It is an exciting new year to continue our early learning education at our home! I am excited to take another year to really invest in my daughter, Karis, before launching her into kindergarten. Although she could begin this year with her knowledge of letters, sounds, and numbers, I don’t want to rush it or force her into a more structured environment before she is ready. At four years old she is in love with books, hands-on activities, and plenty of playful learning. We are starting to incorporate a fun Circle Time (inspired by Preschoolers and Peace) into our mornings together, including my two year old as well. This will be a time where we sit and read together, study the Bible, and memorize various Scripture, poems, the catechism and other things.
Here are some of our goals this year and the resources we will use to accomplish them:
1. Bible & Character Building
We will continue to read and re-read the Jesus Storybook Bible, as our favorite story bible for children. Along with this, we are reading Big Truth for Little Kids by Susan Hunt and memorizing the catechism questions. After completing this book, we will be studying the names of God using Desiring God’s resource, God’s Names. For character building, we plan to use a Child’s Book of Character Building series by Ron Coriell.
2. Memory work
We want to really utilize the fun and ease of memorizing in these early years to store up some basic facts and truths. We are memorizing one Scripture verse each week, utilizing My ABC Bible Verses to continue through reviewing and memorizing a verse for every letter of the alphabet. We also are memorizing the continents and oceans of the world and other countries using Geography Songs. I also want to memorize a few poems throughout the year.
3. Reading
As we feel inspired we will launch into a basic phonics program (but this will likely wait till next year), using Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading and The Reading Lesson. But ultimately, I don’t plan to rush it at all. My main goal for these early years is to continue to do a lot of reading together as a family. I am borrowing a weekly load of books from the library as we work through the 1000 Classics book list (for the primary level) and Sonlight’s Kindergarten book list recommendations. Although we are not using Sonlight this year, I certainly appreciate the book recommendations that are offered in their programs and want to enjoy the benefits of these excellent stories. We also have a list of quality literature that we are going to read aloud together throughout the year, most likely as a family in the evenings. Our list includes:
Winnie the Pooh
Charlotte’s Web
In Grandma’s Attic
Missionary Stories with the Millers
A Child’s History of the World
4. Poetry & Art work
One of the things I love about Charlotte Mason (we are pursuing a combination of classical education with some Charlotte Mason) is her emphasis on cultivating a love for poetry, art and music. I am really excited to have discovered the Language Lessons for Little Ones series (designed for 3-5 year olds). I love the simple short lessons focusing on basic language skills, poetry, narration, art work, and lots of good discussion. The art work is beautiful and the lessons are short and sweet. We are also reading Poems & Prayers for the Very Young and A Child’s Garden of Verses during our morning Circle Time.
5. Music
My kids absolutely love the Classical Kids CD’s. They offer a fun exposure to classical music with stories and drama. They are playing non-stop at our house!
6. Nature & Science Exploration
I want my children to have a true love and appreciation for God’s creation. This year, we will be taking a monthly nature walk at a local nature observatory. Here is Karis & Daddy enraptured in the Big Bag of Science kit we are using for basic science experimentation. She couldn’t wait to get into it and has been so fascinated. This kit has 70 different projects with all the supplies included! A fun thing to do with daddy! Another great kit for the younger ages is the Primary Science Kit.
We have also stumbled upon the Let’s Read & Find Out Science series of books that is perfect for introducing preschoolers to the hows and whys of the world around us. These books have been lots of fun! One of my all time favorite science books for preschoolers is the Berenstain Bears’ Big Book of Science and Nature. We love reading and re-reading this one! 
7. Missions/Geography – Heart for the World
We are using the Geopuzzles set to teach geography. What a simple hands on and painless way to teach the countries and continents of the world! One of my goals for our education is to help teach our children of the amazing diversity of people around the world beyond our own small scope of the universe so they would grow to have a heart of love and compassion for them. So I don’t think you can start too early learning about them and how we can pray for them with Window on the World. The Geopuzzles are excellent for all ages!
