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taking a bold step….any advice
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Hello to all. I am new to this forum and to the SCM method of homeschooling. For a little background, we began homeschooling in 1985, when the whole homeschooling movement was in it’s infancy and may parents were still dealing with truancy officers at their door. My, how times have changed. We have graduated 6 from homeschool high school thus far…and have four left to go.
Now you are probably asking yourself “why in the world, after this much success, would she make a change now??” Well, while our “traditional” workbook curriculum worked for many years, we have found ourselves a little bored. In previous years, we would just push on through, as I was working outside the home in addition to homeschooling the children. We needed a curriculum that allowed a great deal of independent study. But I am home more now, and want to spend more time with my last four…can you say, “empty nest???”
So we have decided, that for one school year (our year runs from June 1 to March 31, as it is too hot where we live to be outside in the summer!!), we are packing away all our “usual” curriculum and going to try something totally different…..we are considering purchasing MFW–EEC and doing a 6 month long study of Geography, a subject my children are not strong in. I like, I guess after years of “it all planned out”, having lessons plans. But I have read some of the posts here….are the MFW LP’s too constricting?? Or would I be able to use what I like, and add some other stuff too?? I think for science, at least for this summer, we are going to do our long awaited Astromony unit…I say long awaited, as I purchased a telescope 3 yrs ago…..and during the day hours some outdoor nature studies using Anna Comstock’s book as a general guide. We will continue on with our usual spelling and LA for now. We purchased a new math curriculum (Math-U-See) as we were totally bored with our old one. I have found some good books I want to share with the children in a “family read” time, and am still trying to figure out what to do about a Bible study time.
So here I am….an old vetern looking to put some new life into our homeschooling…..any advice???
Sorry this is so long…..
hs mom of ten….
MFW ECC was too constricting for ME….but it may be perfect for you coming out of traditional workbook type things. I will say though, that my children remembered more by doing geography the SCM way than they learned from MFW 🙂
Welcome to the fourm!
Amanda
We did ECC years ago and had a blast. We learned a lot. That said, we haven’t done geography the SCM way (yet!). It is not set up to complete in 6 months though so you’d definitely have to do some tweaking. I didn’t do all the workbook-y type stuff that is in the program though, only some of it. And I added relevant read aloud’s (there is an included book list) — I think that was our favorite part. If you are willing to tweak to make it more CM I think it is a good program.
I had a thought too — somewhere on this site there is an article that talks about how to start incorporating CM into your studies. It may be helpful as you figure out what direction to take. I’ll see if I can find it and post a link.
This thread might be helpful and contains a couple of other links…
http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/desperate-mom-in-need-of-help-please#post-26322
You mentioned being interested in exploring geography….not sure how old your kids are but Beautiful Feet has a great US geography study that uses Living Books as it’s base.
http://www.bfbooks.com/Geography-Through-Literature-Special?sc=18&category=860
If you are new to Charlotte Mason ideas living books are a really enjoyable way to get your feet wet and awaken the joy of learning for your children.
Keep us posted on your journey!
Thank you all for the links and feedback. I will spend some time reading the links. I purchased the book and dvd series by Sonya Shafer and am half way through the third dvd..but have realized I will have to listen several more times to catch all.
JennNC…you mentioned tweaking the ECC. I have a dear friend that is using MFW and she said the same…that if we wanted to complete the ECC in 6 months I would need to tweak it some. Any suggestions? In your experience, what material can be left out?
Ladyofthehouse…..I will check out the Beautiful Feet site…thanks for the lead.
The children, for the first time in a long time, are getting more and more excited to start school…If nothing else is gained this year, at least we are going to enjoy being with one another.
Hi hs mom of 10 🙂
I have not been an active member on this site long enough to know if it is ok to talk extensively about other curriculum — so I am proceeding cautiously. 🙂
I am hesitant to recommend that you try to stuff 9 months of planned work into 6 months, especially when you are aiming at enjoying being together. Even though I do think ECC is a great program (when tweaked to be more CM), I am concerned that the workload will begin to feel too much like… work. Perhaps not what you are wanting at this point?
Wondering if you have a convention happening near you where you could actually look at the books and the TM?
Also wondering about the BF program someone mentioned… I have never done it but I believe it is based on great literature rather than the literature being something you add on from the library etc. No idea if it is doable in 6 months though.
I don’t want to sound negative about ECC. It is just that after I read your last post I wondered if maybe it is not a good match.
Another thought… just thinking out loud with you here… what about Ann Voscamp’s geography books? They are CM friendly, and less time consuming. You could do that to cover the geography that your kids need and then really focus on areas of your schooling that could use a CM-overhaul (if you know what I mean).
Just some thoughts. 🙂
you know…maybe you are right. Trying to stuff 9 mo of work into 6 mo may be too much. But I did look at the TM at a recent convention, and have already placed my order for ECC. So when the stuff gets here, I will take a closer look, tailor it to what I think we need to do, and not worry about the rest. Having homeschooled all these years, I can probably figure out what my kids need to cover and what we can skip….I just wondered if you had any ideas. And you did….the thought that maybe I need to proceed carefully and not try to cram so much into so little time. A very good thought indeed!!
Our goals for this coming school year are slowly becoming more and more clear. And enjoying learning together is at the very top of the list. I get so focused on thinking that the kids needs to accomplish x amount in x amount of time that I have lost the joy of just learning along with them. So thanks for that reminder….even though I was the one that typed it first….you at least made me stop and re-read what I had wrote…and think about it.
I have not been an active member on this site long enough to know if it is ok to talk extensively about other curriculum — so I am proceeding cautiously. 🙂
Our goal is to help you find what fits your family best. We’re pleased when something we offer is a good match, but if it isn’t a good fit then we’ll be the first to point you to someone else’s materials. So, yes, everyone is free to discuss other curriculum here.
Yes, they are great that way! So many other boards the people get uptight if you talk about other curriculum. Here the main concern is helping us!
(I assume that if they find that everyone is always saying use something else… they will use that as good information to improve the curriculum here… but really the curriculum and info here is pretty great!)
Hi HS mom of ten,
Welcom to SCM. I don’t have much to add but wanted to say that we have just completed ECC. It is a 34 week curriculum and it sounds like you want to do 24 weeks. I think the way that you might be able to do this is by studying some countries that are two weeks long in one week and maybe skipping some countries. After all , even in 34 weeks we did not hit every country. The harder part of this is the science part( the different biomes) but I am sure you could work it the way you see fit. You can double up on some of the reading and skip some of the notebook pages.
I also want to say you don’t have to let the curriculum be your master but you can master the curriculum. This, of course, goes for anything we use.
Blessings,
Suzq
So we have decided, that for one school year (our year runs from June 1 to March 31, as it is too hot where we live to be outside in the summer!!), we are packing away all our “usual” curriculum and going to try something totally different…..we are considering purchasing MFW–EEC and doing a 6 month long study of Geography, a subject my children are not strong in. I like, I guess after years of “it all planned out”, having lessons plans. But I have read some of the posts here….are the MFW LP’s too constricting?? Or would I be able to use what I like, and add some other stuff too?? 
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