Hey there!

 I warmly welcome you to Serendipity. Here you will find our learning notes. There is a collection here of lots of a different trails of learning we've taken as we educate our children at home. Some collections are very complete. The Alphabet Path offers enough material for an entire kindergarten and first curriculum (with the addition of math) and there is much along that path for older children as well. We are tinkering with it a bit still (and always), but I invite you to find a plethora of ideas for every letter here.

There are several history trails from which to choose, some are very complete and include a careful outline of how to walk the trail. If you are new to literature-based learning, you might want to start there, with Colonial America and the American Revolution. There are eight stops along the way, each of them linked here.

After that, there are plans for four weeks (or so) of Lewis and Clark, beginning here , with links to the rest of the study here. After completing those, you're likely to be an expert at making books come alive. For your planning purposes, there are detailed booklists for Pioneers and Westward Expansion here and some additional notes linked here. There is an extensive booklist and detailed suggestions for creating a main lesson book for the study of Native Americans here

You'll find a detailed booklist to fuel your study of the Civil War here.

If you're wanting to study the Middle Ages, you might want to begin with this booklist.

There are some great  ideas here for studying American geography--lots of links to books and a very simple but beautiful way to record what you learn.

For a detailed study of other cultures, begin with this introduction and then come along with us as we study Africa and India and the Middle East. if you think of it, please pray that one day we can finish sharing our notes on studying other cultures;-).

If it's science you want, check out the sidebar. There, you will find links to lots of living books on a variety of science topics from A-Z (literally). We've carefully chosen these books. It's my firm opinion that there is nothing in an elementary scieince curriculum that can't be taught with a good picture book. The books linked on the sidebar are some of the finest.

Looking for a fresh approach to grammar? May I suggest Lively Language Lessons? You'll find the introduction here and a list to each of the lessons here. And hey, maybe I can finish the rest before you need them, though if you do the ones here, you're likely to be very confident in writing the rest yourself. 

How about the bard? Do you have a bunch of Friday afternoons to spend studying Shakespeare with even your littles ones? Here's a mult-age, all the way through high school, course of study for all of you.

There is some poetry in the Shakespeare study and we give you a little more here and just a few more lessons here. Look for additional entries in the late summer or early fall.

There's even a wee bit of math here, as we get you started creating stories for your little ones to help bring some basic math concepts to life. There are a few more stories and tutorials here and a fresh take on the stories here. There are no plans to udpate or continue the stories at this time, but if you do, please drop us a line and let us know, so we can show other people what the gnomes or elves or squirrels or munchkins look like in your home.

Literature for the Young Lady is an outline of a literature-based, flower-strewn learning path for girls in their 'tween and early teen years. It's also woefully in need of my time and attention, so you won't find any live links to that just now. Hopefully, we can get those notes cleaned up, freshened and in good working order by early summer.

Thanks for stopping by today. I do hope you'll visit again soon and often.