I’m so excited to share our Curriculum picks, each year brings new joys and wonder! We will be using Ambleside Online once again, you can check out my Year 1 end review (I’ll link it here once it’s up) to learn more about how Year 1 went.
For my Preschooler I’m actually going to share a post dedicated to the curriculum The Peaceful Preschool since this will be our second time going through it. I’m so happy to do it again it was simply lovely and brings fond memories of our first Homeschool experience!
Let’s dive in to Year 2 then! Year 2 is part of a new form, Form IA which lasts for two years before we move into another form. Sometimes it gets confusing so I like to remind myself of the forms.
I’m really looking forward to Year 2, Ambleside Online is very literature heavy which can be a hard transition if you’ve built up this idea that homeschooling should look more like public school. Just watch how much everyone learns just from reading quality books and it’ll get easier to know how to do things!
There are subjects that we do weekly on a loop and some that we do daily! Let’s take a closer look at each subject and what Year 2 will look like!
*To respect Ambleside online terms and copyright I’ll be linking Ambleside Online’s booklists for the books we are using from their website. All other books and resources in this blog post may contain affiliate links, at no additional cost to you when you click through a link and make a purchase, I might make a small commission. I am so grateful for your support of Blessed With Motherhood!
Bible
Bible Study Fellowship’s plans
While I don’t make too many modifications for the AO schedule the bible is actually one where we aren’t following the schedule because I have a bible study their girls and I go to. We do Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) and this fall we will be diving deep into Revelations. The study is available to attend all over the US and world wide. BSF has my children and I learning the same thing each week,just in different age appropriate chunks. My oldest and I each have questions we answer daily that go with our reading. It’s been a really great bible study. Outside of Bible Study we work on praying and scripture memorization at home. I use Simply Charlotte Mason’s Scripture Memory System and it works well for our family! I prioritize reading directly from the bible daily but I like to throw in a devotional or children’s bible in our morning basket. We’ll be going through the Kingdom Of God series by Litho’s Kids.
History & Timeline
I was a little nervous last year thinking we either needed to start at the very beginning of history or at least with US history but I stuck with AO’s schedule to see how it went. I’m very pleased by the happy accident actually in how we’ve been studying history, in Y0 (that’s Kindergarten more or less) we read through The Little House books thus studying American History a bit. Then for Y1 we started studying British History (which is the very beginning of American History). I’ve heard that you want to study your own country first but that even though it seems like we weren’t with Year 1, we actually did! So Y2 I’m excited to continue the History rotation, some of the books from Year 1 cross over into Year 2 which makes it flow pretty smoothly.
I also had bought a few years ago Little School Of Smiths American Girls studies. I am hopeful that I can put those into the mix too just for some added fun! I’ve tried but now that my daughter is getting better at reading I’m hoping this will be easier to add in this year.
Timeline is a lot more simple than what a lot of people (including myself) make it out to be. I’ll continue to keep a family one and I just hole punched some paper and drew 1 or 2 decades on a page and turned that into my daughters timeline, she can add a drawing to what she’s writing if she wants but Year 1 we just kept it simple and I’ll be continuing that.
Natural History/ Nature Study (Science)
AO’s Natural History & Nature Study Book List
This years term rotations are Cultivated crops, Weather/Climate and Insects. I do like to follow those but we also like to just study what going on locally and nature journal what we see. I do have Exploring Nature with Children and Treehouse Nature Study (Use code BLESSEDWITHMOTHERHOOD to get 10% off) I pull resources from but the new weekly topic is too fast for our pace so we just pick and choose what we like.
We will also read through the Burgess Animal book, the bird one was fun last year.
Literature, Shakespeare & Free Reads
We will be using Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare this year. We used Lamb’s book last year and enjoyed it but I’m looking to try out both. We’ll be using RachelKiwiDesigns Shakespeare puppets again this year as they really helped everyone keep names and people straight.
For Literature we will be following the AO schedule, no substitutions needed but that doesn’t mean we will get to everything. There are some good living books on the schedule. All will be narrated just like anything I read and my daughter will continue to grow in that skill.
Free reads I like to try to read as many from AO’s Boolist as we can but any that we already have read will be skipped over or be read at the very end (possibly summer) so we can make sure to get to ones we haven’t read. I also have a long list of books I would just like to read aloud to my children so I add those in as well. Read Aloud Revival, Brighter Day Press and Living Bright Homeschool are some great resources for books as well as Living Books Legacy group on Instagram shares a plethora of great rich living books for ideas!
