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Anybody use just SCM's curriculum?
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Hello! I’ve been homeschooling for two and a half years now. I finally feel like I’m kind of getting somewhere in finding a style that I feel comfortable with and having a grip on what really works for us. I have three kids, boy 9, girl 5, and boy 3 next month. I wanted to know how SCM’s materials worked for others, because I’ve very much enjoyed the books that I’ve purchased and I’m contemplating jumping in with both feet. I’m currently a single mom working full time, so I need something that’s open and go, but does allow for flexibility. My girl wants to learn to read, so we’ve been working on recognizing letters and sounds. My youngest thinks it is great fun to participate. Does anyone here use all of SCM’s materials as their curriculum? Does it take a lot of time? This past year we’ve been focusing mostly on handwriting, math, English, nature study, and history, with a little art and music appreciation and Shakespeare thrown in.
I think many families pick and choose what fits their particular situation and family, so that often means picking from more than one publisher. I have used the following SCM products at varying times and enjoyed them all:
History Guide (We did module 4).
Spelling Wisdom – still using.
Your Business Math – used with oldest, next 2 kids (of 9) are ready to use it this fall.
Picture Study Portfolios – nice to have it all in one place.
Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education – love, makes it easy to plan our own curriculum using a mix of resources to fit my various kids.
My kids are boys, 8, 6 and 4 and a 3 year old girl. We’ve used several things:
Module 1 history and Visits to Africa.
Spelling Wisdom
Delightful Handwriting, Copy Book Readers, Hymns in Prose and Print to Cursive Proverbs
Picture Study Portfolios
Laying Down the Rails and Laying Down the Rails for Children
I’ve enjoyed all of it.
There’s still plenty I haven’t tried, but like Tristan said, I just pick and choose what I think will work for us.
I have come pretty close, but I agree sometimes need to mix/match for your family needs 🙂 I have tried a different publishes but last year settled into using almost all SCM products and it was a very smooth year for our family. I find SCM products to be very much “open and go” and have fit our family really well over the past few years.
This past year we used…
SCM – History and Geography guides (Over past few years have used: year 1, 2, 4, 5 and next year 6 & Visits to Africa, Europe, North America and next year South America)
SCM – Poetry Study
SCM – Picture Portfolios
SCM – Hymn Study
SCM – Music with the Masters
SCM – Hymns in Prose (then moved to SW for copy work)
SCM – Spelling Wisdom
SCM – Using Language Well
Science – Apologia (we used Outdoor Secrets when my oldest was in kinder and really liked it!)
Math – Math U See
I did use Jr AG with my oldest this past year, but we did not finish it. We do standardized testing at the end of the year and I wanted her familiar with terms and concepts so she would not get concerned during the test (she doesn’t like surprises, LOL). I did JAG together with her but did not worry about finishing it.
(Oh and the DVD series has been so helpful! I have watched a few of the DVD’s a couple of times to refresh and remind me, especially when I easily get caught up in exciting new suggestions friends bring me, LOL)
When I first discovered Charlotte Mason methods, it was through a friend who mentioned Simply Charlotte Mason’s website as a good resource. I spent the summer researching Miss Mason’s methods and decided that SCM would be less overwhelming to me than trying to pull together a lot of things on my own.
My kids were 11, 10, and 9 when we started this. Just about every year after, I made little changes, added new living books, tweaked the curriculum a bit to use what we had or find the right fit for a particular subject. Basically, now that my oldest has graduated, the middle one is in special ed at a brick-and-mortar school, and I have only one 10th grader at home in the Fall, I start with the framework of SCM for planning and pull in whatever else I think we need. (For example, DD15 is very interested in agriculture as a future career consideration, so we found an agriscience textbook and used that instead of whatever science would have been next on SCM’s curriculum guide.)
It gets easier to seek recommendations and include additions or substitutions as the years go by. Starting off with SCM “as is” (for the most part) our first year made things easier at that time.
Thank you all for your input. If I can get the money together, I decided that I would like to use all SCM. I was going to use another history book for the spine, but looking more closely at it, I decided that it would be a better one for when he’s in middle school. I have several of SCM’s materials (the books about language arts, math, and narration, Ancient Egypt and Her Neighbors, Laying Down the Rails, Emily Dickison’s poetry study, and Beethoven’s music study). I’m glad to hear that it is open and go! I was trying to plan our history/geography/Bible lessons. I just don’t have time for that! lol
Melissa..
I too, am going to use strictly SCM for my first year doing Charlotte Mason methods. I have scanned the internet deeply, trying to figure out what I want to do this first year. I really chose to do it this way, so I could use their scheduling recommendations too. For me, having it all scheduled out seemed less overwhelming. I am in the process of purchasing it all through the summer.
I did pull a few read alouds from other sources; as we have read some of the suggested books already.
I am assuming that I will modify things as we go and get a better handle on what we want to use as the years go by. I am in my second year of home schooling (7 year old, 5 year old and 3 year old) and we did Classical Conversations for the first two. I started out pretty traditional and have changed significantly in two years.
🙂
Renee
We use about 80-90% SCM curriculum – It has made homeschooling and record keeping a breeze compared to several things I have tried in the past; I’ve been homeschooling for about 12 years. I wish I had this curriculum at the start!
I also use it almost exclusively or use their recommended sources. We switched back in Oct to SCM, kinda mid year for us, and it was a very needed, peaceful change. This year, we will add in artist study and more poetry and maybe even Shakespeare based on SCM ideas. You’ll enjoy it, I’m sure.
I will tell you that by far, Delightful Handwriting has been a favorite around here. Both my 8 yo son and my 6 yo son enjoy it and ask to do more. 🙂
I have
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