Here is our new fall schedule:
8:00 am – Breakfast
Morning Routine - Get dressed, make bed, clear & wipe counters, start household maintenance task (one focus task per day as listed below)
9:00 am – Put baby down for nap, kids do their morning chores (empty dishwasher, make beds, pick up toys, etc)
Circle Time (9:30-10:30 am)
- Bible – Jesus Storybook Bible
- Doctrine/Character Building – Big Truth for Little Kids/God’s Names
- Scripture memory (ABC Bible Verses)
- Worship – Sing hymns together
- Memory work – Catechism, Poems, Continents
- Poetry and Nursery Rhymes (sing, dance, and hand motions – Poems & Prayers for the Very Young, A Child’s Garden of Verses)
- Prayer for a nation (use Window of the World & Atlas)
- Story time – (including 1000 book list & Let’s Read & Find Out Science series, Berenstain Bears Big Book of Science & Nature)
Music Time – Listen to Classical Kids throughout the day
Phonics/Language (10 min)
- Language Lessons for Little Ones (1 lesson per day)
- Get Ready for the Code (for review) – 4-5 pages
Math/Thinking (10 min)
- Developing the Early Learner workbooks (books 3-4) (1-2 pages per day)
- Inchimals – these are a fun hands on way of teaching measurements and addition
Titus play with duplos, pattern blocks, or puzzles during Karis’ workbook time
Titus Time (15 min)
I compiled a pile of index cards with one fun learning activity per card to complete with my 2 year old each day for some focused one-on-one learning quality time together. These activities I compiled from Slow & Steady Get Me Ready and the Flowering Baby curriculum.
- 2 books from Titus’ reading list
- Choose one learning activity card
Household Maintenance Task
M – Laundry, sweep & mop floors
T – Clean bathrooms
W – Nature Walk/Library storytime
TH – Office/Organization (filling)
F – Town/Errands
Lunch & Naps
Afternoon
Another thing I appreciate about Charlotte Mason is her encouragement to have structured mornings and unstructured afternoons for free play and exploration. We plan to follow this pattern so as to encourage their exploratory play along with one focused activity per afternoon.
M – Health & Baking (Baking projects with kids using Mom & Me Cookbook, Vintage Remedies for Kids cooking activity)
T – Geopuzzle
W – Science experiment (Evening activity with Daddy)
TH – Geopuzzle
F -Craft Project (Little Annie’s Art Book & Kumon Workbooks)
Of course this schedule is very flexible. Some mornings we might bag it altogether. Other mornings we might go visit friends for the morning. Other times we might just do our workbooks or just circle time activities. I don’t push it in any way to get everything done each day. If my kiddos aren’t interested, I don’t push it. I just want to have fun and encourage the learning as they feel led!
That’s all for now! We launch into our new routine this week!
Lindsay, you’e such an inspiration and help! Thank you!
Hi Lindsay,
Thank you for this post – I’ve read it and reread it so many times. I love your plan for homeschooling your children and I long to do the same – I have a four year old, two year old, and one on the way due in August. Your kids are of similar ages, so I was wondering, how did you balance having a newborn with homeschooling? I very much want to start a program like this for my oldest in the fall, but the baby will be brand new at that point! Lots of folks are encouraging me to enroll him in preschool and I’m torn. I’m sure he would love preschool, but I also have such a deep desire and feel the Lord has place on my heart doing homeschool. But, I’m nervous that once the baby arrives, school will be the first thing to take a backseat. Did you find a schedule or a way to work around this with your newest addition? Any thoughts? Thanks so much!!!
I adore your work here and am so thankful that Jesus gave you this gift of sharing!!! Praying and thanking Jesus for you and passionate homemaking often.
Beth
Lindsay,
First I wish to thank you. The research and writing for this post would have been an immense amount of work. Thank you for sharing it! You’ve done an amazing job.
