This year, I didn't really stress too much about curricula choices. What I stressed was trying to make them fit with my Charlotte Mason-style desires. Anyone who has read CM's books knows that she is not an unschooler. Girl was hardcore, but in a surprisingly gentle way. The biggest thing is habit. Habit, habit, habit, habit so things come automatically, without requiring much brain effort. So we've been working on habits of cleaning ("Don't you dare drop that on the floor, pick it up and put it away" ~DH says this to me all the time ;) ha ha!). I had them clean the living room last Sunday. It took four hours, but we've kept it clean by working on it every day (or at least every other day). Same with their bedroom, but that one only took two hours. So we plan on keeping this up so that we never have to drop all of our schooling in an emergency cleaning session and never get so overwhelmed with it that I cry to DH that I need to put them in school so I can keep a clean home. I'm not going to lie, most of this is about reforming my own habits first and helping them learn second. If I just keep up the habit of living room, their bedroom, kitchen table and bathroom, I'll consider it a success.
So back to CM being hardcore. There are many websites and curricula that claim to be proponents of CM. I don't know much about them because I haven't put much effort into studying them. I have put a lot (at least in my opinion) of effort into reading her works. There are many subjects or skill sets that come with learning the CM way. Here's what I'm doing and how I'm incorporating her method into them.
Because of DH's wonkido schedule, I've decided to order our school days numbers 1-5. Days 1-4 are regular school days. Day 5 will be held on one of DH's days off and will either be project day w/ Daddy or field trip day. Right now Day 5 is Wednesday and Days 1-4 are Mon, Thurs, Fri, and Sat.
Math-Math U See. Not necessarily CMish, but the manipulatives help. It helped ease Pigby's stress when I let him use them to his heart's content instead of stressing that he try to do without them. Much better. We're going to do about 30-40 minutes a day on math.
Copywork-He's practicing in cursive again (he even uttered, "I *hate* cursive" when we did some today. I reminded him that he's the one who wanted to learn in the first place) using the StartWrite software. He did really well for a long time, then I slacked and his handwriting became rather poor. Back to the grindstone. This takes about five minutes unless he's complaining about how much he hates it.
Grammar-We're using Primary Language Lessons by Emma Serle. It's free on Google Books and very similar to First Language Lessons, but without so much repetition. We'll see how this goes. It's free so I thought I'd give it a try. If I don't like it, no worries, we can always switch later if it's a colossal flop.
Spelling-We'll be sticking with All About Spelling.
Art-On days 1-4, he'll be using Mark Kistler's online program while I do preschool with the little two. It's about the only thing he could do independently. And if he chooses to skip it and join us instead, no biggie. On Day 5, if there isn't a field trip, we'll be doing Artistic Pursuits. We love this program.
Art Appreciation- We'll be using the books in this series. I lucked out and got 4 at the used bookstore for $1.50 each. We have Van Gogh, Raphael, Bruegel, and Degas. We'll also be alternating with composers and poets. One day we'll learn about the artist. The next, we'll do a picture study and narration. The next, they'll try to recreate it in their own notebooks. Then if they want, they can use the picture as a story starter. Then the next week, we study a different picture by the same artist. Each artist/composer/poet study will last six weeks for each artist. I hope that makes sense.
History-Story of the World. We'll be reading the section, he'll narrate each paragraph as we go along. Then he'll do a narration, illustration, and mapwork (just cutting and pasting from the SOTW Activity Guide) in his history notebook. We'll also add important people and events to our history timeline. We'll do a project on day 4 if it works out, but I'm ok with not doing some of them. We'll also be reading extra books. This is where Charlotte Mason comes in with the phrase, "living books" and I for real hate that term. So I just say, we'll be reading extra books that correspond.
Science-I'm doing a major overhaul of science. We have Elemental Science Biology, but DH bought me a set of Audubon Nature Encyclopedias. They are beautiful. And they have way more information than the Kingfisher book we'd been using. That one was mostly useless, IMO. He'll be narrating each paragrah and doing a narration and illustration in his science notebook. We'll also be doing some fun science demonstrations.
Field trips-He has another notebook just for fieldtrips. We'll be doing narrations and illustrations for these as well.
Gospel study-He has a notebook for this. We'll read a chapter, he'll do a narration and illustration. Hopefully I'll guide him toward, "How does this apply to our lives today?" CM is very stern on not using scriptures to lecture or manipulate small children, so I think that question is open enough that maybe he can learn some things on his own.
Memory Work-Right now we're working on the Articles of Faith. When we move past those, we'll start scripture mastery or some other powerful scriptures. I hope to use a method similar to this one, but in a binder instead of index cards.
Nature Walks-We'll be doing these on Day 5. He has a notebook for this for illustrations and narrations. This sort of thing is extremely important for developing the discipline of focus.
PRESCHOOL
Circle time-right now, our circle time includes singing songs, scripture reading and notebooking, memory work and calendar time. This is the calendar we use.
Literature-Before Five in a Row. This is where we take a classic children's book and read it each day for a week. After each day's reading, we do a fun activity.
Letters-I bought Confessions of a Homeschooler's preschool pack so we'll be using letters that correspond with our literature for the week. For example, when we read "Goodnight Moon" we'll study the letter "M" and do some of those pages. I also bought the Starfall App and have a free app called Write ABC. The latter teaches them which letter to start with, which direction to go and where to stop. If they miss any of those, they have to start the line over.
I think that's it. It sounds very busy, but it should be fairly laid back. As long as we can keep Digby from destroying the house, it should all be ok.
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