I thought I was a homeschool veteran, because my mother homeschooled me my whole life (until college). I have 3 kids, 8, 7, 2 and one on the way. My 2 eldest have been in a liberal arts charter school since kindergarten, which overall I have been very pleased with. However, last year my 8 year old, who was in 2nd grade was feeling frustrated with the amount of time he spent doing homework outside of school. We limited ourselves to 2 extracurricular activities (soccer and piano lessons), but still felt like we were rushing everywhere and he never had time for “kid stuff”. I prayed about it and discussed it with my husband and we decided to experiment with homeschooling over the summer and if it went well we would keep him home in the fall. My second son had no interest in homeschooling and wanted to go back, so I decided to send him back to school and focus on homeschooling my older son. If all goes well this year I would like to take my younger son out of school next year. Maybe I fill have things more figured out by then! The summer went well. I was blessed to be given tons of school books and resources from some veteran homeschool mommas whose children are all grown. So many books that I was a little overwhelmed and had way more than I could use. We muddled through the summer as I continued to read and research. Let me tell you that even though I was homeschooled for 12 years, I had no idea how many different options were out there and how many different philosophies! I had never heard of Charlotte Mason until a month ago when a friend heard what my goals were and how I was hoping to structure my school day. She suggested looking into Charlotte Mason. A week later someone else suggested the same thing and gave me this website. I have been reading everything on here, watching the videos and studying the curriculum guides. I would like to continue to using a lot of the resources I already have, but try to follow Charlotte Mason methods, if possible. So… (I am excited, which makes me longwinded!) here is what I am trying to do:
Math: Life of Fred elementary series (I think we will get through the whole series this year, because my son LOVES it and often does extra lessons for fun). I am supplementing it with addition and subtraction table practice both written and some computer games and using manipulatives for learning mulitplication.
Copywork: Classical Writing Primer http://www.classicalwriting.com/Primer.htm which was given to me, but seems to fit well with Charlotte Mason copywork. Each week there is a short story or poem and several lines are copied daily. It also includes nature study once a week and a picture study once a week.
Music: Piano lessons and daily practice, music theory lessons twice a week. Would like to add listening to a composer for music appreciation, but haven’t done so yet.
History: History of the World. We have it read aloud on CD, so we are listening to a chapter twice a week and doing narration and he illustrates what he has narrated.
Reading Aloud: He reads a book of his choice (I ensure it is on his level) aloud to me for 15 minutes each day) I read aloud to him from something above his own reading level for half an hour each day while he plays with legos or other building/manipulative toys. We started with Chronicles of Narnia, but I am also going to try to add in living books that supplement the time period we are listening to in Story of the World. If I don’t have time to read to him he listens to books on CD from the library.
Spelling: We have been using the Writing Road to Reading for spelling and phonics, but I have not been enjoying it and I don’t think I am doing it properly. I was very relieved to watch Sonja’s video about how Charlotte Mason uses dictation to teach spelling and I think I am going to wait until next year and do that instead.
Handwriting: for handwriting I had just been putting his spelling words into spellingcity.com and then printing a sheet with them in d’nealian style for him to trace and copy. But now that we were given the classical writing primer, maybe the copywork in there is enough as long as it is in his best penmanship? Not sure. I am considering getting the Print to Cursive Proverbs.
Religion: morning prayer, then one day a week we study bible and read lives of the saints from living books.
Science: don’t have much here yet. Before his brother went back to school we spent a lot of time researching bats and their lives and habitats and even took a trip to the largest urban bat colony to watch them take flight. But I haven’t picked anything for this yet…
So, does this sound compatible with doing things Charlotte Mason-like? Any suggestions? I don’t know any homeschoolers locally and haven’t had anyone to bounce ideas off of. I would love some feedback from some moms who have been doing this a while! Thanks!
