Grammar-Land Worksheets

I've mentioned one of the free resources we are using for grammar in a previous post, but I made some worksheets today to go along with the book and I wanted to share them with you all.  Grammar-Land by M.L. Nesbitt is a wonderful book, and a perfect choice for Charlotte Mason inspired families.  You can view it online or download the pdf file, or buy the book.  We read it on my Sony Reader (the best homeschooling investment I have made!)

At the end of each chapter are some exercises woven into the story.  I've taken those exercises and turned them into worksheets.  Without something printed out and ready to go we tend to forget to do the exercises and I really think they are helpful in cementing concepts.

Click HERE to download these worksheets.

Picture Study

Looking At A Work Of Art, is a wonderful list of questions to ask when discussing a work of art during picture study.

Mozart & Mudpies blog has a wonderful post about how she does Picture Study with her daughter.  I think I'm going to implement her "Let's play a game." idea because I have a child who loves games.

Mater Amabilis Picture Study

Ambleside Online Picture Study

Looking at Paintings: Developing a Story From a Painting

Charlotte Mason Links

Secular Charlotte Mason
Charlotte Mason Home Education Network
Charlotte Mason Help (formerly Higher Up and Further In)
Fresno Family: Secular Charlotte Mason
Penny Gardener Charlotte Mason Links
Simply Charlotte Mason with forums
MacBeth's Opinion 
Living Books Curriculum
Books and Schedules from Charlotte Mason Help


Blogs
A Peaceful Day

Handicrafts

Secular Charlotte Mason has my favorite list of handicrafts.  I've printed it out so I can use it as a checklist and for inspiration.

Organizing and Checklists

I love Ambleside Online, but I have found organizing all of the information to make it usable for our family to be a bit of a headache.  I finally created a bunch of checklists for Year 1 and shared them in a previous blog entry.  I also created a checklist for the Formidable List of Attainments For a Child of Six and shared it in a separate blog entry.  Lastly, this literature list from Higher Up and Further In (which she has since moved to Charlotte Mason Help) has been a huge help!

What I have done is to print off a copy of Lindafay's Higher Up and Further In booklist, which was originally a list of Ambleside Online's suggestions.  I 3-hole punched the list and put it in a folder like this:

 

Then I created my own little key and wrote in on the first page, like this:

 

In a separate folder, I placed all of the checklists I created (and linked to above) with the Daily/Weekly checklist placed inside a page protector in the front so I can use a dry-erase marker on it.

The other pages follow, for example:

Now, whenever I want to peruse the used bookstores I can take along my booklist folder so I buy the things we need.  And when we accomplish a task or finish a book we can check it off of our list.

Ambleside Online Year 1 Checklists

I needed to create a document that I could laminate and use as a checklist when I schedule our lesson plans in Homeschool Skedtrack and thought it would be nice to share it with anyone else who wants to use it.
Ambleside Online Year 1 Checklist



And some more:

Ambleside Online Year 1 Checklist for History and Geography

Ambleside Online Year 1 Checklist for Literature

Ambleside Online Year 1 Checklist for Poetry

Ambleside Online Year 1 Checklist for Natural History & Science

A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six

Have you heard of Charlotte Mason?  No?!  What rock have you been hiding under? ;-)  To learn more, I highly recommend that you visit Ambleside Online and do some reading!

A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six
from a curriculum outline of a CM school in the 1890's

1. To recite, beautifully, 6 easy poems and hymns.
2. To recite, perfectly and beautifully, a parable and a psalm.
3. To add and subtract numbers up to 10, with dominoes or counters.
4. To read--what and how much, will depend on what we are told of the child.
5. To copy in print-hand from a book.
6. To know the points of the compass with relation to their own home, where the sun rises and sets, and the way the wind blows.
7. To describe the boundries of their own home.
8. To describe any lake, river, pond, island etc. within easy reach.
9. To tell quite accurately (however shortly) 3 stories from Bible history, 3 from early English, and 3 from early Roman history (*Note ~ Americans might want to substitute early American for early English).
10. To be able to describe 3 walks and 3 views.
11. To mount in a scrap book a dozen common wildflowers, with leaves (one every week); to name these, describe them in their own words, and say where they found them.
12. To do the same with leaves and flowers of 6 forest trees.
13. To know 6 birds by song, colour and shape.
14. To send in certain Kindergarten or other handiwork, as directed.
15. To tell three stories about their own "pets"--rabbit, dog or cat.
16. To name 20 common objects in French, and say a dozen little sentences.
17. To sing one hymn, one French song, and one English song.
18. To keep a caterpillar and tell the life-story of a butterfly from his own observations.

Here is the checklist I created to keep track of what my children have accomplished.
Ambleside Online a Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six Checklist