Top Books of 2020

 This year I have read between fifty and sixty books. They fall into several groups

-children's books. Some of these, I have read aloud to my children and others have been prereads before using with a children's book club that I run; using for book recommendations or prior to reading aloud with my children. 

-adult fiction. This has been dominated by Agatha Christie, this year, as my younger daughter has discovered her books and likes to have someone to discuss them with. Reading them isn't a hardship!

-Christian books which I have read to learn more about the faith or for  encouragement.

- adult non-fiction. This is a bit of a ragbag.

I grade the books that I read from 1 to 5. Looking through, no books have received a one this year. This is probably because there have been books which I haven't bothered to finish. Anyway, onto the best.

Children's Books

I enjoy reading children's books and this year, some have been particularly worthwhile.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is a classic set in a fictional time in history. What or who are the wolves? It has an encouragingly happy ending. Ideal for children aged about 9-11.

Stella by Starlight is a book that deserves to become a classic. This is set in North Carolina in the 1930s in a black family. It details the struggles of the men of the community to register to vote against a background of Klu Klux Klan activity. 

Next term's read with the book club is Out of the Smoke which I reviewed earlier.

A friend recommended On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. I'm not usually a big fantasy fan but this is written particularly well and my youngest has been very keen for us to start the next volume. 

The faithful spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the plot to kill Hitler was ,again, read at the instigation of a friend. This is a reflective comic book aimed at older children. There is so much to think about in this book: theology, history, pacifism, loyalty to country and when to stand up and be counted. I don't agree with Bonhoeffer in everything, certainly not theologically, but this is a book that I am booking forward to reading and discussing with my children.

Adult Fiction

Agatha Christie has been fun and the best of the year was And then there were none although it is definitely creepy. 

I guess that I need to read some more fiction, next year. Suggestions are gratefully received!

Christian Books

This year, I have reread some of Ryle's Expository Thoughts on the Gospels. I don't know how many times that I have read these but they are straightforward, helpful commentaries on the text which don't strain the meaning.

A Passion for the Impossible:the life of Lilias Trotter is the biography of a wealthy Victorian artist and friend of John Ruskin who gave up all her hope of becoming a famous artist to go as a missionary to Algeria. 

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: a Devout Muslim encounters Christianity 

This is the raw testimony of a a Muslim lad to starts to work through the truth of the information that he has always believed about Christianity and then the foundation for his Islamic beliefs. A thoughtful book showing the beliefs that many Muslims have about Christianity, Nabeel's love for his family and the cost that he paid to follow the Lord Jesus.

Adult Non-Fiction

Tyneham: a Lost Heritage

I picked up this book which had belonged to my Mother in law and wasn't sure whether it would be worth reading. It is Dorset local history and I wasn't sure that it would grip someone not born in the county but it was definitely a keeper. Tyneham is a village which was taken over by the military in the Second World War and never returned. Lilian Bond tells the story of growing up in the manor at the turn of the twentieth century and a world which has gone forever and a place which has changed beyond recognition. 

I have written short comments about the books which I have read in this year's book list. As always, I have some books on the go

• Wonder  by R.J. Palacio
• Prisoner's of Geography: Ten maps that tell you everything you need to know about Global politics
• More than Conquerors: an interpretation of the book of Revelation
• Spurgeon's Devotional Bible- My husband and I have been reading this together for a couple of years and, God willing, will finish this tomorrow. This might be heresy but I prefer this to Spurgeon's Morning and Evening as the comments follow the text more closely.

Please feel free to recommend books for me for next year! 

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Summer Learning

This summer seems to to running away with learning, a 93rd birthday and of course, wedding preparations. Anyway, this is mainly about learning although life and learning are inextricably mixed.

Morning Time

Currently, morning time consists of

• prayer
• learning Psalm 119 v1-8
• Training Hearts: Teaching Minds: Family Devotions on the Shorter Catechism
• a hymn from our church hymnbook. This half term, we are singing a different adaptation from Psalm 119 each week. 
• God's Smuggler. Prior to this, we read Natasha Vins' autobiography Children of the Storm
• a double page spread from the Usborne Introduction to the Second World War.

On a rotating basis, we read from the children's book club books (The Endless Steppe and The Treasure Seekers), a book about bridges (Who built that? Bridges) and songs from The Pirates of  Penzance. 

Science has involved several components:

• Mystery Science
• a science theme at our local home education group. As part of this we had a mushroom kit from Grow Wild. 
  
