New to homeschooling. Want to start doing Charlotte Mason next year. I have a 12b, 9g, 7,g and 5g. I have been reading and reading about a Charlotte Mason education and have become more and more overwhelmed in trying to figure out how to do it with 4 kids! Any help or suggestions would be great.
Choose one time period for history for everyone. Read aloud one book to everyone, then have picture books for younger kids and independent reads for the oldest. Choose one science for everyone, just expect more understanding of the oldest than the younger.
Each gets their own math, learns to read when they are ready, and has an independent reading list to work on one chapter at a time over the course of the year (literature – can be history or science related or not). Copywork for all, with oldest transitioning to prepared dictation when ready. Oral narration of anything they read or you read to them, with 1 written narration per week for the oldest.
Everyone enjoys picture study, composer study together. Scripture memory can be together. Decide if you want to include things like Plutarch or Shakespeare or not. Remember you don’t have to do every subject every day or every subject all year. We often do an artist (picture study) for 6 weeks, then a composer for 6 weeks, etc.
(Tristan, I love how you break things down for those of us with a whole lot of kids.)
Hi, Emily! We just started homeschooling the year before last. First we did CC for a year, then switched to CM this year.
Tristan has great suggestions. The main thing is to not get overwhelmed by all of the variety of a CM education but to enjoy little tastes of the subject areas throughout the week. We have six kids, from ages 14-2, and using this method–the whole “life learning” mindest–is what helps me LIKE home educating my children. The guided tour on this website is very helpful to me for seeing how to cover everything for everyone in a manageable way.