Pursuing a wonder-filled life. Books. Travel. Humanities.

Lauren Ducommun

Charlotte Mason Year 5 Plans 2023-2024

Stored in a bin in the closet, is a binder from the 1990s which contains books that my mom read to me when she taught me for kindergarten. She also included photos from field trips and a list of things we studied. This was such a precious finding, and I can still picture some of those books today. When our own family’s homeschool journey began, I documented what we studied each year on a previous website. It is so fun to look back on and remember what we have covered, the places we have gone, and the people, places, things and ideas we have been introduced to. So I will start afresh and continue to journal our Charlotte Mason home education!

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Year 5 Homeschool Plans for 2023-2024

This is our first year to be homeschooling as residents of the State of Texas. Texas considers home educators as private schools. The only mandatory subjects are good citizenship, reading, spelling, grammar, and math. So I’ll start with those subjects and go from there.

Citizenship

For AmblesideOnline, the citizenship portion is usually reading Plutarch’s Lives. Since this year is the first that my son will be reading Plutarch, we won’t join the AO Plutarch Rotation Schedule right away. Most likely, we will do the following below:

Term 1: Stories from the History of Rome by Mrs. Beesly
Term 2: Publicola with notes from Anne White and podcast episodes from The Plutarch Podcast.
Term 3: “Life of Eumenes” in The Practical Plutarch

I downloaded the ToposText app so we can view maps as we read.

We will also consecutively read The Young Citizen’s Reader by Paul Reinsch.

Other Citizenship activities:

  • Join a 4-H group and participate in community service projects.
  • Visit the local town hall
  • Visit the local county courthouse
  • Go with Mom to the election booth in November
  • Make baked goods for the local volunteer fire department and local police department.
  • Donate to a local food bank and little free library.
  • Volunteer with our church for community projects.

Reading

For reading we will be focusing on the following:

Read a book each term from AO’s Literature for Year 5. An oral or written narration is required after each reading.

Read a play each term from AO’s Shakespeare rotation. An oral or written narration is required after each reading. Also keeping an eye out for any Shakespeare plays in our area!

Read a poem each day from AO’s Poetry for Year 5. We will be reading from one poet per term.

My eldest will read a book from AO’s Free Reading for Year 5 in the afternoons. No narrations are required for these books.

Spelling and Grammar

We will be using Charlotte Mason’s methods to teach spelling and grammar. This includes daily copywork (copying well-constructed and beautiful sentences from the literature readings), recitation (memorizing and reciting passages from literature, Shakespeare, and poetry), and dictation twice weekly.

I bought Spelling Wisdom, Book 2 to assist with dictation this year. I figured it would save me the time from finding passages to dictate, and I appreciate the work they’ve put in to ensure they are learning how to spell 6,000 words by the end of their course.

For grammar, we are using Simply Grammar to introduce basic grammar concepts. A beautiful aspect of Charlotte Mason education is that students are exposed to excellent grammar through quality literature, thus, formal grammar lessons are intentionally delayed until around Year 7.

My son’s handwriting has gone downhill in the past few years, so I’ve picked up two handwriting books for him:

We will start with Cursive Logic, a 13-14 week program, and then use A Reason for Handwriting for extra practice and review.

For typing, I’d love to find an app for Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. I’m not sure if one exists. My eldest has been writing a book, so I’m letting him type that up to get practice in. He is pretty good!

Math

As I’m still working from home, I knew that I couldn’t take on a teacher-intensive program at this time. We have used Teaching Textbooks before, and my son really enjoyed them. They have an app with videos and interaction, which allows him to do math independently and on the go.

We will take a placement at the end of this school year to see which level best suits him.

Now for the subjects that Texas does not require but are a beautiful portion of the AmblesideOnline curriculum.

History

AO History, covers 1800-1914/WWI along with a little bit of church history. As he reads, he will look up locations on the map and also add dates to a small timeline. All readings require a narration — either written or oral.

In the afternoons, he will work on his Book of Centuries. See how we set up our own Book of Centuries, for less than $10.

Several of the AO Free Reads are historical fiction from this time period. They mark with asterisks the ones that go with each term.