• a series of lifecycle days at the home of another home educator. We came home from one session with frog spawn and were able to watch our spawn turn into tadpoles and finally, much more slowly than everyone else's, into frogs. The frogs have now been released.
  
  
  
  We now have caterpillars which are proving less stressful than tadpoles!
• a hedgehog detector from the London Wildlife Trust. Sadly, we haven't spotted any hedgehogs yet.

History has been about the Second World War. I have already written about the resources that we have used.

Youngest Son has finished Dancing Bears! We have been working through this series for a looong time. There have been some interludes, particularly a long one a couple of summers ago with Nessy.  I would recommend Dancing Bears for a child who needs a second line phonics programmes. The stories are rather wacky and we gave up on them near the end of book B but by this stage it is easy to substitute with other books.

Maths

Youngest Son also finished his Galore Park Junior maths book 2 early so has now started on book 3. His daily maths is divided into two or three sections.

• Schofield and Sims mental maths. This is independent work.
• Galore Park- this is his main text and I use this to guide me teaching new work and the exercises to practise what he has just learned.
• If time, either Prodigy maths free programme or a maths game either a download from somewhere like Nrich maths or Trilemma, fraction dominoes or the fraction pizza game. Sum Swamp is much loved but I don't think it contributes to his learning anymore!

Younger Daughter uses Schofield and Sims Understanding Maths series and is currently working through the Stats and Multiplication and Division books. She does a bit from each every day.

Of course, summer has to involve Sports Day. We went to the East London Christian Home Educators' event by the Thames Barrier. Over 120 children took part and it was lovely to meet friends old and new. 

This term, I am especially glad for strength for each day and God's all sufficient grace.

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Beginning of the Year Update

We are well into our second half term of 2018.

Our major project this term is around the First World War. I've written about some of the resources that we are using. The Usborne Introduction to the First World War has proved invaluable as a spine. We read a double page spread each day and frequently use the videos linked through the Usborne site.

The other main part of our project has been working on family history. We have made a large family tree and added a sentence of two about family members who were involved in the War. One of my husband's great aunts was a nursing sister in the War and left a diary about her time on a hospital ship going between the Greek Islands and England as well as her time nursing under canvas, at Camiers. We have looked at the diary and one of the children made a poster about her and also included an incident when she was on hunger strike with Mrs Pankhurst.

Hand drawn cartoon found in a commonplace book from a family friend who was killed in the First World War.

We spent an afternoon at the Imperial War Museum looking at their First World War gallery.

This term, we have changed spelling curriculum to Apples and Pears. Our previous spelling programmes whilst highly recommended, just wasn't working for us. So far, so good with Apples and Pears although I have discovered that often spelling/reading resources seem to work well initially, while the work is mainly revision but then breaks down when there is new material to be learned. I'm hoping that this won't happen this time!

We have also started a different science curriculum: Mystery Science. This is very easy for me- videos to watch and easy activities, generally, using household items.  So far, we have used, and finished a chemistry unit. Next up, I plan to use a human biology unit. This curriculum is working very well with my nine year old. My eleven year old finds it a bit young at times.

Our home education group also has a science theme this year although we had to postpone our last meeting due to the snow. The snow meant sledging with friends-three days running! Snow is so rare in London that we have to make the most of it.

Our read alouds this term are

• Twice Freed by Patricia St John. We have almost finished this fictional retelling of the story of Onesimus. 
• War in the Wasteland which is a First World War story by Douglas Bond.  

I have another couple of First World War books planned but suspect that we will run out of time. There are so many more things that we could do but sometimes less is more!

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November Inspiration

We are well into November now. Well past Reformation Day,

 Guy Fawkes night and even Remembrance Day.

November is also a month for anyone who wants to write a novel. The NanoWriMo site has a special feature for younger writers with the ability to set an individual word target and help designed for children.

There are plenty of children though who struggle with reading and writing. This can induce a fair amount of parental guilt especially when there is a societal expectation that anyone from a home filled with books will love reading. This is a really helpful article about Where kids still struggle with reading even in a print-rich home.

We haven't really got into podcasts for children yet but this is a list to explore.

I'm not an unschooler but this post about learning and living is thought provoking. Yes, home educated children do get a chance to follow their interests now in a way that wouldn't be possible for a child in school. 

This model DNA is so easy. We made it recently and unlike many other cell/DNA activities around it isn't  filled with sugar!

I am currently on the look out for book club suggestions. The club has children from 10-13. We read both fiction and non-fiction. The group has a science theme, this year but the books don't necessarily have to have a scientific theme although  bonus points if they do! Any suggestions?


