A look back on Year 1 or around first grade if you’re not familiar with the Charlotte Mason way of things.
We wrapped up Year 1 for Ambleside Online last week and I’ve just been going back through my plans and what they were at the beginning vs what we actually did. I’m pleased that I mostly followed AO’s schedule because it just worked for us in how things were set up but even the creators of Ambleside talked about recently in a podcast that they never followed everything to a T, and they created it.
We follow a year round homeschooling schedule/rhythm and do lessons 4 days a week, keeping Fridays for catch up days if needed but mostly for Fun field trips. I also follow what Charlotte Mason suggests about having shorter lessons, we try to get our main things done before lunch (doesn’t always happen) and I try to keep the whole of lessons to about 1 hour- 1.5 hours as I add more students or the work load increases for children who are older it would take longer but even then I’ll shoot for a 4 hour school day!
Morning Time:
Bible, Devotional, Memory Verse, Hymns & Folk Songs, Morning Basket
Hymns and Folk songs we followed Ambleside Online’s schedule choices. I think having the lyrics in our morning menus made it very helpful and I liked to just start playing the music to start the homeschool lessons each day, then we would sing along together. After we would start on our BSF Reading Schedule as I read from my Bible, my oldest could follow along in her bible. But then jumped around in different parts of the bible other days of the week. I put back The Biggest Story Book Bible onto my shelf after not really getting to it much and replaced it with the Parables of Jesus which my children enjoyed much more. Then we’d do our Scripture Memory Verses I keep in a recipe box. Our Morning Basket held books, handicrafts to do and some American history books I had planned to supplement with but never ended up needing, we did read some for fun but nothing formally.
Morning time took about 30-35 mins 3 days a week. While attending BSF was one day a week and we would not do morning time that day because we did all our usual morning time stuff at BSF.
What I would change: I think I’d like to mix the morning basket and menus up a bit more in the upcoming year to create a bigger variety. I think having a plan will help me be more intentional about this. Especially more Preschool things for my younger ones.
Daily Lessons
Math: We used TGTB Math one mostly for year 1 but didn’t end up finishing it. It went well for a while but during exam week I noticed we needed to change things up. We will be switching to Beast Academy and SCM Arithmetic.
Reading: We took the first two terms this year and went completely back to the basics to build a solid foundation that just wasn’t built as well as I had hoped in Kinder. I’m so glad we did and my daughter could get more phonics practice by taking it slow and be able to master sounding words out. We then finished up Level 2 in 100 Gentle Lessons in Sight and Sound (we did level one in Kinder). My daughter would also read to me 15 mins each day and when it was a struggle in the beginning we would trade off pages where I read then she read.
What I would change: Level 1 with our reading curriculum in first grade, we just went too fast learning to read and I should have slowed things down (which did happen eventually).
Copywork or Phonics: Copywork was from our studies, a simple sentence to copy. Phonics was Explode the Code Level 2. I switched off between doing both of these each day. Towards the end of the year I realized ETC was something she could do independently. I would assign 4 pages for her to do and I would just check over the pages after.
Handwriting: Was mostly copywork towards the end but we finished Hand Writing Without Tears and I just wasn’t fond of it, I guess for the price vs how much practice there is I was a bit disappointed. Not terribly expensive but still didn’t live up to all the hype for me.
Daily Work was our core lesson. They usually took about 40-45 mins 4 days a week Monday- Thursday.
Weekly Lessons/ Loop Schedule
For our loop Schedule we would do a few of these subjects each day but kept them on a rotation so that if we missed a day we would start right where we left off.
History and Geography/ Mapwork AO Geography
We really enjoyed reading about Paddle and his long but exciting adventure to the Sea. It was cool to follow along with our own map from BFB and as far as first map working skills go this was a fun way to start it off. We also used the suggested books for Geography to teach directional skills as well as other skills.
We started a simple timeline and the suggested History Books went well for the most part, nothing was too long and narration went well with the usual ups and downs.
