Hi Amanda, We used assignment sheets in our homeschool. I think my younger daughter started around 4th/5th grade, but she was a strong reader and very independent. I tend to recommend them at least by Year Five/Six, but it definitely depends on the student. I created a very open assignment sheet, since over time I came to realize that this worked best for us...it was very adaptable. My general goal was to give the assignment sheet on Monday morning and expect the work to be completed by Friday afternoon. I liked giving the girls as much flexibility as I could, so they could work on most assignments in whatever order they wanted. Of course, sometimes, there were some assignments that needed to be completed by a more specific date, but I would mark those and point them out when I gave them the sheet on Monday. There were also many weeks when "life happened" and they could not complete everything on their sheet in a week, so I would add a few things I wanted them to complete for the next week and then give them another week to work on all of it. My goal was to develop organization skills and make sure they had lessons to work on throughout the week (especially for when I was engaged in teaching their sibling), but not to create an atmosphere of tension and anxiety. I'm attaching my assignment sheet here, so that you can see it...in case that helps. :) I wrote it so that assignments could be written on the top and the four main books of which they were independently reading at the time were listed. They were expected to choose one of these four each week and give a written narration for the reading section they had completed. For the remaining three books, they just gave an oral narration. I expected them to rotate through the four books, although I didn't have a regimented schedule for it. I hope that makes sense. Both girls are/were excellent students in college (one has her BA in English already) and have very good organization skills with regard to assignments.

Hello! Are you looking for the Digital Shop? I've linked it here. This is where you will find the available curriculum guides. You can filter these by collection or price. Does that help?

Hi! I'm really hoping to have at least Term One and maybe even Term Two of the lesson guide for Program 1: LSB ready by summer. I'm fairly confident I'll have Term One ready by then and maybe even by late spring. I have about the first four weeks completed and almost all of the notes that I need to keep moving forward. I will be releasing it by terms for two reasons: 1) it will allow families to go ahead and get started and 2) it is super large! Since I'm combining three years (Years 2-4) into one guide, it is making each week of lessons rather lengthy. I decided to go ahead and add Year 4 to the guide (I was originally going to separate it from Years 2-3) to save families from having to buy too many separate guides (more expensive and harder to manage multiple guides). I hope this helps!

Hello Amy, No, you are not missing a complete guide for Year Seven. Unfortunately, the guides take me so much longer to write then I wish they did. :) I'm so glad you like the guide for The Middle Ages! I don't think that adding Augustus Caesar's World as well the books for American history (The World of William Penn and George Washington's World) would be too much. According to Mason's PNEU programs, students in Year Seven would be reading something for national history (the American history books), something for the history of another country (or, in this case, world history with The Middle Ages) and something for ancient history (Augustus Caesar's World). As long as the reading selections are not overwhelming her in a weekly schedule, then this should be fine. How exciting to go to England! It is a dream here in our family to go some day. You may already know, but I wanted to share in case you didn't, but I do have a published guide for the Penn and Washington books: 16th-18th Century History: An American and World Study. I do have guides for Anne of Green Gables (Y7) and Ivanhoe (Y8), the latter which would be accessible for a Year Seven student and would fit the medieval time period. I hope this helps!

Great! I'm so glad this was helpful!

Hi Amanda, You have both the Foundations Outline Guide and the Lesson Guide, correct? I just wanted to be sure... The Foundations Lesson Guides allows you to use any of the four listed science/natural history guides: Weather, Seed Dispersion, Farm Animals and Woods, Fields & Forests. You can definitely be flexible with these. You can use any number of them, for as long as you prefer and in any order. You could start Weather now and work through it slowly, using only this guide for the entire year of Year One. You could also start now and follow it with a different one in Term Two or vice versa. The calendar work extends throughout the entire year. I wanted to set it up this way for Year One in particular, so that families could keep the year flexible but also very specified to their family. Some children at this age need to take things more slowly than others and I wanted to support that. Year One is such a foundational (pardon the pun), and pivotal year! General guidelines aside, I can see how doing Weather in the first or second term would benefit your child's ability to expand their calendar work to include weather sooner rather than later. I would recommend starting it no later than Term Two, so that you would have at least one term where your student can fully appreciate and include the weather portion of the calendar work before the year ends. I don't have this written out for Year Two, but I can certainly see continuing calendar work into and possibly throughout Year Two as well. Time is a bit abstract for younger children and there are many mathematical concepts which can be pursued through calendar work as well. I hope this helps! :)

Great! Please let me know if you have any more questions or concerns!

