Fall 2015 Charlotte Mason Weekly Schedule

Being that we are halfway through our fall term, I thought it would be a good time to give a review of our weekly Charlotte Mason homeschooling schedule. The soccer season has ended, and Beezy has resumed piano lessons, so practice is now being incorporated into the daily routine. What I have found with the schedule I have set up is that it can be used very flexibly. I don't think I would do it at all if I felt compelled to adhere to it strictly! One conclusion I have come to is that I was trying to fit too many subjects into one term. I think I have found a reasonable balance between variety and simplicity...

Every day, Monday through Thursday, we do reading, writing, and math. I have considered making religion the 4th "R", but as the Catholic Faith permeates the curriculum, religion doesn't have to be its own subject. We start each lesson time with a prayer, often using Prayers for Young Catholics from the Daughters of St. Paul. This book is often used for copy work.

Currently we are using an American Cardinal Reader, a vintage reprint from Neumann Press. Each day there is some type of writing. It may be a prepared dictation lesson from the reader; copy work; word making (using the Montessori Movable Alphabet) and sentence writing using those words; cursive writing; or a grammar workbook lesson. We use a Total Math workbook from American Education Publishing, along with manipulatives for introducing new concepts, board games, and life learning that incorporates math skills, such as baking. Piano practice occurs about 4 days a week.

On most days, for history, I am reading aloud from Leif Erikson the Lucky by Frederic A. Kummer. Leif Erikson is the first biographical character for American history, as it was he who discovered America, before Christopher Columbus, and brought the Christian Faith (which was Catholicism) to its shores. Beezy narrates passages from the book. With this one source, we are covering history, geography, literature, and religion! This is a grand example of a living book. If it is a saint's feast day, we read The Saint Book by Mary Reed Newland instead. Most evenings we have a bedtime read aloud of the literary classic, Anne of Green Gables.

Monday:  This is Rosary day. We are using The Rosary in Art from Seton, a beautiful book from the 5th grade curriculum. On Mondays I read the story, directly from the New Testament (1952 Confraternity Bible), for one of the Rosary mysteries. We pray the mystery on the beads, and Beezy does copy work from a key verse. Then she does a picture study of one of the corresponding classical works of art from the book. The only problem I have come across is that, because there are about 5 pictures for each mystery, this has become picture study overload. As a result, I am spreading the picture studies out some, so we are not covering one mystery per week as I had planned. As such, the introduction of a new mystery sometimes does not occur on Monday. I have found it very easy to move subjects around as needed!

Tuesday:  Beezy reads an Old Testament story from The Guiding Light: The Catholic Bible in Pictures (an amazing 1955 edition found on Ebay) to herself and then does an oral narration. We do a spelling/word making lesson using the Montessori Movable Alphabet, and Beezy writes a couple of sentences using some of the words. For health, and particularly relevant for this current season of puberty, we are using The Care and Keeping of You from American Girl. Beezy reads the selection, and then we discuss it.

Wednesday:  We do a lesson from The Baltimore Catechism. We go over the vocabulary at the beginning of the lesson. I read the questions, Beezy reads the answers, and we discuss the topic. She has religious education class at our parish church in the evenings. Her class is working on memorizing the Apostles' Creed, so I regularly have Beezy read this over and give a recitation of it. This is also science day. Science may be anything from a nature walk or working on the nature notebook to a chemistry experiment or a chapter of The Story Book of Science by Jean-Henri Fabre. Occasionally the choice may be a documentary film. We do a lesson from the grammar workbook.

Thursday:  On Thursdays Beezy has "a la carte" art and gym classes at a Catholic school. We come home and have lunch and then do our CM lessons in the afternoons. I read a chapter from Hillyer's A Child's Geography of the World. Beezy does narrations, and we often locate places on a map or globe and look at monuments, buildings, bridges, etc., online. Sometimes we find an online documentary on the subject. There is a lot of American history included in this book, so there is a nice natural correspondence, as Charlotte Mason would say. Currently Beezy is learning the first verse of "My Country Tis of Thee". Cursive writing is also done on this day, and Beezy has her piano lessons.

Friday:  Fridays are light. Beezy has art, lunch, and recess at the Catholic school. Except for piano practice and a Spanish lesson (we are using flash cards from eeBoo), this day is otherwise reserved for a field trip, sleepover with a friend, or to catch up on lessons from the week if needed. We occasionally do music appreciation. We have read two picture books about early medieval composer (among many other talents!) St. Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church. We have listened to her music on youtube and on CD, and Beezy did a drawing narration.