Natural History AO’s Schedule
Burgess Birds and learning all about birds, nature journaling was a favorite for my children 6 and 3 most of the year. We would take our new skills at birding and try to ID birds on nature hikes. Reading all the James Herriot Picture Books was definitely a highlight too, his stories are wonderful and I highly recommend them for any age children (just stick to the picture books because his actually books have a lot less success stories in them which tend to be sad).
Literature/ Tales AO’s schedule
If you would have told me a few years ago that my 6 year old would be studying shakespeare I would have thought that idea was crazy, I remember how much I struggled with it in highschool. But then enter the homeschool world where also those very intellectual subjects just get placed in front of children as if it’s the most common thing in the world. And you know what? My 6 year old absolutely loved Shakespeare and how it was broken down by Lamb and with the help of puppets to keep the characters straight. I think I was more than a little taken aback at how much we all love shakespeare now…definitely not intimidating with this soft start. I asked her favorite to which she just replied all of them!
Some of the tales were not the most exciting and a bit longer so I found breaking the readings up to read a little twice a week worked better for us and narration.
Poetry/ Poetry Tea Time
I experimented which day worked best for us to keep and consistent Poetry Tea Time and we landed on Tuesdays. I’m hoping to keep that day for next year too. We read A Child’s Garden of Verses and the Whinnie the Pooh Poetry books, we simply love this time. I also like the series Poetry For Young People and we added a few other Poetry books we own in each week. We also added our Aesop’s Fables into this time too.
Recitation:
Passages that were meaningful to us were read and practiced out loud very simple, although I had started out making it more complex than need be.
Foreign Language: As far as official work this took a back burner a lot but my husband helped just in the day to day with this since we are studying Japanese. I’m trying to figure out a good place to make time more formally for these lessons and they won’t get skipped over as much.
Artist Study & Composer Study
We loved studying Composers and Artitist, I appreciate the slow pace of one Artist/Composer per term. My children can both pick out what we studied when we encounter them out in the world it’s so neat! I think possibly adding this to morning time would fit better for next year but I’m still thinking about this.
Handicrafts We focused mostly on Sewing and Baking but really lots of Handicrafts get done a little less formally planned out. I like to pull from a list and try new things now and again and see what everyone is interested in.
Our Weekly Loop Subjects time really depended on what we were studying from 10 mins- 30 mins if needed.
Free Reads:
I would use audiobooks at meal times but I’d also read aloud usually in the afternoon after nap/quiet time. The children could play as long as they weren’t talking or distracting each other too much and I would read. I plan to read The Red Fairy Tale Book in the summer possibly, I just felt going through the Blue one all the way was better. I also read all the scheduled D’Aulaire books but was not impressed by them.
Here is what we read for Year 1 (not all are selected by AO but just my own personal picks/family picks)
The First 3 Books in the Chronicles of Narnia (Publication Order)
Little Town On The Prairie
These Happy Golden Years
-The First Four Years
King Of the Golden River
Cricket in Time Square
Peter Pan
Pinnocchio
Homer Price
The Saturdays
The Moffats
Five Children and It
Pollyanna
The Little Princess
Stories from Grandmother’s Attic Books 1 & 2
101 Dalmatians
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
The Little Prince
Pippi Longstockings
The Wild Robot Protects
The Hundred Dresses
My Fathers Dragon (Books 1-3)
The Treasure Tree
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Ella Enchanted
I’m pretty pleased each year to see how many we get to. My list is always much longer but I’m happy to pass it on to the next year and know we’ll never have a shortage of living books. Plus I do love a good re-read!
Looking back at the year always boosts my confidence because when I tend to reflect in the thick of things I’m always sure that the year is a disaster and I’m messing up big time. But then once it’s over and I can distance myself from any hard days, I can appreciate the good times more and I’m pretty proud of this year. It didn’t look perfect but it looks like a childhood I always wish I had.
