I have been thinking a lot these past two weeks about how to bridge what I love about the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling with our use of textbooks. I think it hit me last week that most of my curriculum choices are pretty much all textbooks this year. What is great about homeschooling, is the ability to blend the styles you love, and tailor it to each individual child. So what part of CM will stay in our schooling?
A lot actually! We could never give up our nature studies. Everyone in the family loves this time outdoors-the kids love combining art with science, and the sunshine gives us a break during our school time. I love nothing better than when one of the kids documents something and then goes and researches on their own something they found....so this HAS to stay.
We will keep our Shakespeare, Art appreciation, and Music appreciation. We can do these these through copy work (another CM suggestion) I really believe that copy work is one of the simplest but genius ways for children to grasp grammar structure, spelling, and memorization. They retain A LOT of information this way.
We will also keep our written and oral narration. Nicko my eight year old is not a proficient writer yet, so oral narration to make sure he is grasping the concepts will be great for him. Matteo, my 13 year old loves writing, and he actually likes writing summaries. Instead of doing a lot of bookwork, he will keep separate notebooks for each subject and do written narration to make sure he learned that days lesson.
We will also keep reading living books. I've found that some textbooks(like the one's I chose) are not dry and written by people passionate about their subject. We will use living books to enhance whatever unit or subject we are working on. Once I get our new books, I will add lesson plans again, along with any living books we use with each unit.
I think this year might be our best year yet!
No comments:
Post a Comment