Independent Reading
Last year my daughter and I went back to the basics and really built a strong foundation with phonics and reading ability. I’ve got such an avid reader but there was a lot of struggle which is why I’m so thankful we could move at her pace with homeschooling. I feel confident in her ability to start assigning independent reads, here are some that I’ll be putting in her book basket.
Geography/ Mapwork
We all loved Holling’s book of Paddle to the Sea and I’m excited for more from Holling. We will be using Maps from Beautiful Feet to accompany our studies. It went so well together and I bought the complete set of Maps last year. I’ve also got the Charlotte Mason Elementary Geography book to teach the rest of the geography concepts.
Composer Study, Music & Artist Study
AO Hymns, Folksongs, Composer Study & Artist Study
I enjoyed following the Hymns & Folksongs schedule last year and so I plan to just keep doing that. I print out all the lyrics sheets and add them to Morning Menus or my Mama Binder. I also make a playlist on a MYO Yoto card of both songs and we sing them together during morning time.Â
Composer and Artist Study I also enjoy following the AO’s schedule of one per term. I think it gives us a chance to really deep dive into our studies. I do these weekly, I also make a MYO Yoto Playlist for the composer study. For the Artist Study I print out my own Art Prints using A Humble Place’s Free AO Art Print Files, they turn out so well and save me a lot of money with high quality paper and my trusty Epson printer. I’ll find any picture books that will add to our studies and add a little bio about the Artist & Composer.
Poetry
Poetry has been a very new thing for us in Y1. I’ll be following AO’s schedule and I’m excited as I have very little Poetry knowledge myself. I don’t do Poetry daily yet but instead make it a very special weekly thing in which we do Poetry Tea Time. We’ll share a snack we made together and tea and read some poetry, it’s everyone’s favorite time of the week.
Math
Beast Academy & SCM Elementary Arithmatic
TGTB Math just wasn’t working for my daughter so I decided to try two different curriculum. For Math we will be using Beast Academy Level 1 set. I will only be using the workbooks, we don’t use the computer game version and Simply Charlotte Mason’s Elementary Arithmatic series because I really wanted to incorporate more mental math into our time and this year I’ll be making that happen as well as building that solid foundation again. We will also play all our Math Board Games (usually Fun Fridays).
Handwriting/ Copywork & L.A
I’ve had my daughter express interest in Cursive so I’ll be introducing that gently along with Under The Home free writing practice. I’ll pull things from what we are reading and studying to be our copywork. Right now I Copy things into a notebook but there’s also this free Copywork generator.Â
Even though we have a solid foundation with phonics and reading we will do copywork every other day and Explode The Code the other days. Copywork is useful for a lot of spelling and grammar but ETC are a helpful addition to L.A as well.. Plus we’ve been going through them slowly since the beginning and my daughter really enjoys them.
Foreign Language
Japanese
We will continue studying Japanese as our focus for Foreign Language. This year we received free textbooks from the Japanese government (my husband applied for them at the Japanese Embassy) and we’ll use that to give us an idea of what to teach. You can start receiving the text books after you apply when a child is 6 and their school year starts in April.
P.E
The Schoolyard Swedish Drill
This will be our first attempt at Swedish Drill, I wasn’t too sure about it but I really have found value in following what Charlotte Mason recommends when I’m skeptical. Of course we plan to go on morning walks and go hiking…just playing outdoors even will be enough for daily Physical Education needed but doing something formal with this part of education caught my interest. We’ll see how it goes.
Recitation
I’ll be following AO’s list and substituting verses or passages as we study. Finding something meaningful to your child works well.
Art/ Watercolor
Last year I bought a lifetime membership to Lilly & Thistle watercolor school. My favorite part is that we can all do it together as a family I tend to learn a lot too! We will do that weekly along with drawing practice from a few different resources including Under The Home’s free lessons.Â
Handicrafts/ Life Skills
Handicrafts are woven into our days, we garden and bake together. We work on habits and the upkeep on the house together. My plan is to focus on a new one each term but continue one’s that we use daily and have flexible times where my daughter can pull our her sewing basket and work on things during our read aloud time. Here is a great list of ideas to work through!
I hope this post was helpful and encouraging in your own planning and will help give you some useful ideas if you are also using the same things. I’ll be sharing more about how year 1 went, a post dedicated to Pre-K plans along with some Summer Time plans coming up soon! Feel free to reach out with any questions!
