The books are piling up and I’m sharpening all the pencils. It’s a strange start to a new school year, when we know that our daily routine won’t be dramatically different than the days and weeks that have come before, but a new year of ideas and information is exciting even in the current climate.
A is 5 now, and we’re beginning Year One with him. For many Year One children in the UK, this year marks a shift from play-based or ‘early years’ learning to more desk-based, academic work. Some children will have their first experience of standardised testing. In other countries, 5 year olds will just be beginning their school years - and in still others, 5 year olds are years away from focused academics. Home educators’ plans are even more varied, so although I am sharing our plans for the year, I preface this by saying again that what works for one family isn’t what’s going to work best for another. Each child has their own strengths and interests, and every child learns differently. Your family’s dreams and goals will direct the subjects you explore and the materials you choose. There’s no race or competition in education, and absolutely no need to compare one child’s strengths to another's. Given a rich environment, love, and patience, all children will learn in the time right for them.
Our family’s priority is growing resilient, socially conscious critical thinkers who have a deep love for nature, a drive for justice, and a burning curiosity about the world. We reflect this in the books we read and the way we explore everything from history to maths. Art, music, and poetry is central to our children’s education because art, in all its forms, is a vital part of our humanity. I want my children to love reading, and to trust in their ability to learn new things.
A is on the cusp of reading fluently. He loves language and rhymes, and is happiest when he’s listening to stories. He enjoys numbers but is less naturally drawn to numeric activities at this stage. He wants to accumulate facts about the world and is always wondering ‘why’ - why did something happen when it did long ago? Why do the laws of science hold true? Why does a word mean what it does? He has a strong sense of fairness and a deep belief that children have the right to direct their own lives. He focuses in short bursts and needs plenty of joyful, wild free time outdoors. The curricula and materials I have chosen are ones I’ve chosen to reflect his interests and learning styles.
History and Culture
This year, we’ll start our journey into the past, beginning with the ancient world, which will be the backbone of much of our other learning. We completed a year of study on kindness, compassion, and social awareness using my Growing Towards Justice curriculum before diving into world history, because I wanted A to be able to bring a basic awareness of the fundamental shared humanity between all people, past and present, into our study of ancient peoples. We’ll be learning about the ancient world for the next two or three years, taking it slow so that we can really inhabit the worlds of different cultures.
The main spines and curricula we’re using for our study of the ancient world are Curiosity Chronicles, History Quest, Story of the World, and Usborne Encyclopaedia of World History. We won’t be following any of those three curricula precisely, but using them as inspiration and guidance as we learn together about stone age people, the civilisations of Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Egypt. Our family read-alouds will include novels that are set in these time periods, and we’ll be doing lots of map-reading and projects to imagine what it was like to live long ago. I expect our dressing-up box to be filled with new, ancient-style outfits before too long.
Reading living books full of stories about people’s day to day experiences helps to make the past a destination to visit, rather than a ‘horrible’ or otherwise objectified space. We’ll be dipping into books like A Child Through Time throughout the year to help us all feel connected to children of eras past, as well as fun historical fiction like Ms. Frizzle’s Adventures and The Histronauts.
Language and Literacy
We aren’t following a formal reading program with A. We used a set of phonics readers last year, and now we are reading levelled readers each night to help build his fluency. I’m also providing him with paper copies of the simpler chapter books he listens to, like the Magic Tree house series, so that he can practice reading books he’s already familiar with. This year, we’ll keep working towards reading fluency by using Explode the Code workbooks to reinforce his understanding of the way English works. These workbooks are visually simple and give opportunities for kids to practice the rules of spelling and pronunciation. There’s handwriting practice as well, although no handwriting instruction - we’ll be addressing handwriting separately.
A few of the early readers we’ve enjoyed, or will be using this year, are: Hay for my Ox: A First Waldorf Reader, Young Cam Jansen mysteries, Katie Woo, and other similar books.
Alongside this, we will continue to read poems each day, focusing especially on poetry reading one afternoon. As a family, we will memorise at least one poem per month, and try to remember the ones we learned last year. A will also have fairly free access to audiobooks whenever we’re not doing something else.
Maths and Spatial Reasoning
Similar to our approach with language, we are aiming for an increased fluency with basic mathematical concepts this year. There are basic skills that I’d like A to end the year with: being able to tell the time, understand different types of measurements, and have a solid understanding of coins and bills in UK currency. Alongside this, we’ll be solidifying and reinforcing basic maths foundations - memorising simple maths facts, adding and subtracting larger numbers, and the conceptual basis of multiplication and division. Instead of using one curriculum, we’re using a few spines to guide us: Usborne ‘look inside’ books and workbooks (although I will need to cover most of the pages of these for A to be able to use them effectively), Maths No Problem books 1B, 2A, and 2B (used out of sequence, covering whatever topics we are focusing on right then), this set of French Montessori workbooks and activities that I create to extend the exercises in the books.
We’ll also be using some traditional Montessori materials this year, mainly the stamp game and a Montessori abacus/ small bead frame. We have a set of golden beads and 1-10 beads that A uses for adding and subtracting, and some DIY addition material like the Montessori addition charts.
Along with our maths spines, we try to create an environment of maths learning more generally, by playing maths-related music and reading storybooks that have mathematical themes, like A Place for Zero and other Charlesbridge Math Adventures. A loves to play the vintage educational game Math Blaster, which will certainly figure into our maths learning most weeks.
