Is anyone using Karen Andreola's Language Arts suggestions?

Hello Kathi:

I haven’t been consistent using the CM methods the last three years and my children are still young, so I can’t answer the first part, but I completely understand and sympathize with your question. I have felt the very same way. I do plan to incorporate more of a CM approach this coming year and ignite the love of learning. I’m not sure if you want to change the curriculum you use, but in the past, what I did with my R&S was to use it in a more CM way. I did it orally with my younger dd and use short lessons. I then moved to copywork and next year we’ll be using a more structured grammar curriculum.

I have read “The Heart of Wisdom” (HOW). I read it after reading, “What Your Child Needs to Know When.” It was more than a year ago and I really enjoyed it and found it refreshing. What attracted me to the book was how she wrote about “bible first,” discipling our children for the Lord and then combined many of the different methods, CM, Lifestyle of Learning, unit studies, etc. to teach your child.

I will share the path the Lord took me through. It’s not the only path, but it’s the path He took me on. Each of our paths will be different and that’s o.k.

Since the beginning of my homeschool, I was always searching for the latest and greatest and on and on. The Lord had been convicting me of my priorities with my children. I wanted to truly disciple them for the Lord, to be Ambassadors for Christ, to have a Rock solid foundation and to prepare them for life.  When I read HOW, I found that she answered many questions or concerns that I had in my heart, e.g., going back to the Hebrew Educational model and not the Greek’s and putting the bible first in every subject area.

After I read HOW, I noticed she only had year one of her curriculum completed and she wasn’t planning to create years two-four, although she did include the needed resources for the specific years in “HOW”. She also explains how to put a year together, but I found that I needed something already put together. That’s when the Lord led me to Student of the Word (SOW). The Bible is at the center and every subject surrounds the Word. Different teaching methods (CM, unit study, etc.) are also used and I can tweak, change and modify very easily. They recommend using SOW “as is” for the first year since it’s very different.

This coming school year, I will be adding a lot of SCM into our school year and combining it with SOW. Since I’ve used it for a year, I’m very comfortable with making modifications. Although I will still use SOW’s bible, I like SCM’s history flow a better and many of their resources.

I still refer to HOW for encouragement every now and then. For encouragement, Robin specifically recommends to read section one (Lessons from Exodus) and chapter 21 (Scheduling by Faith). I think it’s a great book. Although I don’t use HOW, Robin shares the Godly wisdom the Lord has given her. You can go to her website and see a sample from her book at http://homeschool-books.com/xcart/home.php.

I also have her book on Biblical Holidays. Great resource!

God bless!

Sharon Nelson

Well, I can tell you my jouney.  We started with HOW in 2002, before that we used AO.  I loved it, but was quickly overwhelmed because I was new to homeschooling and unsure of my “style”. I needed more direction and realized quickly that scrapbooking-to-learn was not my style either. I wanted to spend lots of time in the bible, but I never seemed to get to the other things (3 r’s). I have Robin’s book as well, which I re-read recently, but it has so much added to the CM method I just knew I wouldn’t stick with it.

So my next stop was SOW. I loved the prayer letters, but wanted more guidence and felt overwhelmed (again) with language arts being so from scratch. After a year of that I decided not to continue with it but move to a new curriculum….Bedell.

I loved Bedell and still use it for devotions, but I felt the history too weak to stand alone and so begain the tweaking fit I so often end up in. 🙂 I have 7 of the volumes and use them still, but mostly as a family study. We then used Five in a Row for a few years which we really enjoyed.

Then I found SCM!!  I had read everything I could on CM, many times, but felt unsure how to combine it all. I feel at home with living books/copywork/dictation/narration. I love that I can plug what I want in. I feel at home here and plan to stay for the duration.

Now on to that illusive language arts problem. I have wanted to only use copywork and dictation.  Up until grade 3 I only do that. If I had chosen better books it probably would have gone better than it has. I didn’t pick books very well (copywork out of twaddle just DOES NOT WORK )  The last few months I have been using Rod and Staff a few days a week and Karen Anderola’s Story Starters, one day a week.  I LOVE this arrangement. They also narrate everything. My kids also love Queen Language Lessons, but I wanted something that would cover more and cost less, hence R&S at a more CM pace. I will use QLL for my younger two until fifth grade or so and then switch to R&S/ Story Starters. I like R&S because it covers so much, but we do most orally and skip things liberally.

Yikes, I don’t see the edit option to correct all the mistakes in my above post. Just loving making mistakes in a post about GRAMMAR! LOL!! Kindly overlook them, please. 🙂