Nature Study & Science

AO updated their Science readings this year and it will be the first year to use Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology. The focus this year in science is Biology, Earth Sciences, and Inventions.

Science Biographies per term:

To supplement science, we are using Sabbath Mood Homeschool’s Engineering and Technology, reading The First Book of Machines by Walter Buehr and doing the activities in there.

Part of science is laying a foundation for observation, gaining first-hand knowledge, and growing in our care and concern for the world we live in. We will implement Charlotte Mason’s methodology for Nature Study and follow AO’s Nature Study Rotation and nature lore books for Year 5.

This means we will:

  • Keep a science notebook
  • Keep a nature study notebook
  • Keep a bird and plant list
  • Keep a Book of Firsts .
  • Have an Object lesson once a week with special studies.
  • Go on nature walks once a week

Goal: Observation, love for little things, caring about the world, CM quote.

In addition, we will read books on the side that cover things like sex ed, porn, and child safety. I’m hoping to write a separate post about this soon, but below are some of the books we will highlight throughout the year:

Geography

What I greatly appreciate about Charlotte Mason is her focus on learning about cultures around the world and growing in our appreciation for them. On top of culture study, we will use the AO Geography books and maps to help with physical geography.

We will be reading The Complete Book of Marvels, and supplement it with watching videos on YouTube. We will also keep track of the places on a world map.

Map drills each week. I’ve printed out blank maps, but we also hope to use the free map quiz app, Seterra, when we are on the go.

This year’s AO Geography concepts are:

Term 1: Landforms
Term 2: Food crops
Term 3: Trees & flowers and what they need to grow

We will be using Home Geography for Primary Grades, as well as kinetic sand, to learn about and shape the different landforms. Thankfully, we live on a farm-to-market road, so we will observe the crops around us and visit some local farmer’s markets to get to know the produce in the area.

We will keep track of what trees and flowers we see in our region, which will also overlap with nature study.

Foreign Language

Latin: I finally decided on Getting Started with Latin. Not teacher intensive. Simple. They have an app with recordings, so it’s easily accessible. We will probably make our own flashcards as we go. I would love to outsource Latin one day, though most classes are out of our budget at the moment.

Modern Language: Last time we homeschooled we studied French, since we were living in Canada. But because we now have so many Spanish speakers around us it makes much more sense to study Spanish. I searched and searched for something that wasn’t too teacher intensive, and something that uses TPR (Total Physical Response) as part of their methodology. I am excited to tryout Flip Flop Spanish. I bought the “See It and Say It” digital book, audio files, and physical flash cards, and wow, does it look great! I am actually looking forward to language study this year!

PE

Pretty self-explanatory. We will be going on daily walks, joining the local homeschooling running club, and hiking with a local homeschool group.

I also bought Dawn Duran’s Swedish Drill which is an excellent manual with exercise tutorials.

Art

We will be using the AO Artist Rotation Schedule for Artist Study. A Humble Place has generously put together the prints into PDFs, so I was able to print these off at our local Office Max.

In the afternoons, my eldest will rotate through Drawing practice and Handicrafts (skills such as sewing, wood carving, and paper folding).

Our area has two free art museums with a few paintings from the artists we will be studying. We plan to go to Kimbell Art Museum to see paintings of Tintoretto and Monet, and to Dallas Museum of Art to see Seurat and Monet.

Music

Throughout the week, we will be listening to the AO Folksongs, AO Composer, and AO Hymn rotation.

In the afternoons, my son will practice instruments daily. We hope to continue fiddle lessons with a local teacher and continue with Hoffman Academy for piano to learn how to read music — I realized he wasn’t really learning this in public school.

Bible

We will follow the AO Bible Reading, which involves reading the text, narrating, then reading a commentary. I may also incorporate David Helm’s COMA method.

I am adding in books for Apologetics and Theology, as it’s challenging growing up in our culture, and my eldest already asks some great hard questions, so I think he is ready for these books:

That wraps up our curriculum for the year! This is my first year with a Form II student, and it looks like so much fun! I’ve started pre-reading some of the books, and. oh my goodness, they are treasures. I am so grateful for all of the work the AO Advisory team has put into the AO Curriculum–it truly is a wide and beautiful education.

Follow our Year 5 journey on IG

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