A MuddlePuddle Reading Year

Poetry - has a poem for every day of the year so at least one year.

Britannia - 100 weeks (so more than 2 years and OIS is much the same if you use that.)

Old Testament - 21 weeks (which then leaves the New Testament but i’m planning on looking at a different faith after it and coming back to the NT)

Greek Myths - 17 weeks

Stories from around the World - 22 weeks

Just So - 8 weeks

Tales from Old Ireland - 7 weeks

Plan is to have a break every 4th week initially, so the above is for “reading weeks”. So the top 2 will last all year, the middle 3 will last approx half a year and the bottom 2 will be replaced by similar books about every 3 months. That means i guess you can expect to spend around £100ish (obviously i don’t really know quite yet) on the whole year, if you buy them all from scratch.

And yes, i’d love ideas, particularly from Barefoot/Orchard/Usborne or free online books and also especially on world faith and culture stories.

So… i’m branching out. I want to create a Curriculum, sort of But also, not really.

What i want is something like the Ambleside Online reading lists, but…

*with one reading per day.
*using easy to get books.
*with a modern feel to it with nicely illustrated books.
*with low costs and freedom to be otherwise autonomous while indulging in interesting stories.
*with a strictly world view - look at all religions, not just basing it around Christianity and (worse in my opinion) certainly not discounting other world religions.
*relevant to the UK.
*with cohesion between what is in the weekly reading and with ideas for exploring those through the week or month. Also with some relevance to festivals.

I’m hoping that a few people will join me and help me out with that last bit, as well as helping me find new material as we go through the year.

So - here i go. I’ve trialed Ambleside last year and what i liked, i’m bringing. What i didn’t like (volume, old fashioned books, American feel to it) i’m leaving behind.

These are my first 7 books, mainly based on what is on my shelf and i know will be a strong start. It starts with the Old Testament, in simple form, mainly because i have it and i know my girls will enjoy narrating it back and illustrating it. I’m using it as a base to explore other religions through the year but it could be easily substituted with a child’s Qur’an or just left out.

These links below take you to Amazon - buying the books through them will net me a few pence but you can buy the books just as easily in a shop and to be honest, i’m hoping anyone who joins me will already have some of them. I think these 7 books would cost about £48 if you had to buy them all. Look on Red House and thebookpeople for bargains though.

Tales from Old Ireland

Greek myths

Read me 1

Usborne Children’s Bible

Usborne Stories from Around the World.

Just So Stories

Britannia 100 Great Stories from British History

I’ve chosen the above British History because it comes so nicely illustrated, but Our island Story is also excellent and well like among HEers, especially as it is available free online.

So - above i will detail how we are going to read these, on a week by week basis; i very much hope anyone who fancies trialing this alongside me, will get in touch via the comments box and help me make this work.