Planning Our 2018-19 Charlotte Mason Year

We all love planning posts! They give us ideas and ideas give us a place to start. I've said it a million times, "Planning gives me purpose, and purpose gives me peace!"

In the 8 months since I last blogged we've finished Terms 2 and 3 of our 2017-18 school year, I completed a few of the CM Educator Courses offered by Charlotte Mason Soirée, have continued reading CM Volumes, even started reading a new CM book called "In Memoriam" and I started selling living books with my Mom in our FB group, "Media Moms Little Country Shop." Its been busy!

Well, now its time to start planning for 2018-19! It is our 4th year at home! My oldest moved up a form to Form III and my youngest moved up to Form IIb. Forms are groups that Miss Mason used to identify the ability (grade) of the student. The whole a/b thing used to confuse me until I realized b is for beginner and a is for advanced!

Pre-Planning Prep

My planning starts with review. A Delectable Education has created a handy tool that organizes all subjects for a particular Form into an outline. I added the particular episodes onto my printed copy and then check them off as I work my way through each subject, taking notes. I also reference the correlating chapters in Miss Mason's Volumes to ensure I'm getting my info "straight from the horse's mouth."

Last year I planned everything in accordance to my consult with A Delectable Education. My goal in learning to implement a Charlotte Mason education in our home is to be independent in doing so. Although, I did receive a consult this year, it was to mainly double check myself against what I had already planned. Moving up into new forms can present a challenge and I wanted reassurance before I just jumped in with both feet. Next year I hope to plan our entire year on my own, but we will see.

So, after I realized I was on the right track, I went ahead and filled in my Scope & Sequence outline with our plans. 

1. Scope & Sequence

I have found that having a S&S outline keeps me from forgetting subjects. I think it was last year or the year before that I completely left off history! I was only working with scheduling cards and I missed transferring history to our daily lesson plan. Thank goodness we were only 3 weeks in when I found my mistake. Plus, its just nice having an individual form for each child. It provides that "proof" you might need if a day ever comes when you're asked what you taught. 

Of course this form will vary with your own chosen subjects for your children but I will share what I'm doing this year. 

Bible

· Old Testament

· New Testament

History

· American

· spine

· biographies

· British

· spine

· biographies

· Ancient (only for my oldest)

· spine 

· biographies

· Book of Centuries

· Timeline

Geography

· Mid-West to Northwest USA

· reader

· map skills

· physical

Citizenship

· Plutarch's Lives 

· youngest is starting with Emily Beesly's

               Stories from the History of Rome  

Current Events

Literature

· Mythology

· Classics/Tales

· Poetry

· Shakespeare

Language Arts

· Copywork

· Narration

· Dictation

· Recitation

· Grammar

Foreign Language

Natural History/Sciences

· Nature Lore

· Science

· Nature Study

· Biographies

Maths

· Arithmetic

· Sloyd

· Geometry

· Pre-Algebra

Enrichment Studies

· Artist

· Composer

· Singing

· Drawing

· Handicrafts

· Instrument

Physical Education

Drill

2. Pulling Books

This step and the previous step work together. Who we cover in history in part depends on book availability. I have a general idea who and what we are covering and pencil that in first. I pull that from an old United States History text that provides a topical outline in the back. I will have to change that approach next year since it stops at 1900!

Then I start hunting books and if I can find a book I will permanently add it to our outline. I use a variety of resources to find books. I always pull from our own library first. This is why my history section is in chronological order, it makes it a lot easier to pull. Then I will check out online resources. 

A Few Book Finder Resources:

Ambleside Online 

SCM bookfinder app

Michelle Miller's TruthQuest books

Living Books Lady

Valerie's Living Library

3. Daily Schedule

Before I start work on our homeschool planner I hash out our daily schedule. I have found the easiest way to do this is with the scheduling cards from A Delectable Education. I print out the 2 different Forms on 2 separate colors. When the students share a subject I print that in white. 

I just work my way through the days of the week. It reminds me a lot of the game of Tetris. Each card is marked so you know how to alternate the subjects and to let you know how much teacher involvement is required. That's helpful when you're having to play round robin between multiple students. You really just have to move things around until you find what works for your family. Well worth the price!! Once I have them all laid out I snap a pic so they don't get blown away by someone opening the door, or stomped on by a playful dog! 

