Hey, friends! I have looked high and low for resources, helpful links, and ideas for how to use Classical Conversations Foundations as a backbone to our homeschooling day. Now, CC is not intended to be a backbone, it’s intended to stand on it’s own along with an age appropriate math and language arts curriculum. My children and myself however do not work well that way. My girls are young, but already ask so.many.questions about everything I teach them. So, along with the CC memory work, we will be incorporating coloring pages, many books, science experiments, narrations, and more to our homeschool this year. So, below I’m going to share the resources and thing we will be using with Cycle 3 this year. Now, obviously, this is not the only way to use CC. It’s just what I have come up with and what works best for my family. I just hope it inspires and helps you with your plans for this year!

Timeline:

We will mostly use the timeline for memory work. But, both of the girls will pick one or two(depending on how much extra time we have) events and we will go to the libraby over the weekend and get a book or story to read over that event. If there isn’t a book available at our library, I will find information online or we will just use the timeline card. Then, they will narrate and illustrate a photo of it themselves. I will use these for our yearly portfolio and also to “grade” them weekly.

History:

We have chosen specific read alouds to read each week. While I am reading to the girls, they will be required to illustrate what they’re listening to. They will do this in a sketchpad and we will use them throughout the year that way at the end of the year we have an entire history book full of US events. We will also be reading through “A Child’s First Book of American History” by Earl Schenk Miers as our main history text along with Simply Charlotte Mason’s Stories of America Vol. 1&2.

Handwrting:

For handwriting this year we will use age appropriate Prescripts as well as writing our history sentence in our history sketchpads underneath the girls drawings each week.

Science:

We will be reading books and coloring pictures for science this year. Both of my girls are pretty young, so we won’t go too in depth with our anatomy study. We will just dig deeper as they’re interested. We will also do one science “experiment” per week that somewhat goes with the science memory work.

Geography:

We also won’t go very in depth with geography. I have a few neat books with some fun facts about each state that we will read. We’ll also color a picture in our USA book that has the state, it’s bird, and a few other easy facts. We will mark each state on our map as we learn them.

Fine Arts:

This year we are working on poetry, hymns, and doing a picture study. Poetry: We’ve decided just to focus on one poet for the year, Emily Dickenson. We will read one poem a week and work on memorizing it. Hymn: We will be focusing on Come Thou Fount the first 6 weeks. I haven’t decided which others we will learn this year, yet! Picture Study: We will be using Queen Homeschool Observing History through Picture Study: Early American History. We work on all of these in our morning time.

Language Arts:

The girls will both be using age appropriate levels of Good and the Beautiful. We recently found this curriculum and we are really enjoying it. The lessons are short but very thorough. Plus, levels 1-5 are FREE if you get the PDF version. And all the homeschool mama’s said… Amen!

Math:

We have used Singapore for the past two years and do not plan on stopping now. We love it, it gets the job done, and my 7 year olds favorite thing to do is math. So, I’d say it’s doing its job!

The things that have helped me most, is seeing other momma’s lesson plans. I can have someone tell me all day long what they’re using, but if they don’t show me how they’re using it, I will be so lost! So, I thought I’d share my first six weeks that I have planned out.

Peparing for Cycle 3- Leif Ericson

History:

Leif the Lucky

Ch. 1 in A Child’s First Book of American History

We will read a little bit of each of these a day, the girls will illustrate what we’ve read, and we will make some viking boats out of clay on the last day.

Science:

This week we will focus on the human body as a whole. We have a puzzle that starts as a skeleton and works its way up to a little girl with an outfit on. We’ll discuss what the different levels are called and what their functions are.

We’ll read information about it in our My Body book and also in various other kid science books we own.

Geography:

During this first week we will be focusing on the USA as a whole. We will find it on a world map, discuss how it is comprised of 50 different states, and will work on drawing/tracing it. We’ll look at maps, read books, and look at our globe as well.

