Here I will give a glimpse of some of the books and resources we use with our Charlotte Mason style of homeschooling.
Before we get started with our lessons for the school year, we put together our notebooks to accommodate all that we will be studying. Organization is key to being able to spread a variety of lessons before our children. This allows us to have a "home" for every paper we generate. :) This year, the older children have 4 notebooks each. The "big notebook" is the kind with a zipper and lots of room (including room for pencils, pens, etc). The other 3 notebooks are 1-inch 3-ring notebooks...one for science, one for grammar (etc), and one for history/geography/accompanying readers and literature that go with what they are studying. When we are gearing up at the beginning of the school year, I write on our little dry erase board all the divider tabs they will need and which notebook to place them into; and within 15 minutes, their notebooks are organized and ready to "catch" all the morsels of the feast of lessons I will spread before them over the months. The younger children have one big notebook with just a handful of main tabs (history, science, readers, copy work) so that they can practice placing any drawings, copy work, etc into their notebooks. Much of the lessons done by younger students will involve hands-on manipulatives and narrating to me what we have read, so they will not have as much paper generated as the older students. (But it sure is nice to have a place to put all those beautiful drawings they make!) :)
PICTURE STUDY:
I really love these Picture Study Portfolios sold through Simply Charlotte Mason! You can choose an artist that you love or one that lived in the time period that you're studying. We plan to study 3 artists and their works this school year.
HYMN STUDY:
We are borrowing this book from Gigi, our children's great-grandmother. We plan to study one hymn every 6 weeks or so. The hymns as well as the stories behind them are in this book. We will listen to the hymns on a CD player or online.
NATURE STUDY:
This year we plan to do nature study once each week. We keep our nature walk box on our shelf along with our morning activities and books. This box has a lid with a handle, so it's quite easy to just grab the whole box and go. And, in my opinion, the Handbook of Nature Study is by far the best book on the subject. It has everything you could possibly want to know!
Let's say you find a wasp nest outside (which we did). You could bring the nest inside (empty and uninhabited, of course!), draw it in your nature journal and look it up in the handbook. Or Mama can read about it in the handbook and then just talk about it naturally as we examine the nest.
Here's our wasp nest, which still sits in a prominent place on the window sill in the homeschool room. It really IS amazing.
We take our nature journals outside, and our nature study is only 20 minutes or so. The children usually enjoy grabbing the box and going out. Some of our children like to take their journals outside and draw whatever they see right when they see it. Others prefer to go outside without their journals and come back inside to draw what they saw. It always amazes me how they find interesting things to explore---leaves, bugs under the bird's water bowl, worms, deer, rabbit tracks in the snow, etc. Most of the time, I just say, "Okay, go explore and find something really interesting to share with us." Other times, if we are studying something in particular, I will gear the nature walk in that direction: "Yesterday we read about white oak trees. Try to locate a white oak and bring back a leaf."
Here's a journal entry from our son when he was 6...
Sometimes we put real specimens in our nature journal. Bird feathers always go in a little ziplock baggie and get taped to the page. In the fall, lots of leaves are put in the journals too.
Here's a journal entry when our other son was 10...
This is a fun book that our friend Holly gave us. We take this book out in the fall. It has many examples of animals you can make with leaves. Our children usually get inspired and come up with their own creations. :)
Here's a bird's eye view of some of the things in our nature walk box---a nature journal (sketchbook) for each person (including Mama), nature books, field guides, magnifying glass, etc. We have a bird guidebook that we usually keep inside, because we are usually bird watching from the living room window that overlooks the feeding area outside. And on our wish list is a field guide for butterflies.
MUSIC STUDY:
We plan to study a few composers this school year. We read about their lives and their works, and we listen to their music on CD's or online.
DRAWING:
We have several of these types of drawing books for children to try their hand at drawing a shark or puppy or pumpkin or whatever interests them. Some of the books teach shading, perspective, etc.
SHAKESPEARE:
To introduce children to Shakespeare's works, we bought this book. We read Shakespeare once a week for a short period of time.
And we will also dig into some of Shakespeare's works themselves. We plan to read one play as a family (all ages involved to a certain degree), and then our high school student will do another on her own.
ART:
This book can be used as part of our history, picture study or drawing time. It is loaded with good stuff! If we are studying Ancient Rome, for example, we can look up what kinds of art was created during that time.
This book has both information on the history of art during different time periods and locations AND also has instruction for drawing techniques.
POETRY:
This school year, we plan to study 2-3 poets. We are beginning with Robert Louis Stevenson. Poetry will be done once a week for a short time period.
READ-ALOUDS:
Every morning we have read-aloud time together as a family. We begin the school year off with this book (recommended by Simply Charlotte Mason for younger children).
We are also going to be reading books aimed at our preschool level child. This one was not on the recommended list, but we added it, because it's a book about adoption that we love.
