2022-2023 Family Homeschool Picks
Curriculum We Do as a Family
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We read aloud. A lot. I love doing as much of our learning together as we can, and reading aloud is such an effective way to do this. My children aren’t required to listen to the educational read-alouds until they are in Kindergarten, but the younger ones seem to enjoy them and hang out with us while we read.
Starting sometime after 2 years old, I require my children to sit for the fiction book that I’m reading aloud. I started this when my oldest was just over age 2 to practice for sitting in church. It takes us about 15-20 minutes to read our family read-aloud and that seems to be the perfect amount of time for this quiet-sitting practice.
Our read-aloud time is how we start our school day, and it takes longer than my children’s seatwork. We will read anywhere from 50 minutes to an hour and 45 minutes before we spend about 30 minutes doing seatwork.
Read-alouds Specifically for Preschoolers
I like to choose some books with short passages to read to the youngest of the crew. They get to sit on my lap for these readings and usually really enjoy them. This year I have these 3 books on a loop:
Rod & Staff’s Bible Stories to Read
Family Devotional
I like to spend a little time doing some basic devotional-type things with the kids. I like to do these things on most days:
Bible verse memory cards from Simply Charlotte Mason
Books of the Bible flash cards from Answers in Genesis (about once a week)
Hymn of the month from One and All Rejoice published by CPH
Any songs we are practicing for upcoming church performances or for our homeschool co-op
A once-a-week apologetics study using Answers for Kids (this year we’ll cover volumes 5 & 6)
Enrichment Subjects
Inspired by Charlotte Mason’s philosophies, I like to add in an enrichment subject once a week. I think Miss Mason would have done each of these subjects every week, but I only do one per term. We have 3 12-week terms during the year, so we do each of these subjects 12 times.
Term 1 is art study using Queen Homeschool’s Early America set
Term 2 is composer study using a study on Joseph Haydn
Term 3 we are reading Shakespeare using children’s versions of Comedy of Errors, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens, and Merchant of Athens published by Macaw books.
Core Subjects
I’m hoping to do history, science, and a foreign language with all of my children together for as long as possible, hopefully up to about 8th grade. I may add in extra reading starting around 6th grade, but until then we really enjoy doing these subjects together.
The Good and the Beautiful Year 1 History (this is our first year with TGTB history)
Elementary Anatomy from Masterbooks
American Sign Language for Kids (I have chosen to teach all of my children ASL as we have ministry opportunities for it in our church’s denomination and it’s really an enjoyable language to learn and satisfies foreign language requirements we may have later on)
Read-alouds
I have several books on hand of what I consider to be essential classics for children. And, because a well-written book is enjoyed by all ages, I plan to read these over and over until my children have left the house. The last 2 years we spent reading through the entire Little House on the Prairie series.
I also like to insert some non-fiction in between the fiction books. This offers us some living literature to peak interest in subjects that I may not go real in-depth with elsewhere.
Our fiction choice for this year is the Anne of Green Gables series
For some exciting science we have Usborne’s Mysteries and Marvels of Nature
For a little extra art study I have Come Look with Me: Animals in Art
For a living geography book we will read Arabella Learns About Children Around the World from Queen Homeschool
What subjects do you like to combine and what will you use for your family subjects this coming year?
Check out all of our 2022-2023 choices here.
