2024-2025 Homeschool Curriculum | Ambleside Online | Year 2 |Charlotte Mason
Welcome back, friends! Today I'm sharing my homeschool picks for our 2024-2025 school Year 2 with Ambleside Online. You can find my homeschool curriculum picks for the 2023-2024 homeschool year for Form 1b with the CMEC HERE. In an upcoming blog post, I plan to share more on why I chose Ambleside in Year 2, and did not continue with the CMEC. (Please read that upcoming article for clarity, and to prevent you from making any misjudgments of the CMEC which I still would recommend and think is wonderful!) Otherwise, continue reading for our choices from Math to Piano and everything in between!
For quick access to *most* of my 2024-2025 homeschool curriculum (not everything is available on Amazon), you can click my Amazon Storefront HERE.
(This post contains affiliate links to items I have purchased with my own money which means if you order from these links you will be supporting my blog in a small way that means a lot, at no cost to you! Thank you!)
RECITATION:
Each school day, my children and I have a time for recitations. This is when we recite any poems, hymns, folksongs, and Bible verses that we are memorizing for the year! I highly recommend this practice as it has daily filled us all with meaningful words to treasure in our hearts, excellent conversations to reflect on, and great speaking skills.
This school year, our Bible recitations included:
Psalm 139
Psalm 91
Psalm 8
Our Hymn recitations included:
“Come Thy Fount of Every Blessing”
“As the Deer Panteth for the Water”
Our folksong recitations included:
“I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”
Our poetry recitations included:
“Autumn,” by Emily Dickinson
“Autumn Fires,” by Robert Louis Stevenson
“The Calendar,” by Sara Coleridge
BIBLE
In regards to a Bible curriculum, we use none other than the very Word of God! Every morning, since my children were young, we read a chapter of Scripture together, and have wonderful discussions about our Heavenly Father! This year we are starting with the book of Genesis as well as the book of Luke. I think this creates a great balance with an abundance of diverse conversations! Don’t get me wrong, Bible curriculums are wonderful, but I’ve felt a personal conviction as a mother to not rely on, or get so comfortable with a secondary curriculum that may cause me to neglect having more time to read/teach straight from the Word! This works for us, but feel free to share any Bible curriculums you enjoy in the comments below. :)
LITERATURE
We are a bunch of book LOVERS!! The books we are reading aloud so far this school year are as follows:
READING
I taught my son to read in Kindergarten with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. You can find an in depth review in my blog post HERE. I had so much success for laying a solid foundation that I’m now using this same curriculum with my 5 year old daughter who is excelling tremendously! My 7 year old son chose and read the following books aloud to me:
POETRY
Each school year, we study three poets by reading a poem a day at lunch time, and incorporating more and more interesting facts about the poet each time. Here are the poets we studied:
COPYWORK
For the second year, I’m using Penny Gardner's curriculum: "Italics, Beautiful Handwriting for children." I’m very pleased with this straightforward italics curriculum, (which includes italic print to italic script, and countless copywork). I love how the mother who created it made it so affordable for big families as it is a one time pay for a PDF that you can print over and over with permission granted! It is so thorough, my son is still using it to start the Italic Script section. In addition to Penny Gardner’s curriculum, we purchased the journals below to hold any original poems my 7 year old writes.
HISTORY
We have been thoroughly enjoying this year’s History books! All grabbed our attention for their exciting stories, and many have given great clear information in a short read.
NATURAL HISTORY
This year is all about animals, animals, animals!! Instead of your children reading boring listed facts, this book provides a storyline where a bunch of talkative animals learn from “Mother Nature” about themselves together in the great outdoors.
After each chapter we read, and each animal we learn about, we follow up with a short video, provided by the blog a Humble Place, to see the animal in action, and then we draw/paint a picture of them in our nature journal.
GEOGRAPHY
These geography books have both engaged our children while teaching them about the world around them with their wonderful stories and illustrations.
MATH
For Math, I’m continuing with Simply Charlotte Mason Book 2. We like this Charlotte Mason approach to Math because the questions and answers given are mostly oral, which we feel makes math quicker and more pain-free.
PIANO
For piano, I’m DELIGHTED to have transitioned to Hoffman Academy online. (We originally did our first year of piano with Curwen Music, but WOW, I tried Hoffman Academy (the premium version) for my son this year and WE are LOVING IT!!! Spoiler alert: We do NOT intend on switching again. As much as I appreciate the heart behind Curwen music (which was recommended by the CMEC), it is my opinion that I've seen a greater quality of filming, enthusiasm, learning resources, and overall fun from Hoffman Academy. (I linked Curwen Music above so you may choose as you like!) The difference in my son with Hoffman Academy is incredible, and I’m seeing so much growth and confidence in his playing and interest that I couldn't wait to share with you all! He especially loves the 30 second skit surprises at the end of each short lesson which always leaves him eager and hungry for more! There is a free version which immediately enthralled him, but with all the perks for premium members such as printable Unit Books, interactive educational games, audio files to play with music, and more, the premium membership was a no brainer. (Not to mention the affordability factor as oppose to paying for weekly piano lessons from an in person teacher). Piano went from a burden to a joy with Hoffman Academy and we sincerely recommend it to any mother wanting their child to have a joyful and encouraging journey to a love for piano! You can read more about Hoffman Academy in my blog post HERE.
Use my affiliate link HERE to try Hoffman Academy for FREE, and support my blog! Use my PROMO CODE: LEARN for 10%off!
We LOVE our Donner piano listed below, but it was an investment. We were blessed enough to catch it on sale, and also have a family member insist on splitting the cost with us! What a blessing!
SPANISH
For our Spanish curriculum in the past we tried Charlotte Mason Simple Languages, but did not feel it was a sufficient, or productive path for us. (I still linked above in case you would like to investigate it for your family.) In fact, many of my homeschool mom friends told me that the most successful way to learn a second language is to continuously speak it in the house. So instead of using a curriculum, we’ve focused on building verbs and vocabulary that help form sentences with comprehensible input in our home, and I'm shocked with how much more we are all learning. Please comment below if you'd like to read more examples of how we teach Spanish in our home.
PICTURE STUDY
I love going to the thrift store to snag books on artists we are studying! However, if you’d like to invest in a beautifully compiled, printed art study for your convenience, I highly recommend Simply Charlotte Mason artist studies linked below. You can find excellent info on doing a picture study HERE. Our artists for the year are:
COMPOSER STUDY
I follow the Ambleside composer rotation found HERE. Classics for Kids is wonderful for additional info on each composer that you and your kids can read, and listen to! This year we are choosing to study:
Ludwig Van Beethoven, Antonio Vivaldi, and Frederic Chopin
HANDICRAFTS
We continue to improve our watercolor skills during nature studies, but this year, we are especially focusing on clay modeling. You can learn how to do a Nature Study HERE.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my 2024-2025 curriculum picks for my Year 2 student with Ambleside Online! My prayer is that this post can be a helpful resource for you! Feel free to share with a fellow homeschool mama, and share any blog post recommendations in the comments. Happy homeschooling!!
Cool, Mom, and Collectedly Yours,
