Half a Hundred Acre Wood

Christian homeschooling integrating Classical and Charlotte Mason principles

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Of all that I share here on this blog, searching through books to develop our reading plans is what I spend the most time doing, as I hope to choose books that our family cherishes reading together (and your family cherishes as well, should you choose to use our reading plans!). The only problem is… there are so many great books to choose from! Having acknowledged this fact, I share our reading selections for this cycle realizing that there are a ton of other great works of literature to explore.

Cycle 2 with the Great Commission in Mind

For a reading/curriculum plan that overlaps much of the memory work studied during Cycle 2 – with an integrated study of church history, world history/geography, science, and fine arts, check out our Mission: Faith Forgers Curriculum Plan. Our open-and-go, Christian Classical Curriculum integrates the study of the world and the ongoing fulfillment of the Great Commission, with a focus on loving God, His Word, and fellow mankind.

Note: Although Mission: Faith Forgers is not directly correlated to the memory work, it includes a more complete study of astronomy, physical science, and history. The books selected for this reading plan were chosen as long-term resources for students to use when they embark on research and world geography memorization in grades 7+. For families who use Classical Conversations®, the readings assigned in the Mission: Faith Forgers study overlaps much of the memory work studied during Cycle 2 but is not correlated week by week. This provides an opportunity for ongoing review and integration of the memory work throughout the year.

Several of the following read aloud selections were books we wanted to read for some time, so I generally categorized them by semester or the overarching memory work themes of Medieval history and World Wars. Because we also used the Western Civilization Study (Calendar Quest) as our core history program for this cycle, we weren’t so concerned about touching on every piece of memory work in these reading selections. If we had questions about our history memory work, we referenced our Cycle 2 Reading Correlation for Story of the World.

Read Aloud Selections First Semester:

  • The Magic Runes: A Tale of the Times of Charlemagne (a book originally written in 1888 about showing Christ’s love to others; uses slightly archaic language). [This was our personal selection as an alternate to Son of Charlemagne. Sonlight and Beautiful Feet recommend Son of Charlemagne, but our family has never been able to read past Chapter 3.]
  • The Tales of Robin Hood. Because we had never read through any of the Robin Hood stories outside of the picture book Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow, we decided this year to dive into this classic. Two free ebooks in the public domain are Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle or Robin Hood by J Walker McSpadden, but they use somewhat archaic language (which is beautiful but may take some getting used to!). If you check out the free ebooks and find you need a more readable version, use Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Green or the somewhat slimmer Tales of Robin Hood by Anna Claybourne. For younger readers there’s also the DK Readers : Robin Hood Level 4 Reader . Pair this reading with the illustrated book The Magna Carta: Cornerstone of the Constitution. Great tie-ins to Cycle 2 history (and Cycle 3!)!
  • The Door in the Wall.  This one is a Classical Conversations Challenge A book set in fourteenth-century England during the time of the plagues. (I highly recommend reading Classical Conversations Challenge books before your child gets to Challenge.)
  • Crispin: The Cross of Lead, another exciting Classical Conversations Challenge A book set in fourteenth-century Europe during the Hundred Years’ War. Be forewarned: although the details were not elaborated upon, it includes the controversial circumstance of a lord’s illegitimate son. As a read aloud I simply did not read a couple of words out loud. Also, because our children are already aware of the brokenness of relationships outside of marriage, this was not a completely foreign subject for us. Rather, it gave us an opportunity to talk about these things briefly as a family. Another potential concern is the use of unusual swears such as, “by God’s everlasting bones” or “by the putrid bowels of Lucifer.” Even with the somewhat controversial nature of some aspects of this book, it is a beautiful tale of love, life, and loyalty.
  • Treasure Island. My husband says every boy needs to read Treasure Island, so this is what we read as a sort of age-of-exploration type of book (which I know is a stretch). If you’d like a book related to memory work, you can try The King’s Fifth by Scott O’Dell or the free ebook A Book of Discovery: The History of the World’s Exploration, From the Earliest Times to the Finding of the South Pole by MB Synge. [For an alternate read for girls, try the classic Heidi or the book Catherine: The Great Journey, Russia, 1743]
  • We attempted The Struggle for Sea Power (free ebook in the public domain) but it did not engage our 7-year-old and 10-year-old sons. Instead, we read Beneath the Cat’s Claw. The Struggle for Sea Power is a book that covers the age of colonization, providing a history of the European colonies as well as the American and French Revolutions along with the rise of Napoleon. However, The Apprentice (set during the Renaissance) and Beneath the Cat’s Claw (set during the French Revolution) are fantastic books to read as alternates.