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Sources of home education inspiration: English

This is the second post with resources for home education. I don't pretend to list every resource. These are either programmes/sites which I have used, referred to or seriously considered using. The comments are my personal views.

• Early years: we loved the picture book based curriculum, Five in a Row which has ideas around picture books. Even if you don't use the books, it is worth checking out the book lists. Branch Out World has a similar type of idea but produces unit studies around UK based picture books.

• Learning to read. Opinions on learning to read vary and some children seem to learn with very little instruction. For the rest, programmes which teach synthetic phonics seem to have evidence based approval. We have used Jolly Phonics but found that there wasn't enough repetition nor explanation of some difficulties. 
I have written about reading programmes for children who need more instruction. If I were starting to teach a child to read now, I would use either All about reading or Dancing Bears. Reading Eggs is a popular on line programme. It is helpful re-enforcement for other reading instruction as is Nessy.  The latter is particularly useful for learners who find reading difficult.

• For spelling, we use All about Spelling. This is a methodical, teacher intensive programme with plenty of review built in. In the past, I have used Schofield and Sims spelling workbooks with an older child. These are a cheaper alternative for children who don't struggle with spelling. 
I haven't used but was impressed with Alpha to Omega which would cover reading and spelling. Again, I haven't used the Structured Word Inquiry but this sounds a fascinating way to help children with spelling. I haven't been able to find a book about this-I'm sure that someone should write one or tell me where one exists! Nessy is a painless way of re-enforcing spelling.

• Poetry. PoetryTeatime on Instagram has plenty of ideas and is linked to the Brave Writer site where, I think, Poetry teatime started. Other sources of poetry ideas are Poetryline which is a UK based site designed for primary schools, Poetry Foundation and the amazing list on Homeschooling without training Wheels.  Young poets may like to enter for the Betjeman Poetry Prize. How Poetry Tea works in our house is here. 
  

• Creative writing. There are an enormous number of programmes around and even more views on how to teach creative writing or, indeed, on whether it should be taught at all. Anyway, we have used WriteShop which has clear instructions; Bravewriter which has somewhat less clear information about what to do but plenty of encouragement for helping reluctant writers and a set of books: . Pie Corbett's books are helpful. I have used the Key Stage one book, How to teach story writing at Key Stage 1, and also Jumpstart: Literacy games for 7-14 year olds. A helpful set of books are published by QED and called How to write. 

• Grammar, punctuation, comprehension. We don't do as much grammar as schools seem to be doing for the year 6 stats testing. We tend to use the Galore Park books for this part of English although we have the older edition. The newer edition seems to include more grammar. Jumpstart, by Pie Corbett, has some games which can be used. This year, we have used Writing with Ease which has worked reasonably well for one child and not at all well for the other. This is sold as a writing course but includes copy work, dictation and close style narration. I find the narration questions similar to the comprehension questions in Galore Park. The premise of this book is that creative writing is not necessary at a young age. I struggle with this idea so wouldn't use Writing with Ease alone for writing.

• Handwriting. We have used several programmes: Schofield and Sims (we liked this but my children need more than two thin books worth of practice), Getty Dubay (this worked well until we reached cursive which looked too different to UK script), Morrell workbooks. I have wondered about Handwriting without Tears but rejected this as the cursive was unlike most UK styles. Please let me know if you have any recommendations. Ideally, I would like something which can be done for a short time daily.

• Extras: Shakespeare week has plenty of resources for introducing younger children to the bard. Don't forget the local library for books. Recently, I have used the library online search more and more rather than just looking at random when I arrive. 

Please do write about your favourite resources and let me know if I have left out some major area. 

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A day in Education at Home

There isn't an average day but I thought that I would write about a fairly ordinary day. Like most days, there were some differences: on more days than not we see other children and not going out because of the weather is a very rare event. Anyway, here goes:

 We were about on time starting, today. Sometimes, we lag. I don't like dragging tired children out of bed and the children can be a bit reluctant to have breakfast when there are carers in the kitchen but today, things went fairly well. When we start late, I try to stop a bit later for lunch.

We start Morning Time with prayer, a reading from The Ology,

work on our memory work which is currently Psalm 98-today we focused on verse 4 and sang our hymn for the week: Before Jehovah's awesome throne. We then did the day's problem from Bedtime Math. Today, this was about Lego towers. 

