Sunshine Days
family
Homeschooling moms don't really take a break, do they? As we enter "summer break," I am planning & tweaking & choosing for next year. I'm researching curriculum & purchasing books that I've had my eye on. I'm making spreadsheets & schedules. I'm chatting with other moms & finding out what has worked for them. I'm looking into activities for next year.
Also, I have a high schooler next year, so that requires a new layer of preparation.
I really don't stop, but I do appreciate the slower pace of summer to spend a bit more focused time on trying to set us up for success.
If you're interested, here is what I'm planning for us to use for the 2026-2027 school year.
We have been Ambleside Online users for 8 years. It has been a mainstay for history & literature & "the riches." We follow it pretty closely, but I have started to make tweaks as I've gained confidence. The literature-based history has particularly fascinating for me as it is so different from my own education. I also plan to be more purposeful in applying more of the Charlotte Mason principles & am gathering some tools for that. AO also will bring in the citizenship, nature study, biographies, & a few more things I know that I'm missing.
The high schooler might also be able to take some online courses through an online charter school through our state. We're hoping to coordinate with some of his friends so that they can have more excuses to hang out.
For math, we use Math Mammoth. It only goes through 8th grade, so I will be switching to Saxon for my oldest. (A friend has offered to let me borrow her copies, so I will probably take her up on that until I know it works well for us. Homeschool community at its finest!) We also have flash cards & speed drills & math games to incorporate.
A change that I'm making this year is to have more structure to our ELA time. I have tried an online option called Quill for grammar, and I will still probably use that for extra practice. I have also noticed that some of my children are struggling when they take reading comprehension tests. I know that ca For the main texts, I'm ordering curriculum from Simply Charlotte Mason. Their Using Language Well series will be used with my 3 younger children, and Art of Composition will be my oldest child's text. As a English nerd, this gets me excited.
I have been pondering this change for years. Knowing that I would need high school science curriculum to supplement AO, I've been researching. Sabbath Mood came up in various homeschooling groups. I started to read over the website, getting familiar with this Charlotte Mason-based approach to science instruction. While I have seen some moms balk at the secular texts, I also know that my kids will have me right here with them. They can ask questions, make connections to what we've read in previous years, and really practice their critical thinking skills. Plus, the activities are all laid out for us. That's something I definitely needed!
I'm still planning to pull in the AO-recommended scientist biographies & a few of the nature study books we already have. My oldest will mostly just do the SM science guides.
This school year, I had my oldest participate in a speech club/organization. While that isn't something we will be doing next year, I do want to help them all practice the skill of speaking in front of others. This will be a complete DIY curriculum. I'm thinking that I will start small with short speeches about their favorite things or reading a nostalgic picture book with expression. I will have them memorize Scripture or poetry or passages from Shakespeare to present. I also envision helping them figure out slide decks & other visual aids. I want this to be practical--devotionals, Bible lessons, etc.
Inspired by Erin Napier (of the HGTV show "Hometown") & the curriculum she shared from her own homeschool, I want to add some etiquette & "social graces" to our school days. Again, this will have to be a DIY scope & sequence. I will be busy this summer...
Habits are a big Charlotte Mason mainstay. I've been far from purposeful in this, but the benefits encourage me to keep at it. I will be getting some ideas together for this.
Character training in the older years starts to come from one of Miss Mason's own volumes Ourselves. My oldest has been reading the AO-assigned readings for the past 2 years, but I sensed that we could do a bit better. Simply Charlotte Mason has made youth edition volumes that break down the readings into a nice slow schedule. These books also include some notations that help with some of the language that is less familiar to our modern minds.
I won't bore you with all of the details, especially since I'm still working on those myself. I'll be spending the little, in-between moments this summer tweaking our schedule.
Maybe I'll put together a few more blog posts as I go...
Cheering you on as always!
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