Educating the WholeHearted Child

It’s my favorite homeschooling book! I think it lines up well with CM. I have a 3rd grader and K, along with 2 little ones. We do “discipleship studies” together first (memory work, Bible reading, and I also add in elocution and poetry there), then we do “disciplined studies”. My 3rd grader does this on his own and I keep my 6 and 4yo with me while baby naps. Then we do “discussion studies” with a rotating read-aloud. After this, my oldest 2 do a bit more independent work and I check work. After that I have a rotating “interactive” activity that we do (hymn/picture study, nature study, spanish). We do all this before lunch since my kids are little.

I do allow opportunities for “discovery studies” in the afternoon which is really interest-led IMO. In the past I had set up some “discovery corners” like the book describes, but currently we just have an assorted bookshelf and some other activities they can do if requested.  I do also try to keep in mind their interests as far as discretionary studies go. My 3rd grader really enjoys legos and math/board games so he/we do those daily. My k’er likes handwork, so she will go through phases of wanting to sew (with felt) and is learning needlepoint (though obviously she is very young for this).

I love the idea of using just living books. We have several history read alouds going, along with a science living book. We read a lit book at lunchtime. I started out using TQ for history but realized I like to pick my own stuff so now I pull from All Through the Ages for history. Science is a bit harder to find good books, but we are currently reading from the Living Forest series by Sam Campbell.

At bedtime we have more lit books that we read (DH and I take turns reading harder books to the 3rd grader and easier books to the 6 and 4 yo’s).

Thank you for asking this! I just started reading it (bought it a year ago!!!)

I did a quick Google search when I started reading and didn’t find much in the way of blogs, reviews, etc.

I had been wondering how many really implemented their methods vs a more exact CM approach.

This is pretty much how I homeschooled during the elementary years and much of middle and highschool as well.

When both of my kids were little we went to the library once a week and chose science books on whatever topic we were studying, read aloud books, history books and biographies, and literature books for my kids to read on their own. We did copywork from those books  and written narrations and that was pretty much all we did along with our formal math curriculum-Math U See.

My son started using IEW in around middle school. I wish I would have been consistent with CM methods instead like dictation and written narrations. I have done that with my youngest and it has worked out so well for her.

She is starting highschool now and I have run her through an inexpensive and brief writing course in the past few weeks but that is her first exposure to formal writing instruction and I found that she already knew most of it intuitively from following CM methods for language arts. We just skimmed over it. I did have her use Apologia General Science for her 8th grade science text but we used it in a CM way rather than following the textbook to a tee.

My son did Apologia General Science in 8th grade as well. That was pretty much it for both  of them until highschool.

I still use highschool textbooks in a more relaxed, CM manner and only for Science and Math. We stick with living books for history and literature along with continuing copywork, dictation and written narrations for language arts. I’ve added in a bit of literary analysis and formal writing instruction but am keeping both of those to a minimum.

I still don’t see the difference between the two,  but I am still learning cm. I have Sally Clarkson’s book and refer to it a lot. It seems very much like cm to me.

While CM methods and the Clarkson’s methods share the idea of using living books and viewing and educating the child as a whole person, I think CM methods are much more formal. CM included studying several foreign languages starting in elementary school along with Plutarch, Shakespeare, formal picture and composer study, etc. She had very specific instructions for her teachers and students.

Teaching the Wholehearted Child is a much more relaxed approach IMO. Though they recommend many of the same things, they seem to pursue them from a more relaxed, organic point of view.

I find myself somewhere in the middle, as usual. 🙂 I love Melissa Wiley’s name for my kind of homeschooling-tidal homeschooling. When I’m feeling strong and organized and ready to take on the world, we are strict CMers! When I start to get a little burnt out and tired, we lean more towards a relaxed, organic approach. We always keep plodding ahead with math, Latin, copywork and dicatation but other subjects become more interest led.

I borrowed this book from a friend today. The idea of an “organic” approach to CM sounds just like what I need.