Gospel Centered
Leadership Education
in Our Home
How to Use These
Plans
These are the plans that I have created to use in my
own home. My hope in sharing them with you is that these plans will guide you as
you implement the Come, Follow Me program for Families, together with a philosophy of Leadership Education in your homeschool day. While these plans may
be followed to the letter, they are much better adapted to your family’s preferences
and needs. They are meant to help you “INSPIRE” learning in your home, NOT to
be a REQUIREment/conveyor belt. Move Subjects around, add your own special
projects, or leave subjects out entirely. These are meant to be helpful, not
stressful! As a benchmark, I would suggest that you spend a MAX of 2 hours per
day on these activities with your Love of Learners. Unless, of course, the
children are deeply involved and interested! Most activities should only be
around 15-20 minutes long. For a Core phase child, I would probably aim more
for 10-15 minutes per activity, or less.
Anything included in these plans may be copied and
printed as many times as you need.
Companion Web Page
For live links to all the books, videos, resources and
tutorials in these plans, just click on the purple/blue words or visit the Google Document that contains these
plans. Additions/continuations to these plans will be posted in both places. Sometimes a
link to a free, downloadable activity will require you to sign up for the
newsletter of the activity’s creator. I have tested all of these, the
download is legit, and you can unsubscribe if you wish.
Choosing a Schedule
As you implement these plans in your home, consider
following them in one of the following ways:
Weekly Grid:
You can choose to follow them exactly as written. The subjects and activities
are scheduled onto different days for you. Wednesdays are kept very light. I
plan on practicing the song in the car, on the way to Commonwealth.
Loop Schedule:
With this schedule, you do the Scripture Topic study and the Memorization verse
daily. Work on each Memorization verse until your family has memorized it and
then move on to the next.
After the Scripture study and Memorization each day,
choose 3-5 other activities from the page. Skip the ones you don’t want to do
and keep track by checking off within the subject’s box.
Subject by Subject
Weekly Topic-The
topic each week is taken from the Come,
Follow Me-For Individuals and Families 2019 manual. I have tried to
correlate the History, Memorization Verses, Songs to Learn and the Read-Aloud
with the Topics. If I could make some of the others work too, I did so. Feel
free to add stories, books, projects or other resources based on the weekly
topic to your school day. Or not, and that is ok too! If you find some great
ideas, please share!!!
Memorization-The verses I
have chosen to memorize have come from the scripture topics each week. Occasionally,
there isn’t a verse that I thought was a good fit for us to memorize so I
included something else for a daily recitation. Just think…by the end of the
year our families will have close to 50 scripture verses memorized! Celebrate
that accomplishment with them!! For help with memorization ideas or techniques,
try listening to Your Morning Basket podcast
Episode 2 and Episode 24.
Geography-The
geography is mostly centered around the Middle East and the surrounding areas.
We will learn the countries, some cities, rivers and landmarks. You will want
to have a good atlas or globe on hand, as well has some blank maps in page
protectors. Use dry erase markers each day to mark the places you have learned,
then erase and start again the next day. For smaller children, you could also
have small sticky notes (the ones shaped like arrows) with the names on them and
have the children stick them in the appropriate place on the atlas or big wall
map. For more info on how to study geography, watch PamBarnhill’s Facebook Live video on geography.
History-I
have planned to use the book Augustus Cæsar’s
World by Genevieve Foster for my history spine this year. Each week I have
planned to read approx. 10 pages aloud. It is a very engaging, living book,
written for children in the form of a story. I highly recommend this book (or
any of the others in the series!) to you to use this year! I will be very surprised
if you don’t end up being very glad you did.
Timeline-This
is currently under construction! But I hope to get something ready really soon!
It is so helpful to have a visual of the order of events in history and when
people lived during that time. I will add these resources to the Google Doc. Or
you can come up with something that will work for you. It can be super simple
or much more complex.
Poetry-Occasionally I have included a bit of poetry. There are so
many good reasons for children to hear poetry! Have fun with it! Read the poem
to your family. Enjoy. It’s really that easy! You might also want to:
-Have
them close their eyes and after the reading tell what they pictured in their
mind.
-Draw a picture to go with the
poem.
-Ask about their favorite part.
-Ask about their favorite word.
For more on poetry, if you desire, listen to Your Morning Basket Episode 8 and download their poetrycheat sheet.
Language Arts-I
like to vary what I do in this subject. This is a subject that tends to throw
us back onto the conveyor belt, because we worry that our children are “behind.”
They are NOT, but that doesn’t stop us from worrying! Pushing a child ahead of
their maturational readiness in this area will result in a child who doesn’t
like, or may even hate, reading and writing. To avoid that, but still be
developing their skills and interest during the Core and Love of Learning
stages, I have found that a varied approach, without strict expectations, and
with a sense of wonder and fun, works very well. It is hard to put this
approach in a plan form, but I have tried to show the types of activities that
I do, and how I change it up. You’ll notice that I try to hit on different
areas throughout the week. In the beginning of 2019, I will be rotating between
Fairy Tales/Nursery Rhymes, applying literature to life, handwriting, spelling
and parts of speech. Not shown, I will probably also occasionally do a page or
two in a Good and Beautiful Language Arts workbook, read a section from the
Childcraft book The Magic of Words, teach
a specific phonogram, or play a game. I chose activities that are at my son’s
level. But most of the links are to sites that have activities for all levels. Pick
another activity for your littler kids, or adapt for a higher/lower ability. I
feel very strongly about including Fairy Tales/Myths/Legends/Folk Tales/Fables.
