Breakdown of Year 2 (and pics for the bored)

For those of you who are weary in well-doing because of listening to me ramble on about homeschooling, buck up! I'll be back to regularly-scheduled programming soon, or when I feel like it! Ha! But to pacify you for a while, here are a few pics of the view from where I sat while I typed the majority of this post!

Madeline taking notes on her sisters' progress

Olivia's favorite new trick is swimming under water,
or at least the best she can with the floaties I make her wear! :)

Not too bad for nary a swim lesson and only a few pool visits per year!

With the help of some lovely people on the Yahoo! discussion board, I have chosen Year 2 to start with Ambleside Online. Carli's Math, Reading, Spelling, etc, will still be Grade 3 level, but if we started in Year 3, we would be missing part of a couple key books in the history cycle.

Ambleside takes a lot of books a little bit at a time, almost to the point that I can imagine my girls saying, "Just one more chapter, Mom! Puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeze?" I think the short, varied lessons will be fun and keep our interest very well.

This year we will have daily instruction in Bible, math, penmanship/copywork, phonics as needed, and possibly Spanish, and weekly instruction in nature study, art and art appreciation, music appreciation and composer study.

History for Year 2 covers A.D. 1000 to the Middle Ages, and we will be utilizing these classic books:
::An Island Story by H.E. Marshall
::This Country of Ours by H.E. Marshall
::A Child's History of the World by Virgil Hillyer (Go HERE for an explanation on the use of this book)

For History Tales and/or Biography:
::Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula
::The Little Duke by Charlotte Yonge
::Joan of Arc by Diane Stanley

For Geography we will read Holling C. Holling's books, Tree in the Trail and Seabird, practicing our map skills along with it.

During Natural History/Science, I am looking forward to delving into Anna Botsford Comstock's The Handbook of Nature Study. Carli really enjoys working on her nature journal, though we didn't take as many nature walks as I would have liked. There is an Outdoor Hour Challenge in which we may be able to participate. We will also enjoy Holling C. Holling's Pagoo, and The Burgess Animal Book for Children by Thornton Burgess.

We won't have heavy phonics instruction this year, but for Reading practice, I found delightful readers on Google Books, called Reading-Literature by Treadwell and Free. I plan to print them out and make them special. I absolutely love them, and will probably use them for Livy too, once she is reading.

We will study the Poetry of Walter de la Mare, Eugene Field, James Whitcombe Riley, and Christina Rosetti. Our Artist Studies will include Jean Honore Fragonard and Norman Rockwell, as well as one other, yet to be determined. Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bartok and Hindermith will round out our Composer Studies.

And Literature! My favorite! We have already read a few of the Little House on the Prairie books listed for year two, but between this and the Free-Reading List, we will have plenty to read through the three terms.

Literature
::Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
::Pilgrim's Progress Book 1 (Christian's Journey) by John Bunyan (original language)
::Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty, selections.
::Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
::The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
::Robin Hood by Howard Pyle (original language)

Additional Books for Free Reading
Heidi by Joanna Spyri
A Wonder Book by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney
Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales
Pied Piper of Hamlin by Robert Browning
Abraham Lincoln by Ingri D'Aulaire
Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
Brighty of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry
Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater
Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle
Chanticleer and the Fox - Barbara Cooney's is one version
Along Came A Dog by Meindert De Jong
The Door in the Wall by Marguerite De Angeli

For more information on about Ambleside Online or to figure out what in the world I'm thinking, go HERE.