Younger Daughter then went to read The Thieves of Ostia while I read Charlotte's Web to Youngest Son. 

 We went onto English/literacy/language arts or whatever you want to call the subject. This included

• reading for both children.
• spelling. Both children use All about Spelling.
  Younger Daughter had a day off spelling as she had put in tremendous effort to finish her book yesterday. I hope to start the next level with her on Monday.
• Writing with Ease for Youngest Son.
• Latin for Younger Daughter. We started Minimus Secundus today,
  
  having finished the first book, yesterday. Minimus is a primary Latin curriculum which is working well for us. 
• Younger Son working on a talk for our local home education group. The children take turns to give a short  talk and Powerpoint presentation to the group. As we are studying countries, this is currently about a country. Younger Son's talk is about the USA so he was finding pictures of early explorers and putting these into the presentation.

 Break.
Today, Younger Daughter wanted to do a Skittle and water activity. The results were splendid.

She and her younger brother then went on to make lava lamps with oil, water, food colouring and a vitamin C tablet.
I used the break to spend a bit of time with Grandma and sort out some household tasks.

 Maths
Both children start with 10 questions which I write in their maths books, the previous day. These questions are usually around tables practice. After that, they go onto Galore Park Maths. 
My daughter was working on transformations and enjoyed this. 
Youngest Son continued work on equivalent fractions and then all three of us played Fraction Bingo which looks, again, at equivalent fractions.

Youngest Son requested another chapter of Charlotte's Web so I thought the lunch could wait!

Break for lunch/answering door to carers and district nurse and being around for them.

After lunch, both children spent about an hour on the trampoline and in the garden. It was very windy and we ended up sorting out some fence repairs from the wind.

We had a read aloud from Children of the New Forest and then about how bicycles work from Can you feel the Force?
At this point, the wind was howling and small branches were hurtling around. I had planned to go out, look at our bikes to fit in with the reading, do a nature walk and end up in the playground but I lost my nerve. Usually, we go out whatever the weather and  think that there isn't bad weather only bad clothes. Today, I wasn't sure how clothes would protect us from the wind so we stayed in and watched a video about Home Science activities. 

 Younger Daughter went on to make coloured sand (rice) from the instructions on the video and then a file to hold her books from another video on this channel. 

Not a bad day but not a perfect day. I would love to know about your day and in particular, what has worked well for you.

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High Points of the Year

We are slowly coming to the end of our academic year. I'm working on lists and ideas for next year as well as evaluating what has and hasn't worked. You will be spared the latter but here is a list of some of the highlights.

Poetry Tea
Tuesday afternoon is Poetry Tea Time and a popular time of the week!

We have all become familiar with more poetry. Sometimes the poetry has sparked wide ranging conversations. We have mainly had poetry tea at home but we have pulled our books out at Bateman's , home of Rudyard Kipling and in a coffee shop while waiting for Middle Son to take an exam.

Poetry Tea has sometimes included friends who have even written poetry for the occasion. We have also started a family anthology which includes poetry that we have selected and poems that the children have written.

Plans? I would love to have some themed teatimes and ideally, would like us to eat fruit  rather than less healthy delights!


Morning Time
I have written about our future plans for Morning Time recently so won't elaborate except to say that this has proved a happy and useful part of the day.

Nature Study
We have had a weekly nature walk using Lynn Seddon's Exploring Nature with Children  as a guide. Going outside and observing more has been a plus and amazingly, I have enjoyed my nature notebook.

We also took part in a nature swap with a Scottish family which was fun even if we realised that London lichen is rather tiny compared with the Scottish variety! The swap plus some of our London finds are displayed on our rather full nature table. 

Read Alouds
Many of our read alouds have been around either history or related to the book club. It is sometimes challenging to find books which appeal to both of my younger children. Recent favourite books have been Swallows and Amazons (Younger Son) and the Grandma's Attic books. The latter have appealed to both children although chiefly to Youngest Daughter. We have almost finished our second book in this series and there have already been requests to download the rest.

Pencil Holder
I'm embarrassed to stay this but providing a pencil holder with a plentiful supply has saved us so much time, this year, Previously, I had assumed that each child would need a pencil with a couple in reserve. This may work in other families, and I know that I'm not the tidiest person on the planet, but we wasted so much time looking for lost pencils. At the end of the year, our supply is dwindling and I will need to buy more over the summer. I don't intend to start in September without a large number of pencils ready to be used.

