Well, it's finally here! The week after 4th of July is when my family starts our new school year. This is because in April comes Orthodox Holy Week, Pascha, Bright Week, and planting/gardening season. While we do get some school done during this time (i.e. we do math year round), we prefer the bulk of our schooling to take place between July and early April. I figured this post could also be helpful to other Orthodox Christians, or people who are curious about Orthodox Christians, and what we use when we homeschool. While many Orthodox Christians are drawn to the Charlotte Mason style, it's certainly not a requirement by any means. We use a bit of every method at my house! While we use many traditional programs, I utilize the teacher's guides and have a lot of fruitful interaction with my children thanks to them. By no means are they simply doing worksheets and workbooks! (disclaimer: I always modify materials as needed to make sure they line up with our Orthodox Christian beliefs and values.)
My youngest son will be turning 6 in September and, while public schools would keep him bored in Kindergarten, he is solidly ready to start 1st grade, and has been doing some 1st grade work for a good while. He is the type of kid that cracked the phonetic code on his own before age 5 and can read pretty much at a 3rd/4th grade level. (He doesn't though...he is a sensory kid that would rather do sensory things, like look at "lift the flap" books, play with tape, sort beans, etc. He does need help understanding "spelling rules"though, such as when to use C or K, and when a C or G makes a soft sound. However, I'm not trying to rush him, so I'm planning his core subjects so he won't level up to 2nd grade until next July. This means we will only do core subjects, like reading, math, and language arts 3 times a week. This is just what I think is best for him. I think some kids can start 2nd grade as soon as they are academically ready, which is what my older son did. Of course, if he changes or has a big mental growth spurt, I'll reevaluate.
So here we go!
Language Arts
CLE Language Arts 1
CLE Reading 1
Rod and Staff Penmanship, starting with Unit 3, followed by CLE's I Can Write
Math
CLE Mathematics 1
History/Social Studies
CLE Social Studies 1 -We are going to finish up CLE Social Studies 1 (3 light units) left
Read Alouds - We will also do read-alouds using books I already have in my home library, mostly about pioneer and colonial life (pictured).
Beginning Geography by Evan-Moor - This was a great book, but we already finished most of it, and the rest looked like busy work.
Science
Finish up CLP Nature Reader Grade K and start Grade 1. We also have many books about bugs, animals, nature. We live in a forest and my son spends lots of time outdoors in nature catching grasshoppers, etc. so we don't do nature study, or anything formal like that.
Art
Appreciating Art by Christian Liberty Press. We plan to do one of these crafts once a week during the year.
Kindergarten Art by Mother of Divine Grace - This is an art program we also do with his older brother. It's simple to use, gets done, helps my sons practice their verbal skills (speaking in complete sentences) and exposes them to beautiful art. It's very reasonably priced as well compared to art portfolios from Simply Charlotte Mason.
Read Alouds
I have a pretty good library of read alouds/picture books at home, so most books that would be on a booklist for a K/1 student my son has already read. However, he hasn't wanted to sit through Beatrix Potter stories yet, so that will be our first grade focus for read alouds. We will also read the Burgess animal books and similar style stories.
Electives, etc.
Cursive - My son is insisting on teaching himself cursive, even though I don't require it until 3rd grade. I'm not stopping him, so I bought him a few things. (He struggles more with his print and likes to write with all capital letters.)
Aesop's Fables by Abeka - I found this cheap at a sale and just had to get it because my older son completed it when he was younger! It's a simple, reading comprehension book and won't take long to complete.
Poems for Children - My son loves poems! We have several poem books that we love and one is pictured below. We are going to try to have Poetry Tea Time once a month, with my sons baking the treats the night before! This should work because our co-op is three weeks on, and one week off.
Little Annie's Book of Art and Manners - We will work on this quirky art and manners book as we have time. The book teaches manners based on Bible verses that are related to etiquette and courtesy of others.
Orthodox Christian Education ("Morning Time")
After breakfast, when we finish up our Morning Prayers that we didn't do before breakfast, we do a "morning time" Orthodox Christian style. (We do Bible reading according to the Orthodox Calendar each night as as family after our Evening Prayers.). I start out the reading time doing spiritual reading that is age appropriate for my youngest son. I spiral through a Children's Bible for part of the year, and then other readings the rest of the year, then the Children's Bible again, and so on. This just takes about five minutes. Then I read a Saint's Life which is more at the level of my older son (my youngest gets something out of it most of the time though.) After that, we have added in Catechism by St. Philaret, and I am choosing parts for the boys to memorize as we go. Our whole morning time with prayers can take up to an hour, and this does not include the extras that most people think of as morning time, such as poetry, music, art. We have to be creative to fit everything in during the week, but prayer, saint's lives, Bible reading, and catechism take priority at our house. The pictures below show a sample of our Orthodox children's reading. (CLE Reading contains scripture memory work, but I may add this in at some point if there are certain verses that haven't been covered that I really want them to memorize.)
Well, thanks for reading! I hope this post helped you in some way learn more about the homeschooling materials available. Happy homeschooling!
