Tgtb

Are you talking about The Good and the Beautiful (that is what I’m guessing)? If so, tell me what you are using. We do use it, and it is NOT strictly Charlotte Mason.

What I love about it:

– It makes it possible for me to homeschool and stay sane with 10 kids, medical needs, etc.

– It is good, beautiful, and inspiring.

– The Language Arts rotates you through a lot of the traditional Charlotte Mason subjects – picture study, composer study (some levels), geography, grammar, sentence dictation (middle and upper levels), poetry, narration, reading, phonics and some sight words, writing, solid vocabulary, etc.

– History and science are family studies and also includes things like more picture study, map work, hands on experiments (science), nature study, reading living books, timelines/book of centuries, etc.

– The math is hands on, uses ongoing stories and related manipulatives, is beautiful and engaging, and includes mathematician biographies, art, etc.

However, it isn’t for everyone! I’ve been homeschooling for a long time (all the way through and beyond graduating my oldest, with kids still ranging from a toddler to multiple high schoolers) and wouldn’t have used it with just a kid or two or three to teach, but I love using it with my large family. It streamlines things so everyone is still able to have a feast of ideas, but I don’t have to organize it all myself. We are able to complete our school work by lunch and have the rest of the day free to explore our interests.

I do NOT use their PreK/K levels. I wait until my kids are 6. No rush to do ‘preschool’ here.

Are the new versions worksheet heavier? Sort of. They have organized the day’s lessons more so that there is a portion the child can do independently each day. This looks like a worksheet, sort of. Today, for example, my 9 year old’s independent Language Arts section involved reading a story and narrating it to me, practicing a few words he is learning to spell (it gave hands on, whole body suggestions to do this, like hopping for each letter as he says it out loud, or clapping for each letter), practicing a poem he is memorizing, and studying two homophones actually used in sentences. The page it is on looks like a worksheet, but a lot of it was done more “CM-ish”, reading a book, narrating, practicing a poem.

Also, they tend to have notebooking pages with the history and science – but you can skip those, do oral narration, or with older kids go for the written narration opportunities with the notebooking page or on regular paper. So, again, sort of worksheets.