I am sorry but I don’t know where else to turn for help with my attempts at providing a Charlotte Mason homeschool experience for my kids. I really feel like such a failure. I love everything about CM, but I must not be implementing it correctly because my kids cannot seem to retain ANYTHING. My 12 year old daughter seems to be doing the best (she is an avid reader), but my 10 year old and 8 year old boys seem to be regressing rather than progressing.
We are in our third year of homeschooling and our second year of CM. My kids were in public school until 4th, 2nd, and K. I feel like everything they have learned was information from public school and I have been unable to teach them one thing since they began homeschooling. We do short lessons, narrations, copywork, dictation…but they seem to forget everything we talk about! My ten year old has a hard time defining what a noun or a verb is and cannot write with appropriate punctuation and capitalization. We have gone over and over all of this, but he still writes run on sentences with little to no punctuation.
Our curriculum is as follows:
History: SCM Modern History
Science: Dr. Wile’s Science in the Scientific Revolution
Copywork: Print to Cursive (8 year old)
Spelling Wisdom (all three)/Using Language Well (boys)
English For the Thoughtful Child (boys)
Analytical Grammar (12 year old)
Math: Math Lessons for A Living Education (all three)
Logic: Fallacy Detective (12 year old)
Writing: Don’t Forget to Write (12 year old)
Literature: Read Aloud (all three)
Reading: with narrations (10 year old and 12 year old do written narratives, 8 year old oral narratives)
Enrichments: Picture Study, Composer Study, Poetry/Tea Time, Latin, Morning basket with scripture memory, prayer, and Bible study
Nothing seems to stick, especially for the 10 year old. I’m concerned about the 8 year old’s spelling skills, too. Do I need to just trust the process? Am I still too much in a public school mentality? I hear so many moms talk about how much their children enjoy all of the things they are doing in homeschool. Mine grumble and complain about schoolwork and just want to hurry up and get it done. They tell me they DO NOT want to go back to public school, but they seemed to learn so much and thrive and retain so much more. All three were making straight As in every subject. Now it takes my 10 year old 5 minutes to add 6+5. And when it comes to multiplication…AAAHHH! I am so sorry that this is so long, but I am at my wits end. None of us are enjoying school and our attitudes have gotten even more negative (mine included). Can anyone help with some words of advice and/or encouragement or examples from their own difficult seasons?