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can i do only certain subjects?
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Is it possible to only use CM for certain subjetcs rather than everything? I’m looking to get into CM for reading, copy work, etc. We’ve tried all the mainstream things to get my DD reading and remembering and they don’t work. No tutor, teacher, or method has worked. So we thought we’d try CM and see if we can get her reading up to grade level.
Hi, Jess and welcome to this board.
Just to make sure we’re on the same page, CM stands for Charlotte Mason, an educator who lived in the late 1800s – early 1900s, whose philosophy some home schoolers adhere to. SCM stands for Simply Charlotte Mason, the company whose website we’re communicating on. I recommend reading through “The Basics” on this website to begin to understand the various methods of home education and what exactly a CM styled education is.
The wonderful people here at SCM have many resources, free and paid, that help those who seek to implement a CM style education, including a free curriculum guide. Personally, this is what I use as the framework for our homeschool. Remember that CM is not a curriculum, but a philosophy and there are many resources and curricula that one can choose from. A few curricula and resource providers that use a CM philosophy –
- SCM curriculum guide, found on this site
- Ambleside Online or AO, found by googling
- Living Books Curriculum
- Queen’s Homeschool Supplies
CMers use a variety of books and curricula, it isn’t as simple as picking up the Grade ? reading program. Implementation is simple, but there are a plethora of choices out there. Much depends upon the ages of your children and transitioning to a CM style education isn’t like flipping a switch. I think most families can find success with this method, but it’s important to understand the methodology and to realize that transitions take time.
My best advice is to read all you can about what a CM education looks like, the resources here are the easiest place to start, IMHO. In the meantime, enjoying reading great, non-twaddly, living books together along with listening to beautiful music and enjoying being outdoors will get you off to a simple start on the CM way of learning. However, I think that the benefits of a CM education are best realized when you fully understand the philosophy and the methods involved.
Blessings,
Christie
“Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life.” – Charlotte Mason
Christie answered your question beautifully. I only wanted to add; Yes, you can most assuredly use CM methods for only certain subjects rather than for everything.
Blessings ~ Heather
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.”
Thanks, i am looking into the CM way of homeschooling as much as i can when time allows. I had initially written it off until i realized that traditional methods weren’t working in some subjects for my daughter and that i was already heading toward the CM direction all on my own. Like we are a huge music family, listening to many types of music. We already do a lot outside but we’ve recently begun keeping nature journals and work on them whenever the weather permits. And i started seeing my kids both improve in their struggle areas while we were applying some of the CM type ways of doing things. We’ve also dropped our traditional reading curriculum and have gone to reading what i think are considered living books, doing copywork and dictation work, and also Explode the Code phonics. We also dropped our History curriculum and have gone to a more CM tpe of work for that as well.
But my kids are doing just fine with traditional math and my daughter is doing great with our english which alternates between grammar and creative writing. So i want to keep these the way they are since it’s working.
I will definately do some more snooping into things as i get time. Thanks!
I just wanted to share our experience so far…
I was browsing the internet and stumble upon this site a couple of years ago and liked alot of what I read. Well, I didn’t really realize that I was reading about a “method” but thought I had come across a very helpful homeschooling website, but I kept reading and the lightbulbs began going off in my head:) We began with using the copywork, then the 106 Days (for science), then we read The Boy of the Pyramids (even though we were using a different program for history at the time), then we stopped using the grammar (for my 11yo) and are now using the suggested grammar, began making different choices for the books we read, etc…..anyhow, what I’m trying to explain from our experience is that once we began implementing the subjects (slowly) it made more sense to me to at least try to do the others as CM as possible (with my limited understanding of course, so I kept reading:).
When I tried to do just certain subjects CM style but others traditional style I found it confusing and it became obvious to me that the other programs were loaded with ‘busywork’ and I just really don’t have time for that. So, I began weeding out the busywork and slowly began more subjects recommended from this site’s Free Curriculum Guide or drastically changing the subjects that overlap methods (geography, history, math, etc) to the CM method.
Now that is just my experience and I’m not trying to bash any other method/style, I’m simply just stating what happened to me. There very well may be other hsing families that wish to utilize many methods or whatever, but I’m just not one of them. Using this method and the wonderful suggestions from this site (forum as well) has made a challenging choice (homeschooling) much more doable for me and it has helped my children to enjoy “school” much more.
I think what I was trying to say, but didn’t really get there, was to not be surprised if when you change the way you do school or think about what you do with your children’s education, even in one area, that it may cause you to be curious as to how it would feel with all subjects. That’s really what happened to me…slow, but sure.
HTH and doesn’t confuse you:)
Jess, I understand better where you’re coming from after your second post.
I, too, use a traditional math program (Teaching Textbooks for one and Ray’s Arithmetic for another). I also use All-About-Spelling, a strong phonics program, along side of Spelling Wisdom as this works for my rules loving dd. However, other than these two subjects, we’re CM all the way.
Happy Homeschooling,
Christie
I did want to add (and I think Christie pointed this out somewhere) that within the method there are soooo many choices and you are not limited…your homeschool is still your homeschool and what works or how you work it depends heavily on your children/you/your family dynamics/budget, etc.
Just wanted to add that I do not feel trapped within a certain “anything” just because we have made this choice.
HTH
Thanks! I won’t be surprised by anything at this point. DH and I always said our kids would never be homeschooled or go to a private school. Then the public school was a disaster, and off she went to the private school. The private school was no better and actually worse in some ways, plus we paid tuition. So here we are where we said we’d never be. I’ve learned to “never say never.” So just because i say i don’t want to change a few things right now doesn’t mean i won’t end up changing eventually. I’m just taking it one step at a time and seeing where we end up.
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