Home ed always takes an outdoor focus in the spring. There's so much to observe growing and changing all around us. In April, we've been learning about frogs and snails, and we've started to dive into our unit on flowers that we'll continue throughout May and possibly June. As I've said before, we don't necessarily begin and end new topics when a new month comes, but I find that after about 3 weeks with a topic, we're all ready to progress to something new.
I tend to plan our home ed topics broadly in quarters, and then outline what I aim to present each month. April, May, and June are our spring/early summer term - Blossom Term, if you will.
Some of our topics we cover cyclically in a loop: nature study and Growing Towards Justice can be revisited each year, refreshing what we talked about previously and getting our littlest learner on board more actively each time. Other subjects, like science, history, maths, and literacy follow a progression year on year. Most of this pertains only to my work with A, since Birdie is still not quite at pre-school level yet and we are only doing basic letter and number recognition work with him daily, as I’ve shared recently.
Nature Study
Each spring we tend to study snails and amphibians, flowers, minibeasts, and bees. Last year we hatched butterflies but I found it very stressful - so many tiny, fragile lives to be responsible for! - so I've ruled out insect raising this year in favour of building mini-beast habitats and observing them in the garden. Although we've moved on from our focused study of birds, both children continue to pull out our bird books regularly and try to identify birdcalls when we're in the woods. Nature study is the topic best suited for us to learn all together, since Birdie is old enough to be very curious about the natural world.
A few resources I love for learning about flowers, gardening, minibeasts, and bees:
These flower identification cards are great for tucking in a bag when you're out and about.
Are you a ladybird? and other books from the ‘Up the Garden Path’ series
My First Book about How Things Grow
Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt
Errol’s Garden
The Book of Bees
Do check your library for others - there are so many great books available right now about the natural world. I’ll continue to share what activities we have planned for nature study as the weeks roll along.
Ethics and Compassion
The spring topics in Growing Towards Justice are some of my favourites: Bravery and Peace. Of course, if you’re just beginning the curriculum, you can dive in anywhere! Alongside my guides, we read some of the ‘ big ideas’ from Big Ideas for Curious Minds and regularly read lots about feelings and mindfulness. Recently we’ve been enjoying An Emotional Menagerie and returning again to the Making Good Choices series.
History and science
We'll be discovering ancient India, China, and the Americas this term. We use two curricula as 'spines' or main texts for our history studies: History Quest and Curiosity Chronicles. I do have quibbles with them both, and we don't follow the activity recommendations very closely, but we all enjoy the audio recordings and colouring pages. They are a great diving-in point to history for kids 5+, and a good source of inspiration for parents when you're shaping a history reading or activity list.
Alongside history, we're all enjoying working through Blossom and Root's early elementary science curriculum - although at our own pace, and out of order from their recommendations. Although this is definitely intended for elementary-aged children, there are plenty of ways to adapt it to include younger siblings through photography-based picture books and object handling. This term we're examining early life on Earth. Since A is interested in science generally, we tend to do practical science experiments involving electricity, force, motion, and robotics alongside our physical science/biology studies. Other children will have a strong interest in other subjects!
Visual Art
This term we're focusing on two artists: Yayoi Kusama and Jean-Michele Basquiat. I have some fun immersive projects planned for the children (think vinyl dot stickers and anatomy-influenced chalk graffiti), but the most valuable part of art study at this age is simply learning to look at art and find ways of relating to it. I have intentionally not started on a systematic study of art history yet because I feel that children need to be exposed to lots of different types of images, and need to be able to understand the symbolism present in art, before a chronological history of art makes much sense.
Spring feels like a perfect time to introduce Alice in Wonderland as a read-aloud, and the version illustrated by Kusama fits in perfectly. We’ve been enjoying all sorts of
Music
Music study has been a bit hit or miss this year - we are liking the Playful Piano colouring sheets, but Birdie is still young for them and I prefer music activities we can do all together. In the summer I plan for us to begin using Year of Wonder as a guide for music appreciation, and in preparation we’re spending the next three months focusing on instrument families. My favourite books for studying instruments are Orchestra by Avalon Nuovo, My First Orchestra book by Genevieve Helsby, and A Child’s Introduction to the Orchestra by Robert Levine . We've been lucky to continue A’s Colourstrings musicianship lessons online - I can’t speak highly enough of this method, so do check out whether there’s someone local to you that is trained in the method. There may be some availability for children aged 4-6 to join A’s lesson this term, so if you are interested in finding out more about it do send me a message. If you can read music yourself, you might enjoy singing songs from the Coloustrings Kindergarten ‘Singing Rascals’ books at home.