4. Planners

Now that the daily schedule is laid out, I use those pics to assemble my planner pages. I like to have a "weekly dashboard" in my planner so I can see what needs to be done for the week. 

Each week starts with an overview. Since our books change constantly I wanted a place to keep up with those. I also needed a spot to add in what to cover during the week's geography walk, a place for our nature study object lesson and our handicrafts for the week. This is just another accountability factor for me. These are the things I skipped most often because I hadn't prepared. Now, at the beginning of the week I fill this in and in doing so plan and prepare for what needs to be done.  

Each day is organized exactly like my scheduling cards. White sections are family subjects, darker shaded area is my Form 2 and lighter shaded area is my Form 3.  I add the length of time the subject requires, a bubble for checking off (which always makes my heart happy), and the afternoon occupations that need to be accomplished. I want them reading in the afternoon so I designate "subjects" for them. These are "free" reads so who/what they pick is entirely up to them but it has to be within that subject. I will write in what we actually read/completed on the lines below. This way I can keep up with page counts from week to week. Especially helpful for bookmarks that lose their spot! 

I tried adding anything that I tended to skip most. At the end of the week you will find spots for making sure we complete the timeline, book of centuries and calendar of firsts. There's plenty of space to add notes as we move through the week for supplies we might need next week or areas I need to focus on a little longer. 

I use Publisher and convert it all into a pdf that I will send off for printing and binding. But planner planning is enough for its own blog post. 

Term 2... sort of

According to the dates and the amount of weeks we've been homeschooling we certainly are in Term 2. However, as life would have it, and because I've been a terrible curriculum junkie we are still finishing up Term 1 work.

I keep telling myself it will be alright. The kids are definitely learning and enjoying themselves. So, those are both pluses. But being behind grates my need to follow a plan. I've preached there is "no catching up" in homeschool, only picking up where you've left off so many times that you would think I'm fine with it. Secretly though, yeah, it bites.

There have been many things we've tried and realized it just wasn't a good fit for us. Many weak areas I've found in the children that have needed more time. And many days I've come to realize I just need to work on my own habit of finding our groove.

We are continuing with Ambleside Online for the most part. The parts we have changed...

Bible-We are following Simply Charlotte Mason's Genesis through Deuteronomy and Ancient Egypt. We only read the Scripture assignments and grade 1-3 living books (as read alouds) because the kids were really overwhelmed (and so was I) in trying to sort through the history and geography assignments and tying them into our AO foundation.

Geography- I would prefer geography be tied to our Bible or History reads versus Ambleside's assignment of Marco Polo which is China. I've been struggling here trying to decide on the best route. We don't enjoy the books assigned in SCM (new or old versions), Ancient Egypt and Her Neighbors or Letters From Egypt. So, I'm still on the hunt, in the meantime we are looking in various places for resources on Africa.

After we finish Boy of the Pyramids (Egyptian living book) we will begin reading Tirzah. The kids are really excited about this one. We read a similar book last term titled Timna which was about one of Noah's daughter in laws on the ark and the kids loved it. Tirzah is an Israelite slave in bondage to Egypt. The story is a perfect companion for Exodus.



Math-We started out with Math-U-See which worked for a little while but seemed very teacher intensive and to far out of the box for us to feel comfortable with it. Then we switched to Math Mammoth because it seemed a good fit until she started teaching 10 different ways to complete a math problem (it had a vague ring of common core to it). I wanted a program that was direct and easy to teach. Well, I found Xtra Math which is basically flash cards online for the kids. Its a mastery program where the kids have to master all the facts before they move on to the next order of operations. They love it, its a game to them and they can see their progress! Once they master addition and subtraction facts we will try and incorporate Math Mammoth again.

Ambleside is definitely our foundation. I started out with my own versions and combining schedules because I was worried my oldest would miss out. Seven weeks in though, I decided it was best just to jump into year 3 with her and go from there. She's actually enjoying it and doing well. I realized their age and grade gap was to great. My oldest needed something more challenging and something to call her own. She's actually done well and being an independent reader this was a better choice for her.

That's where we are at right now. I'm praying and trusting for His Grace to cover the gaps that's for sure!

Organizing Bookselves

Oh wow!! I can't believe how busy I've been! I'm trying to get our classroom organized but this meant I had to first clean it out, paint and then reorganize everything. All the while, I'm still getting lesson plans ready and resources pulled together. I'm really beginning to wonder if I have attention deficit issues because I will start something which will lead into something else, and that will lead me to doing something else. How in the world am I supposed to organize the children's day when I can't even organize mine?!

