As it's not in the scope of this blog to discuss homeschooling philosophies, I wanted to give just a glimpse at our upcoming year in a picture. Our education is based on good, living books, and that's largely what you see here. I'm showing you a picture of our spine, not the myriad of supplemental picture and chapter books, copybooks or online resources that reinforce all that we are learning (especially with art, science, music, history, religion and poetry). Plus there's a lot of overlap between these years as we'll be doing much of this reading together. I also haven't put in the math for my 4th grader yet; can't seem to win any auctions on e-bay for Teaching Textbooks 5! As it is, while I love designing curriculum, I am becoming more and more of a Charlotte Mason purist. This is mostly for two reasons: when the rubber meets the road, you have to abandon your glorious ideals on a pedestal and do what
works for your own family; also, the methods of a true Charlotte Mason education are incompatible with having a diverse plan of attack (e.g. There's no sense in insisting on copywork if you are also forcing the child to do spelling sheets, handwriting workbooks and grammar lessons too.) So while homeschoolers can certainly have a "Charlotte Mason flavor" to their curriculum... I sort of feel like the "
atmosphere, discipline and life" is an all or nothing approach, at least for our purposes. So, just for novelty's sake I present parts of the 2012/2013 year (beginning in August!) for my boys:
Kindergarten:
3rd Grade:
4th Grade:
“Thought breeds thought; children familiar with great thoughts take as naturally to thinking for themselves as the well-nourished body takes to growing; and we must bear in mind that growth, physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual, is the sole end of education.”
-Charlotte Mason
So inviting! I love all the choices!
ReplyDeleteHow I wish I had peeked closer at this the first time around! Did you like 'Games for Math' and 'Explode the Code'? Do you have staples in your schooling that you return to each time you revisit a grade, or do you find that each time is a new creation?
ReplyDeleteI love seeing the different ages and would love to see what this year looked like for all your learners too! Not to distract from the general booky wonderfulness of this blog. :) We're enjoying as we learn about Charlotte Mason, especially how she approaches these younger years.
p.s. For your next kindergartner, check out http://marriottmd.com/sam/
They're free 'BOB'-like books we recently discovered, and the stories are even a little more entertaining (for us, at least)
I'll respond to you personally Lauren! Thanks!
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