Some Basic Questions….I Think

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  • October 19, 2009 at 3:40 pm
    Wilson Academy
    Member

    I’m pretty new to the CM way of teaching and still a homeschooling rookie….we pulled DS8 out of PS in March of this year. Since it was close to the end of the year I started off with a hodgepodge of things, we did nothing in the summer and then for the fall jumped full swing into The Well Trained Mind format. While I still like many of the concepts, our days seemed long and my son was complaining of boredom, and we seemed to argue more than anything else. While searching for ways to make school more fun and interesting, I was re-introduced to CM (had browsed it last year when thinking about homeschooling and was researching curriculums but brushed it aside). So after taking a more closer look, I love this style of teaching. I think the shorter lesson times and more hands-on approach will be a big benefit for this family.

    As I’ve started transitioning our curriculum from TWTM to CM, I’ve stumbled upon some questions that hopefully some of you seasoned CMers can help me with:

    • Do you use notebooks for every subject?

    • Is narration only performed after the child reads on his own, or both on RA and independent reading? And, is it done after every subject/book regardless to wheather it was RA or independent?

    • At age 8/3rd grade level, how much should I be RA vs. having him read on his own?

    • I also have a DD4 who wants to do everything her big brother is doing. So I’m planning to have her start her own artist book for example. My question is, for those things that I start with her now at 4, do I repeat them with her when she’s older or do I just reinforce/build upon what has already been introduced to her?

    • I’ve seen many sample CM schedules and some them have science/nature study daily while others have them once or twice a week. The ones that have it once or twice a week only do the notebooking on one day. If you’re covering science daily but only notebooking one day a week…what do you do on those other days – just read your topic of study from living books?

    • Aside from the living books we’ll be using for history, geography, science, etc., do we stick with one piece of literature per term or do I switch it up? For example….right now I am RA Alice in Wonderland but when my son has quiet time where he needs to read on his own should he continue with the same book or read something else? 

    • Does anyone use lapbooks with CM or do you incorporate lapbook features into their notebooks?

    • Any other tips or advice that anyone is willing to share on getting started?

    I have more questions but some of them are specific to areas that we’re not tackling yet, for example, dictation. I’ll just hold those until we reach that point in our lessons.

    Thanks!

    krw

    October 19, 2009 at 5:48 pm
    mrsjamiesouth
    Member

    Hi, we are new to CM too but have been changing over for the past year.  I think the most important thing is to make CM your own style.  Its great to get ideas off of sites and other moms, but in the end its about Teaching your Children to Love learning.  What may work for someone else, might not work for you. We have discovered this the hard way.  I have my 9 year old narrate everything thats read to him and everything he reads.  It just became habit, like a conversation, and often he wants to tell me a story of something that relates to what he just read.  We only use notebooks for history/geography and science/nature.  Some of the things that go in our notebooks are: pasted pictures, maps, copywork, minibooks, leaf rubbings, drawings, and lists.  I tried lapbooks but my son does not care to color or cut, so it was a waste of time to him. If yours like to do it, you can incorporate it.  For reading, I am reading aloud to both my sons Mr Popper’s Penguins, then we are reading about Abraham Lincoln for History, I have some books on the human body for science, we read the bible, a poem or 2 each week, and my oldest is reading Narnia by himself. I am having him read about 20 pages a day to himself, and I read aloud 1 chapter to keep my youngest son was losing his attention.  I try to incorporate both boys into all the reading, my younger son is 5.   We do nature study with journals once a week, but take a walk everyday.  We do science twice a week.  I think this should be whatever your preference, although I can’t imagine doing science everyday.  We do History 5 days a week because the boys really like it.  I do geography 2 days instead of 1 recommended, but I break up one lesson into 2 days. 

    Best advice is make sure you pick books they like, if they really hate the book drop it and pick something else.

    October 19, 2009 at 10:54 pm
    crazy4boys
    Participant

    krw –

    I’ll try to answer following the same order you asked the questions.

    1.  Some people do, some people don’t.  Currently we have a family artist book, and each boy has their own science, history and copywork book.  They also have one notebook to put their drawings to they aren’t all over the table and floor.

    2.  No, sometimes, maybe.  You can ask for a narration whenever you want.  After they’ve read something independently or after you read to them.  You can ask for only one or two narrations a day, or for every book.  I have 3 sons doing history and science together.  Some days they take turns meaning only one child narrates, other days they all want a turn.  Even my 3-yr-old narrates sometimes.  Some days I only have each boy narrate for one subject, some days I ask for something after each one.  A lot of it depends on how attentive they’re being.  Usually it’s oral (they’re 9, 9 and 5) but often I ask them to draw a picture or act out a scene or build a model.

    3.  That depends on the reading ability of your son.  I read almost everything to my boys still.  They do independent reading while I’m working with their younger brother.  One of my sons is slowly transitioning into doing more of his own reading, the other won’t be ready for several years.  I also like the closeness of reading and learning all together.  A lot of families help their children make the “independent” transition between 9 and 11, and again, it totally depends on your child’s readiness.

    4.  My 5 yr-old has been doing everything with his big brothers since he was little.  He taught himself to read by listening in and will astound you with the history and science he knows.  I have him join us for all subjects except math.  I try to find history and science picture books (which honestly my older boys enjoy too).  My plan for history is to repeat it every 4 years, together, as a family.  So he’s doing US History right now.  In 4th grade he’ll get it again, but a little more in-depth this time around.  Same for science.  We’ll slowly make our way through various subjects and will repeat them in later years to he’ll get to dive into them again.  I find it much easier to keep them all together for as many subjects as I can than to try to teach everyone something different.

    5.  I guess that depends on the family.  Everyone does science differently.  We do it every day because I have science junkies here.  At only 10 to 15 minutes a day it doesn’t take too much effort.  We try to add to our notebook once or twice a week.  I’ll have to let other people respond here because I can only speak for what we do.

    6.  Some people read the same book aloud until it’s finished.  Others may read one book on Monday, a second on Tuesday, a third on Wednesday, etc.  Or one book 2 days a week and another book 3 days a week.  For independent/quiet reading I would have him read something other than the read-aloud book.  You’ll find all sorts of different opinions for read-alouds – do what feels right for you.  The important thing is to just do it.

    7.  A whole heck of a lot of CMers use lapbooks.  We do some components of a lapbook and glue them into their science notebooks.  Others do the full blown thing.  Some skip them completely.  Sometimes lapbooks can be just busy work so you need to be careful that it’s actually teaching/accomplishing something.  I personally prefer notebooking as it feels closer to narrations.

    8.  Spend some time reading around the archives.  You’ll find a ton of information.  Also, the Simply Charlotte Mason blog has some really excellent articles.  Read those!!!!

    Welcome to SCM.  We absolutely love the education we’re getting with Charlotte Mason.

    Best of luck!

    Heather

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