I am curious about the two resources you’ve chosen to teach reading, specifically “Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading” and “The Reading Lessons”. I have planned on using the “Ordinary Parent’s Guide” with my little girl (soon to be 4). I checked “The Reading Lessons” out of the library and find that I like it too. Why have you chosen to use both, as opposed to one or the other? I know you are frugally-minded while looking into resources, as I must also be. You’ve chosen many excellent resources. I get the impression you and I are similiar in the direction we want to take in classically educating our children. If you have an opportunity, I’d really like to know more about your decision. And, what do you think now that a few months have passed?
With gratitude,
Michelle
We started out originally with the Ordinary Parent’s Guide as it is written by the Bauer family and along the classical education philosophy. My daughter did not really take to it at all. She dreaded our lessons. They are simple enough but far from interesting..so I decided to check out the Reading Lesson as recommended by Timberdoodle. It is definitely a lot more appealing to the younger audience. We have taken a pause from it though until my daughter is more ready. She is still a bit hesitant so I’m not going to push it until next year.
Thank you, Lindsay, for taking the time to research curriculum ideas and write them down, along with your schedule!! I am looking forward to using some of your choices in preschool-at-home this year
I just want to say that I wish you were my neighbor!
I would love to share a cup of tea with you at my kitchen table! I am always so encouraged by your sweet heart and your gentle wisdom. You are a kindred spirit, and I am so thankful for the way you share your life and learning on your blog. My girls are 5, 3, and 1, so we are just a step above your kiddos on the age rung. We just began official kindergarten, and I am loving the Ordinary Parents Guide (which we began last Spring). We are also using some of the same Bible resources as you and reading many of the same read-alouds. We just finished the Pooh books and loved them! Your schedule was helpful for me to look at as we try to sort through the kinks of our first three weeks of “school.”
Thank you, thank you!
Awesome! Excited about your recommendations for our own little ones some day!
Wow, you worked hard to make a good schedule. I have a 2 year old and a baby and I can barely get anything done. We do a 5 minute Bible time (story, Bible verse, prayer) and maybe a 10 minute fun lesson every other day with books, numbers, craft, etc. My 2 year old boy is SO active. Anyway, you inspire me.
Lindsay, what part(s) of Classical Conversations do you plan to use?
Thank you so much for such a PRACTICAL website. It has blessed our family immeasurably! Your resources are so helpful! God Bless you and your family!
I loved the Grandma’s Attic books, I still pull them out at times for a good laugh. The Classical Kids tapes (CDs) were a favorite of my family growing up as well. Great choices!
I hope you had a wonderful and blessed 26th birthday last week!
Thanks so much for posting this. My daughter is 4, my son 2 and I have a 7 mo. old boy. I have been considering a kindergarten curriculum but was hesitant that it would be too formal or difficult though she is precocious. This is perfect. I love Charlotte Mason and I looked at all your resources and they are wonderful. It’s like you custom designed it for us. Thanks for doing the homework for me!! SO kind of you to share it!
Theresa
Wow! Thanks so much for all the great info. My daughter is in preschool and will start homeschool or some sort of charter school/homeschool combo next year. This gives me a lot of curriculum ideas and I also appreciate seeing your schedule as well.
Hi Lindsay. Firstly, let me say that I love your blog and have read it all the way through! You impress me so much – you have so much wisdom, and I couldn’t believe how young you are when I first came across a family photo on your blog. You sound like a wonderful, godly wife, mother and homemaker – I am learning so much from you.
I was very impressed reading about your homeschooling plans. I too am a homeschooling mother of 3. However, I just wanted to give you a gentle reminder to be kind to yourself. It sounds like you have a really full schedule, and your children are still very little. I too use a Charlotte Mason based curriculum (www.amblesideonline.com) which I love. However, Charlotte herself didn’t advocate any formal lessons for children before the age of 6. Instead, she said it was a mother’s first duty to secure 6 quiet growing years for her children, the majority of which were to be spent outside, and by that she meant 6 to 8 hours a day from May to October, just playing and exploring nature themselves. Now obviously we should also be reading to our kids and doing fun, crafty activities, teaching them the alphabet etc, but I notice that a lot of the books you have on your list are books scheduled for Year 1 on the ambleside curriculum, i.e. when the child is already 6. I wonder if they might not be a bit too much for your 4 and 2 year old? I know what it’s like to want to push ahead with a homeschooling curriculum – there are all these wonderful resources out there, and you list some wonderful ones in your post. I too couldn’t wait to start homeschooling properly, but I’m glad I waited till my dd was 6.
