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Last updated on September 14th, 2024 at 12:23 pm
We’re in our 5th year of homeschooling! While I’ve seen my homeschooler make vast strides in her abilities and knowledge, I’ve also learned a lot about home education. The greatest lesson is that every homeschool is different, and I can make my homeschool plans fit our family’s needs.
That being said, I’ve tried many different curricula and ways of organizing our homeschool during these 5 years. I’ve had to change them as our lives and needs have changed.
Here’s an overview of our 2024-2025 homeschool plans, including curriculum choices and weekly homeschool plans.
Curriculum Choices
Choosing a “Core Curriculum”
I put “Core Curriculum” in quotes because I often change it. Over the last 5 years, I’ve used plans from Mater Amabilis, substituting and supplementing as needed. This year is no different, although I’m following it closer than in the past.
This year, we’re following Level 2, Year 1 from Mater Amabilis (4th grade). Mater Amabilis is a Catholic Charlotte Mason curriculum. Like Ambleside Online, all the lesson plans and booklists are free online.
These are the books and reading schedules we’re using from the Mater Amabilis Level 2 curriculum:
- Faith & Life 4: Jesus Our Guide
- 57 Stories of Saints
- The Children’s Homer
- D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths
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- Shakespeare (plays, retellings, & How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare)
- Our Island Story
- Science In Ancient Greece
- Our Solar System
- Home Science Adventures
Note: I’ve added links to some books but I recommend using the links on the Mater Amabilis website or searching for them second-hand on Thriftbooks or Abebooks or borrowing from your local library when possible.
Curriculum Substitutions & Supplements
Mater Amabilis does not assign particular math and foreign language curricula because each family determines what works for their children. We’re not using their suggestions for geography and art. We’ve found other options that we prefer instead (plus, we already read the books they recommend for geography).
- Math: Life of Fred
- Copywork: Learning Cursive with Little Women
- Poetry: Favorite Poems Old & New
- Geography: Maps: Getting From Here To There & Tour a Country
- Art: Ever Ancient Ever New Level 1
- Foreign Language: Latin For Children Primer A
- Social Studies: Citizenship Together
I choose these substitutions based on recommendations from other homeschoolers, my homeschooler’s interests, and what’s important to us.
(Note: I haven’t found a classical music program that I like yet, so we’re currently lacking in that subject. We do have piano lessons, however.)
Language
To teach language, I use a combination of copywork, dictation, narration, and read-alouds. I don’t bother teaching English grammar because our Latin curriculum teaches the rules of grammar. Grammar makes more sense when learning a foreign language. (I understand English grammar rules better through these lessons!)
Collecting & Organizing Materials
Fortunately, many books on the reading lists for Mater Amabilis are available second-hand or to borrow at the library. (We were lucky to find an entire collection of Shakespeare Made Easy for 50 cents each at our local used bookstore!) This gives us more budget to use on items we must buy new.
I keep a “Morning Basket” near our breakfast table with all our Morning Time loop reading, library books, and children’s Bible. All our other physical materials are in our homeschool room.
To access free audiobooks, we use three apps: Cloud Library, Libby, & Hoopla. This year I joined the Orange County Library System to get access to more digital books. Check the library systems in your state to find out if you can be a library member as a state resident. You don’t always have to live in the same county to join!
Organizing Our Homeschool Plans
Weekly Lesson Plans
I decided to try the new Homeschool Planner from Cultivate What Matters. Last year I used a combination of my Record Keeping Sheet and a notebook to keep track of everything. But as someone who loves planners, I had to give it a go.
Like most planner products from Cultivate What Matters, the Homeschool Planner includes many prep pages for setting homeschool goals for the year and the month. This planner also includes many record-keeping pages such as grades, reading logs, attendance, and memory work.
Every Sunday I use the Weekly Lesson Planning spread to write down exactly what we’re doing each day. There are 6 block sections, and I use 5 of them to break out the different parts of our homeschool:
- Morning Time
- Prayer
- Daily Mass Readings
- Read & Narrate history/science/literature loop
- Memory Work
- Poetry
- Shakespeare
- Scripture & Catechism
- Facts & Civics
- Daily Work
- Dictation, Copywork
- Latin
- Math
- Spelling
- Loops
- History
- Science
- Geography
- Social Studies
- Art
- Typing
- Extracurriculars
- Swim
- Art
- Piano
I could accomplish this using a plain notebook but seeing a week of plans laid out helps me to keep on track with all our reading. As we work through each day’s plan, my homeschooler highlights what we did. While my homeschooler tracks everything in her planner, I highlight the reading we’ve done on my printed Mater Amabilis syllabus.
If you’re interested in using the Homeschool Planner, use code ROOMSNEEDLOVE for 10% off your order.
Daily Homeschool Rhythm
I prefer a rhythm to a schedule. Each day is different, depending on lessons outside the home. We finish all our work before lunchtime (a nugget I learned from Bonnie Landry).
We begin each day with breakfast and Morning Time. After that, we get ready for the day to move into our Memory Work, Daily Work, Loop, and any extracurriculars. The rest of our day is spent handling chores, reading audiobooks, playing, or on playdates with friends.
Although it looks like a lot on the syllabus, our assigned work only lasts 3-4 hours each day. This is typical of Charlotte Mason-style education since she emphasizes time for exploring the world outside and reading books.
An Overview of our 2024-2025 Homeschool Plans
These are our current plans for the 2024-2025 school year. I’ve looked into many homeschool curricula, and Mater Amabilis best fits our family. As you can see from the plan above, I don’t do exactly as the plan says. I can substitute, supplement, or leave out depending on our needs and priorities. This is the beauty of homeschooling!
If you have questions about what we’re doing or anything about homeschooling, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email with your questions.
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