I second Heather’s recommendations. If you try to ‘recreate’ school at home,you’ll burn out in no time.
Read aloud a good lit book, start her on narrating by doing only one paragraph at a time if she’s never done it before. After you read the paragraph, ask her “What did I just read?” or “What was that about?” or something along those lines.
Copy work-I use a G-dly-based, Presidential Penmanship copywork program, so they can memorize important quotes from Presidents thru the years that encourage Faith and Freedom.
YOu could use the same poem, same Scripture memery verse, etc… that you’re already using. She’ll be learning grammer and english within that copywork.
Of course, make sure the poem’s not too long for her little hands. And remember, she’s going to writing in the English…Child and maybe(?)Rummy Roots, so keep that in mind or she’ll end up hating it.
Math
An independant read either in Literature, or history or even nature on their respective days. YOu can start the narrating of independant reads later. I use some independant reads for narrating and others not.
Scripture memory and Bible Study
Then have your Creation drawing book, some nature guides handy and head outside to observe the burgeoning Spring!
Start watching the birds in the morning. If you don’t have a good set up for birds and butterflies, maybe head to the store and get seeds and plan a Bird/Butterfly garden with a bird bath! Have her keep track of what birds come, formally or just in conversation. We’ve noticed we have a woodpecker that starts peckin’ every moring just before 7 am.
Take your tree guide and discover what kind of trees you have on your yard. Maybe add in a Nature Living book and make trips to the library for nature books.
106 Days of Creation is good, but considering what time of year we’re in, you may want to reconsider timing that for at the ending of Fall and into Winter when there’s not as much to explore and learn about in the Spring, Summer and Fall; from plants to bugs.
Remember the 10-20 minute time limit on subjects(I go over that when we’re outside, having Nature Study drawing or doing a read aloud ).
After you get into a little of a groove, remember to go easy on the grammer at this age.
And remember not every subject everyday.
Provide books for her to look at to create projects in her free time, if she’s a science hands-on sort of person.
I decide on the Scripture memory based on our Spiritual needs; what are the problem areas in our home that we need “this” particular piece of G-d’s Word in our Heart? Others are more systematic.
With picture and music study, I’d recommend just playing Classical music in the background for now, creating an atmosphere mentioning who it is. If you pick beethoven, play it and ask her what she thinks. don’t ask her”Isn’t this beautiful?” (same for picture study), you want her observations. There’s also a website called
http://www.classicsforkids.com/
it has good stuff on it; you could change the composer monthly along with it.
The cd’s by the same name are great.
Hang or prop up some works of art on the wall (or buy a calendar) and occasionally ya’ll look at it together and ask her what she sees. Change the painting periodically.
Both of these can be very informal, she won’t even know she’s developing an “eye” for beauty; and as we all know public school destroys this “eye” so it’s part of the basics for rebuilding it.
You can start the read alouds and art and music study’s in the summer, too.
I’d recommend, in addition to Heather’s, “The Charlotte Mason Companion” by K. Andreola highly. That book is so inspiring. it should be found at your library.
I don’t use the modules, so I’m no help in that area.
Hope I didn’t complicate things further!
Hope this makes sense,
Rachel
