Confused Newbie

Hello and Welcome. You can definately use other resources. Simply Charlotte Mason is just one of many Charlotte Mason resources. The best one in my opinion, but still their are tons of websites and curriculum options out there. We use some products from this site, most of the free planning guides, and probably all of the “help” resources (I need a lot of help…) One of my favorite things about CM style is the ability use the library for a very large portion of your materials. The SCM folks are very generous with free planning and schedules and booklists. They really have a heart to help rather than get rich. This forum is a wonderful place to get suggestions and guidance. How old are your kiddos?

My kids are 7, 10 and 13. At 9 I would say the library can supply most of your needs. Not necessary to spend a ton of money. Math and a library card will do nicely. The SCM language arts materials are great. If you only read the Bible, do some math and language arts, and read books your kids will get a far superior education than they would in public school. I would recommend a good booklist to avoid twaddle. I have Honey for a Childs heart and I could not have lived without it. The lists on this site are great as well. If you want to study American history with your 9 year old I can wholeheartedly recommend a little booklist called Turning Back the Pages of Time. It is about $5 and it lists wonderful books chronologically for littles and mid elementary. The list is just the right size to not overwhelm, but enough to feel you have accomplished American history. The living science books listed on this site are also great, and can often be found for free online or at the library. The Thornton Burgess animal books are wonderful. O.k. I will stop giving my opinions now. I know there are others who have more experience and will be very helpful to you.

I’ve been homeschooling using CM methods for almost 14 years. When my kids were in elementary school, I bought math curriculum and that’s it. We used the library for everything else. 🙂

We didn’t have much extra money for curriculum so I made do with what we had. Charlotte Mason’s methods are so wonderful because you really don’t need to buy curriculum (thought it’s nice to have the option!) other than for math.

I allowed my children to pick their science topics. My son would choose something like snakes and we would go to the library and check out tons of books on snakes and take our time reading through them, a bit every day. Our library also had the Thornton Burgess books and we enjoyed them very much.

For history, I did buy a used Truthquest history guide to help me choose books. Nowadays, there are so many resources on the internet that make it so much easier to choose books without having to purchase a guide. The Truthquest guides are wonderful but they aren’t a necessity.

Copywork and dictation can be taken from the books you are reading.

I do love SCM’s picture portfolios but I didn’t even know they existed when my kids were little. We used books from the library to study art. I really liked the Come Look With Me series. They aren’t exactly CM but they are nice in their own way. Ambleside Online has a lot of free online resources for CM educators, including free picture study.

There are so many free ways to listen to classical music and Ambleside Online has resources for that as well.

Nature study is simple and self explanatory.

You can also read Shakespeare and Plutarch online for free if you choose to read them in your homeschool. Ambleside Online has free resources for this also.

For those interested in the All-Day Seminar mentioned above, it was replaced with our Learning & Living: Homeschooling the Charlotte Mason Way DVD set. Learning & Living contains the same information as the discontinued All-Day Seminar and Books & Things, plus more.