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New to CM and HS
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Hi everyone!
We are new to homeschooling and to Charlotte Mason. We have 3 children who are in the 8th, 5th, and 3rd grades. Our school history is as follows: 1) son: Private Christian School PK – 5th, Public School 6th – 7th; 2) daughter: Private Christian School PK-3, Public School 4th; 3) daughter: Private Christian School PK-1, Public School 2nd.
All 3 children have dyslexia and ADD/ADHD to varying degrees. The traditional school environment has proven to be difficult for them. This year we decided to try homeschooling. Our first attempt was through an online public school in our state. We stayed with it for a month, but found it to be very similar to traditional school. It did not allow for any flexibility and was very rushed. At that point we switched to a Christian online program (not school) that allowed for flexibility and setting our own pace. However, it is still somewhat like a traditional school curriculum. The lessons are short, but focused on learning facts. I notice my children wandering and I don’t feel they are very engaged with much of the material. However, through this process I have become even more aware of the gaps in their education because of having rushed through so much material without having really mastered much of it in the past.
Recently I met a group of moms who mostly use the CM methods in their homeschooling. I have been scouring all I can find about her methods and how to implement them. After much research, I feel this type of education is exactly what my children need.
Now, finally to my questions. They are as follows:
1) My son will start high school next year. If we use the SCM History, which one should we start with so that he will have what he needs when applying for college?
2) Is it too late to start the transition for this school year?
3) If we start transitioning now, how do we make up for the time we have already missed in the curriculum? Do we start at the beginning, or do we start where we would be now if we had started at the beginning of the school year?
I have read Sonya’s guide to transitioning from traditional school to CM methods, so I have an idea of how to make the transition. However, I’m still a little unclear about (mostly because of my older child who is about to start high school) how to start making the transition 2 months into the school year and ensure we cover everything we need to cover.
I know I am still stuck in a traditional education mindset, because this is all we have known. So, I may be overthinking and overanalyzing this transition. I think if my children were younger, I probably wouldn’t be as concerned about it. 🙂
I am very excited about starting this transition. Any advice or input you can provide will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!!
Sheryl
Welcome to homeschooling and Charlotte Mason methods! You have found a wonderful site to share and ask questions and receive lots of encouragement.
My oldest is 6th grade, so I don’t know which history you should start with. Depending on which history guide you use, history is a certain number of days each week, geography x number days, and Bible so many days. Ancients have more Bible. You have several options for starting 2 months in. You could do the geography or Bible as a separate subject so one day a week you would do history and geography (or Bible) that day. You could substitute shorter books for longer books that are scheduled on a few of them. If an audio book version is available to you, you could add that in to catch up by playing it while traveling or read aloud one evening each week as a family. Hopefully others will give you more ideas. It is definitely doable this year.
Other subjects can be substituted one at a time. Start now with oral narration for each of them. Start with short readings of one paragraph or short stories like Aesop’s Fables or short picture books.
History is not a skill-based subject like math or reading. So there will always be gaps and more to be learned. Living books should help the student get excited about history and help it become real and interesting so they might, at some point, want to learn more on their own. History museums, events, and festivals can add so much to your studies that textbooks can never do. So if you miss a book in the guide or just skim over the topic, it can still be learned another time.
Keep in mind, my oldest is only in 8th, so I don’t have experience with high school yet. However, what I would do would be to figure out what credits are needed for the state you live in. Compare this with what credits are needed for most colleges. Most likely you’ll need at least 1 world history, 1 American history, and 1 government credit. From there, you can figure out how many history credits they’ll need by graduation. Modules 5 & 6 have 1/2 world history and 1/2 American history credit for each level.
You can either skip an entire history module (or two), or you could combine or skip parts of the history guides. I agree with Wings2fly…there will always be gaps in history–it’s impossible to cover it all. Many moms here like to combine the ancient history levels to reach a 4 or 5 year history rotation.
As far as where to start, it’s early enough in the year that you could start at the beginning. You’d probably have to school a little ways into the summer for this route, or you could start back where you left off at the beginning of following year. You could also skip over a few lessons. I’ve found the SCM history guides to be very flexible.
Since narrations are new, you may want to focus on oral narrations for awhile before adding written narrations. You can also take breaks mid-reading to have them narrate. Sometimes that’s much easier than narrating an entire chapter at once.
Thanks so much for the replies!
I will check into my states requirements.
Thanks for the advice about how to deal with the 2 months lost on other methods. Several of the options seem like things that will work for us.
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