Please don’t take this as a criticism – I just don’t want you to set yourself too high a standard when you have a newborn in the house as well. If you need to put the schedule aside for a few days then don’t feel guilty.
Blessings on you and your lovely family,
Catherine
Thank you for your encouragement. While I certainly appreciate many of Charlotte Mason’s ideas, I don’t agree with her completely. My children spend a couple hours a day outdoors every afternoon but they also desire quality reading time with mommy and they love routine and limited workbooks (which honestly only occupies maybe 10-15 minutes each day), so I try to keep a balance between the two. I don’t want to hold them back if they are excited to learn. Maybe I need more space or am doing something wrong, but they would never be eager to stay outside for 6-8 hours…that’s a long time. As to the books we’ve chosen for read alouds, we only read them as the kids desire…so I am certainly not pushing them through anything. Many of these we will listen to on CD while traveling as well to expand their vocabulary and love for literature. I certainly want them to enjoy the learning process overall.
Lindsay,
What workbooks do you like? I have a daughter in 1st grade and another who’s 4, and we also do CM. They love to do workbooks however, and I’d like to get them some that are somewhat compatible with CM ideas. Thanks!
Great post. You have really lucky kids! Thanks for sharing all the links; I hadn’t heard of some of this stuff before.
another great list of resources to weed our way through. thanks!
quick question: why the switch from sonlight? will you be going back to them when you start your daughter in kindergarten?
thanks!
No, I don’t think I will be using Sonlight again. I liked it for the preschool curriculum, but really want to pursue the classical education emphasis on studying history chronologically. We will be using Classical Conversations classes in the future and other resources recommended in The Well Trained Mind.
We’re doing the Well-Trained Mind resources this year, and loving it so far!
You are amazing!
Thank you so much for all the time you put into your blog! It has been a great blessing to me. Thank you also for this post specifically. We have a 1 and a half year old, and will most likely home school. This is an awesome resource!
I’ve been asking the lord about our family schedule, and I’m curious about yours. Do you ever have play dates with other children, or times with other moms? It seems like your days are very full! I have often struggled with how much time I spend at home, and outside of the home. I realize it may look different in different seasons. Do you have thoughts on this? Thanks so much!
Yes, we do play dates on occasion with friends. My schedule is pretty flexible. The kids play with the neighbors twice a week, and then we get together with friends for play dates probably twice a month. On these days, we just don’t do our school for the morning. We like to stay close to home when possible though because the kids always do better with a consistent routine. I prefer inviting friends over to my house because its less taxing as well. I also attend a ladies bible study once a month which is a nice refreshing break and provides some quality time with the ladies.
Are those Smencils? My daughter, being very sensory-oriented, loved those so much!
I love your routine – your selections, at least as far as Bible curriculum, look an awful lot like ours.
Have you ever heard of Raising Rock Stars Preschool? It’s a “letter of the week” style curriculum that works with the ABC Bible Verses book you mentioned, and there are a ton of printables to go along with it. We’re using those, too.
http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/RaisingRockStarsPreschool.html
It’s all available for free download, or you can pay for a one-time download of all the materials for $10. I did that just to support her and thank her for all her work, but it would be just as easy to download on an as-you-go basis.
I love reading about what you’re doing with your kids for preschool. My kids are similar in age to yours (4.5 and 3.5). We’re also doing Charlotte Mason and so our plans are very similar. Thanks for the Geopuzzles link…my oldest loves puzzles and is very interested in geography, so this would be perfect for him. I also enjoyed your read aloud list and I plan to check those books out. Thanks!
