A Charlotte Mason Education

As you all know by now, I am researching various homeschooling methodologies to find ideas for my own homeschool adventure. I loved TJEd (Thomas Jefferson Education), and since many people have commented that it is similar in many respects to Charlotte Mason, I thought it was time to give her a try.

In all honesty, I cannot say I have given her a try yet as her original books are checked out and I am waiting for them. Instead, I read two "How-To" manuals created to help homeschoolers implement Charlotte Mason in their home.

I was disappointed. There were a few good ideas, but nothing extremely inspiring. However, I did like some of the ideas, and I am listing them here. Mostly to imprint them on my brain. This is becoming a joyful process for me--getting ideas and narrowing down, and thinking about, what Miriam and I will do together--so I will continue to bore you with homeschooling issues constantly. Just thought you should know.

So the good ideas: Don't overwhelm a child with too much good art. For "art appreciation" (I laughed, there is an education joke about art appreciation--or the lack thereof--that always makes me giggle) Charlotte chose six reproductions (as large as she could get) of one painters and she and the child talked about those six pictures and that is about it.

I am a huge proponent of mixing your curriculum together--the trendy way to say it being "writing across the curriculum" and "reading across the curriculum" and "integrated studies." Basically, I hadn't thought about doing art appreciation as was taught in the old days--coming to appreciate the art itself--rather than understanding art based on time periods. I like the idea of just looking at pictures with Miriam and talking about what she likes and doesn't like. I will be giving a lot more thought to that.

Create timelines for the history you are studying. I liked that this is in there because I always did this as a teacher. It is so helpful to have a little chart (I used old calulator paper that comes in a roll, and at the end of the course we would go to the gym and unroll our whole timeline so everyone could see everyone elses) to put the most important events. It cements chronological understanding without spending much time on dates.

For those of you who always shop at the same store--this one is for you: This woman created a shopping list on her computer of all the items she ever buys based on the layout of the store. Then, when she goes shopping, she prints off the list and highlights the items she needs. Voila, a shopping list based on the store, but without having to write it out that way every time. I thought that was pretty genius.

One year, she bought t-shirts for all of her kids and herself, all the same color. When it was "schooltime" they put the shirts on over their other clothes as a visual reminder that it was schooltime. When the schoolday was over, they took the tshirts back off. Pretty clever. Miriam would LOVE that!

She reminded me that I need to plan the school year schedule. She did school in trimesters--three months on and then one month off. She also talked about some other ways she has tried it. Like always having Friday off (built-in make-up day). I think I will plan for school Mon-Fri, but with lots of field trips and break days scheduled in. I am still debating about playgroup once a week. It is such a hassle, but now that I got them to tie a quilt every week, I keep thinking I should go and be of service. That would mean my school on Wed would have to be in the afternoon, or we would already have one day off a week.

Also--once summer hits the kids need to play outside in the morning while I garden because by the afternoon it is too hot--so that means I already have to build in adjustmensts to my ideal school day. And yes, I am starting school in April so that if I have another baby (why do these things have to be so hard???) when I hope to have a baby, we can take three months off. These are the things I lie in bed thinking about.

The author also pointed out some things I don't want to admit to myself but know I have to:
1) unplug the phone during school hours.
2) too many outside activities make it hard to get school done
3) schedule in variety

So there you have it--for those interested.

I got Miriam's shipment of school books today!!! It was SO EXCITING despite my not getting that much stuff. Her math book is DK because--I love DK.

The three books we have so far:
1) DK publishing Kindergarten math workbook
2) DK publishing First Human Body Encyclopedia (the kids fought over it all morning--it is awesome!)
3) Peggy Kaye: Games for Reading (I checked this out of the library and realized right away that it was a must own)

Science is going to be built around the garden, nature journals, and The Magic School Bus. And I am still trying to find some workbooks, or games, for learning musical theory. A homeschool mom wrote about using those with her girls and how easily they transitioned to an instrument because they knew a lot about musical theory just from "playing" but I haven't been able to find anything like that online. If you have any suggestions--let me know.

And that's mostly it, because I am going to be a cheap homeschool mom and mostly use the library. However, if Megan's kids get more book orders that have that poetry collection I told her to buy and she did and it is AWESOME, I am definitely getting that.

This was long. Bye.