Maps by Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielinski

The Hello Atlas by Ben Handicott

Week 1:

History:

Columbus The D’aulaires

A Childs First Book of American History– Ch. 2

Stories of America Vol. I– Ch. 1

Science:

My Body by Patty Carratello

Amazing body by Moira Butterfield

Human Body by Parragon Books

Experiment: Make a fake blister

Geography:

United States Coloring Book by Winky Adam

The 50 States by Gabrielle Balkan

Smart about the 50 States– A Class Report



Fine Arts:

OiLs Basic Shapes practice

Week 2:

History:

Squanto, Friend Of The Pilgrims by Clyde Robert Bulla

The Pilgrims of Plimoth (Aladdin Picture Books) by Marcia Sewall

A Childs First Book of American History– Ch. 5

Stories of America Vol. I– Ch. 3

Science:

My Body by Patty Carratello

Amazing body by Moira Butterfield

Human Body by Parragon Books

Experiment: Chicken bone

Geography:

United States Coloring Book by Winky Adam

The 50 States by Gabrielle Balkan

Smart about the 50 States– A Class Report

Fine Arts:

Mirror Image drawing

Week 3:

History:

Benjamin Franklin D’ulaires

The Boston Tea Party by Russell Freedman

A Childs First Book of American History– Ch. 11

Stories of America Vol. I– Ch. 16

Science:

My Body by Patty Carratello

Amazing body by Moira Butterfield

Human Body by Parragon Books

You can’t make a move without your muscles by Paul Showers

Experiment- Workout and see how our muscles feel the next day; lift different things

Geography:

United States Coloring Book by Winky Adam

The 50 States by Gabrielle Balkan

Smart about the 50 States– A Class Report

Fine Arts:

Upside-down image

Week 4:

History:

The Fourth of July Story by Alice Dalgliesh

We the People: The Constitution of the United States by Peter Spier

A Childs First Book of American History– Ch. 13

Stories of America Vol. I– Ch. 17

Science:

My Body by Patty Carratello

Amazing body by Moira Butterfield

Human Body by Parragon Books

Use Your Brain by Paul Showers

Experiment- Test our nervous system by creating static shock, feeling the difference between hot and cold

Geography:

United States Coloring Book by Winky Adam

The 50 States by Gabrielle Balkan

Smart about the 50 States– A Class Report

Fine Arts:

Abstract Art

Week 5:

History:

George Washington’s Breakfast by Jean Fritz

A More Perfect Union: The Story of Our Constitution by Betsy Maestro

George Washington by D’Aulaire

A Childs First Book of American History– Ch. 18

Stories of America Vol. I– Ch. 24

Science:

My Body by Patty Carratello

Amazing body by Moira Butterfield

Human Body by Parragon Books

My Five Senses by Aliki

Experiment- We’ll use different activities from HERE

Geography:

United States Coloring Book by Winky Adam

The 50 States by Gabrielle Balkan

Smart about the 50 States– A Class Report

Fine Arts:

Perspective

Week 6:

History:

Year of the Horseless Carriage: 1801 by Genevieve Foster

How We Crossed The West: The Adventures Of Lewis And Clark by Rosalyn Schanzer

A Childs First Book of American History– Ch. 19

Stories of America Vol. I– Ch. 25

Science:

My Body by Patty Carratello

Amazing body by Moira Butterfield

Human Body by Parragon Books

What Happens to a Hamburger? by Paul Showers

Geography:

United States Coloring Book by Winky Adam

The 50 States by Gabrielle Balkan

Smart about the 50 States– A Class Report

Fine Arts:

Final Project

Family Read Alouds from Beautiful Feet:

The Courage of Sarah Noble

The Matchlock Gun

Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin

America’s Paul Revere

All of our read alouds and most of our history readers are from Beautiful Feet Books Early American History Collection. I had been eyeballing the set for awhile and when we finally decided to do CC this year, I knew it would fit perfectly! I couldn’t be happier with the purchase.

A lot of what we have chosen to to has also been inspired by Elsie from Farmhouse Schoolhouse. I wanted to do CC so badly, but just didn’t feel right about only doing it as “stick in sand”. I needed more, my kids needed more. I knew if I did it, I wanted to encorporate our Beautiful Feet Books, I just wasn’t sure how. Then, I found her blog and it was a breath of fresh air! AND she used BF books! So, if you enjoyed this post or these ideas at all, go check her out. She’s amazing!

If you have any questions please contact me and I will get back to you asap. I hope this was helpful for you all. I will be posting the next 6 weeks in a few weeks and will update each week with how we’re using everything and how it is all working out!

xoxo-Mary