A Gentle Feast?

I love this! Thank you for sharing. I’m confused though is “The white year weekly plans” the whole curriculum ? Forms I,II and III

Have you been to her Facebook page for A Gentle Feast? She’s done some videos recently that give you a good look inside. She has also posted photos of several of the years book lists for each form (age grouping).

I like a lot of what I see, but right now I already have everything I need for my family’s next year.

I actually did buy the complete white year bundle the first week of May- when everything was on sale. I’ve been doing my own planning the last couple of years and, although I’ve enjoyed it, I was ready for “easy” this year.

As far as a review, I can only tell you from looking at everything. We haven’t used it yet. I have children in all the forms, so the price of the bundle was really a good value. There are clickable links in the morning time plans that lead to all the artist, composer and poetry info, so nothing more to purchase for those! I love that all I have to do is print and I’ll have a morning time binder with all the poetry and lyrics to the hymns printed out in one place. The student packets are the same way. I’m going to print and bind the student packets and each child will have their own copy of the poetry & hymns as well as copy work pulled from their readings and memory work. I have some children who tend to have disorganized notebooks, so the idea of binding the student packs and just having a composition book and maybe a book of centuries sounds more neat and tidy to me!

I am excited about the book list because many of the books are already on my shelf (but I haven’t put them to use) and most of the others are either free online or available at the library. I really don’t need to purchase much but I love books, so I’ll see what I can pick up at the used book sale when I go to the convention.

I also like that the plans are weekly instead of daily. I need things flexible, so I’ll just work through the plans and not worry about “keeping up”.  The morning time plans are designed to be done in a loop schedule, so I’ll just work through those and do the next thing even if I miss a day. Maybe someone who’s familiar with the CM Organizer could tell me if it would work too take these ready made plans and put them in the Organizer? I’ve never used it but it sounds like it would simplify record keeping. Otherwise I would probably just jot down what we do each day, after its done.

Other things I like: Using the Charlotte Mason way of various streams of history at once and short lessons, 4 year cycle.

I may also have to do some combining for my later readers and the ones still working toward independence. Anything to keep things simple!

I hope that helps! I can try to answer questions based on what I see in the plans but, like I said, I haven’t used them yet.

“I have really wanted to American and World history at the same time and couldn’t figure out how to implement it easily.”

Our history guides provide open-and-go daily lesson plans that combine American and World history. See the Early Modern and Modern Times books for details.

I think you have done a wonderful job SCM. A few things that are different to me about A Gentle Feast – not good or bad, just different – are:

– One year level can be bought for a single form/age range ($46.99), or you can buy the full set for all ages ($99). This contains your schedule for picture study, Bible, fables, hero tales, nature study, hymns, copywork/dictation, poet study, composer study, grammar, writing, Shakespeare, Plutarch, history selections, read alouds, science suggestions. To do the plans you will need to gather books listed, of course, but once you do, everything is scheduled in one file similar to how SCM offers in history guides and other guides like the Enrichment option.  It includes links to art to view or print, links to nature study topics at the Handbook of Nature Study blog, has poems, hymns, copywork or dictation all right in the student notebook portion of the guide or linked free. A decent portion of their selected books for history/literature are free in the public domain, and marked as such, for those who are willing to use ebooks.

They do not offer everything – for example they have a grammar curriculum suggestion to use (and then schedule it for you) and a writing curriculum for later high school (again, and schedule it for you).

One difference – They do multiple ‘streams’ of things – so history will have some ancients, some American, some british, for example in a single year. They also suggest multiple streams of science for a year(so you may do nature lore, physics, and astronomy one year, then change to nature lore, botany, and chemistry the next).

Another difference – a 4 year history rotation instead of 6.

Another difference – PDF only guides, no print version, so you have to print it yourself.

I don’t know if there is a significant cost difference once you buy the materials they have plus books listed for history/etc, plus the curriculum by others that they schedule (grammar in 4th and up, writing in high school, science guides from Sabbath Mood for at least some things).

I think a lot of their book selections for history, literature, and reading aloud are comparable to ones SCM would recommend, with many being available at public libraries (easily found) if they are not already free in the public domain.