I am planning to work in poetry and a needlepoint craft for the winter term! I hope this has helped you to form a picture of how the bountiful feast of a broad, self-designed CM curriculum can be spread. Let me repeat that my schedule is very flexible. I keep it handy to make sure that I cover all of our subjects each week. It's a general guideline, but by no means are we slaves to it. It has helped me enormously to put together this weekly plan, so I do highly encourage you to do something similar!

A New Homeschooling Year!

I am planning to begin our homeschooling year tomorrow, Tuesday, August 21!  My husband will start his first day of teaching college for the semester, so it will be nice and quiet in our home.  My intentions are very focused this year on using the Charlotte Mason method, in a relaxed homeschooling environment, so I will post regularly on what books and materials we are using. Hopefully this will provide others who are inclined toward Charlotte Mason with some ideas, and I hope readers will comment with ideas of their own! For this method can seem intimidating, because it does not rely on a set curriculum purchased from a company.

The Charlotte Mason method, to me, is about natural family living.  Its tenets are living books and narration, nature studies, the formation of habits that lead to self-discipline, auto-education (basically, self teaching), and the use of a broad and generous curriculum.  There is structure in this method, and it does not fall under the category of unschooling.  Formal studies are traditionally finished by 1:00 p.m., with the afternoons free for doing hand crafts, spending time outdoors, being together as a family, and exploring personal interests. The spiritual growth of the child is on an equal par with academic development.

We will be focusing especially upon reading, so this will be the top priority.  While other subjects will not be neglected, I will be more relaxed in what we cover.  We use a multi-subject BrainQuest  workbook curriculum (available at Target for $10); otherwise, our resources come from "living books", which include classic and high quality literature as well as books written by a person who is passionate about his subject and provides the pertinent information in story form.  In other words, dry textbooks are very much not Charlotte Mason! Much of what we use comes from the library.  I have purchased some materials from Ebay and from a local education store.

Since Beezy, age 8, loved the Dick and Jane readers, we will progress using the similar Ginn readers, beginning with Under the Apple Tree.  We will also continue using Beatrix Potter's books, implementing sight reading primarily. The Ginn books will be a combination of sounding out words and the sight reading that naturally occurs by the pattern of repetition used in these readers. The BrainQuest pages will provide practice in phonics and spelling.  Charlotte Mason advocated beginning sight reading as soon as the basics of phonics have been learned, because this is where the art of reading truly happens.

She did not believe in ever using "twaddle" written for children which consists of only 3 and 4 letter words and the forced creation of sentences with obvious word families (ie. cat, sat, and bat all in one sentence)--sorry, Dr. Seuss! I can attest to Charlotte's wisdom in this, because the BOB readers by Scholastic that we started with were just such books, and they were laborious to read and a big flop with Beezy!  Long words are delicious to children, and the number of letters in a word should be of no consequence.  In fact, longer words typically have more easily distinguished patterns than words that are short and very similar to one another (ie. what and went).  And the recognition of sight words is encouraging to children, rather than having to sound out each and every word.  Decoding is a building block, but it is not, in itself, actually reading.


Following Beezy's interests, she will begin to learn cursive writing this year! Since her printing is very neat, I believe she has the fine motor skills for cursive.  But we will still continue to practice printing skills, especially since she needs a little more experience with some of the capital letters.

For literature we will continue with the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis that we began over the summer. We are almost finished with Prince Caspian.  I read these books to her, and beginning with the next one in the series, she will narrate back to me every few pages or after each chapter. This takes the place of tiresome questions, allowing the child to make the story her own, and giving the teacher a true idea of the child's comprehension.

For history I will be reading The Earthshapers by Karen Speerstra to her, which is a story about a Native American girl of the Mound Builders, which include the Hopewell, who lived, among other places, in our state of Ohio.  For natural sciences we are studying the ecosystem of the rainforest, and our first book is actually a video of The Shaman's Apprentice by Lynn Cherry.  Both of these subjects will also be narrated.