Nessy
Nessy is new to us, this term and has been a great boon. I have written before about second line reading programmes. One of these, in particular, has proven valuable and has given major measurable results but has been painful to use. We really needed a change and to something that was fun. I found out about Nessy on a reading website; we used the free trial and signed up. We are still fairly new to Nessy but the children love the programme and are very happy to work on it. One child needed a complete break from their reading scheme so has just been using Nessy while the other has used Nessy plus a scheme. 
Nessy is designed for children with dyslexia or who are behind in reading for some reason. It has three branches: reading and spelling, numbers and dyslexia assessment. We have only used the reading and spelling. There is an initial assessment for placement and the teaching is via videos and games. The children earn nuggets to spend in Monkey Town to make their monkey look cool or unlock various buildings. 
Nessy costs £60 per year plus VAT for one student and £70 per year plus VAT for two students. There is a home education discount which was about the same amount as the VAT. So far, this seems to be money well spent!

Do post about what has really added to your year. I would love to make improvements for next year and ideas are the fodder of progress!

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The Reading Zone

The Reading Zone:How to help kids become skilled, passionate, habitual and critical readers is the title of a book by Maine school teacher and award winner, Nancie Atwell. The Zone is a time both at school and at home when children are allowed to loose themselves in books of their own choosing. Book lovers will recognise this concept. My children tell me that they can say almost anything to me while I'm reading and I will agree-except that I have become a bit wiser about this over the years!

In Nancie Atwell's school, the children have twenty minutes each day in the Reading Zone and another half an hour of reading as homework. Why? Apparently, educational outcomes are correlated with the time spent reading for pleasure each day. This link has details of the research. 

Often schools set reading books but Atwell is strongly in favour of letting children choose from a large classroom library. She spends time researching children's literature and trying to match purchases to the personalities and interests of the children in her class. The reading lesson begins with book talks when either teacher or pupils present books that they would recommend. Books are divided into three categories which vary according to the pupil: Holiday, Just right and Challenge. I think that this categorisation is something that most of us can immediately fit to our own reading.

The book contains a helpful section about struggling readers of various types; the type of books which are most likely to appeal and the use of audiobooks with the text to read along. The book was written before the advent of Kindle Fire with immersion reading but the concept is the same. 

Probably the part that I found most useful was about writing about books. Atwell's pupils are encouraged to do this as letters but only once the book is completed and not a letter per book. She gives examples of the letters and her replies. She maintains that the common practice of reading a few chapters and having to write formally about a book will destroy interest. 

 Whilst there are books, genres and authors recommended that I would not choose, the basic concept is something that can readily be extrapolated to the home. Our quiet reading time, after lunch, has gone into abeyance and reading this book has encouraged me to restart this. Of course, I will need to read alongside the children but that isn't exactly a hardship! It has also reminded me to ask the children to keep records of the books they read, and of books they want to read. It is also an encouragement to read children's books so that I can recommend and discuss them with the children.

Recommended.

Disclaimer: I purchased this book for my own reading. The views are my own.


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Loving books and words: Virtual Curriculum Fair 2015

Over January, I hope to be sharing some of the resources we use and linking up to Virtual Curriculum Fair 2015. 

Co-Hosted by:
Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts & Minds
Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses
Laura @ Day by Day in Our World
Stacie @ Super Mommy to the Rescue
Lisa @ Golden Grasses


This first week's post is about the resources we use for English aka, on the other side of the Pond, as Language Arts. Part of the aim of this post is to provide ideas and links. What works for our family may not work for yours but hopefully some of the ideas may add zest to your home education.

I have three home educated children. The eldest of these is preparing for UK exams in English Language and English Literature. He has a tutor for English Literature and uses Catherine Mooney tutoring for English Language.

Most of this post is about the resources that I use with the younger two children, aged eight and five. For these two, English is made up of learning to read, learning to enjoy and understand books, learning to write, handwriting, spelling and grammar. My eight year old has found reading difficult so becoming a competent reader is, for us, a major focus as it has been for the last four years. 

Our two main objectives are

• to ensure that the children enjoy books and words even if reading is difficult.
• to help the children become competent readers.

Learning to Read
We have used several reading programmes which I have summarised here. At present, we are using Rod and Staff readers and I am just about to start Toe by Toe with my struggling reader. Toe to Toe seems to have many positive reviews and produce results but isn't the most exciting looking programme! It also starts again right from the beginning. I'm wondering about ignoring the strict instructions and starting part way through.

Her younger brother is using Hooked on Phonics.

