There is a book list included in this Morning Time curriculum – my son has already read more than half of the novels and has loved them. It includes composer study (Beethoven), artist study (Renoir), scripture, poetry, read-alouds and more – all centered around the virtue of Courage. This year, however, we tried out Morning Virtues Courage and we’re loving it. Last year we used A Gentle Feast Morning Time, which I still adore.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know Morning Time is my favorite! When the boys were little, we kept it really short and sweet. He seriously blows me away! And now I’m watching my 5 year old quickly grasp math concepts through games and hands-on fun. Now that my son is 8, I’ve seen the fruit of this program in the mental math he’s able to do. But I love it because it teaches number sense in a gentle, easy and fun way, provides lots of time for mastery, and is very in-depth, covering literally EVERYTHING you could think of.

It’s hands on and manipulatives-heavy, so it’s not for everyone. This will be our fourth year using Right Start Math. adorable) and there are simple but fun activities to do at the end of each chapter, assigned by Judge Grammar himself! We’ve also been loving Grammarland as a read-aloud ~ it teaches grammar through a story (Judge Grammar puts the parts of speech on trial ~ I mean…. He’s happy, I’m happy! This is the first year I’ve seen him excited about language arts lessons. This is one of my son’s favorite books and it’s been a joy to see him learn writing through literature itself. What I LOVE about the Brave Writer program is that it teaches the mechanics of writing (including grammar, spelling, punctuation, literary style, etc.) through a story, in this case – Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective. Now that my son is comfortable with print, he’s ready to move on to cursive, which I feel is still relevant, and an important skill to have (although some may disagree!). This year we’re using a mix of The Brave Writer Dart program and Handwriting Without Tears (Cursive Handwriting). *Note: Many of the history books we are using came from book lists from and This is going to be a long post, with a massive booklist – so feel free to just skim to the section that interests you. By about January, I’ll be tempted to ditch everything and try something new – but DON’T WORRY. There’s just something about the new school year that always makes me a little giddy.

Morning books brave writer