Getting Started

Welcome Melissa! Glad you are here. I have a 3rd, 6th, and 8th grader so we are close in our homeschooling seasons. Have you checked out the “Our Curriculum”, “SCM Curriculum” tab. It will walk you through what you need to get started.  Take a deep breath first, it can seem overwhelming, but once you wrap your brain around it is actually simple and beautiful.  Basically you start with a history time period for all of your children to study together.  That will be your history/Bible/geography plans for all grades for the year.  Each guide will list the actual resources needed for a year of study. Then you pick and enrichment study, lastly you pick individual lesson plans for each grade level. Your elementary students can study the same science, your high schooler of course will need their own.  I don’t think there are individual study lesson plans for high school yet, but you can find a very nice overview chart if you scroll down the SCM Curriculum page and click on See Overview Chart.  I would encourage you to poke around on those pages and try to get an idea of what a day looks like, also watch the video.  It seems overwhelming at first, and keep in mind you don’t have to add everything at once, you can start with just the History Guide and Individual Studies and meet most homeschooling requirements I think.  Then slowly add the Enrichment items that make CM such a beautiful and interesting way to teach.  Good luck.  I am sure others will chime in with more helpful posts.

Crystal

Yes, it can be expensive for sure.  I am on a pretty tight curriculum budget myself so I typically the minimum and use the library for the rest.  And I buy term by term so I don’t have to buy everything up front.  Sometimes I buy book by book.  I  look ahead to see the next book scheduled and check the library, if they don’t have it I will buy it, usually used.  There is also a build your own curriculum section with many free ideas.  I schedule all my own enrichment and then use the library or internet.  I do love the poet and artist studies from SCM though, I always try to make sure there is enough in the budget for those.  It is a bit more work, but well worth it.  You can get buy without the Individual lesson plans as well, just look at the charts and see what you need. Generally that will be math, language arts and science.  Please don’t let your budget deter your interest in a CM education, there are many of us who school on the cheap. It can be done.  Keep in mind also that some of the books like Hungry Planet and Material World are one time investments that are used over all six years.  SCM language arts are also used over multiple years.  Just some ideas. I don’t want you to miss out on the full and rich education because of budget.  It took me a long time to jump in for that reason and I wish I had been more creative with obtaining resources. I really love new books so buying them used was a challenge for me. I also really love nicely bound, color printed materials, but the e-version is cheaper so I “suffer” with reading things on a tablet – woe is me…. Whatever you decide good luck to you.

<p style=”text-align: left;”><p style=”text-align: right;”>I know this doesn’t answer your direct questions. However, I wish I could go back to the beginning of our homeschool journey and spend more time and more of my school budget educating myself on educational methods and philosophies (CM in particular).  I spent a lot of unnecessary money buying different curriculum when what needed a change was my own thinking and teaching style. I personally love, love, love the Learning and Living DVD’s by SCM, but if money is tight I would look at some good CM books, including the free online version of CM’s volumes on Ambleside. I also love the Delectable Education podcasts and the articles in the learning library section of SCM. I think the more a mother understands CM, the easier they can use free resources and swap expensive books out for cheaper or free books.   You probably already do all this, but that’s one of my biggest regrets.  It would have saved me a lot of money!</p></p>

I believe the sample pages have the book list for term 1. There should be a booklist for the whole year and then before lesson 1 there is a term book list. The sample doesnt show term 2 or 3 lists though. And the books listed for the term are not necessarily in order. I dont have the Early Modern study, we are doing Middle Ages so Early Modern may be a bit different, but generally each elementary student uses just one book at a time. There is a family spine, and a Things they Left Behind portfolio, plus the Geography resources. 7th grade and up has a Bible Study and 10th and up an additional spine. The grade level books could even be replaced with a similar title if your library doesnt have the right book. This board is a great place to ask for replacement suggestions. So really you would need the term 1 family resources and the SCM Bible study and Geography resources to get started. Then use the library for grade level books. I hope that helps a bit. Then just add language arts, math and science per grade level. You can do enrichment by the seat of your pants until you get a rythm going, just pick a poet, artist and composer and head to the library for a childrens biography on each. Check out a book of your poets work, google your artist and composer.