I love the book lists. I’m currently reading Charlotte’s Web to my boys (5 and 3) as part of our homeschool lessons. I’m planning a movie night/pizza party when we’re done. I think they’ll enjoy seeing the cartoon after hearing the story.
wow. thank you for posting this. i love you thoughts & ideas, and have found many similarities to what i’m looking to do with my littles. thanks for giving me a more solid place to start!
This looks great. I hope it goes well for you. We also enjoy the “grandma’s attic stories” so far we’ve got the first two and my daughter loves them (she is 5 1/2). I highly recommend them to anyone they are so great.
I read them as a little girl myself and they were my all time favorite read for little girls!
I love this posting & will be using it to help me reflect on our current plans for our 4 year old and to discuss tweaking them some with my husband. Some of the resources you used were new to me; some were ones we use or are currently on our wish list (restricted by budget squeeze here as we attempt to find cheaper health insurance or switch to a group like Samaritan Ministries). Thanks so much for taking the time out to share your plans!
Love the schedule, something about structure soothes Mom and child alike. -and congratulations, you have lovely children.
I just want to thank you for your example of godliness and excellence in mothering.
God bless,
h
We’re doing “Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading” as well. I’m a bit ashamed to admit this, but I actually used a video to teach my daughter the letter sounds. It made the transition into the phonics book (which is pretty dry) a lot easier for her. It’s a Leapfrog video called “The Letter Factory” and I HIGHLY recommend it – works like a charm! Just thought I’d mention it since it sounds like you have some very full days!
We have that video as well and found it very helpful for teaching the letters and sounds to my little ones as well. IT worked surprisingly well!
Hi Lindsay,
Thanks so much for posting these links i have the same goals as you and appreciate any advice/help i can get since im new to homeschooling. i have a son starting kindergarten this year and a 2 and a half year old and a 1 yr old. Just wondering if you have any idea yet of what your going to use to teach Karis Kindergarten. thanks again for your blog!
Yes, I have a good idea of what kindergarten will look like. We will likely be doing Classical Conversations, Mathematical Reasonings A, Christian Liberty Press nature readers, continuing to read A Child’s History of the World, continuing Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, and Language Lessons for Little Ones. We will also start listening to Story of the World audio tapes together as a family. I think that will be our curriculum for the most part along with some other Bible and character resources.
Have you read through “A Child’s History of the World”? If it’s the same book I’m thinking of, right off the bat it talks about how the earth was formed by a spark the flew off of the swirling sun (!?!). I didn’t bother to read further, so I’m wondering how good of a book it is.
This is limited to the first chapter and is easy enough to skip and replace with a creation based account of creation.
Lindsay — I know that your kindergarten plans won’t begin for several more months, but a classical conversations group is getting ready to start in our area, and I am finding myself full of questions! I am wondering how you plan to use CC alongside your other resources. Which will be the “core” part of your home curriculum? How will you integrate literature-based history and science study with the memory work with CC? I love the idea of CC, but I also want to choose literature rich curriculum at home and am not sure how to overlap them without a lot of extra research and time on my part. Have you talked with other moms about what it looks like to incorporate CC?
What great ideas! I started a simple preschool program with my almost-4-year-old, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to make it seem less forced. Maybe that circle time is the answer! I’m checking out some of the resources you mentioned and may implement them. Looking forward to updates!
Looks like you all will be having a great year! We’re using some of the same things. I don’t know if you are aware of it or not, but a lot of these resources are the same ones recommended by Timberdoodle ( I am in no way affiliated, I’ve just spent many hours perusing their site as well as Sonlight) for these ages. There are so many wonderful homeschooling resources out there. Hope you all have a fantastic year!
Yes! I love Timberdoodle and received much inspiration from their core curriculum packets!
Thank you so much for posting this. So many great ideas. We actually have not started school yet this year because we are in the middle of a move so I am so excited to look up some of these resources.