For math we will continue learning to tell time, using a clock with moveable hands as well as BrainQuest pages.  And every day we will use a Melissa and Doug magnetic calendar and the song, "Days of the Week."  After some review with addition and subtraction, we will begin multiplication. We will also continue our study of fractions begun last year. I use an abacus and Montessori bead materials for math, as well as fractions manipulatives.  It is very important that the foundations of math be very concrete, rather than based merely upon the abstraction of symbols.  One should be able to touch math!

Soccer practice begins tomorrow, so that covers gym, and if we have time, we will begin a needlecraft project for children that I found at JoAnn Fabric.  I also got one for myself so that we can learn together!  And right there is the beauty of homeschooling--learning together and creating a unique family lifestyle that nurtures the spirits of all those living under our roof!

R.H. Series, Day 7 (The Habit of Attention)

Yesterday we had Keystone Co-op, followed by a fire safety program. Then Beezy and I went to visit my aunt who babysits for Beezy's 2nd cousin, a boy 3 years younger than her. They play together so well! By the time I got home I had to make dinner, so it did not work out to write a post for this series yesterday. I think I will aim for 4 posts a week. This will allow me time to write on other topics, as well as have a couple of days off. After all, I am writing about relaxed homeschooling!

In my opinion, the Charlotte Mason (CM) method works remarkably well with a relaxed homeschooling style. A key component is establishing the habit of attention, which is accomplished in a couple of specific ways. The first is the idea of short lessons. The exact length will depend on the child's age, building up to longer periods spent on a particular subject. The time will also vary according to the child's interest. You may plan on a 10 to 15 minute math lesson, but your child may indeed wish to continue past that, which I think should be allowed in most cases. Keeping the lessons short (beginning with about 10 minutes in kindergarten) helps the child stay focused on the task at hand. Last year when Beezy was reading her BOB books, it could take her 20 minutes or more to read one book. I found that this was way too long. She would be yawning and getting tired, frustrated, and discouraged. The simple solution was to divide the book in half! We would do other subjects between readings.

Narration is another key tool to the CM method. This is the process by which you read something to your child, and then she tells it back in her own words. For example, today I read about two animals from a book about Mammals for our natural sciences study. There was only one page about each animal, so Beezy told back what she heard after each one. Since she knows she will be required to narrate, she pays close attention. This process allows you to find out what the child knows, which can take the place of testing. It also helps to avoid patronizing the child with boring questions which may also squash her enthusiasm. With narration, the child makes the information her own, and she will therefore more likely retain what she has learned. Beezy does not like to do narration when I am reading literature to her, as in a novel like those in the Little House on the Prairie series. It seems to interrupt the wonder and enjoyment of the story for her. And besides, if the book is richly written, paying attention to it is not likely to be an issue. When the child is older, she can read a chapter herself and then write a narration from it.

Distractions are sure to be a problem in any homeschooling situation. Today the weather was nice enough to do our school on the front porch, but we did have to contend with a lawnmower and some loud vehicles driving by. Inside, the phone rings sometimes annoyingly frequently. I try to remember to turn the volume down on the answering machine while we are doing school, and I don't answer the phone. I also have to make sure I am not getting distracted myself by emails, Facebook, housework, etc...

Today we began at 10:30 and did not finish until 2:15! I wanted to be done by 1:00, which was Charlotte Mason's tradition. This leaves the afternoon free for running errands, playing outside, visiting with friends and family, and the solitary time that all children desperately need to nurture their spirits and intellectual lives. However, I allowed Beezy to spend time with a neighbor's cat that frequently comes into our yard, and we walked our dog. We also ate lunch, which of course was necessary. I have to remind myself that just because a cat chooses to wander into our yard does not mean it is a convenient time to let it distract us from our purpose. Ultimately it is more relaxing to get school finished, without rushing, in as timely a manner as is possible so the rest of the day can be spent as one chooses, and for getting other necessary things done that may sometimes be sacrificed in the effort to "keep up" with the academics.

Today I wrote having Beezy clean her room into my lesson plans. I intend for this to be a regular part of our routine. It is also of the utmost necessity, as part of Beezy's ceiling fell to the floor as a result of a chimney leak, so her room must be dealt with in order for someone to be able to do the repairs. In Montessori terms, cleaning one's room would fall under the category of Practical Life, which shares a space in my lesson plan book with math. Well, the sunny day calls, and Beezy wants to play bat and ball. The neighborhood kids will be getting home from public school soon, so hopefully Beezy will have friends come over to play, and I can move onward in my housework project!