A Delightful Modern Charlotte Mason Homeschooling Boys Year Round

I live with my husband, my two sons (ages 4 and 6) and my mother, in a very rural area of Eastern P.E.I.  We love having lots of open space to run around in, woods to explore, and a quiet unhurried atmosphere all around us.  I love reading, photography, philosophy, traveling and coffee.  Before I became a homeschooling mother I worked as a vocational counselor and a psycho-educational assessor.

Well in many ways the classic homeschooler response “I’ve been homeschooling since they were born” is true.  Officially using curriculum started last year with some basic math and phonics programs for junior kindergarten.  My oldest is doing a hybrid of Kindergarten and Grade 1 this year.  At this stage especially, grade level does not really matter to me, some areas we are “ahead”, some we are “behind” but the important thing is that learning is happening and the love of learning is being cultivated.

The more I read about the Charlotte Mason approach, the more it resonated with me.  The underlying philosophy of “Education is a Life, a Discipline, and an Atmosphere” summed up how I wanted learning to happen in our home.  The guiding principle that “The child is born a person” defined how I wanted my relationship with my boys to develop.  The practical applications of short lessons, setting forth a feast of learning opportunity, and using tools such as living books and narration instead of textbooks and worksheets excited me and reignited my own desire to learn.

Last year I hobbled together a patchwork of materials from various sites and my own findings, this year I was very excited to get to be a tester for a new Charlotte Mason curriculum called “A Modern Charlotte Mason“. To quote from the website; “A Modern Charlotte Mason incorporates a full array of resources …including modern living books as well as the time-honored classics of the past. As a living and evolving curriculum, A Modern Charlotte Mason also provides the user with links to extension activities, documentaries, and articles that are coordinated with the lessons.”  We have loved our experience so far.

This curriculum is currently being developed and I am thrilled that I will get to test another year this coming season.  Check out the Facebook page to learn lots more and interact with the creator of the curriculum.

Morning basket time always happens on the downstairs couch.  Other learning activities migrate around the house, from the kitchen table, back to the couch, do the carpeted area of the loft where we store the homeschool books and supplies.

I love having the freedom to school where it is most convenient and delightful at the moment, but I also love the structure of having all the supplies and books in one dedicated area.  With a nice weather we do things outdoors too, I’m hoping to get a screened-in tent so we can spend more time reading outside, without feeding the bugs too much.

 

What have you picked for your Modern Charlotte Mason curriculum next year?

As mentioned above I will be testing a year of A Modern Charlotte Mason.  This will cover most of my curriculum, with lovely living books in geography, history, science, and literature.   I don’t have the full book list for this yet, but if it is like this past stint I know it will be fantastic.

For Math, I will be using Right Start Math Level C for Math with my 6-year-old and when my younger child turns five, I will probably start him at a very slow pace with Right Start Math Level A.  (He is asking to do more math, so though a traditional CM education does not start formally until 6, the games approach of Right Start will not be taxing, as long as concepts are not pushed before he is ready.)

I’m not sure what reading program I will use with my older son, so far none of the ones I have tried have fit.  I may use “The Joyful Shepherdess” blog posts for this or I may purchase the Simply Charlotte Mason program.  I will be using our break time to work that out.  I will also continue to just let him practice on early readers he enjoys.   My younger son will get to occasionally play with the computer program Reading Eggs.

I’m not sure what reading program I will use with my older son, so far none of the ones I have tried have fit.  I may use “The Joyful Shepherdess” blog posts for this or I may purchase the Simply Charlotte Mason program.  I will be using our break time to work that out.  I will also continue to just let him practice on early readers he enjoys.   My younger son will get to occasionally play with the computer program Reading Eggs.

1. The Big WHAT NOW Book of Learning Styles. By Carol Barnier.  This is a FANTASTIC resource.  It really freed me to understand learning doesn’t have to take place in a box and that you can find creative ways to help your unique learner connect with the materials he is studying.  It highlights different ways people can take in and retain information and then has a variety of creative applications you can use to connect with your learner.  Just writing about it makes me want to pick it up and glean some ideas for tomorrow. 🙂

2. When Children Love to Learn. by Elaine Cooper.  This book helped me realize that the wonderful things I was reading in Charlotte Mason’s volumes could be practiced today in education.

3. The Practice of the Presence of God. By Brother Lawrence. No, this collection of teachings by a humble 17th century monk is technically not a homeschooling book – but its’ simple wisdom and its’ exhortations to find the spiritual element in all the routine tasks of the day (from washing dishes to listening to a child sloooooooooooowly sound out a CVC word in phonics practice) very much influences the heart of how I want to see my time, including my education time.

Your family is going on an unplanned trip, not much time to pack, you must homeschool the kids while traveling and you can only take 5 of your homeschooling resources/books with you. What would you take?

ARRRRRGH!!! By far the hardest of these questions to answer.  I went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and….well you get the idea.  Now I am assuming this is a very long trip, as short stints the homeschooling would be in the trip itself.  I tried to make a book list (see below) but I kept cheating and bundling books together as “one”.   If I was thinking more along the lines of resource materials  the list might be:

1. A couple of sets of cards and dice for math games.

This answer is broader than just homeschooling but definitely, impacts how education plays out.  Number one, I would just take notice more, really breathe in the wonder and Wabi of this time.  Related to that,  I would be more intentional in how I spend our time.  Not that every moment would need to be perfectly scheduled and accounted for, but that our time in general, was spent wisely.  That rest time was chosen to be rest time and not just what happened due to drifting towards it.  That there was less chaos in how the flow of the day went, which led to stumbling from event to event and more rhythm deliberately played out to accommodate the dance of life learning.

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