Sound familiar? Here's my solution... DEEP BREATH!!! AND PRAYER!!

It took me 3 days to paint our classroom. We used to call it the laundry room because the washer and dryer are in there. But now we have our washer and dryer in our classroom. Its all about perspective.

As you can see I added a "chalkboard" by painting a section with chalk paint and framing it with a really cute border I found. I have plans to paint the bookcases but not right now. The dresser will serve as our nature spot and the rest will hopefully come to me.

I'm not sure how much time we will actually be in our classroom due to the nature of our curriculum. But at least we have a place to gather.

The hardest part has been deciding how to organize our bookshelves. At first I was going by subject but then I read over on SCM a good way was by year. So I'm labeling the spines with stickers and indicating year, subject and if its a free read or not.

I'm not strictly Charlotte Mason or Ambleside Online. I am a mutt! I have blended TruthQuest and GreenLeaf Press into our year as well. I like a little bit about each curriculum.

I love the idea of teaching chronologically beginning with Creation and working forward (GreenLeaf). Ambleside Online has theirs laid out on beautiful schedules and I like their overall system. I absolutely adore TruthQuest's narration and book choices but their Ancient study narrations are geared toward older students. Then to make it worse, in trying to keep everything organized I began to realize I was leaning toward unit studies, which I don't want. Charlotte Mason advocates letting the students make the connections, and when you do Unit Studies the teacher is making the connection. So, I made sure to get away from that.

So you see, I am pulling from a lot of resources and organization is the key to my sanity. So, to keep the curriculum resources straight I decided anything outside of AO would have an additional identifying mark on its spine to inform me where it came from. For instance, a reader in TruthQuest will be indicated by a TQ and the year on its spine.

I know I've been promising to get my schedule up and I will. I'm just trying to make sure I have all the right things on hand first. Its all coming together, slowly but surely!

Planning Stage

I thought actually deciding to homeschool was a chore, now I know that was only the beginning! We have a general idea, such as, a history based curriculum filled with the classics. We were leaning toward using Ambleside Online, which is an awesome and FREE curriculum based on Charlotte Mason's approach to education. However, we don't want to start with British History. We want the children to learn history chronologically, from Creation forward. But finding a program appropriate for their ages (9 & 6) was proving to be a challenge.

In trying to compare the history cycles I made a grid of the 4 curricula that caught our eye. I have pulled out things we liked about each one and described them in the paragraphs below.

I actually found Simply Charlotte Mason (SCM) and purchased their older version of "Genesis through Deuteronomy & Ancient Egypt" guide. I like the fact they gear their plans toward teaching everyone together. I certainly don't want 2 different sets of curriculum going at the same time. Their format is familiar and I thought I liked having Bible, History, and Geography all combined. After reviewing the plan though it just didn't feel right.

There isn't a whole lot of narration or guidance for the parent and not a lot of book options for the my two. After talking to my husband we decided to hang onto it for a later time. We plan on doing a six year history cycle so we will have a chance to revisit it later.

Our next choice was TruthQuest. Let me just say I absolutely LOVE TruthQuest. We briefly used this guide a couple of years ago when we first visited the idea of homeschooling. (This year will be our actual full year though.) Michelle Miller does a wonderful job giving introductions to the appropriate sections of history. She begins with a lighter version of American History for children through the 5th grade. One can use her guides chronologically because she gives book choices for all grades but we found her narrations to be geared toward older students. So, this too, ended up not being a viable option.

I think we will still use her booklists but I need a plan to guide me. So I continued on the search.

As I was reading a blog someone mentioned GreenLeaf Press, so I Googled them. I was afraid to hope! I reviewed their scope and sequence, I listened to their .mp3 recordings, and then I shared with my husband. GreenLeaf is chronological and they start with Old Testament and Ancient Israel. The description states for children in grades 1-6, and although their guide doesn't list books outside of the Bible, their website lists a few.

I actually found an older copy listed here for FREE! So, I downloaded and printed it out. The newer guides have been revised to include 180 lessons instead of 196 to fit the typical school calendar. Each lesson lists background information, age appropriate questions, and even suggestions for deeper review. Our plan is to incorporate TruthQuest's book suggestions in combination with this guide.


I will reorganize our 36 week grid (from Ambleside) and post shortly!