Simply Charlotte Mason

New Features on the CM Organizer and Bookfinder

Sonya — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:25:00 +0000

We’re pleased to announce several new features on the CM Organizer and CM Bookfinder are now up and running. Here’s a quick overview:

Daily Journal note
CM Organizer users asked for it, and here it is. With this new feature you can add a general note about the day without tying it to a specific resource or assignment.
Check Your Local Library feature
Nobody asked for this one, but we think it’s really neat! Use this automatic link in the CM Bookfinder to check if a resource is available at a library near you.
Some rearranging and “spiffing up”
We’ve moved a few things and given them a fresh new look in order to prepare for more upcoming upgrades. Stay tuned!

Take a look and let us know what you think.

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Charlotte Mason had some wonderfully practical ideas that apply to both homeschoolers and parents. Our free e-book, Education Is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life, presents three of her key ideas and gives real-life examples and applications so you can see what those ideas might look like in your home. Download your free copy of Education Is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life.

The Secret to Fresh Wits

Sonya — Thu, 15 May 2008 02:27:00 +0000

We’ve all seen those looks: the glazed-over eyes, the dulled expressions, the partly-concealed yawns. Let’s face it, sometimes our children just “check out” during the school day. Are those dull wits an unavoidable part of homeschooling, or is there something we can do in our planning to encourage “fresh wits”? Charlotte Mason had a great suggestion.

Charlotte recommended that we vary the order of subjects throughout the day in order to use different parts of the brain:

“The brain, or some portion of the brain, becomes exhausted when any given function has been exercised too long. The child has been doing sums for some time, and is getting unaccountably stupid: take away his slate and let him read history, and you find his wits fresh again. Imagination, which has had no part in the sums, is called into play by the history lesson, and the child brings a lively unexhausted power to his new work” (Vol. 1, p. 24).

You see, different parts of the brain are used for different school subjects. If, for example, the child does copywork, he is using his reading and fine-motor skills. Next, you might switch to reading aloud a history book, so he can use his listening and imagining parts of the brain. Then, possibly, do a picture study that uses looking and describing. After that, you could do a math lesson that involves analyzing, counting, and reasoning, or go outside and do some physical activities that get the body moving.

Using different parts of the brain helps the children stay focused for each lesson and prevents their getting fatigued. So as you are planning your daily schedules, try to keep in mind Charlotte’s secret to fresh wits: vary the order of subjects during the day to use different parts of the brain.

Those of you with older children, who are doing a lot of their work independently, may want to let them in on this little “secret” and encourage them to organize all their independent work to use different parts of the brain. Or at least tip them off that if they are getting bogged down in one subject, they might be revitalized by switching to another subject that uses a different part of the brain, then returning to the first subject refreshed.

It’s a simple principle that can make a big difference. Just something to keep in mind as you plan.

Have any of you already tried this principle of alternating subjects? Which subjects have you found work well next to others? Leave a comment and let us know.

If you have missed any parts of this planning series, you can read them all on our Inside SCM blog. Just take a look at the series list below.

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Preschoolers in the Mix

Sonya — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:40:51 +0000

Certainly one of the biggest challenges facing a homeschool mom is trying to teach with little ones underfoot. You might have laid out the best plans in the world, but those plans might never become a reality if you fail to consider the preschoolers in your home. They can be quite distracting to both Mom and the other children who are trying to concentrate on their studies!

Don’t get me wrong: preschoolers are a great blessing! They just add another dimension to your planning. Here are five great ideas, compiled from other homeschool moms, for homeschooling with preschoolers in the mix.

Keep lessons short!

This is a key component of the Charlotte Mason method, and especially crucial when homeschooling with a preschooler or two nearby.
Assign “baby breaks.”

Have the older children take turns interacting with the little ones. They can read books together, work puzzles, watch educational videos from the library, or play with something in their “school” containers (see next item).
Compile special “school” containers.

Set aside some special activities that are allowed only during school time; for example, Play-Doh, crayons, cheap workbook-type books, building blocks, lacing cards, rice with measuring cups, self-adhesive foam shapes, stickers, paper, aluminum foil to mold into shapes, items to sort, Cheerios to string on yarn, magnetic letters, or other special things they don’t usually get to play with. Your local dollar store is a great place to find items for these containers. Put the special toys in special containers and bring them out only during school time as a special treat. Don’t give all the toys at once, but dole them out one at a time, taking the old activity away when you give the new. And make the rule that the child must put all the items back in the container before trading it in for a new one. If a container loses its appeal, set it aside for a few months then put it back in circulation.
Make a ball pit.