Read Aloud Selections Second Semester:

  • The Twenty-One Balloons. I wanted to bookend our war-related literature/historical fiction selections with lighthearted adventuresome books. The Twenty-One Balloons is the first bookend and was one our children enjoyed quite a bit.
  • Mid-Year Update:  Angel on the Square. Because the boys begged me to read The Twenty-One Balloons at the end of last semester, we decided to work in a couple of books related to World War I to fill in the gap. Set in Russia just before World War I, Angel on the Square follows the life of a wealthy girl who serves the imperial family (Nicholas II of Russia…) After World War I ends and the Bolshevik revolution turns her world upside down, she learns how to sacrifice as she rebuilds her life as a peasant. Great story!
  • Mid-Year Update: We added Sergeant York and the Great War due to a field trip to the Alvin C York State Historic Site in Tennessee – and because Alvin York’s life is a beautiful true story of redemption. We loved this story!
  • I am David. Instead of reading about WWI this year, we had originally opted to use picture books for World War I and focus our read-alouds on WWII. (Although we later decided to add a biography of Alvin York or bios of animal heroes during the wars.) I am David tells the escape story of a 12-year-old prisoner of a concentration camp during World War II. [For an alternate read aloud selection for girls, try When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. If you have not yet read Number the Stars (a CC Challenge A book) or Snow Treasure, those are both excellent reads that our family loved the first time around!]
  • So Far from the Bamboo Grove. This book focuses on the country of Korea and Japan’s occupation during WWII. Mid-Year Update: Although this is an autobiographical account related to World War II, the Korean War, and communism, this autobiography is far too tragic and graphic to read to children. Instead, we highly recommend When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. The name seems a bit girly and shallow, but this autobiography is so fantastic! It’s an innocent look (from the perspective of a child) at what was happening in Europe as Jews evacuated Germany during the years leading up to WWII. Riveting and delightful. Loved it!
  • Shadow on the Mountain. Last year, we so enjoyed Preus’s book, Heart of a Samurai, that we decided to end our world war reading with this exciting tale of espionage set during WWII. Mid-Year Update: Although we thoroughly enjoyed Heart of a Samurai, we did not care for this book much. The hatred exhibited by one of the characters just did not settle well. Instead, we recommend Snow Treasure, an excellent family read-aloud also set in Norway during World War II.
  • Goodbye, Vietnam. Stories about the Vietnam War are difficult (as are most stories about war conflict). Because of its tie-in to Vietnam after the Vietnam War, we chose this story of a family’s escape as refugees in post-war Vietnam.
  • The Wheel on the School. This does not tie in to any of our history memory work, but our 12-year-old son told me we must read this book out loud as a family. Because it at least ties in to some of our geography memory work earlier in the year, and because it is a funny and enjoyable book, we decided we would close out our school year with this one.

Visit this post for picture book selections.

Note:  We usually read aloud our family read-aloud selections in the evenings after supper. The following loop schedules are short readings and/or activities we did to jumpstart our school day (aka, “Morning Time”).

For some time, I struggled with how to better communicate how we handle our “connections” or  “truth-goodness-beauty” activities. Writing these into a planner makes it seem like such a demanding and hard-set schedule when, in reality, we don’t necessarily read them on those particular days or weeks. The reality is that we have used a loop schedule for years now when it comes to these “extras.” By a loop schedule, I’m referring to the fact that when we “fall behind” on our planned activities, we go back through our plans and pick up where we left off as we continue through the school year. The idea, though, is that in an ideal world, we would read each of our “looped” selections on a weekly basis. So, for each week, we would have a selection from storytelling, Shakespeare, a mini-biography, and a poem. Likewise, we would have nature study, hymn study, composer study, and art.

After thinking through a better structure for our loop schedule, we ended up with two loops that we used in the mornings. I placed the resources for these loops in our book basket, the first of which was our daily Bible/Character devotion, Hero Tales: A Family Treasury of True Stories from the Lives of Christian Heroes.

C2 Loop Schedules

Morning Storytime Loop:

Download the Storytime Loop Schedule.

Morning Wonder-Beauty Loop

Download the Wonder-Beauty Loop Schedule.

An important part of our daily loops: Our last trip across the nation totally inspired me. Reading Lewis & Clark’s journal entries and the journal entries of pioneers and scientists/inventors provided extra motivation to set aside time daily for the boys to write and sketch in their journals. The journal entries were based upon something that we studied during our loops. Of course in my utopian mindset (which is how I always start our school year no matter what last year was like), I imagined sketches of constellations, and a calendar of moon phase diagrams, and neatly-written copywork/poems with lovely illustrations, and free-hand drawings of world maps, and illustrations & explanations of inventions and other ideas.

History Study

Calendar Quest & Western Civ Study. As a family we chose this study for our core history study in the coming year. We previously used this study (involving calendars, coloring, maps, and a timeline) when our oldest child was nine and are now looking forward to going through it again now that the boys are three years older and can understand more! If you have purchased the Western Civilization Study, you can download our Western Civilization Study Loop.

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Other related posts:
Updated Cycle 2 Planners with Reading Correlations & Booklists
Mission: Faith Forgers Curriculum Plan
Our Cycle 2 Picture Book Selections
Our Cycle 2 Booklist


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