Science and Nature Study
Last year we enjoyed taking one theme per month from Exploring Nature with Children and using this as a basis for nature study, and we’ll be doing this again this year. He was a bit too young for nature journalling last year, but I will introduce the idea again this year in a limited way by keeping a family garden journal, where we note our observations about how our garden changes, and what types of animal and mini-beast visitors we observe.
In addition to nature study, we are introducing basic scientific concepts guided by Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding. A is very interested in some aspects of science - things like energy, robotics, and sound - but in order to have a well-rounded basis we’ll be learning about life science and earth science as well as energy and magnetics. We are taking science study very slowly, and doing lots of hands-on experiments. We love the Let’s Read and Find Out series of science books - there’s one on almost every subject!
Ethics, Culture, and Character Development
We’re revisiting my curriculum Growing Towards Justice this year, refreshing our knowledge of some of the topics that occur early in the cycle, like gender stereotypes, as well as using our history-related read-alouds as jumping-off points for having more focused discussions of philosophy and ethics. I’ll be presenting activities and stories to share how different cultures celebrate the year during this focused time during the week, using the material I share in my Living and Learning at Home Quarterly guides as a basis. We’ll be using the Usborne Guide to World Religions as a main spine as we learn about different faith traditions past and present.
Like all siblings, A and Birdie have many moments of disagreement and competition, and our character work on compassion and nonviolent communication is an essential part of helping them to find a way to be brotherly. A has a difficulty with managing impulsive behaviour, like many spirited children and children with ADHD, and this is also one of our focus points as a family this year. Using tools like mindfulness and role-playing to script peaceful options, we hope to help A find ways to create space between his impulsive thoughts and actions.
Handwork and Practical Life
Like many other key learning areas, this year is a skill-building year for A. By the end of the year, I’d like for him to be able to tie shoelaces and make a braid, and tie a simple knot. I’d also like him to expand his cooking abilities. So many of these activities will happen in tandem - for instance, cooking will happen along with our measuring unit, and likely will relate to the world holidays we’re learning about. At age 5, A is still in the period of development when he loves to help out and do practical, meaningful tasks. He is very capable and takes on some of the essential jobs of housekeeping like vacuuming and putting away laundry with excitement and joy.
Our handwork activities will be guided by our history studies. We’ll do some papyrus making together, and simple basketweaving. In addition to this, I’ll introduce A to two-finger knitting and some of the most basic embroidery stitches later in the year. He has enjoyed working on sewing projects together where we use the sewing machine, and we’ll be doing a few collaborative sewing projects throughout the year where he will have the opportunity to make pyjamas or a simple costume with our help.
Drawing and writing are a form of handwork to me, since they require similar concentration and skills. We are starting a cycle of Steiner form drawing, using the Form Drawing Workbook and the stories found here as a guide. We’ll continue to work on A’s handwriting skills this year, especially focusing on capital letters. I’ve not found a curriculum that I like that’s easily accessible in the UK, so I plan to make lessons up for him using lined paper. He has access to a lovely cursive writing board that will help him prepare to begin cursive writing next year. We’ll all learn some cuneiform and hieroglyphics together this year, and we will experiment with brush writing in the spring.
The Arts
Unfortunately, we won’t be able to join our beloved Colourstrings music lessons this year, so I’ll be leading the boys in music study at home. I believe it’s important to combine music appreciation with an understanding of basic musicianship at an early age, which is why we study different composers as well as simple music theory. This year, we’ll continue to increase our knowledge about the ‘great’ classical composers, while also learning more about musical traditions around the world. Both boys love opera, so we will choose a few operas to listen to throughout the year. Our main spines for music appreciation are The Story of the Orchestra and Orchestra, as well as the Music by Black Composers website.
Our art history study this year is all about female and feminist artists, in a roughly chronological format. While they are young, I want to expose the boys to as much art as possible, so that their minds are furnished with images and ready to start making more logical connections between movements in art when they are older, and we undertake a more systematic overview of art history. We’re starting the year looking at artists like Artemesia Gentileschi, and taking in art from female and feminist artists from around the world. As you can imagine, there aren’t a lot of ready-made children’s resources for this kind of art history study, so I’ll be producing my own as we go.
We also won’t be joining any dance or theatrical classes this year, but we will continue to watch recorded performances of classical and contemporary dance from around the world, with the opes that next year we’ll be able to restart A’s dance lessons. A very much enjoys reciting poems and fragments of books aloud, so we’ll be working with him on developing this further this year, including memorising a few short monologues written for young children.
French and Welsh
We are continuing to study French as a family, mostly through reading French books and having conversations in French wherever possible. Rather than using a curriculum for children, I’ll be putting in some effort to enhance my own French skills, and then using this to guide our learning as a family. I hope to find a French tutor or lessons for both boys once the situation allows, but in the meantime any practice is good!
Our family plans to move to Wales this year, and we’ll begin learning basic Welsh so that we can be good neighbours. I have no Welsh language skills whatsoever, so we’ll all be starting from scratch. We’ll be using some Welsh videos on youtube, and I’ll be taking some online Welsh lessons and sharing what I learn with the children.
Everything else…
So much of what we’ll spend our days doing this year falls outside these tidy categories: hours of play with magnetic tiles and bits of string, jumping on the trampoline and cycling around the cemetery, building robots from tape and cardboard, and having new big ideas about all sorts of things. This is the most essential bit of learning for me: the time spent dreaming and creating, playing and climbing, and negotiating situations with a brother or a friend.