Help I am new to a Charlotte Mason education

Well, here’s one thought on it.  I’m sure others will have different ideas.  You should be able to use Spelling Wisdom 1 for both the older ones.  And the youngest probably doesn’t need it for spelling yet, but could do copywork/transcription from it.  Have you seen this?  http://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/curriculum-guide/ I would start here and just build what you like using whatever you want from here and adding what you like to it.  You can use any literature based history (assuming it passes the living books test and I believe most of them do) and just use narration as your study tool.  The nice thing about SCM materials is that there isn’t anything else included to cause you to lose your focus.  That’s why I am changing over to it from Sonlight.  I still use SL books that aren’t in SCM for literature – I just ket the kids choose their reading from that list.

As to grammar…I’m a bit of a misfit here maybe, but I think my way is as good as the next guys (but not better :-).  I just teach whatever comes up through their writing starting with the most basic and moving on as the writing shows it is mastered.  You know…punc. and caps, usage corrections if they ever some up, show me the subject/verb, etc. (from their dictation usually for this)…and whatever else comes to mind to share with them now and then.  No placement needed for that.  So, I just plan to do this kind of thing once a week or something like that.  If I come up bland on what to do next, I just look at whatever grammar book is handy for another idea…or decide they’ve finished with grammar if their writing is already excellent and I don’t see any further need of it.

About narration…my kids have FINALLY gotten used to this, but some of them still don’t like it much.  So, what I’ve learned the hard way is this: if I had it to do over (starting narration with older kids) I’d use more of the non-conventional methods (draw a picture, write diary entry as if you were there, a letter, newspaper article, a skit, etc.) rather than just having them tell it back to me.  That’s all I really did with them, and it was somehow a drudgery when it should not have been.  It must have been my approach.  Annother thing…it does help if Mom takes a turn narrating occasionally.  Then they can add to it.

What approach have you been using?  It may help us to be more helpful to know what you’re transitioning from.  In any case, one change at a time might be a good idea.  You could start getting used to some of the new things that are easy over the summer (picture study, narrations (just a few) with a book read just for fun instead of for school, etc.) if you think you could pull it off (read I’d never let the kids know it has anything to do with school…just “Hey, I just found this cool website with all these pictures on it.  Come see Rembrandt with me!  Let’s try looking at this one picture for a bit and see how much we can remember afer closing our eyes…)

There are also several Language arts curriculums that incorporate dictation, grammar, narration, even some picture study! I am thinking of the “Language Lessons for the __________ Child” series from Queen’s homeschool supply, or Writing Tales, or English Lessons for the Thoughtful Child. There are others out there. When you are just starting with these methods, I think it makes it easier to have it all in one book and laid out for you.

We use Spelling Wisdom, too, by the way. Most people who adopt the core philosophy of Charlotte Mason do make some adaptations for their children along the way :). As Sonya says, “Teach the child…not the curriculum”.

Picture Study – you can begin with the ‘Come Look With Me’ type books if you need a scripted way to talk about the pictures, but it really isn’t necessary. You aren’t studying or critiquing the art. You are just showing it, letting the kids form a relationship with it, briefly discussing it…and moving on. It takes us about 10 minutes per week (tops).

It can be overwhelming if you try to switch everything over at once.  I would pick just a few CM elements to start with.  We switched to a more traditional CM schedule last fall and I slowly added in all the elements one at a time, adding a new subject each week or two.  By January, we were doing all but a few of the subjects.  We never did add in Shakespeare and didn’t do very many nature studies, but those can be things for us to work on this year!  You can definitly pick and choose which methods to follow as well.  We did that for years before completely switching over.

I do find CM methods easier, especially when you have several children to homeschool!  It’s much easier to combine them, and since you cut out busywork, your time is used more efficiently.  As far as history, there are quite a few CM-friendly history programs out there.  Just about any literature-based programs would work well.  For science, Aplogia would work for all your DC’s ages.  We just do the readings and some of the experiements and notebook pages from the text to make it pretty much “open and go”.   We’ll be using 106 Days of Creation this year which would also work for your DC’s ages.  It has quite a few books to gather up, so it would be more involved on your part.  I do like that we’ll be covering so many different areas of science to give them a quick overview of it…Apologia focuses on just one area per book.  We used the Swimming Creatures one last year and they loved it. 

For math, I switched two of my DC to MUS last year and plan on switching the rest over this year.  We watch the videos together and they only do as many wb pages as they need to.  That gives them motivation to do well and stay focused…they love skipping some of the pages!  lol  If you already have a math program that works, I’d just stick with it.  It can be difficult to switch programs since they are all organized a bit differently.  We switched because my oldest really struggled with our previous program.   

For narration, start with just oral narration, then work up to written.  Some children pick this up quicker than others.  We mostly narrate our history, Bible, and science readings.  I have them do a short notebook page 1-2 times per week for written narrations.  We use Spelling Wisdom for dictation and my oldest really enjoys it (my 2nd oldest will be starting it this fall).  It is very simple and quick…we spend about 10 minutes twice a week on it.  Picture study is very simple.  I put it off all last year because I thought it was going to be too difficult.  I finally read some posts on SCM and watched a short video of it.  After that, I realized how simple it was!  It takes 5-10 minutes each week! 

If you start gradually, it’s much easier to get it all in.  I think it would be very difficult to start a full CM schedule right away.  It’s much easier on both you and your DC to work up to a full schedule.  Or, you can just pick and choose which CM techniques to add in.  I don’t think anyone follows her 100%…I think the key is taking what you learn and getting it to work best for your specific children.

Missceegee did a good job of clarifying that. Please read a lot about the CM philosophy before you purchase anything (well, except maybe the ‘All Day Seminar’). It is important to understand Charlotte Mason’s basic philosophy and principles before you begin – the foundation is everything.

And there are many ‘curriculums’ that utilize Charlotte’s philosophies. If you get grounded in the basics first, you won’t waste time or money on things you don’t need and don’t know how to use effectively.