Little House Learning Co. — First Grade

What is Ambleside Online?  From their website, amblesideonline.org "AmblesideOnline is a free homeschool curriculum that uses Charlotte Mason's classically-based principles to prepare children for a life of rich relationships with everything around them: God, humanity, and the natural world." Ambleside Online is essentially a free book list and schedule for each year of formal education, starting at age 6, for history, literature, poetry, geography, and science. They also include information about artist study, composer study, folk songs, and hymn study. You have to pick a separate curriculum for math and foreign language.  The tricky thing about AO is that you...

Before I started homeschooling, the idea of teaching my children to read was the most daunting. It is such an important piece of education that I didn't want to mess it up. The anxiety around teaching a child to read can keep parents from home educating or can shake our confidence in our choice to homeschool. With there being so many programs and methods out there, I wanted to share what the pathway has been for two of my children to learn to read. It can be so helpful to see how someone else has done it when we're trying...

We are in full swing with our First Grade year! I get asked often about what we’re using for different subjects, so I figured I would list it out here!  The spine of our curriculum is Ambleside Online Year 1. This curriculum covers many of our subjects, but some of them I substituted for alternatives.  Our 1st Grade Curriculum Bible: AO has Bible readings listed out, but I substituted our own alternative of The Child’s Story Bible by Vos because we were in the middle of it last year and enjoyed it so much we decided to finish it! We are also making our...

When I first started homeschooling, or even considering homeschooling, the most helpful blogs posts were those that laid out the homeschooling day, step by step. I felt like I could finally grasp how this homeschooling life could actually work! Managing three kids, schooling, housework, side jobs and everything else can be a lot some days, but a daily rhythm keeps my sanity. What is homeschooling like? Each day is different, so that’s why we call it a rhythm, rather than a schedule. Attitudes, visitors, and a plethora of interruptions can change our plans at a minutes notice, so flexibility is...