Do most schools count Literature as a Grade Two subject? Most elementary schools would probably lump it under Language or Reading. But what do you get to read in Reading? Oh--I know. Not readers, these days--more likely books from the Classroom Library. (How many school lesson plans have you seen that encourage children to write their own books and put them in the Classroom Library?)
Anyway, I wouldn't count on what's there as being literature, or even it being as good as the Scholastic box-of-books we used to have as our Classroom Library.
Okay, end of snarky classroom rant.
We're mainly going with Ambleside Online's Year Two selections, with a couple of changes. I'm doing a heretical thing by not including Shakespeare stories at all this year. Crayons has been listening to them with Ponytails for at least a couple of years now, and we both need a break. Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales (they're companion books, we have them both in one volume) are suggested as extra reading for this year; we're going to read them instead of Shakespeare, leaving out a couple of the stories that will be covered in Year Three (The Heroes).
After two go-throughs with it, I've decided I've really had enough of Eugene Field's lollipop trees and dinky birds. Besides, a couple of Maxfield Parrish's almost-nude illustrations (don't say I didn't warn you) create too many giggles among the Squirrelings, and I'm not crazy about them either. So no Eugene Field this year. I was going to go just with the Come Hither anthology, but then I figured out that we could keep Christina Rossetti (the printout available on Ambleside Online) and Walter de la Mare's own poems for teatime reading, and work a few of James Whitcomb Riley's poems into the fall (his poems always make me think of the end of October). So lots of poems this year after all.
Pilgrim's Progress runs through the year, and then the longer books for each term are:
Term 1-- Understood Betsy; St. George and the Dragon (we forgot to read it last year); Hiawatha’s Childhood (picture book with stanzas from Longfellow’s poem)
Term 2-- Wind in the Willows
Term 3-- The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle (just the chapters listed for AO Year Two)
Along with the poems, I'm planning on keeping a couple of special books to read through the year at teatime: The Old Nurse’s Stocking Basket and Italian Peepshow, both by Eleanor Farjeon; and The Door in the Wall, by Marguerite De Angeli.
And that's why we homeschool.
Related Posts:
Crayons' Grade Two: Bible
Crayons' Grade Two: Social Studies
Crayons' Grade Two: Science and Nature
Crayons' Grade Two: French
Crayons' Grade Two: Math
Crayons' Grade Two: Language Arts
As Little As Possible
Grade Two: The Very Last First Time?
1 comment:
Hi Mama Squirrel! Thank you for submitting this to the Carnival of Homeschool (Not Back to School Edition at The Homeschool Cafe...did you see it?)
PS. Hey, I like Maxfield Parrish! :p
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