ll read 1-2 chapters each week. This will give us flexibility so that on weeks we have an outing planned, we’ll skip the second reading.
- I’ll read the George Mendel picture book to Em in Term 1 as scheduled.
- Em will read the Newton biography independently in terms 2 and 3. I have written a summary of the chapters (See Other Guides) that will help me follow along with his narrations.
Science in Review
This all worked out as planned, though as I am writing this I realize I forgot the Mendel picture book. Oopsie. I’ll have to read it to him over the summer! As I mentioned above, he finished the Newton biography quickly and I added Galen in. Em did not really like the Storybook of Science book – I think it was too basic for him. But he really enjoyed Asimov. We made it about half-way through as planned, so hopefully we’ll be able to finish it next year. Em has said several times that he can’t wait to do the “real science” he sees me doing with M. I think if I had this year to do over (and without a move), I might have included some basic science experiments as well. Which makes me wonder if I need to rethink his next year’s science and add in a couple of fun experiments for him.
Nature Study
We do nature study object lesson and/or observations one or two times per week plus a nature lore book once per week in Together Time. This year we will be covering the following topics:
- Term 1: Reptiles
- Term 2: Brook, River, Ocean (though more of an emphasis on ocean, ocean life, and tides)
- Term 3: Garden Flowers / Weeds (Though I’m reserving the right to switch to succulents)
All my nature study schedules with object lesson ideas and observation helps are located on the Nature Study page.
Nature Study In Review
As I suspected when I was planning for term one and two, the observation portions of the study were clumped into field trip days. We did an object lesson every day, but then went on trips to see reptiles and hikes along streams and estuaries. The two most memorable trips were a trip to The Reptile Zoo and a weekend at a beach front hotel to watch the king tides in December.
Our term three nature study was not as intense as I usually do, but we did go to a garden, dissect a cut flower, and purchased several garden flower baskets for the new house to observe.
Mathematics
Em has been doing well with Saxon math for the past two years, so we will continue. In Term 3 of year 3, he started Saxon book 5, so we’ll finish that up and move on to the next level.
Math in Review
Em is doing well with the Saxon math and finished up book 5 (6/5) and start book 6 (7/6) in term three. I shortened the Friday school schedule to accomodate the nature group we started attending once we got settled in Maryland. Instead of doing a new lesson on Fridays with Em and then letting him finish the lesson work independently, I just assigned a math facts worksheet on Fridays. This meant we made it through about three lessons per week (because we also usually took one field trip day per week).
Art
AO Artist Info Here and Music Info Here
In morning school there is an art/music slot in the schedule, so each day of the week we will do either artist study, Lumen, Architecture, Composer, or Sound to Song.
Artist Study
This year we will study Pissarro in Term 2 and Jean Honorē Fragonard in Term 3 from the AO schedule and the studies from A Humble Place. In Term 1, I have chosen Georgia O’Keeffe. We will be visiting Chicago in the fall and since we’ll get to see the many O’Keeffe paintings on view there, I decided to spend the term on her. I created a plan for this that will familiarize us with the paintings we can see (See Other Guides). I have also decided to spend the several weeks of Term 1 before our trip to Chicago familiarizing ourselves with some of the more famous paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago. My plan for this is on the Other Guides page.
Since there are not twelve paintings in a term, we also will also take a look at the ones by the same artists that are available for us to view in local museums (LACMA, The Getty, The Huntington, Norton-Simon). And we’ll have some flexibility in the schedule for weeks we take a day to go to a museum.
We will also work through the next Lumen volume from Goldberry Press. We add this in once per week. There are not 36 lessons in the book, but again, we’ll have flexibility in the schedule.
For Architecture this year we will read through Mosque by David Macaulay. As we did with Cathedral last year, we’ll read a small section every week-ish. See Architecture page for a study guide on both books.
Art in Review
We did artist study pretty much as planned. Our trip to the Art Institute of Chicago was amazing for all of us. There was an entire room of Georgia O’Keeffe’s work as well as my favorite to see in person – Sky Above Clouds IV. Another casualty of The Move was finding museums in which to see Pissarro and Fragonard – I just didn’t have time to find. Lumen was also one of the things that would get left off out morning school during the craziness. We are enjoying Vol 2 and will continue working through it next year.
Composer
This year we’ll study Joplin for Term 1 (using the resources from Heritage Mom), Mozart for Term 2 (using either this short book – read aloud on You Tube – and/or the Tillberry Table study) and Term 3 we’ll do Mendelssohn (using the Simply Charlotte Mason study).
Composer is on the schedule for once per week. During that time we either read from the book/study guide about the composer or we listen to a peice. I also put the peices in our “composer study” playlist that we sometimes have playing in the background.
This year I decided to add in the “From Sound to Song” study from ThistleandBiscuit.com to help us understand the elements of music better. We’ll be working through this study one time per week.
Composer in Review
I ended up using the Simply Charlotte Mason studies for all three artists this year and enjoyed them. The only difference was that we also read the biography recommended for Joplin by Heritage Mom. I plan on using these guides in the future when possible.
Hymns and Folksongs
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 hymns 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 usually sing the current folk song twice a week and pick an old one to sing on Fridays.
Hymns and Folksongs in Review
We mostly kept up with the folk songs this year, but got a little behind on our hymns since we were not doing full Vespers in the evenings (see HERE for how we do Vespers). I keep wondering if or when they’ll get “too old” for folk songs, but it is still a favorite part of morning school. I have started to do the monthly folk song every day and then on Friday let them pick a “review folk song” for us to sing. Singing together in the morning is such a good way to start off our day.
Physical Education
Em joined a Little League team last year, and will continue with the Fall and Spring seasons for this year. He enjoys practicing his catching, pitching, and hitting skills in his afternoon free time. He has also been watching his brother build muscles and has started to try to build his as well by doing strength building exercises.
P.E. In Review
We actually coordinated our drive across country so that we would be in Maryland on the residency requirement date for the Little League here. We just barely made it, but Em was able to play on a team for the Spring season and my husband helped coach, which included a lot of one-on-one sessions in the evenings when there was no game or practice. So Em managed to get in a lot of P.E. time even with the move.
Ambling Together 