If you enjoy my post, be sure to check out how we use Wayfarers, a history + EVERYTHING curriculum from the same publisher!

Forest, my one year old, didn’t fall asleep until 8:30 last night, leaving me absolutely no time to get to my homeschool meeting which ended at 9:00. Well, I still went, of course. I mean, what homeschooling mother turns down the chance to leave the house, interact with grown ups, and clear off the snack table?!

I miss the days when I could take Forest with me at night, but sadly he’s too old now to drag to meetings and knitting circles and coffee dates and all the other evening activities that I require in order to keep my sanity in tact. When he was younger Forest would just sleep wherever we went, but now he’s too distracted by the noise and the people and the food and the ever-present yarn. This isn’t fair to him, because he needs his sleep. This isn’t fair to anyone else either, because it’s hard to focus on the topic of the night when a one year old is flashing some serious dimple love at you. Well, it’s hard for me to focus, at least. I just assume that everyone else is as smitten as I am.

Anyway, I was a bit bummed to miss last night’s meeting because it was the night that every brings in their favourite curriculum and shares why it’s the greatest thing since the invention of the denim jumper. And this year I have the best curriculum and I was so excited to share it with the group!

Sigh.

Yeah, I’m pouting.

Well, I’ve decided that a little thing like “physical absence” can’t stop me from sharing my picks, right? I’ve got a blog and zero motivation to do housework this afternoon.

Oh yeah. It’s time for a review…

Our Favourite Curriculum Picks for 2015

These are the choices that I will be gushing about over the next month, ideally once a week.

Literature/Grammar/Poetry/Copywork/Picture Study/Copywork: English Lessons Through Literature by Kathy Jo DeVore
Mathematics: RightStart Math
Foreign Language: The Easy Spanish
History/Geography: Wayfarers Medieval History

English Lessons Through Literature
Grammar, Copywork, Picture Study and Poetry

I think my favourite curriculum find of the year is English Lessons Through Literature (ELTL). I purchased it last June as an eBook during one of those Build Your Bundle deals that pop up from time to time. Honestly, I scrolled through the file for a few minutes, but it just looked so simple that I kind of dismissed it without giving it a chance. And to be fair, I purchased level one, which has a lighter workload than the following years.

Then, in August when we started our school year, I realized that the ELTL lessons were conveniently scheduled in my Wayfarers planner and I figured I should give it a shot. I mean, I owned it already, right? No harm in trying it out. I found the file on my computer and printed out a few week’s worth of lessons.

I had no idea that I would love these little lessons so much.

Simple? Yes. And so perfect.

Not too long, not too short. A pleasant mix of “teacher-led” and “independent” learning, covering grammar, poetry, picture study, and copywork using quality literature. The Charlotte Mason in me was like, “wwwwwwwhaaaaaaaaat??!?” (Just kidding, the Charlotte Mason in me is far more articulate and dignified and even has a haughty British accent.)

You see, Charlotte Mason believed that our job as educators is to provide children with a wide buffet of rich ideas, ranging from fine literature to poetry to classical music to art. And I think that’s what captures so many of us as mothers – the thought of filling our children up with so much beauty and excellence.

Except whenever I tried to do it, I fell flat. I’ve never been able to find a way to integrate poetry and picture study into our day without it feeling unnatural. I’d say something like “Ok, that was math, next is science, but let’s read a poem about a fluffy cloud first!” or “Let’s go to the park – oh but, wait. Scale back that excitement and stare at this painting for a minute and tell me how it makes you feel.”  Yup, needless to say, it didn’t get done much. But now with English Lessons Through Literature, we have a block of time every day that is dedicated to these all these little “would-like-to-dos” that never, ever got done.

So how does it work?

Our Daily Rhythm

At about 10:30, I put the kettle on for a cup of tea and send River off with the day’s reading. Currently we’re reading through Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, so each day we hear about how the camel got his humps or the leopard got his spots or some other tale. The language is a bit … dusty? classic? old-fashioned? … but that doesn’t phase River. She comes back and tells to me what the story was about (narration is a big part of a Charlotte Mason education).

Once that’s finished, we each sit down with our tea and I go over a point of grammar using a sentence or two from the story. Being level one, the grammar lessons are pretty simple, but since they are points that rarely come up in every day conversation, it’s nice to have a chance to just review them out loud.

For example, in lesson 27, River read The Beginning of the Armadillos. The day’s grammar lesson was simply when to use a versus an, with a sentence from the story that demonstrated the principle. We’re talking a 30 second lesson here.

Poetry

After our grammar highlight, we read a poem. They’re usually pretty short and I have been impressed with all the poems so far – they’re charming and my daughter loves them. I really wish that I could read them to her but she always insists on reading them to me. I know. Homeschooler problems, right?

This lesson’s poem was by Christina Rossetti:

What Do The Stars Do

What do the stars do
Up in the sky,
Higher than the wind can blow,
Or the clouds can fly?

Each star in its own glory
Circles, circles still;
As it was lit to shine and set,
And do its Maker’s will.

Picture Study

Once we’ve read the poem, we do a fable or a picture study. If it’s a fable, I read one of Aesop’s Fables out loud – stopping before we get to the moral. I get River to narrate the fable back to me so that I know that she understood the story, then we both guess at the moral of the story. Sometimes we’re WAY off. Sometimes I think Aesop was way off. Either way, it’s fun to see how close we are (we are never, ever close).

On days where we have a picture study instead of a fable, I have River quietly look at a painting for a couple minutes. Then I take the picture away and she tells me what she remembers from the painting. It can be anything – details in the picture, how it makes her feel, what she likes and doesn’t like. When she’s finished, I give her the painting again and she can point out anything that she notices the second time that she didn’t notice the first time.

Copywork

The last part of our lesson is always copywork. For copywork, we’re given a sentence from the day’s reading, often one that includes the grammatical principle that we reviewed. I write the sentence out in cursive and then River copies it in her best handwriting. The whole exercise doesn’t take long, but with this daily practice, River’s handwriting is coming along nicely. I love that I don’t even have to think about what to write out for River – I just use the sentence that’s provided.

The convenience is one of the things that make ELTL one of my favourite finds of the year. I also like that the literature selections are more challenging than the Glitter/Fairy/Cupcake/Club-type books that River gravitates to at the library. Soon we’ll be finished Just So Stories and then the lessons will switch to readings from Five Children and It, The Jungle Book and then Pinocchio. Honestly, I’m nervous that they’ll be too much for her, but my plan is to have her read along while an audiobook plays, then narrate the chapter back to me.

What I Love About ELTL

Another reason that I love this curriculum is that the lessons have some variety in them. They aren’t entirely teacher-led where I’m reading to her the whole time. They aren’t entirely independent, where River is left to daydream work through the material on her own. There is some reading, some writing, and some narrating, and this back and forth keeps the lesson from growing tiresome.

Finally, I love that the lesson is short; half the time we’re finished before River even touches her tea. Even so, the tea and structure of the lesson have become a morning ritual that River looks forward to.

Want to know more? You can check out the review by Cathy Duffy, as well as a thorough description of the program on the Barefoot Ragamuffin Curricula website. As with all curriculums, I also highly recommend printing off the samples and trying them out with your family. A free sample is available on lulu.com.

I’ll be reviewing Wayfarers from Barefoot Ragamuffin too, but first I’ll write about RightStart math and the Easy Spanish. If you’re searching for a curriculum or you just like researching curriculum (never be ashamed, my fellow nerds), be sure to join my Facebook page so you don’t miss the next post.