Purchase a little wading pool and fill it with colorful, plastic balls. This toy can be played with inside or outside, and you can slide it under a bed when you’re finished with it for the day.
Include them whenever possible.

Even young toddlers can sit in on hymn study and devotional time. If the three-year-old wants to do math when his older brother is doing math, get him some simple objects for counting and let him “do math.”

Got any other ideas you’d like to share? What has worked for you? Leave a comment and help out another mom with preschoolers in the mix.

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SCM at the GHEA Conference

Sonya — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:07:22 +0000

We just wanted to drop you all a quick note to let you know that SCM will be at the Georgia Home Education Association conference this weekend, May 2 and 3, near Atlanta. You can find registration details at GHEA’s site.

Sonya will present a habits workshop, Smooth and Easy Days, based on our book Laying Down the Rails on Friday at 11:00 AM. (As always, check the schedule at the conference for any last-minute shuffling.) Come learn why habits are so powerful, which habits Charlotte Mason encouraged parents to focus on, and lots of practical ideas for how to cultivate those good habits

And be sure to stop by the SCM booth in the exhibit hall to say hello to Sonya and her husband John. We would love to see you there!

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Your Day

Sonya — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:38:21 +0000

We’re in the home stretch! We’ve talked about planning the Big Picture, Your Year, Your Term, and Your Week. (If you’ve miss any of the first four steps, you can read them on our blog.) Planning your day is the final step of the simple 5-step process.

Before you ever put pencil to paper, take a minute to find your comfort zone. Are you the type of person who likes to run her day according to the clock? Are you most comfortable knowing exactly what time you should move on to the next item of the day? Then your comfort zone is using a timetable to schedule your day. A timetable looks something like this: 8:30 Math, 8:45 History, 9:00 Geography, etc. Charlotte Mason used a timetable approach in her schools’ classrooms.

If, however, running your day by the clock stresses you out, your comfort zone is probably using a time-box approach instead. (Don’t feel guilty; Charlotte didn’t have to deal with new babies, laundry, and preschoolers disrupting her school day.) With a time-box approach, you simply divide your day into blocks of time (called time boxes) and determine which Subjects you want to accomplish during each block. For example, you might have a “Before Breakfast” time box in which you want to have the children do their morning chores; a “Between Breakfast and Lunch” time box in which you want to accomplish History, Math, Picture Study, Copywork, and Typing; an “After Lunch” time box, etc.

(In case you’re wondering, yes, you can still do short lessons with a time-box approach. Simply start the timer when you’re ready to begin the lesson within that time box. When the timer dings, that lesson is done. The main difference is that it doesn’t matter whether you start that lesson at 9:30 or 10:08; you simply make sure you do it some time during that time box.)

Once you have found your comfort zone, make a simple chart with your students’ names across the top and your timetable or time boxes down the side. Then look at your Weekly Schedule that you created last time. All you have to do is transfer the Subjects listed under Monday to a Monday Daily Schedule, then transfer Tuesday’s Subjects to a Tuesday Daily Schedule, and so on until you have a Daily Schedule for each day of your school week. It’s up to you whether that schedule is laid out in 15-minute increments or flexible time boxes. Do what works best at this season of your family’s life.

If you would like to see some examples of Daily Schedules, you’ll find some in our Planning section here on the site. The schedules given there use the time box approach, but you could easily adapt them to a timetable approach.

So what’s your comfort zone at this season of life: timetable or time boxes? Leave us a comment and let us know.

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Your Week

Sonya — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 03:18:39 +0000

“How many days per week should I do science?” “What about history?” “Do you think I need to do math five days a week?”

This step in the 5-step planning process will show you how to answer those questions. If you have already completed steps 1–3 (the Big Picture, Your Year, and Your Term), planning your week will be pretty simple. Here’s how.

Last time we talked about dividing your school year into three Terms and determining how many resources and parts of resources you want to complete each Term. Grab that list or chart that you made and look at what you wrote down for just one Term. We’ll concentrate on one Term at a time.

Look at all the resources you have listed for History during that one Term. Total up the number of divisions (chapters, lessons, modules, etc.) that you have written down for that Term in all of your History resources.

So, let’s say you’re planning Term 1 and you have three History books listed in that Term. Calculate the total number of chapters in those books. Let’s say there are 12 chapters in one book, 15 in another, and 9 in the third book. You would add them together and get 36 chapters in all for History.