Mathematics
I always hesitate to share what we’re working on in maths and literacy because every child is so different in these areas, and what works for one definitely won’t work for another! I draw on many guides and curricula for A’s mathematics right now, so that I can present a wide range of problem-solving approaches. We dip into different topics regularly: we might cover dynamic addition and subtraction, telling time, liquid measurements, spatial reasoning, multiplication, and money all in one week. I am aiming to provide the children with a strong base in problem solving and analytical thinking - ‘number sense’, in other words - rather than the ability to memorise lots of facts. I haven’t yet decided on how I’ll approach maths next academic year. Here’s some of the mix that’s working for us right now:
Usborne maths workbooks, especially the practice pads as these are less ‘flashy’
The Le Petits Montessori maths series
Ayako Thiessen’s Montessori maths series
Right Start maths, especially the games
Manipulatives are essential when young children are learning maths, but you might need to try out a range of different ones to see what works best for your child. If you have a child with sensory challenges or a difficulty concentrating, small or very attractive manipulatives like Montesori golden beads may be distracting and overstimulating. An abacus might be helpful, or a confusing thing that makes the wrong kind of noise. Right now, our most used maths manipulatives are Math Links cubes and edible manipulatives like raisins or Cheerios.
French and Welsh
Our French is still more sparse than I would like - nothing takes the place of in-person French lessons, which hopefully will feel safe enough soon. We’ve been drawing on two French resources: One Third Stories and Les Puces, which both children enjoy. Birdie especially likes One Third Stories and they are good review for A; the worksheets and videos that come with Les Puces are geared towards older children but I’m sure that Birdie is absorbing plenty from listening in. We read a lot of picture books in French to increase our general comprehension, but it’s hard to make real progress without speaking regularly to native speakers. Our Welsh is even rockier, I’m afraid, although the Say Something in Welsh app is brilliant. The children unsurprisingly are picking up much more Welsh than I am!
Reading, Writing, and Literacy
Like mathematics, all children are at such different levels with reading and literacy that it’s hard to share much that’s helpful. A is reading fluently but still struggles over lots of words for various reasons, so we read together daily. Sorting words into sound families is a good way to revise a child’s understanding of vowel sounds and combinations. I make cards myself and have A sort them into piles - an easy DIY. For grammar and spelling rules, we’re still working through the Explode the Code workbooks, which A enjoys. They are American books with American spellings, so that’s something to note if you’re using them elsewhere. We’ve been really enjoying Mad Libs Junior as a way to firm up A’s understanding of parts of speech - best done in pencil so you can erase and enjoy the humour again and again!
I separate writing into two parts: handwriting and narrative writing, since those two skills develop separately. We don’t devote much time at the moment to narrative writing beyond writing notes to friends, because A’s storytelling skills are very strong. I do record his stories often and transcribe them for him to read over, and he likes to make up and perform poetry. For handwriting, our main resource beyond copywork right now is the Waldorf Form Drawing book, which introduces various shapes that lead to cursive writing skills. Play dough and modelling clay also improve handwriting skills!
Read alouds are a big part of our family culture. In addition to poems and topical picture books, my shortlist of chapter books to read aloud this term includes:
Aru Shah and the End of Time (and possibly the rest of this series if we enjoy them)
The Ottoline series
The Mango and Bambang series
Alice in Wonderland
Everything else…
This sounds like a lot, but in reality we spend probably 2 hours a day on ‘book work’, and not all at one time. We read to one another all day long, even when we’re out and about. I always have a too-heavy bag full of books on our adventures! I read aloud, or the children choose to listen to audiobooks, while playing. Most of the day is spend in play: building things, exploring the outdoors, making contraptions, baking and tidying, and generally doing as they please. As spring turns into summer, we’ll step back even further from our planned or ‘academic’ activities to give us all a change of rhythm.