Just a quick question. How do you decide which books to get from the library and which to purchase? I have been struggling with figuring this out! I love to have great books here at home, especially because my daughter loves to reread her favorites, but money and space are definitely issues. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks for your site. I dont get to comment much but yours was the first blog I ever followed and I’ve learned so much here.
I usually base my book purchases upon what book my kids truly like the most. We borrow titles from the library as our test. Whatever ones are their favorites are considered for purchase. I also consider purchasing books that are not available at the library but are highly recommend from Sonlight, or the 1000 classical book list that I referred to above. We keep a really small book collection for the most part and borrow as much as possible. The Simplicity Parenting book recommends only keeping about a dozen books on hand and a small collection in storage to rotate. I have adopted this idea and found it works wonderfully. This way the books get read and not just stored on the shelf. The smaller the collection the more likely they will be to read them. I do find I prefer collections of stories for purchase. Two of my favorites are the 20th Century Children’s Book Treasury and Harper Collins Treasury of Picture Book Classics. It is much more cost effective this way as well. Hope that helps!
I like this conversation a lot! Great blog post by the way – so nice to see how other homeschool families with multiple children do things!
I like what you’ve said here about books. I have a ever growing extensive library of books that I have picked up at garage sales. I take my book lists with me and look like a dork! But I agree that rotating them is the best way to get them read!
Thank you for the great post….we currently do Hands on Homeschooling but I wanted to try to expand our curriculum a bit. Thank you for the resources!!
What a golden opportunity you have to teach your children. You are blessed! May the Lord bless your efforts to bring your children up both in good, wholesome education and of our wonderful Lord and God.
This post was really great Lindsay! Thanks for all the linky love. I was wondering if you could tell me the name of the Charlotte Mason book you read? I think it informed you about the Carlotte Mason approach and was inspiring as well. I remember you mentioning it in a past post. I looked through several pages of previous posts but had no luck finding it.
.
After looking through a bunch of previous posts together and seeing your blog more as a whole than separate postings, I just want to thank you for all the work you put into it and how much information you share. Thanks! I especially loved your Philippines posts
It is called A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola.
Thanks!
Hi Lindsey! Congrats again on precious Eden!
That seems like a lot of details, but you make it seem so doable. I guess it works when you surely won’t do all of that in one circle time?! I love how you always have great suggestions for incorporating both children. I have a 1 yr old and a 2 yr old. We’re starting the flowering baby (due to you) and before five in a row.
Your blog is a blessing to me, thanks!
This post is *SO* helpful, I’m leaving it up on my computer so I can fully read and click around all those links. Karis and my son are the same age, and we also did Preschool last year…they seem to be at the same level (know all the letters, sounds, numbers, etc) but it seems to much to already put him in a K structured day (more hours in the day) so we are sort of doing an ‘in between’ time, too. Hearing what other moms are doing (and even the breakdown of the schedule) is so helpful, and I can’t WAIT to get around those links. I have found the Sonlight reading list and the sung bible verses cd through your website and we love it. Please please please keep these homeschooling posts coming. Maybe a monthly ‘update’ one like you do with your family? (I love thsoe, too!:)
God Bless,
Sarah M
Hi Lindsay,
I have recently stumbled upon your blog and have really appreciated your posts. I don’t get to read them as often as I would like because I am due in December with my first little baby boy, Ian. I have been on the hunt for ways to educate our little one. Seeing that you are a mother of three I was wondering at what ages you started educating your kids. I appreciate the detailed layout of what you do with your five year old Charlotte (love the name!) and I hope to do that with Ian when he gets old enough, but not sure of what I can do/should do with a little newborn. Any advice or maybe just what you have done with yours when they just entered the world. I realize I won’t be able to do too much right away, but wanted to think about what I can do for him in the future. Again, thank you for your wise God-honoring words.
Lori Staifer
You might consider the Flowering Baby curriculum. There is a whole simple curriculum for birth to age 1. Some of it is pretty basic and obvious but it would at least give you some inspiration! Another great resource is the Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready book. It starts from birth to age 5 with lots of fun activities.