Now all you need to do is divide that total number of chapters by the number of weeks in your Term 1. If you’re doing a typical 12-week Term, you would divide the total History chapters (36) by 12. The answer would be 3. Now you know that you need to do History three times each week (reading one chapter each time) in order to complete all the chapters you have listed.

You can do the same thing for each of the other Subjects: Calculate each Subject’s total divisions and divide that total by the number of weeks in your Term. Your answer will tell you how many days per week to do that Subject.

A couple of hints:

If your answer is not a whole number, round it up to the next whole number (3.62 would become 4, or 4 days per week).
If your answer comes out less than 1, assume that you need to do that Subject one time each week (or you’ll never actually do it!).

Once you know how many days per week you need to do each Subject, all you have to do is decide which days of the week to do them. The Weekly Schedule chart on our site will help you organize that part. Feel free to download it and print as many copies as you need.

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Your Term

Sonya — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:55:38 +0000

One of the most common problems moms have when planning is trying to jump directly from their Year Plan to their Daily Schedule. I’ve found it a lot easier to take smaller steps rather than that one big jump.

First, break up your year into three sections. Charlotte Mason called them “terms.” (If you would rather call them something else, that’s fine. At least you’ll know what I’m talking about when I refer to Terms.) Since most school years cover about 36 weeks, it’s easy to divide those 36 weeks into three 12-week Terms. You can decide when you want those Terms to begin and end during the year, depending on which weeks you do school work and when you take your breaks.

Once you’ve determined your three Terms, take your resources and decide how you want to use them during those three Terms. It’s easiest to just make three columns on a sheet of paper and label them Term 1, Term 2, Term 3. Next, write down each resource’s name and make a note of how many divisions (chapters, lessons, modules, etc.) you want to use from it this year.

Now, if you want to complete all of that resource’s divisions during Term 1, write that total number in the column under Term 1. If you want to split it out evenly between Term 1 and Term 2, write how many divisions you want to cover in each Term’s column. If you want to spread out that resource and use it all year, split its divisions evenly between all three Terms.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you have a short biography that has 8 chapters. You want to read it all during Term 1, so you would list the title and put an 8 in the Term 1 column beside it (since it has 8 chapters). (That number will come in handy during the next step in the process: planning your week.)

Maybe you also have a science book that you want to use all year long. It has 15 modules, so you would list the title and put a 5 under Term 1, a 5 under Term 2, and a 5 under Term 3, showing that you want to complete 5 modules each Term in order to complete the entire book during this year.

This step of the planning process is not difficult, but doing it can give you a great overview of how you plan to use your resources during the year and how you can break that year into manageable chunks. When you look at your plans at this stage, you can get a feel for whether you are overloading one Term or slacking off in another Term.

Planning your Terms also lays a great foundation for figuring out how many days per week to do each subject. We’ll show you how next time.

Just wondering: How many of you stick to a traditional nine-months-on-three-months-off school year? Or do you get in your 36 weeks a different way (three weeks on, one week off all year; three months on, one month off all year; four days a week all year; etc.)? Leave a comment and let us know.

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Next All-Day CM Seminar in Charlotte, NC

Sonya — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 04:06:42 +0000

We had a wonderful time Saturday at our All-Day Charlotte Mason Seminar! Here are a couple of comments from those who attended:

“Today’s seminar was both informative and empowering! The ‘how-to’ was invaluable, the materials were excellent, and the practice — letting *us* narrate — was eye opening! Thank you all for your hard work in preparing for today; Sonya, thank you so much for leading our diverse group so openly and responsively. I came in a ‘believer’ in CM methods but left knowing I could be a confident ‘doer’ — THANK YOU!”

“I just wanted to openly say THANKS to Sonya for an eye-opening, mind-filling workshop! If you have not already seen her in ‘action’ - get to it next time around, I know I will be there!”

It’s always a treat to get to spend the day with other CMers! And we’re eager to meet more of you as we travel to Charlotte, North Carolina, the end of this month. We will be presenting our all-day seminar at Living Faith Baptist Church on Saturday, April 26, and we would love to see you there!

Here’s where you can find more details and register online for our next All-Day Charlotte Mason Seminar in North Carolina.

Hurry! Registration deadline is April 21.

PS: We’ll continue our planning series next time, so watch for Planning Your Term.

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Your Year

Sonya — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:15:17 +0000

Last week we talked about determining which subjects you plan to teach in each grade. Did you outline them? That information will make the next step much easier: planning your year.

