Homeschooling Year Two has begun here at Robinson House. We have a ton of enrichment subjects and activities that I want to get started on which I’m super excited about this year but I didn’t want to overwhelm our early school days by putting too many new things on the schedule right away.
So we started week one with just three days of lessons from The Human Body Unit by Gather ‘Round Homeschool. As discussed in my previous curriculum post, Gather ‘Round Unit Studies cover every subject for your homeschool except math. So by completing these lessons (which are fantastic and learned together at every level) we are hitting all of our basic subjects and I can add other subjects that we take an interest in without fear of missing something important. Week two we introduced math daily and Gentle Grammar one day a week (which I highly recommend) and everyone adjusted well.
Monday we began our study of American History with “Learn Our History” which is a monthly pamphlet I signed up to receive that gives a brief and lively summation of a major event in American history that pairs with a short video that tells the story of the historical event. The video portrays a group of contemporary kids that go back in time and witness history. The animation is kind of… well dorky but it helps reenforce the story and make it memorable. My kids actually surprised me by loving these. I will be pairing these lessons with episodes of “Liberty’s Kids” when possible which has a similar story plot about kids going back and witnessing the American Revolution.
Tuesdays and Thursdays we chose to start back up where we left off last year in “The Story if the World” which we all really enjoy. We use the student companion along with the book and the Usborne Ecyclopedia of History as well (you can see even our puppy enjoys this book as evidenced in the picture below) so we have suggestions for recitation, review questions, related map work, and project ideas.
This is just the beginning of my enrichment plans so keep an eye out for more to come. We also will be working in French lessons, typing class, Shakespeare, American geography with living books and beautiful map work, hand crafts, and much more!
Taking time to ease into our homeschool has been a gentle, low-stress way for us to say goodbye to the long, leisurely days of summer and to welcome the upcoming school season with anticipation and joy.
What have you found to be helpful in planning your homeschool days? What changes have you made to your plans and what is working for you and your family?