The best resources I have found online to explain my thoughts are found at the
following podcasts: Your Morning Basket episode 41 and Episode 60. I HIGHLY recommend that
you listen!
Composer Study-I
have found that this is a favorite subject in our home! There are lots of ways
to go about learning about composers. I have shared the way that I do it, but
it’s definitely not the only way! I use a series of books, written for children,
about the lives of some of the most famous composers written by Opal Wheeler. I
have found a lot of these in used bookshops, but they have all been reprinted
in paperback by ZeezokPublishing. They have also created audiobooks of thestories, a Lapbook for each composer, Audio CDs of some music, and a curriculum
to go along with the books. I use some of all of what they have. But just
reading the book and finding some of that composer’s music on the internet
would work very well! In the plans, I wrote what I will be doing, but don’t be
intimidated by that. Do what works for you!
Songs to Learn-I
have chosen a song each week from the Come,
Follow Me manual that correlates with the weekly topic. My goal is to sing
it at least three times during the week. The ultimate goal would be to learn
the song completely!
Picture Study-The
picture chosen each week is from the Come,
Follow Me manual. A nice, color copy of the picture is part of each week’s
lesson in the manual, so no additional purchase is needed. I have also included
a link to the picture online, if you prefer to have a large copy on your
desktop screen or cast onto your TV for everyone to see at once. This is easy!
Just talk about what you see. What colors are used? What about light/dark or
shadows? Style? How does it make you feel? Why is this picture important?
Art-This
is different than the picture study. This is an activity for your children to
create art. I have tried to make the art project correlate with something else
that has been covered during the week. As much as possible, I have tried to give
a YouTube or blog link to a tutorial or example of the project.
Science/Nature-There
are so many different, wonderful ways to explore science and nature. This year,
at least so far, I have decided to use the Good & the Beautiful science
units. They are very well put together, easy to grab & go (for the most part)
and we have found them interesting. Jacob enjoys going through them. If you
aren’t interested in the unit we are doing, or you’ve done it already, it would
be easy to swap it with another of the units. I may throw something else in, but
I don’t know what at this point.
Math-Like
Language Arts, this subject is the one that most of us really worry about. It’s
very hard to allow our children to learn mathematical concepts organically, in
a way that makes sense to them and provides a solid base and a love for math.
In this subject, I use a wide variety of ideas and resources to cover concepts.
This year I have an over-arching goal to have Jacob become solid with addition
facts. But I also want to cover other concepts too, including story problems,
life applications, math in literature, stories of important mathematicians, and
more! For actual problem solving, I have found that games are the best teacher.
Lots of games! Playing a game doesn’t feel like a lesson, and it encourages a
child to try a little harder. I have no problem adapting game rules to work for
the level of math ability we are working on. I may add more, or less, to our
plans, but I want a wide variety of activities and I have tried to show this in
the lesson plans.
Read Aloud suggestions-Read the chapter book suggested, or picture
books, depending on the age of your children and how much other reading aloud
you are doing for the day. Feel free to substitute your own family-favorite
books. For my family, I have chosen to have our read-aloud be a New Testament/Ancient
Rome themed book. I have suggested reading 2 chapters per week. Adapt that to
your own schedule. Whenever you finish, start another read-aloud. If you read a
lot, be sure to break up the reading with other activities. Discuss:
Favorite parts
of the story.
Should
character X have done Y?
Which
character is most like or unlike you?
Needed Resources and
Supplies
If an additional resource is
needed to complete the subject, I have listed it below. Many of these resources
will be used for the entire year, or at least, several weeks/months. If you
choose not to use a particular resource, you can omit that subject from your
plans or make your own substitution. The library may have some of these
resources or a decent alternate. The resources listed below are recommended for
you to purchase. But other than that, as much as possible, I have found free
resources online and have linked them from the lesson page on the Google Doc.
Gospel Learning
|
|
History
|
Augustus Cæsar’s World
by Genevieve Foster
|
Composer Study
|
Great Musicians Series Part 1, by Opal Wheeler (also available individually)
|
Science
|
The Good & The Beautiful Science Units, available as a PDF or pre-printed
|
Art Supplies-Pens, pencils, colored pencils, markers, paint,
brushes, chalk pastels, paper
Geography-An atlas or large world map and/or globe; blank maps
(links in lessons), page protectors, dry erase markers
Science-check each unit as you get it for the supply
list and suggested read aloud picture books.
Books
Purchase some of these books for
your personal library, check them out from the Public Library, borrow from a
friend, or substitute something similar from your bookshelves. Books needed for individual weeks are listed with that week's plans.
Chapter Books (great
to own!)
·
The Dog
Who Was There by Ron Marasco
·
The Bronze
Bow by Elizabeth Speare
·
Stephen, Boy
of the Mountain by Amy Morris Lillie
·
The King
Nobody Wanted by Norman F. Langford
·
Theirs Is
the Kingdom by Jack M. MacLeod
·
Jotham’s
Journey by Arnold Ytreeide
·
Ishtar’s
Odyssey by Arnold Ytreeide
·
Tabitha’s
Travels by Arnold Ytreeide
·
Bartholomew’s
Passage by Arnold Ytreeide
·
Amon’s
Adventure by Arnold Ytreeide
·
The Handel’s
Messiah Family Advent Reader by Donna W. Payne & Fran Lenzo
·
Men Called
Him Master by Elwyn Allen Smith
Math Books (these
are on the TJEd Math Classics list. Great to own!)
·
Mathematicians
Are People Too! Stories from the Lives of Great Mathematicians by Luetta & Wilbert Reimer
·
Childcraft:
Mathemagic
·
Childcraft:
The Puzzle Book
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