Sara, I hesitate to post this because it might seem so out of the CM box but in truth, from my readings, this does not seem so far off just perhaps a little different in technique. The philosophy is still very much there. As Janell pointed out in another post – I am deeply committed to the Charlotte Mason philosophy. I am not looking to do something else and call it CM.
Here’s something that works for me – I work across multiple subjects using one (or more) living book and a few/lot other resources. For example we are reading Rascal right now (author not in front of me, sorry) and there are issues in the book regarding WWII which leads nicely into lessons in History (even though we’re on American History we can draw the threads together thinking on how this war effected America at the time, previous History lessons about wars that we’ve covered, etc.) which leads nicely into Geography lesson where we grab maps and the globe and look up exactly where we are talking about in the story itself or the previous mentioned History lesson which leads nicely into some spelling lessons (we use a list we create as we go, study and quiz on orally or wrtten) which leads nicely into a lesson in Science on the raccoon where we look up information on them taking turns to read aloud the information we find, and discuss our raccoon/trash problem which leads nicely into going outside for Nature Study to look for raccoon poo or tracks. All started from a reading of one book. We read, paused, persued other topics with laptop and materials around us, paused and answered the phone/folded the laundry/got a glass of water, I was able to point out/review recent grammar lessons in the various readings. We all made pictures of raccoons using various medium and labeling the parts of the animal or adding things we learned in our explorations to our pictures.
Was that a CM hour or two? I think so. I used short lessons. I had the children narrate readings. I covered History, Science, Spelling, Read out Loud, practice reading for each child, Nature Study, Grammar, Art medium/exploration (I think I made this subject up so I could have fun with art supplies) and P.E. (searching for tracks and poo took us all over!). I was at my best for them. I had moments in the presence of God’s creations to point out His love for us and talk with my children about Him.
I don’t know if that’s on target exactly but in terms of how the material is presented, what types of materials, the form of evaluation of material covered and the essence she advocated for children to aquire in their studies – well, it seems to be a nice way to do it. It works for us. Not all days look like that for sure. I probably/might round out the day’s lessons with Math and some writing. I don’t have to get “tuesday’s” lessons done on that day if this kind of thing happens. I can easily keep track in my pencil and paper planner of what we did and note (I love the sticky note) what we still need to do to round out things for the week.
I hope that explains it a little. Ask me more questions if you like because I found it a kind of hard thing to put on a post. There seem to be lots of details left out …