Our Year 0.5
Year 0.5 is an unofficial year for users of Ambleside Online’s Curriculum. It is the Year 0 curriculum (for 0-6 year olds) with added structure and short lessons in Maths and English as needed by either the child or the state registration board. We used Year 0.5 as our NSW Prep year. We did not have any registration requirements for our state at this age.
This is a summary of our Year 0.5. We didn’t plan most of these, just chose them as we went along.
To see how we put this into practice, you can read about our :
Year 0.5 Booklist
Bible
Read through entire Children’s Bible
Devotions
One Year Devotions for Preschoolers
Literature (Read Together)
The Real Mother Goose illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright
Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit Series
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White (AO1 Free Read)
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Muddle-Headed Wombat by Ruth Park
Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers (AO2 Free Read) (Blog Post)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (Blog Post)
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Mr Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater (Blog Post)
101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith
Matilda by Roald Dahl (Read by Kate Winslet)
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
The Green Ember by S.D. Smith
Mrs Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald
Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary (Read by Neil Patrick Harris)
The Adventures of Reddy Fox by Thornton W. Burgess (Read by John Lieder)
The Adventures of Johnny Chuck by Thornton W. Burgess (Read by John Lieder)
The Adventures of Bob White by Thornton W. Burgess (Read by John Lieder)
The Adventures of Peter Cottontail by Thornton W. Burgess (Blog Post)
Dinotopia by James Gurney
My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
The Railway Children by E. Nesbit
Stuart Little by E. B. White
The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk by Thornton W. Burgess (Read by John Lieder)
The Adventures of Buster Bear by Thornton W. Burgess (Read by John Lieder)
The Adventures of Unc’ Billy Possum by Thornton W. Burgess
The BFG by Roald Dahl
Homer Price by Robert McCloskey
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
+ Many wonderful picture books (see here)
You can find out more about using Audiobooks in my Ultimate Guide to Audiobooks
Free Reads/Reading Practice
Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel
Hey Jack! Series by Sally Rippin
The Magic Treehouse Series by Mary Pope Osborne
The Tinklers Three Series by M. C. Badger
Mercy Watson Series by Kate DiCamillo
Billy and Blaze Series by C.W. Anderson
These have been the main books so far since he has finished his phonics lessons. I wrote about our favourite transitional chapter books here.
Riches
Picture Studies – Paolo Uccello, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Rembrandt
Music Studies – My First Classical Album, My First Beethoven Album, Mary Poppins Musical
Poetry
A.A. Milne – When We Were Very Young
Robert Louis Stevenson – A Child’s Garden of Verses
Dr Seuss Collection
Banjo Paterson – Mulga Bill’s Bicycle, The Man from Snowy River, Waltzing Matilda, We’re All Australians Now
C.J. Dennis – A Book for Kids
See here for my post on our Poetry Teatime
Mathematics
Targeting Maths 1 (Read my reflection on this resource here)
Reading/Writing Resources
Teach Your Monster to Read
NAPLAN Toy Story Book
Dictation/Copywork (tracing) – kind of following Writing with Ease
See here for my posts on why and how we taught our son to read
Science
Magic School Bus Series by Joanna Cole (Books and DVDs)
Geography
Possum Magic by Mem Fox
Magic Australia by Nuri Mass
History
Story of the World Vol 1 by Susan Wise Bauer
