Any other British Mums out there?

I should mention my daughter is having surgery tomorrow, so it may be the weekend before I can get back to you with recommendations, but I won’t forget – just that I will be offline tomorrow.  Linda

Hello Ruth, Ah so you are at the beginning, lucky you.  I started after the girls had been in public school for a few years, if I could do it over, I would homeschool them from the beginning. I loved the Milly Molly Mandy series as a young girls and my daughters did as well. Some of the books I recommend may be for older children, but you can keep them in your memory bank for later on.  Sonya’s Laying Down the Rails is wonderful and her spelling course (British edition) would be a good buy as well, as it covers all the grades.  The James Herriot books are wonderful as read alouds, in fact we are lucky in Britain to have loads of brilliant literature to choose from.    Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, AA Milne books, Charles and Mary Lamb Tales from Shakespeare, E Nesbitt – The Best of Shakespeare, The Wouldbegoods, The Railway Children etc., Enid Blyton BobbseyTwins, Famous Five series etc.  We also liked Mrs Pepperpot books and The Borrowers. Charles Dickens wrote a couple of wonderful little books called  A Child’s History of England, and The Life of Our Lord (which he wrote for his own children).  I love those two books and my daughters did as well.  We aslo enjoyed all H.E. Marshall’s books when they were younger – her books taught them to love history even though certain things in her books were not accurate, however they make great reading, and it does encourage the interest.  You cannot go wrong with any books by Arabella Buckley, Fairyland of Science and Life and Her Children, also Arabella Buckley Parables of Nature.  The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady is also beautiful for nature study.  Some of these are very old books reprinted for today, and I actually prefer the older authors, as they in general are far more wholesome, and far better written.  I read poetry to them from a very young age, simple poems to start with just so they could get used to it.  I have a large anthology of British poetry and I just picked simple poems from it and gradually increased the length of them as we went along. For music when they were little they enjoyed the audio Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf / Saint-Saens: Carnival of the Animals, and the audio Britten: The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, both very well done.  When the girls were older we read all of Dickens, Austen, The Bronte sisters, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Narnia and his apologetics.  We have read most of Shakespeare’s plays and a lot of British poetry.  Two books I highly recommend are Robert Lacey, Great Tales from English History, and The Story of St George, The Life and Legend of  England’s Patron Saint, by Anthony Cooney.  I cannot speak to foreign language, we do German as I speak it quite fluently, and I also use Tell Me More computer program for that.  I have friends in England who have liked the BBC Muzzy language lessons, but I have no personal experience of it.  Math is the same, I have only used US curriculum for math.  I know that because the US have so many homeschoolers there is more curriculum choice here most likely, however because your children will likely be back in England in a few years, you will need to be careful to make sure they are equipped for the transition.  They would certainly need to understand the British monetary system and government system when they are older.  For Language Arts, Lit, History and Geography –  reading, narrations, oral and written, dictation, timelines and mapping, artist and composer/poet study would be fine.  I have a lot of US books now, because we live here and it is easier to get.  However apart from high school US History and Government, I have taught them about the British Parliamentary system and we have used the Winston Churchill series History of the English Speaking People, which we loved.  We also love H. E. Marshall’s English Literature for Boys and Girls – we still use that now,  All of my Buckley, Marhsall  and Gatty books I got at second hand book shop in Stratford – they were all original editions and were not awfully expensive.  If you have a second hand/antique book shop near where you go, maybe you will find them there – though there are reprints available for most. 

You asked if my daughters want to go to university – they are not a hundred percent sure yet.  One will more than likely go to study equine science if she goes at all, or she will just go back to Europe for classical dressage training – she is weighing the pros and cons at the moment.  The other is not at all sure, but as she has a minor disability she has said she would like to do an online degree course, as this would be better suited to her.  As we will most likely be living here for the forseeable future – we have not looked into British universities, so I cannot tell you much about that.  I am not sure how the schools over there handle home schooled students, they may well need to do A levels, unless they accept entrance exams at the actual school.  Do you have someone over there who could call a university or college and ask that question, so you will know for the future.  We use some textbooks for math and science and German, but for language arts, literature and history/geography we use a CM approach.  We read a lot of British History and like the books by Alison Weir for high school British History.  Gerald Durrell wrote some wonderful nature books as well, if they are still available.  How the Heather Looks by Joan Bodger is a beautiful book and should be in everyone’s library, also The Children of the New Forest by Captain Marryat.

Thanks for your good wishes for my daughter, we are praying it all goes well – we will know more tomorrow.  I must say I envy you just a little, knowing you may be going home one day – I do like it here, but I miss home as do the girls.  Anyway, I will think and see if I can think of any other gems – but that is a start and if you think of anything else to ask, please do – I am happy to help if I can.  Sorry if this is all a bit of a jumble, I am trying to get my thoughts together quickly before bed.  We have to be at the hospital at 6am, so an early night for me as the hospital is an hour away.  Anyway, it is lovely to know another Brit is on the forum, hope this helps a little.  Linda

Thanks Carrie – just got hope from the hospital – my daughter is still very groggy and asleep in her bed – we will have biopsy results next week, all is looking good though so far, thank the Lord.  Good suggestion on the math by the way.  Linda

Glad to help out Ruth, and hope to hear from you in the future as to how things are going.  If I think of any other books, I will let you know.  Linda