Today is the day! I have been working on this resource in the background for the entire year but wasn’t able to fully get started on creating the actual resource itself until more recently. I was hoping to get this out in July or early August, but baby boy on the way had different plans for me since I was so incredibly sick at the beginning of my pregnancy from the beginning of May until mid-July. I am praying this resource can still help families even launching at this point when many have already started school!
So what is it?
Thank you for asking! Daily Riches is a 36-week year-long study of the riches for the entire family (preschool through high school)! You could look at it as a morning basket/morning time resource or you could use it other times of the day, split it up, or incorporate it however you would like to!
Why Daily Riches?
The past few years of homeschooling I have wanted to incorporate more of the “riches” but I found us glossing over them and I found we were missing some I wanted to include. Some weeks would be hit or miss. Some of the riches are included in other curricula – we have used Heart of Dakota and Peaceful Press which we have LOVED but I found there wasn’t a dedicated time and we weren’t giving them the focus I really wanted to. So, I created this resource mainly for myself but obviously made it pretty and polished and easy to follow for anyone else who wants to use it!
What are “the riches”?
In the Charlotte Mason homeschool community, the riches are considered those beautiful, worthwhile subjects like learning hymns and folk songs, artist study, composer study, poetry, handicraft, etc. They teach values, art, history, appreciation for finer things, and so much more, and yet they are often overlooked or abandoned. These are important subjects but are often left out of most other types of education and many homeschool families leave them out or reserve them for last (which often means they don’t get done regularly) because while they are beneficial and beautiful, we often think of reading/math/science as “more important.” I wanted to make sure my family incorporated them every day, so I created this super easy-to-implement and open-and-go resource that does not require a lot of time or resources but includes the riches (and more)!
Daily Riches Includes:
- 4 days per week (to make it easier to fit everything in)
- Daily bible reading, devotional, discussion, prayer
- Weekly scripture memory verse
- Rotating Subjects (once per week):
- Poet study + poetry
- Hymn
- Artist study + art study
- Virtue reading
- Folk song
- Composer study
- Weekly handicraft
- Student Workbooks – 2 copywork assignments (scripture and poem) and two open-ended pages to use for art study and composer study however you choose to use them
What do you get?
- 124-Page Teacher Guide with 36 weekly grids (super easy to use at a glance) and QR codes for songs, videos, video read alouds when availabe. It also includes monthly overview pages, a detailed introduction with instructions for each subjects and printing/binding, and all poems, hymns, and folk songs.
- 49-Page Artwork Book with detailed, beautiful artwork for each week (36 pieces) and a paragraph to read about each piece to learn more.
- 4 211-Page Student Workbook Variations: Preschool/Kindergarten (a few words and larger letters to trace and picture to color), Early Elementary (sentences and smaller letters but still tracing and pictures to color), Older Students – Print (printed poem stanzas and Scripture verses for them to copy on blank lines below), and Older Students – Cursive (the same as the print version but in cursive). There is a Workbook page for every day of the year: Day 1 (poetry copywork), Day 2 (art study left blank with lines to use as you see fit for your family), Day 3 (Scripture copywork), and Day 4 (composer study left blank with lines to use as you see fit for your family). The Workbooks also include all hymns, folk songs, and poems so your children can follow along!
Bible Study + Prayer
The Bible Study + Prayer portion of the daily each day includes one reading per week mainly from the Old Testament (New Testament readings are included to show how prophecy came true and to make connections) and uses the book Long Story Short by Marty Machowski. Every day, you will read a passage in the bible, discuss, think about it, and pray about what you learned and discussed. This book will be used for two years if you move on to Volume 2 (still in the works - will be released 2025) after finishing Volume
Scripture Memory
I pulled one verse from each week of Bible readings to memorize as a family. You can practice every day, look up or create a song, learn it through creating a mnemonic device, etc.
Poetry
This year, we will be studying 3 poets (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Louis Stevenson). We will learn about each poet for 3 months, or 12 weeks, reading one poem per week, completing the copywork with part of the poem included, and reading living picture books about the poet's life every few weeks (with video read alouds when available).
Hymns
Every month, students will learn a new hymn (9 hymns total). The Teacher Guide and Student Workbooks include the hymns with the notes included. The Teacher Guide also includes a QR code on the weekly grid that you can easily scan and pull up a Youtube video with the hymn with the same words and arrangement (since there are often multiple versions which can be frustrating to find on your own). We will listen to two versions over the course of the month.
Artist Study/Painting
In Volume 1, we will study 3 artists (Paul Cezanne, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Claude Monet). We will spend three months (or 12 weeks) on each artist, learning about one piece of artwork every week and reading living picture books about the artists every few weeks.
Virtue Reading
Like folk songs are passed down through generations and tell about a certain time period, feature of a culture, or morals/teachings a civilization wants to pass down, stories can do the same thing. I included virtue readings every week because they are very helpful and important to teach the different virtues and it’s interesting to read stories from different cultures and time periods about the same issues we face today. We will learn 5 virtues this year: self-discipline, compassion, responsibility, friendship, and work. We will focus on each virtue for 2 months (8 weeks), with one reading per week (8 readings per virtue). The last virtue (work) is only being learned about for 1 month (4 weeks) and will be the virtue Volume 2 starts with so we can finish that one and then the rest of the 4 virtues in the next volume. Many of the stories included are folk tales/fables/fairy tales passed on through generations and are classics to learn (Echo and Narcissus, Thumbelina, etc.).
Folk Songs
Like the hymns, we will learn one folk song per month (9 total). I chose folk songs from different locations, time periods, and even languages (one in Spanish this year). Every folk song has a box to learn a little about what it is about, when and where it originated, and how it can inform us about the culture, time period, or the values people were trying to pass on at the time it was made popular. Lyrics are included in both the Teacher Guide and Student Notebooks.
Composer Study
In this volume, we are learning about 3 composers (Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Handel). We will learn about each composer for 3 months (12 weeks) and listen to one different musical piece per week. We will read living picture books every few weeks sometimes about the composer and sometimes about the musical pieces. QR codes are included in the weekly grid every week to easily listen to the piece.
Handicraft
Two handicrafts are included in this volume: hand-sewing and paper sloyd. Students will complete one small project each week most weeks, studying each handicraft for 18 weeks. Handicraft is not assigned to a certain day, so it can be included at any time in the week (on the weekend, on day 5 if you homeschool five days, in the afternoon, save it and do a few one week, or whenever it fits in the best for your family.
Weekly Grid
To make it as easy to open and go and dive in, I set up the weekly grid to be as easy to follow as possible. Instead of headers with the days of the week, I used Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 labels instead of so you can fit it in however it works best for your family and pick up wherever you left off without feeling “behind." QR codes are included for many subjects to make it super simple to pull up videos, songs, and video read alouds without getting frustrated (I've been there).
We just started using and are loving it! It should take about 20-45 minutes depending on the day (most days on the shorter side), if you do handicraft, how long copy work etc. takes but shouldn’t take a huge part of your homeschool day and it’s very easy to be flexible and fit things in different places with the weekly grid.
I pray this Daily Riches will make adding the riches into your homeschool day super simple but will also adding the extra richness into your day that you might have been missing or may have been stressing you out. Children (and parents) will get so much value out of consistently including the riches into each homeschool day by the end of their education, and it really does not have to be super complicated or take a ton of time! I hope you enjoy!