Newbie to CM

http://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/scmguide/  I don’t know why it copied the link wrong.  Here is the link for the curriculum guide.

Welcome!  Sounds like you’re off to a great start:) I highly recommend Planning Your CM Education sold here. It simply explains all the CM-style subjects and how to implement, with many different schedule samples and breakdowns of how to schedule books. Very helpful and worth it! I also love the History/Geography/Bible handbooks…very inexpensive and I love having my days planned out. But if you have books for these subjects already, it probably wouldn’t be worth it for you.

I wouldn’t worry much about the 4yo…mainly outdoor time and read alouds.  There are many ways to schedule…the Planning book is really helpful to get ideas. If it were me, I’d have the 9 and 7 yo’s doing something like a lit. book each day, maybe a history reading 3x/week, science reading 2x/week, nature study 1x/week, bible/character daily, geography 1x/week, the arts/poetry 1x/week ea., copywork/dictation most days, math daily (we like Math-U-See, very CM-friendly).  Hope that wasn’t confusing! Lessons are short, so it sounds like more than it is…days aren’t long:)  HTH some, Gina

It happens very often when I read a blog, and then later discover they are on this forum! 

I’ve been “officially” homeschooling for 6 years this July.  We were Charlotte Mason with some unit studies for the first year, even though I had never even heard of Charlotte Mason.  Someone asked how I schooled my son, and when I explained, she said, “Oh, so you are Charlotte Mason styled.”  I went home an googled “Charlotte Mason” and came across this site, and I’ve been here ever since! 

I have a 10 yo, 7yo, 5yo, 3yo, and a baby due this June.  This method works great for us, and I love the way the kids flourish using it. 

I mix and match.  I use mostly SCM to plan.  I use AO’s science and literature picks currently for my oldest, because he’s very advanced, and AO seems to have more books choices on his level.  Somethings I have come across, either through people suggesting it or an internet search, and used those things instead of something suggested by SCM or AO.

I used the free schedules here to plan our term days, and tweaked where I needed to.  ( Sometimes it wasn’t as heavy on a subject that I needed, and so I would add in more of that subject, or sometimes they were too heavy on a subject than I needed, and I would cut it down to so many times per week – but the schedules gave me a jumping point to work out my own schedule.)

I have All Day CM Seminar, Books and Things and Planning your CM schedule, HEaring,Reading,Telling and Writing, Language Arts the CM way,  and Laying Down the Rails Book. I’ve collected them over the years, and love them all, but when I started, I didn’t have any of them.  Between the blog posts, the free resources here, and picking everyone’s brain on the forum, I was able to get by without much of a problem.  That said, I watch and rewatch all the DVD’s several times during the year as a refresher course and find it helpful, and there is always something new that I learn from them.

Just an encouragement to you – the DVD’s are a tremendous help! The All Day Seminar is my favorite and helped me to understand the methods involved so much better. And I have heard wonderful things about ‘Planning your CM Education’, too. We just started using more of the SCM resources this past year and the kids are really growing and loving school so much. I would say that you are off to a great start with lots of living books, so don’t stress too hard about the plan :0). Blessings to you on the journey!