Hello! Yes, you would need either just the outline guide or both the outline guide + lesson plans. The outline guide contains the complete book lists, poems to memorize, historical poems and ballads for Year Four and teaching notes, while the lesson plans expand on the selected books outlined in the former guide. The outline guide is similar to the PNEU programs that Charlotte Mason would send out/use, but the lesson plans are my attempt to provide teachers today with more support. I designed it this way so that some parents can just purchase the outline guide and create their own lesson plans, while those who prefer more can add the daily lesson plans to the outline guide. I hope this helps!

No worries, I'm always happy to help! :)

Hi Amanda, Yes, I would agree that Year Two: The Complete Guide would be as close to Program 1: LSB as you could get as far as lesson plans. You would also need The Children's Book of Birds -just the text and not the guide. The lesson plans for this book are included in Year Two: The Complete Guide. I did make a change with regard to book choices for the study of the pond in Program 1: LSB, but using the books listed for Year Two: The Complete Guide will absolutely be fine. Please contact me through email if you decide to go forward with this plan. I will send you some free bird cards and a PDF file of poetry used in Year Two that you will need. I hope this helps!

Hi Bonnie, I'm hoping to have the first term of Year Three: The Complete Guide (for the Curriculum by Years scope and sequence) ready by the fall. But, I do plan to work on lesson plans for the Programs as soon as I have the outline guides finished. :) I'm currently working on the first four programs for the first two levels (LSB and LSA).

Welcome! Currently, I have published the Program 1 guide for Lower School B, which covers Years 2-4 and the Program 1 guide for Lower School A, which covers Years 5-6. The booklists for all of these years are included in the program guides -at least what will be needed for Program 1 (or Pre-17th Century history). So, if you have these two guides then you have the complete booklists for Years 2-6. Each program guide begins with the program and this is essentially a detailed booklist -these are meant to resemble Charlotte Mason's own PNEU programs. Anywhere that you read "All" means that students of all the years covered with that level will read those books. Whenever an additional book is suggested, then it is begin with an abbreviation such Y4 for Year Four. Only students in that years will add those books. One of the main differences in Lower School B is with Year Four. Students in Years 2-3 will share the same books in American History, but students in Year Four will follow a slightly different scope and sequence. Some of their books have been traded in for slightly more challenging books (while still sharing some books with Years 2-3). I hope this helps! :)

Oh, no worries! I'm so glad that it was helpful!

