We are quickly aproaching a new homeschool year! Which means planning out our Ambleside Online lessons.
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In some ways I wish summer would just go on a little longer! We are having a lovely time enjoying all the simple pleasures of summertime!
But summer will end, we will settle into a routine of reading living books, looking at beautiful art, listening to lovely music, and keeping notebooks, and we will enjoy a rich and varied feast of education.
This year I will have 3 formal students using the Ambleside Online Curriculum and one Kindergartener using year 0. My oldest is in 9th grade doing AO year 8, my next is in 6th grade using year 6, and my next is in 3rd grade using year 3.
It can be a bit overwhelming to set up your daily schedule when you first begin to homeschool, especially if you are not following an open and go curriculum but rather following a Charlotte Mason philosophy and a curriculum like Ambleside Online. There is a ton of information and ideas to find and process while figuring out how it is going to look in your family.
When I first started learning about the Charlotte Mason Method eight years ago I chose Ambleside Online as my curriculum. It can be pretty overwhelmed looking at all the booklists and trying to figure it all out.
Planning with Ambleside Online
However, as the years have passed not only has it become easier but I have fallen in love with the booklists and resources offered! It is all so rich and deep. My children are getting an amazing education!
Even as using Ambleside online has become easier, as my kids have grown older it has become more complex to plan everyone’s schedule out and make it all work together.
So in this post I am going to break down exactly how how I go about planning and Ambleside Online school year for multiple children!
Print Booklists and Schedules
The first thing I do each year is print off the booklist and the 36 week schedule chart for each of my students. You can find these by clicking on the YEARS tab at the top of the Ambleside online page. This will take you to the booklist. I highlight and print this.
At the right hand side of the page you will find the link for the schedule and then at the top you will see the chart and you can choose which file format you want. I usually use Pdf.
I print these two documents for each year I am using because they give me the best overview for planning.
The booklist gives me all the books I need at a glance and the schedule shows what will be read each week and helps with knowing how much time to plan for each student.
Order and Sort Books
My second step is usually to order all the books! Well actually now that I have several students coming up behind my oldest I really don’t need to buy books for each child. I usually only need to buy all the books for my oldest, although there are some we already have.
For my younger children I use the list mainly to round up all the books we have from the shelf. Sometimes I need to purchase a new copy of something.
Plan Each Students Schedule
The next step is planning each students schedule. This is usually the hardest step for me.
I take a notebook or a bunch of scratch paper and write down tons of notes. I decide what subjects are daily and which are weekly. For example Math, Bible and Copywork are Daily; Artist Study, Handicrafts, and Nature Study we do weekly. I also determine which subjects are done individually and which are group subjects; and also which can be done independently or need my help for each student.
Finally I assign a time to each subject. This year I used the scheduling cards purchased from A Delectable Education to help my timetable. I used them somewhat loosely and readily adapted them to our needs.
For the readings from the Ambleside booklists I use the 36 week chart that I printed above to figure out the average number of readings per week (this accounts splitting some of the longer ones into 2 readings), divide that by the number of school days (currently we do a 4 day school week, with a co-op on Fridays) and schedule that number of readings each day. This year since I was using the scheduling cards I also loosely counted how many history, literature, science readings etc. there were each week.
The most challenging part for me is taking all this information and and creating a schedule for each child that matches up together work, work that needs to be done with me, and work that they can do independently.
The scheduling cards really helped me with this part. I was able to lay out all 3 schedules side by side then look for conflicts and adjust as needed. The scheduling cards are not very expensive but if you don’t want to buy the cards you could pretty easily make your own by creating a sample schedule in a spreadsheet and then cutting it up so you can move the pieces around. The visual aid was so helpful for me!
Gather, Print, and Organize Extras
Once The booklist and schedules are printed, the books ordered and organized, and the schedules created, I gather and print all the extras! Over the years I have found that it really helps me stay on track if I get all these items organized before the schoolyear begins. The things in this category include art prints, song lyrics, historical documents, poetry and more.
Sometimes I create my own folksong and hymn lyrics on Canva, sometimes I find ones others have created and shared on the AO Forum or Facebook group. Both of these two places are wonderful resources for all of these extra things. There are so many generous people that create files and share them with the whole Ambleside Online community.
List of Extras That I Gather
- Folksong and Hymn Lyrics -I make my own or find some on the forum or facebook page
- Recitaion- I usually choose and format my own. There are options on the AO site as well as the Facebook group.
- Historical Documents- there are links to these right on the booklists, I just print them out and compile them in a binder or folder.
- Art Prints- I download the free ones from A Humble Place and get them printed at my local UPS store. I also try to print a short bio of each artist we will study.
- Maps for geography- I find many of these on the forum. D-maps is also a great resource for blank maps.
- Composer Biographies and Playlist- I check the forum and Youtube for ones that have already been created and shared. I have also purchased some from Tillberry Table when they have coordinated and they are lovely.
- Science guides- some of my older students science has a lot of experiments. There are some great guides that give supply lists and instructions that other AO users have created. Again I find these on the forum or Facebook group.
- Study Guides- there are also study guides available for some of the more challenging books. These are usually linked right from the booklist. I print these to have in my binder.
- Copywork/handwriting- for my younger students copywork, I often paste passages into this handwriting worksheet generator. I like to use poetry or Scripture that we are also reciting.
Choose a Math and Foreign Language Curriculum
Math and foriegn language are the two main subjects that are not covered in the AO curriculum. So I choose a curriculum that meets our needs for each of my students.
For math we have used the Elementary Arithmetic series, Beauty and Truth Math, and Saxon. I have not fully nailed down my choices for this year yet.
For Spanish I will be using CM Simple Languages for my little girls. I am planning to have my older boys use the Ulat.
My older boys are also doing Getting Started with Latin as a basic Latin program.
Once I have chosen these, I print and prepare anything needed for them. For example the CM Simple Spanish is a digital download that print out and organize.
A Note on Art and Handicrafts
I also usually plan to do art and handicraft instruction once a week. Currently we are a part of a co-op that is covering those things for my younger students so I am not focusing on it too much. We will get to it at least every so often at home.
For handicraft I often pick something and then find some good Youtube videos to help. Last year we learned knitting and really enjoyed the channel Sheep and Stitch.
We have enjoyed the brush drawing course from Simply Charlotte Mason as a part of our art instruction. Blick Art is a good source for many art supplies.
Inventory Supplies
This is just where I make sure we have all the notebooks and supplies. Do any of my students need math or narration notebooks? Do we have watercolors and nature journals? Here are some of the supplies I make sure we have:
Supplies to Have
- nature journals
- narration notebooks
- map notebooks
- gridded math notebooks
- book of centuries or timeline
- pencils
- watercolors
- paintbrushes
Compile and Organize Everything
Now I am almost prepared for the new school year! The last step is to organize all of these materials in a usable fashion.
I have my own large binder with dividers for all of my teacher supplies. This includes Artist study, composer study, Spanish, study guides, etc.
I also put together a morning time folder for each of my children. This holds all the hymns, folksongs, recitation, etc.
For my oldest student I also put the historical documents in a folder and label them.
I place all the books for each student onto a bookshelf along with their notebooks and supplies. Each student has their own shelf on a bookshelf.
Help Planning an Ambleside Online Year
It was so helpful to me when I was first starting out with Ambleside Online to have others share their wisdom and advice with me. I hope that this has been helpful for planning your Ambleside Online journey. Just remember to take things slowly as you first start out. Don’t try to add everything at once!
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below! I would love to help!
Other Posts for Planning Ambleside Online
Getting Started with Ambleside Online
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