Gearing Up For AO Y3

Back in January, we made a trial switch to the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling.  I admit, it was a very scary change for us as I had it in my head that the kids needed to a certain amount of worksheets and busy work each day to meet some imaginary line for being a quality education. But the truth is, trying to do all that wasn't productive for us - the kids fought against me, they were unhappy and each week we were getting further and further behind.  During our Christmas break I spent time researching a better way of doing things and the Charlotte Mason method seemed interesting.  We tried it, the kids liked it and we have decided that Charlotte Mason is indeed for us.

Here we are now about to start our 3rd Grade year and I'm trying my best to get some scheduling done for our upcoming school year.  After going back and forth between both Simply Charlotte Mason and Ambleside Online, I have settled on AO.

 I'm just really wishing I had discovered AO earlier on as I feel like we will be doing a lot of catch up with some of the recommended books.  Many of the Year 1 books we can easily fit into our schedule on top of the Year 3 stuff, as those weekly lessons are pretty short and we could probably add them without adding a whole lot of extra time to our schedule.   Instead of jumping into the Year 3 right off the bat, I think we jump into many of the Year 2 books and then get caught up as many of the books in Year 3 are started in Year 2.

So far, this is what we will be using in our upcoming school year:

History:
     Trial and Triumph  by Richard Hannula
     An Island Story  by H.E. Marshall
     Fifty Famous Stories Retold  by James Baldwin
     Viking Tales  by Jeanie Hall
     A Child's History of the World  by Virgil Hillyer

American History:

     This Country of Ours by H.E. Marshall
     Benjamin Franklin by Ingri D'Aulaire
     George Washington by Ingri D'Aulaire
     Buffalo Bill by Ingri D'Aulaire

Geography:
     Paddle to the Sea by Holling C. Holling
     Tree in the Trail  by Holling C. Holling
     Seabird by Holling C. Holling
     Home Geography for Primary Grades  by C.C. Long
     Elementary Geography by Charlotte Mason
     Everyday Geography (3rd-5th Grade) from Christian Homeschool Hub

Natural History/Science:
     Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock
     The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess
     A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder by Walter Wick
     Introductory Science by Science Shepherd
     Apologia Exploring Creation with Astronomy by Jeannie Fulbright
     Experience Astronomy Field Guide from Intoxicated On Life
     Close to Home (Things to Know and Things to Do) by Elizabeth P. Lawlor

Literature:
     The Aesop for Children by Mike Winter
     Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit
     Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
     Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty
     The Blue Fairy Tale Book by Andrew Lang
     Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan  (All In One Curriculum from Answers in Genesis)
     Heroes, or Greek Fairy Tales for My Children by Charles Kingsley
     American Tall Tales by Adrien Stoutenburg

Poetry:
     A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
     Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization from IEW

Math:
     Math U See - Beta and Gamma
     CTC Math

Spelling/Grammar:
     Spelling - Lower Elementary List 2 from SchoolhouseTeachers.com
     Essentials - Logic of English
     Grammaropolis.com

Copywork/Notebooking/Handwriting:
     NotebookingPages.com
     New American Cursive Penmanship Program from Memoria Press

Foreign Language:
     Olim, Once Upon a Time..in Latin (for Ashleigh)
     Foreign Language for Kids by Kids Spanish  (for Garrett)

Bible
     VeritasBible.com
     Grapevine New Testament Pt 2
     Firmly Planted:  The Gospels Pt 1 and Pt 2

Art and Music
     Music Appreciation for Elementary Grades by Zeezok Publishing
     Studying the Masters:  12 Great Artists from SchoolhouseTeachers.com 
     ArtAchieve.com
   
Character Building
    Laying Down the Rails by Sonia Shafer
    Laying Down the Rails For Children by Lanaya Gore

As long as this list may look, I know that as the year progresses, much more will be added to this list.. We're already on Week 4 of our new school year and we are already flying through our lessons.  But overall, this is what we have planned at this point in time :)