I think the main difference in Curriculum by Programs vs. Curriculum by Years is in how much students of the same family can work together. The former program was my effort to allow families to share in books and topics more frequently (although not always) than the latter scope and sequence. Curriculum by Years follows a year by year approach similar to Ambleside Online, while Curriculum by Programs follows a program by year approach similar in some ways to Charlotte Mason's PNEU programs. The Foundations Guide is a program guide for the early years, including Year One. Since formal lessons are not meant to start until Year One, complete lesson plans will only be written for Year One students for the Foundations Guide. There are sample schedules, but the thought in this guide is to keep lessons lighter and more flexible, particularly for the Pre-Preparatory and Preparatory Levels. Children will move on into Lower School B after Year One is completed or when parents feel their student is ready for it. This level combines Years Two-Four, but Year Four will have less in common with Year Two and Year Three students in that they will still share the same time period of study overall and share some books together, but they will also have more books of their own-books which reflect their growing maturity. The schedules are aligned as much as possible and picture study, music appreciation and many other studies can be shared as well. Program 1 focuses on Pre-17th Century history, so students in this program will study Native Americans and early settlements of America. Students in Year One will also study Native Americans and the story of the first Thanksgiving, so this aligns well with this guide. Year One students always study these topics, since they are not part of the historical time period divisions. Program 2 focuses on 16th-18th Century history, so these students study this time period in American history. A student would begin in Foundations and then move on to Program 1, 2, 3 or 4, depending on where you want to begin you study of history or where your older students are in the study of history. Lower School B is always designed to meet the needs of students in Years Two-Four no matter what time period they study. The idea is that you would then move on to the next program the following year. Curriculum by Programs does not make it so that you would not have to buy a new program or set of lesson plans each year (you would have to do this with the Curriculum by Years plan), but that if you choose this approach with children of varying ages then they can be kept together in at least the same historical time period, picture study, songs, etc. as well as children closer in age sharing many of the same books. For example, your children could start in Foundations and Program 1: Lower School B together. The schedule allows for the flow of the day to be similar and you choose whichever artist, song, composer, handcraft, etc. you wish for both children to study together. A couple of the books used for American History in Foundations will also be read in Program 1: LSB. The following year, your Year Two student will move to Program 2: LSB along with your Year Four student. Both children can work from this Program guide. However, you will need separate lesson plans, since Year Two and Year Three students have one set and Year Four students have another. This is because of the differences in book titles and expectations. The following year, both students will move to Program 2 -with one student still in LSB, but the other now in LSA (Years Five and Six). Again, students will study the same time period and you can choose new composers, artists, etc. so that both students can share this study. Some books from LSB might be shared with students in LSA, but usually only a few. Books chosen for reading aloud during the Children's Hour can be selected to best augment sharing. Older students will also be given books to read independently, so this will help offer appropriate upgraded choices as well. Some years will have students studying the same thing, no matter which program they are using. For example, in Year Three, all students will study their home country and read Paddle-to-the-Sea. The additional book for geography for that year will change according to the time period, but the former books will stay the same. Students who follow the Curriculum by Years guides will each work through each year independently. The schedule does allow for a better flow of joining students together, even with this plan, in that children will take breaks, have nature experiences, sing songs, study foreign languages, etc. at the same time. You could certainly also adapt this approach so that more books are shared, particularly during the Children's Hour. Once you buy your student's complete guide for that year, you can certainly use it again with a younger student. If I make any major changes, I'm usually pretty happy to offer you the new updated version for free. I try really hard not to let my changes overly affect your budget. :) I hope this helps.

Hi Amanda, Yes, I'm still currently working on these. :) The lesson guides will include complete lesson plans for the program guides. I published them separately, because some families prefer to add in components from other curricula and don't need the complete lesson plans. It also allows families waiting on the lesson guides to see in advance what the program will look like and start purchasing books if they wish. I added a note for those who have purchased either Year One: The Complete Guide or Year Two: The Complete Guide, so that they would know that the guides for the programs will be different from these. I've offered to send anyone who has purchased either one of these guides a free copy of Program 1 Lesson Guide -LSB/Year Two & Year Three or Foundations Lesson Guide -Year One, since some families were waiting on the program guides to be completed, but wanted to get started. This allows them to switch over without having to pay extra. I hope this helps!

Ok, great! I really think that I should be on track to having Year Three: Term One ready by the fall and perhaps even more. If you'd like to check back in a couple of months, I could give you a more definite answer. If it seems that there might be a delay, I could then suggest some guides which would be helpful with Year Three. Year Three uses the final section from A Child's History of the World: A Guided Study. I might also have another individual guide or two ready by then. I hope this helps! Please feel free to keep in touch!

Hi Amanda, Welcome! :) I'm not completely sure when Year Three will be ready. I may release it in terms (as I did Year Two), so that families could at least get started by the fall. Are you looking for what you will need for this fall or sooner than this?

The guide for Year Two covers science and nature study, geography, history, art, music, literature and poetry. This would be added to whatever work is needed for skill subjects such as math, reading, phonics, writing, etc. A typical day covers 3-4 of the aforementioned subjects. I would think it would take anywhere from 1 hour to 1.5 hours for the work included in the guides. Day Three is sometimes a slightly longer day, since the Natural History Investigations occur on this day and this is often a hands-on lesson. Day Five is meant to allow for a longer Nature Experience, so this could be a slightly longer day, depending on what is done on that day. Hopefully, parents and teachers who are currently using the curriculum can offer a more specific account for you. I hope this helps a little.

Welcome!

Hi! Foundations: The Outline Guide for Early School is all that you will need for Pre-Preparatory and Preparatory, since expectations are gentle and flexible for these years. Foundations will include the complete book lists for all of Early School, including books and resources needed for Year One. Teaching notes pertinent to the Early School levels as well as suggestions for natural history, art, handcrafts,  and music study are also contained in this guide. This guide is targeted for ages 4-7.  Foundations Lesson Guide -Year One is the complete lesson guide for Year One and can be added to the purchase of the outline guide. This guide is available now! Sample