Learning to Enjoy and Understand books
Having a child who has spent four years learning to read, it is really important to us that she likes books and that her access to books is as wide as possible. This means plenty of reading aloud. I have found the podcasts at Read-Aloud Revival particularly encouraging.

It is helpful to have someone else read aloud from time to time. We have recently found the BBC Schools Radio stories which have been well received.

In terms of loving books, the Five in a Row books have been invaluable. We aren't using these formally, at present, although they are often requested as bedtime stories and we are using them at a group we attend. I have written about activities we used alongside these books.

The books we read are an eclectic collection including books I enjoyed as a child, those recommended by friends and the books which go with the Veritas self-paced history. Hopefully, more about the history in a later post!

Last year, we had a poem each half term which we read several times a week and in some cases, the children learned. Last term, this fell by the wayside although each week we read some poetry. I have a poem planned for this half term. Our favourite poetry resources are

• illustrated books e.g. Paul Revere's Ride and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy evening.
• 100 Best Poems for Children edited by Roger McGough
• Now we are Six by AA Milne
• The Macmillan Treasury of Poetry for Children.

I have recently discovered the Poetryline site which I'm hoping to use with the children soon.

Learning to Write
We use a combination of WriteShop, letters and a daily sentence or paragraph depending on the child.

Handwriting
Handwriting is a difficult subject for me. I have typical doctor's handwriting. Younger Daughter used Getty-Dubay for a time but we found that once she reached the cursive script it was rather unlike UK cursive so we changed to the Schofield and Sims books. To maintain neat handwriting, daily practice seems necessary but this has rather fallen by the wayside as reading and spelling have taken up more time. Handwriting practice has been pushed into a once a week activity.

Spelling
This autumn, the children started using All about Spelling.

This is thorough, multi-sensory and has plenty of repetition. We found that weekly tests did not produce improved spelling even with daily practice. All about Spelling has daily drill but not the stress of weekly tests.

Grammar
This is tackled in our daily Circle Time. I try to make this interactive. We occasionally use sheets from Jolly Grammar to re-enforce these. We don't use the spelling sheets in Jolly Grammar now as we found them to be insufficiently systematic.

Comprehension
Formal comprehension exercises have been pushed down the list. We talk about the books that we read. The children sometimes narrate a passage. As they get older, we plan to introduce this using the Galore Park English books.

I'm looking forward to reading about the resources that others use. Please do comment with any resources that you particularly recommend. Do visit the blogs of the other contributors to the Virtual Curriculum Fair. 

Building a Foundation of Words by Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts & Minds
Language Arts for 2015 by Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses
Bible-Based Language Arts Resources by Tauna M @ Proverbial Homemaker
Relaxed Homeschooling: Language Arts in the Early Elementary Years by Brittney @ Mom's Heart
5 Language Arts Resources We Love by Becky @ Milo & Oats
Teaching Reading at Home: A Tale of 5 Readers by Kristen H. @ Sunrise to Sunset
A More Simplistic Approach to 7th Grade Language Arts by Christy @ Unexpected Homeschool
Language Arts Reading for Delight-Directed Learning by Susan @ The Every Day of Education
How To: Spelling Dictation by Heather @ Only Passionate Curiosity
The World of Words in our Homeschool by Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory
Unschooling and Words, Words, Words by Nicole @ Schooling in the Sun
Learning With Literature and Language Arts Resources by Leah @ As We Walk Along the Road
Words and More Words! by Michele @ FamilyFaithandFridays
Language Arts in Our Homeschool (2014 – 2015) by Laura O @ Day by Day in Our World
Our curriculum choices ~ Language Arts by Renata @ Sunnyside Farm Fun
The 2015 Virtual Curriculum Fair ~ Language Arts in Our Homeschool by Jennifer @ A Glimpse of Our Life
Loaded Pistols: Virtual Curriculum Fair Playing with Words by Lisa @ Golden Grasses
A Renewed Focus on Reading Aloud by Debra @Footprints in the Butter
Language Arts in our Classical / Charlotte Mason Homeschool by Sharra @ The Homeschool Marm
Logic of English Foundations: The Grand Prize Winner of Phonics by Chelli @ The Planted Trees
A Sentence a Day Teaches Grammar the Fun Way by Amy A @ One Blessed Mamma
Tackling Language Arts by Jacquelin @ A Stable Beginning
Middle School Monday - Lightning Literature and Composition by Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break
The Great Grammar Discovery by Laura @ Four Little Penguins

If you would like to link up a post about your English curriculum, please follow this link.

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