This read-aloud (Red Sails to Capri) is linked to our history and recommended by Sonlight to be read along with their Core B/C that we are using with 2 of our children this year. Sonlight is a curriculum that can be used well in the Charlotte Mason flavor. We usually enjoy the literature they recommend. We do make changes here and there. For example, sometimes Sonlight has too many readers, and we will simply pull some books out of the schedule in order to savor the other books for longer. We've also had to preview the books to make sure they jive fully with our convictions (most do). We don't do many of the recommended questions in the Instructor's Guide; instead, we do narrations. Still, Sonlight has been very nicely used in the Charlotte Mason style of learning. Instead of simply reading about a historical event, we will often read living books that take us into that time period through the eyes of a character. We EXPERIENCE the historical event through the life of a character, and we remember it.
LITERATURE:
Our 2 older children have independent reading in excellent literature. These are the books they are reading for the first few weeks of this school year (our 5th grader is reading Treasure Island, and our 9th grader is reading Mere Christianity). No twaddle here! :)
And, yes, we do always have several different books going at the same time. We read them in short periods of time, and I have found that this captures their attention. When I first heard of reading so many different books at the same time, I wondered if we could keep it all straight in our minds. But, it's actually very do-able, and it sure makes for a lively dinner discussion as all the children try to tell Daddy what interesting chapters they/we read in several books that day! I sit back and listen as they narrate without even being asked to (really, we simply cannot help but to bubble over with excitement when the books are living and interesting). :)
HISTORY:
One thing that we do differently than most who follow a Charlotte Mason approach is this... CM recommends dividing history into 6 different time periods and studying one of those time periods per school year in a 6-year cycle. I am not against this at all. It just happened that a few years ago we fell head over heels in love with a certain curriculum called America: An Integrated Curriculum. We studied American History for 2 years and absolutely loved it and want to repeat it in the future. So, we have chosen to study American history for 2 years (including a state history study), the Eastern Hemisphere for 1 year (to focus on the part of the world where most of the unreached people groups live) and then World History for a year. That is the cycle of history we have chosen to do, and we love it. But, you can just as easily choose to follow the recommended 6 time periods and go in a 6-year cycle. The Simply Charlotte Mason site will show you exactly how to go about doing that.
This year, I will be reading this book with our 3 youngest children (ages 7-11). We will skip the first 4 chapters, I believe, because those discuss a view of the beginning of the world that we do not agree with. But the rest of the book is good. It's very conversational and interesting. I found myself pulled in immediately when I previewed this book (the kind of book I just didn't want to put down).
BOOK OF CENTURIES:
As we taste the many aspects of this "feast" we spread before our children (poetry, Shakespeare, excellent literature, music composers, artists, etc), we place the people and events we study into our Book of Centuries. You can make one of these by simply using paper and a 3-ring binder (just Google it, and you'll find lots of information on how to make one). We received a Book of Time (same as a Book of Centuries) from Sonlight when we ordered one of their curriculum cores. I love it! It is sturdy and has one color of paper for B.C. dates and another one for A.D. dates. It helps greatly at keeping all the people and events we run across in order in our minds and eyes. And our Book of Time now sits in a very accessible spot in our homeschool room so that we will remember to enter people and events onto the timeline. I tried for years to put a timeline of sorts into action, but unless it's right out in plain view, I simply forget until one day I run across the Book of Centuries hidden on some shelf somewhere. Now, it's out and accessible to everyone who wants to enter in a date or event.
LIVING U.S. HISTORY:
Okay, this isn't on CM's list of subjects, but this is something I came up with years ago and LOVE. (And I have a feeling that Charlotte Mason would enjoy it too). :) We keep a simple 3-ring binder for those times when something happens in our country. For example, when we celebrate Thanksgiving, we may look up info online and create a model of Jamestown (which we did one year!). All the info we use for that goes into this book. We are LIVING the history. Or when a new President is inaugurated, we look up the history of Presidential inaugurations as well as info on the men who are running for office. All that info and the activities we do go into this notebook. We are LIVING the history. Not to mention the fact that it makes a memorable record of events!
Here's the parade route for the Inauguration of President Obama in 2009.
And here's a page one of the children colored when we were studying about the men running for office.
SOME OF MY FAVORITES:
I just love the idea behind this puzzle! It has 600 pieces. Every country in the world has a puzzle piece that is the actual shape of that particular country. Really, can you imagine a more thorough and fun way to learn where every country is located?? We bought this puzzle through Sonlight.
And this place value box makes me happy...really happy. What a great visual for seeing the numbers in expanded form and GETTING IT!
This little gem was in the toy section at Target. It's made by Melissa and Doug. LOVE IT!!! Every number on the clock has a different shape. The youngers can get good hands-on practice with matching those shapes, and the slightly olders can get a great visual for learning the clock. Oh, and it's slanted (not completely flat) so that it's easy to work with.
And here's the little lady who was helping me take photos for this blog. :) She loves this manipulative!
