Letter from a Prepper – FREE Reading Plan

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Well, I did it. Remember when I said that I might create my own curriculum to line up with Classical Conversations Cycle 1 because nothing I found was perfect? I did it. Mostly. I mean, I came up with a reading plan for Bible, history, literature, and geography. I had high hopes of also coming up with some science and art reading. I can’t find perfect resources, and this project is proving to take a long time to put together, so I decided that this reading plan is good enough to share, even without every.single.subject.

What about Art and Science?

I don’t know, for sure. If my girls only get the art & science experiments at our CC community day, memorize the weekly science facts, and maybe read some of the science fact cards, I think it will probably be enough. I have considered also using The Handbook of Nature Study and doing some intentional outdoor time while creating nature journals. I haven’t planned out what section to read each week, etc. If I do, I’ll let you know.

Mostly, I wanted to create this history, geography, literature and Bible reading plan for my girls. I LOVE reading history out loud to my kids. That was the reason I started making this reading plan in the first place.

What books are used in this reading plan?

 

Bible
Leading Little Ones to God
Journey Through the Bible

History
Kingfisher History Encyclopedia
A Child’s History of the World

Geography
Window on the World

Literature
Mara, Daughter of the Nile
A Little Princess
Heidi
The Samurai’s Tale
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
A Treasury of Children’s Literature
Son of Charlemagne
God King

How much work will this be? How many hours & weeks will need to be spent on this?

Since I have not gone through this plan myself & will be going through it alongside you, we will find out together how long it takes per day! The basic details you need to know are:

  • This is a 24-week reading plan that lines up with the 24 weeks of the Classical Conversations Foundations program.
  • This is a 4-day reading plan, taking into consideration a full day for CC Community.
  • Each day, there are approximately: 1-2 pages in Journey Through the Bible, 1 short chapter in Leading Little Ones to God, 1 chapter in A Child’s History of the World, and typically, 2 chapters from literature. Additionally, there are about 6 pages per week of reading from Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, and 2 countries per week to read about from Window on the World, which equals 4 pages per week.

Here is a picture of what the first week looks like:

The good news is, since you are your child’s teacher, you can adjust this plan! You can decide your family is reading only 1 of the history books, or 1 literature book at a time instead of 2, etc. I created this plan to make this year smoother for my family & to provide others with a simple plan. It fits my family well, but if it does not fit yours, change it. 

The Reading Plan is free, but how much will all of these books cost?

I just added everything to my cart on Amazon to find out. The lowest cost I can find everything new for is: $178.74, and the highest price (with the hardback, beautiful editions of the classic books) is: $206. I just noticed that there are no prime copies/buy new copies of A Child’s History of the World. I apologize! I thought there were when I first started creating this plan. Personally, I love Child’s History of the World.

I’m sure the whole set of books could be cheaper if you chose to get some of the bigger hardback books (like Kingfisher History Encyclopedia and A Treasury of Children’s Literature) used.

If you divide this cost out, considering this reading plan uses 13 books total, it’s an average of $13.75 (low cost) to $15.85 per book (high cost).

Let’s compare the cost of Sonlight, just out of curiosity. Sonlight B, which is the first world history curriculum they offer, is $490.82 for just the history/literature part of the curriculum (no science, art, math, language arts). It includes 42 books, 2 guides, and some timeline stickers. It ends up being an average of $11.68 per book, so a little cheaper per book, but more expensive overall. I personally think that Sonlight is a GREAT curriculum, so I am not here to knock it down based on cost. I created THIS reading plan because I didn’t feel like I had the capacity to read 42 books with my girls this year, and fully enjoy CC’s wonderful material!

If you want to make use of the library or borrow books from friends for most of the books, this would save money. I suggest buying the books that are used all year or for several weeks so that you do not need to borrow a book for 24 weeks.

These books are:

Leading Little Ones to God
Journey Through the Bible
Kingfisher History Encyclopedia
A Child’s History of the World
Window on the World
A Treasury of Children’s Literature

The total cost for these books, new, is $120.85. You can save money buying them used at Amazon or Exodus Books or at a local homeschool curriculum sale.

