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General Questions on Getting starting/subjects
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Do I have to use the modules in order? For example, if I wanted to study a particular musician first but they were in the group with others in the second module could I jump to them? (Hope that made sense lol)
Also, how do you get all this reading into your day? I love reading to my children and with them, but it just sounds like so much I wonder if they will retain or memorize much.
Do you focus on one poet at a time and read one of their poems repeatedly with young children for memorization? Then move on to others and then another poet to study?
Do you spend time reading one particular large book (chapter book) and then start a new one once that one is finished?
It would be recommended doing the History modules in order (starting wherever you want….) – but for things like Music Study and Picture Study, you can pick and choose as you like….
For poetry, different families do it differently. I have to admit that recently we haven’t been doing it at all (sigh)… But when we did it, we focused on one poet, and just read a poem (or two if short and the kids wanted more) a day. Some people do memorize some though…
For reading, again different families do it differently. I believe that Charlotte Mason recommended having several books being read at once, short amounts at a time…. but I may just think that from what others have said. I know that on Ambleside Online (AO)- that is the way it is done and the people there strongly advise to do it that way. However, I know that many families here read one literature book at a time…
As for getting all the reading into the day – I don’t feel like I can advise on that right now…. but if you want to feel that the SCM recommendations are easy and not as much too it, try some of the other CM programs (like AO) first…
We do the history modules in order (started at mod. 5), but everything else, in any order we choose. And, we usually have several read alouds going at one time (for the family and independent).
HTH
As far as scheduling reading throughout the day…a couple of thoughts. We break our reading up into several shorter sessions that are sprinkled throughout the day. We also don’t read every subject everyday. We read Bible, Poems, Aesop, Lit, and History daily. Geography, Personal Development, Art, and Nature Study are 1 or 2 times a week. My kids are quite young – oldest is 6. So, this could be different with older kids, but hopefully this will give you an idea of how we do it.
For example…
We do Bible and Scripture Memory together at the breakfast table.
(Then we take a break and do chores and get ready for the day)
Then we come back together and read a poem (takes less than 5min), and Aesop Fable (less than 5min), calendar, and history (10-15m)
Then we do a block of other work – cursive, spelling, math, copywork for my dd, and a little bit of hands-on preschool work for ds.
Then we come back together to do another ‘reading’ subject which varies by day – art, character development, geography, or nature study.
All of that only takes about 1.5 hours. Maybe a little longer if we get into an art or nature project.
I read literature to my little ones after lunch before naps, and dd6 reads something from her reader to me.
We have another block of Bible reading and a family readaloud before bed.
So….if you added up all the reading we do in the course of a day, it would probably be more than 2hrs worth. But it’s never all at once, so it doesn’t feel like we are reading that much. I haven’t assigned independant reading yet, as my dd is just now getting to where she reads well enough to read on her own, so that may change depending on the age of your children.
Also remember that in the CM method that the goal is not retaining or memorizing EVERYTHING. The goal is to spread a feast before your child and allow him to make connections with what he makes connections with. The goal is first that the child is interested and cares about things…when they care about something they WILL retain it. You may not see it all at once, but I think you will over time. If that makes sense. My dd is still a beginning narrator and I had fallen into the bad habit of trying to draw specific facts out her with our history reading – what *I* thought was important for her to remember. Some of the discussions here last week encouraged me to stop doing that, so yesterday I just asked her “what is the most interesting thing you heard about ___________ today?” I got a much better response by asking her what SHE knew, remembered, and cared about, rather than trying to draw specific bits of info out of her workbook-style.
HTH some,
Jen
I also skip around in the poet, artist, and composer modules. What I do for poetry is choose one poet per term and read their works. Thursday is poetry day around here 🙂 We also memorize a few of their poems. I choose one that we recite together each morning until we have it memorized. Sometimes if they are short we do a new one each week, longer ones may take us up to six weeks to get.
As stated above, everyone does this differently but for reading we simply have a “read aloud” time each day, usually about an hour. We begin with an audio book (usually a literature selection), and the children usually do various things while we listen (I knit!), then I choose from the books we are currently reading. I usually do a history read first. I keep a loose schedule for the rest of the subjects which are not daily things, for example, our geography book on Monday, a Science book on Tuesday, Character on Wednesday, etc. Then, depending on time I read a picture book or a random library book. We do narrations after each book and sometimes pull out the timeline book or whip out the drawing supplies.
I try to keep everyone’s attention by only reading 10-15 minutes from each book. We usually spend about an hour together. Then we break up for guided and independent work. My oldest has assigned reading he does on his own later.
I personally do keep reading a literature book until finished and then choose a new one. My children love to follow the storyline closely. History, science, and geography books we tend to spread out further, maybe only reading from once a week.
My children are young, so as they grow I am sure the reading demands will grow also – but by then they can do more on their own.
Have fun on the journey, and don’t stress too much. You will find what works for your family as you go along.
Tara
You can pick and choose Poets, Artists and Composers like you want. Poems and our Character Studies are very short so I read them during lunchtime.
We usually have 3 lit read alouds going — sometimes 4, as I count our night-time reading. I will read to each of our boys for about 30 mins before bed (each has a different book) then we have an afternoon read aloud or two that we’ll alternate as we see fit. Sometimes we’ll read both on the same day, one in the afternoon and another in the evening or in the car (or at the dentist or the hairdresser or anywhere we’re stuck waiting for a while). Some books can count in more than one category — like in the case of a historic novel. I love being able to count things in more than one category!
We have certain days, Picture study on Tuesdays, Poetry on Fridays. I also get most of our family read-aloud time done during meals. I eat my lunch while making theirs, then read a few books for the toddler/preschoolers and then the family literature book we read each day. We do our history family read alouds, or geography etc. after breakfast. I also read Bible while they are eating breakfast. You can choose any order you want for poets/artists/composers, etc. I think it would be good to keep the modules in order once you’ve chosen which one you want to start with. We started this past year with Module 5. It sounds much worse than it is, I would say get down the basics, then add in “extras” like poetry, composers, etc. Have fun:)
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