If you've read this homeschool blog for any amount of time, you'll know that I simply love approaching any and all subjects from a great books perspective. My rising second grader also loves school reading time, and as do most Charlotte Mason-designed curriculums, the newest curriculum from Beautiful Feet Books, Seasons Afield, puts great children's picture books as a guide to gentle early elementary science learning that both engages and teaches.
Please note that I received a free set of the Seasons Afield curriculum from Beautiful Feet Books in exchange for this review and I was compensated for my time in preparing this review. All opinions are my own.
I simply love opening up literature-based homeschool sets. Opening Seasons Afield was likewise a true delight. Here's my unboxing video. I love doing these because you can see just what it feels like to open it up and examine these lovely new books for the first time.
I was very excited to see some books I was familiar with. Here are just a couple.
Although I wasn't familiar with some of the other picture books, the high quality was quickly apparent. I also fell in love with the oversized book Slow Down, which gives brief nature scenes to examine, such as an overview of a bee visiting a flower and a year in the life of a field of bluebells.
Not pictured is a book I received later: Watercolor with Me. These watercolor-appropriate pages in this book provide sketches to watercolor, as well as watercolor tips for success. It is so pretty I didn't want to start painting in it! (The set also provides consumable field note cards and watercolor cards to correlate to the lessons so we don't have to paint in the book if we don't want to.)
After I browsed through the books in the box, I begin by examining the teacher guide. The guide is both gorgeous and detailed. It is organized in field guides (units), subjects (about 3 under each field guide), and lessons (labeled by day, usually 4 per subject). Each field guide section is framed by a story from Brambly Hedge, and the subsequent subjects each have a picture book frame as well. The lessons range from biology (such as trees, flowers, and life cycles) to earth science (such as seasons, weather, and the moon).
But the the teacher guide is not just detailed. It also is incredibly flexible. We began using Seasons Afield after I brought my daughter home from public school in March; we used it for parts of April and all of May. I was very anxious about making things too structured and formal in our home because of her difficulties with the overwhelming school day. I wanted her to once again feel a love for learning. Thankfully, the teacher guide made it so easy to adapt as we needed.
Because it was the end of the year, we did just the lessons that my 7-year-old wanted to do. My daughter was not always interested in doing the given activity on the day it was "scheduled." I followed her lead and we skipped around as we did the lessons. It met her learning needs for her end-of-first-grade year.Now, it's summer. We're doing general review activities during the summer in math and reading. But she asked me to do science, too!
So, although there are a handful of lessons for each main book and these are labeled "Day One," "Day Two," "Day Three," etc., you do not need to do the lessons in order. I also decided to do the subjects out of order! Since we began in spring, I found the spring section toward the end of the book and began there.
Seasons Afield has been just perfect for our return-to-homeschool season, and I cannot wait to start the curriculum from the beginning of the manual once we start up our regular homeschool year at the end of August. (The beginning of the manual focuses on autumn.)
Charlotte Mason's homeschooling philosophy emphasizes a living education that fosters a child's natural curiosity, character development, and engagement with a broad range of subjects through short, focused lessons, living books, and outdoor experiences. There is a lot I don't know about her philosophy, but it is clear that Seasons Afield gorgeously follows these concepts.
After reading the main book and discussing it, the lessons under each subject also include things like an outdoor exploration, a craft, and another kind of activity or discussion. The entire set also has consumable half-page worksheets, pages to watercolor, and a blank booklet for journaling.
Here are items included in a sample subject.
My video review will help you get a visual overview of what is here!
This curriculum checks off all the boxes of what I'm looking for in a homeschool curriculum. It has great literature appropriate for a charlotte mason homeschool, discussion ideas, a detailed but flexible teacher guide, consumable fieldnotes and other pages included, and more. It saved me time -- there was no need to research great books or plan science. It's all there.
This curriculum checks off all the boxes of what I'm looking for in a homeschool curriculum. It has great literature appropriate for a charlotte mason homeschool, discussion ideas, a detailed but flexible teacher guide, consumable fieldnotes and other pages included, and more. It saved me time -- there was no need to research great books or plan science. It's all there.
Beautiful Feet Books provides so many learning options. With book-inspired lessons in a variety of subjects geared towards ages Preschool to grade 12, Beautiful Feet Books is sure to have a book-focused learning option for you. I've also used many other Beautiful Feet Books curricula over the years. Here are the ones I have used!
I'd highly suggest you follow the Beautiful Feet Books newsletter to get updates on their courses. They are always coming out with more courses, unit studies, and book recommendations.
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