Why isn’t Story of the World included?

Story of the World is a great resource, and we’ve used it a few times over the years. I didn’t like how scattered it was for Cycle 1. It was confusing to line up the CC material with SOW reading. It would have required owning more than 1 SOW volume for the year, which would have added to the cost of this Reading Plan. There is a list of which SOW chapters line up with CC cycles on Half-Hundred Acre Woods, which is a great resource! I like this list, and yet, I still don’t think SOW lines up as beautifully as I’d like it to. I know several families go through the SOW books every year, or a couple per year, and don’t worry about lining it up with CC perfectly. This is a fine method and worthy of pursuing. I might use the list I linked to & play the audiobook of SOW for my girls sometimes, but I didn’t want to assign us 3 history resources each week, it just felt like too much.

I mentioned above, I love Child’s History of the World. I feel like Hillyer did such a great job of writing to grab kids’ attention! I read through peoples’ comments on the Classical Conversations Facebook Group & realized enough people enjoy CHOW as much as me, so it would be a worthwhile history spine for this Reading Plan.

I chose the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia because I wanted some pictures for my girls, to make the history come alive. We’ve also used The Usborne Encyclopedia of World History before, but I have some issues with Usborne books, personally. I sold mine and haven’t gone back. I don’t like the nudity, the preference for Islam over Christianity, and the strong evolutionary bent. I know many people love Usborne books, this is just my personal preference and experience.

This is JUST a Reading Plan

If you have ever used Sonlight, which is amazing, you’ll know that it’s a reading plan + more. There are tips, notes about what to watch for in the books (content that might scare kids, etc.), suggestions of what to talk about with your children, etc. This plan that I’ve created is just a reading plan. Since I will be reading these books with my girls, who are 10 and 8, I will come up with what to say at the moment. And guess what? You can too. 🙂 If this plan works out well, maybe I’ll have notes for the next time CC gets around to Cycle 1. We’ll see. If you have notes, send them to me. 🙂

Also, just to make sure you know this, you’ll need to schedule your own child’s math, grammar, handwriting, spelling, and writing. If I scheduled all of that on this reading plan, it wouldn’t work for 89% of you…Or something like that. Math isn’t really my subject, anyways. If you want to know which math to schedule & how to do that, you’d have to ask my husband…but, unfortunately, he doesn’t have a blog. 😉

How will I be supplementing this Reading Plan?

Well, of course, my girls will be working on the CC memory work every day! Also, we use Math U See (which they do with my husband, the Electrical Engineer degree guy ;)), and Logic of English (with me, the English major ;)). My almost 11 year old daughter will be reading the books suggested in the IEW guide we are using for CC Essentials this year. And, she will be doing her CC Essentials work, which is quite a bit of work, but GOOD! My 8 year old is dyslexic and struggling with reading, so I am considering finding her a tutor who is trained in the Barton Reading System.

Want to join an online community of people who are using this Reading Plan?

Great! I just created one on Facebook. So far, only my husband and I are in it. 😉 (I had to add at least 1 friend to create the group, so I added my hubby!). You know you want to join! I hope you will! Add your tips, your questions, your thoughts, your suggestions. I would love to hear from you! As I make adjustments to this plan, add things, come up with new ideas, etc., I will share them in the group. Join the Facebook Group!

Can this Reading Plan be used without joining a Classical Conversations Community?

Well sure, but WHY? Our community is the RICHEST part of our homeschooling! I would not want to do any of this without them. Our family has been immensely blessed by our CC Community, and I HIGHLY recommend that you find one near you to join!

This took a lot of work, but I’m sharing for FREE 😉I originally thought maybe I’d create a curriculum so amazing that it’d be worth selling. And maybe this is. I am a newbie curriculum designer though, so I am not going to be charging a bunch of moola for this work. WHY? I want your feedback. I want to know what you’d do different, what mistakes I made (yes, please tell me!), and what books you would suggest for next time.

Hey, maybe, this is a step in my journey to becoming a real life curriculum designer (besides for my own kids). We will see.

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