When you begin to plan for a year, look at your 12-year overview and see which subjects you have planned to teach your children. For example, if you will have a child in Grade 3, Grade 5, and Grade 8, look at the subjects you have decided to teach in those grades.

I like to combine all my children together for as many subjects as possible. It saves me a lot of time, and the children gain the benefit of learning from each other. As you plan, you’ll probably want to organize your subjects into several lists: one for subjects you’ll do all together as a Family and one for each child’s individual work.

Next, on those lists, add the topics you want to cover in each subject. Let’s say you have History on your Family list for this year. That’s great. Which time period are you going to study? That’s your topic. Or maybe you have Picture Study on your Family list. Which artists will you cover? Those are your topics. So add your topics to your subjects.

Then comes the fun part: resources! After you know which topics you want to cover this year, you can select the resources you want to use to teach those topics. If you are going to focus on, say, the Middle Ages for History, make a list of books, CDs, and other resources that you want to use. (Tip: You may want to put some Middle Ages books on your Family list and other Middle Ages books on your older children’s lists for them to read independently in addition to the Family books.)

As you look for resources, keep in mind the goals that you determined during the Big Picture step. How important a topic is to you will affect which resources you choose to use. If you simply want to introduce a topic, you will select a resource that doesn’t go into a lot of depth; but if you want to dig deeply into a certain topic, you’ll pick the resource that gives all the details and might take a little more time to cover. (See, your Big Picture affects your planning in this area too!)

There are lots of great Web sites that carry Charlotte Mason-friendly resources and living books. Some of our favorite suppliers are

Beautiful Feet
Greenleaf Press
Lifetime Books and Gifts
Queen Homeschool Supply
and, at the risk of sounding self-promoting, Simply Charlotte Mason

Also keep in mind that you can check our SCM Curriculum Guide for book suggestions, as well as search our CM Bookfinder by topic, time period, and more!

Where do you like to find good CM resources? Leave a comment and share your favorites.

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The Big Picture

Sonya — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:45:30 +0000

Before you get into the nitty gritty of scheduling particular books, you need to take a step back and look at the big picture. What is it that you want to accomplish by homeschooling? What is your goal for your student?

That may seem like an unrelated philosophical question, but your answer to it will affect your plans. For example, if your goal is to prepare your child for an advanced mathematics degree, that goal will affect the books you choose and how much time you spend on math during the week. If your goal is to nurture your child’s musical talent, that goal will show in the way you choose to schedule your terms and each day’s routine.

So right from the start, try to determine what your goals are for your homeschooled child. Your goal might be different for each child, depending on each child’s needs and special interests. Or you might want to write down a set of general goals that you want to emphasize with all the children. It’s up to you, but write down your goals first.

After you determine what is important to you, you’ll need to find out what is important to the authorities. Are there any legal requirements in your area? Are there any subjects that you are required to teach or any subjects that are required before your student can graduate? Do the research on those areas and make sure you comply with the laws in your area.

Along those same lines of planning ahead, you may also want to check out college admission guidelines (if college is one of your goals). Each college will probably have various specific requirements, but many of them will have similar general requirements — like three or four years of science, three or four years of math, two years of foreign language, or things like that. (Those of you with young children may want to wait a few years before doing this research; the guidelines might change between now and then.)

After you have figured out what’s important to you and what’s important to others, you’re ready to outline a 12-year overview. Just list all the school subjects you can think of. Since this series is about planning your Charlotte Mason education, you’ll want to be sure to include CM-specific subjects, like picture study, dictation, and nature study. Then decide which subjects you will teach in each grade. (You could get a sheet of graph paper or use your computer’s spreadsheet and put the subjects down the left column and the grade numbers across the top. Just put an X under each grade and across from each subject that you want to teach in those grades.)

If you’re following Charlotte’s big picture, you’ll postpone formal grammar lessons until Grade 3 or 4, you’ll do nature study in every grade, and you’ll start dictation around Grade 3 or 4. Do you want to do Shakespeare every year starting in Grade 4, like Charlotte did? If so, mark it down. If not, mark which years you want to include it.

Remember, the big picture is not the step in which you have to decide exactly which composers, time periods, and science topics you’re going to teach each year. The big picture is just to determine which subjects you plan to teach in which grades. That’s all.

When you’ve finished outlining the subjects for each grade, you’ll know where you’re headed and the general direction you’re going to take to get there. Next week we’ll start zooming in on some specifics as we take a look at Step 2: Your Year.

Have any of you mapped out a 12-year overview before? Did you find it easier to do it another way than the chart I tried to describe above? Please share.