Friends, hi! I’ve taken about a month away from consistently posting online, and it’s been so refreshing! I needed that time to hone in on finalizing our curriculum choices for the year and also finalizing our move to a new neighborhood! We are still living with parents, but in a new house with much more space, and in a beautiful established neighborhood. And get this! Our house is directly across the street from my brother’s house! This means the kids can walk barefoot over to see their cousins, see what my brother is cooking, or go visit the parade of unique pets my brothers’ family owns. It’s been sweet to say the least. We gave ourselves two weeks to move in and get settled before jumping into our first day of homeschooling. Here’s our first day of school photo in front of the new house—

Changes We Made This School Year

We made quite a few curriculum changes, which you can check out here, but to sum it up, we basically chose to go all in on the Charlotte Mason philosophy. Each year, I’ve implemented more and more of her method as I’ve learned. This year, Language Arts is being implemented through copywork, dictation, narration and simple grammar. We are using a new fully Charlotte Mason Math curriculum called The Charlotte Mason Elementary Arithmetic Series. Basically, there is no area where I am veering from her philosophy. That being said, I have 1000% made it my own, based on the convictions and vision the Holy Spirit has given me. But that’s actually the beauty of it- the more I learn of Charlotte Mason’s methods, the more they so closely align with what the Holy Spirit laid out for me in prayer years ago! It’s pretty phenomenal.

This is also our first year with my middle kiddo in formal lessons, which makes for a completely new school year and the need for a balanced rhythm. Now that my middle child (who normally plays with my youngest) is having more lesson time, I am finding that my youngest wants to be involved more. So that’s new as well!

How Our First Week Went

By far, this has been the smoothest and most delightful first week of school yet. I honestly prepared for it to be quite a bit bumpier, because in past years, it has taken a few weeks to get used to the new rhythm. But honestly, it’s been a dream! Now- that’s not to say there hasn’t been moments of toddler tantrums, complaining, and differing opinions- but overall, this week has been absolutely beautiful, and has reminded me afresh why God truly knows me better than I know myself in gifting me this calling.

Highs of the Week

Math

I’m so sad it took me this long to find this curriculum. I’m serious. The Charlotte Mason Elementary Arithmetic Series has quite literally been a game changer for me and for my oldest daughter, who hasn’t always loved Math. I was really worried about the fact that the Math books are written like books, in that there aren’t any brightly-colored pictures or game boards built into the lessons. But can I tell you something? I realized that that is something I personally cannot STAND about the usual Math textbook. The bright pages, the annoying kitchy games- all of it made me personally dread teaching Math. It’s just a visual overload, especially when the concepts get harder and you’re actually trying to decode the lesson from all the pictures and colors! I honestly never even knew it bothered me so much until this week.. when I didn’t have it. I’m maybe thinking I don’t hate Math after all? Perhaps I just truly dislike bright, overstimulating colors? Call me weird- that’s okay. Maybe that even sounds selfish, but here’s the thing… If I dread teaching the material, that 100% comes across to my student. I have found in my meek little 5 years of homeschooling that a fully engaged Mama matters far more to the child than pretty much anything else. And I have been fully engaged all week! Hallelujah! I absolutely love how oral the Math lessons are. In order to answer something orally, making eye contact with your teacher, you truly have to know it. Also, I realized that a lot of the dread of Math had nothing to do with the Math lesson itself, but rather all the WRITING! When it’s time for nature journaling or written narations, I don’t want my daughter to already be tired of writing because of her Math lesson! With CM Arithmetic, much of the lesson is oral or hands-on with household items as manipulatives. If they are writing, the lessons switch between writing on their white board and writing in their math notebook. Multiple times this week, my Lavender has said, “I do love Math!” and “Yay, time for Math!” She ends the lesson smiling and energized, rather than burnt out, and that is such a win for me.

Dictation In Place of Typical Spelling Tests

I don’t know why dictation freaked me out so much, when it’s really such a natural process for the child. This was our first week implementing it, and my 4th grader is loving it! We are using Spelling Wisdom by Simply Charlotte Mason. On Monday, Lavender copies down the dictation passage. On Tuesday, she studies it, and on Wednesday, she looks over it a bit more before the dictation exercise. I simply read out the copywork passage aloud and she copies it down from visual memory, thereby memorizing the spelling. The Spelling Wisdom curriculum, if I’m not mistaken, uses the top 1,000 words used in the English language. I think it may take us 2-3 years to get through Book 1, but by the end of it, Lavender will be able to write down entire long paragraphs with no spelling errors, God willing! So far, I’m a fan.

Literature and Reading Lessons

For my 1st grader, we are combining Reading Lessons with Literature this year. Since I am not teaching her how to read any longer but simply working on improving her reading skills, great books is what we’re using. I am using that Reading Lesson block (about 20 minutes) to read those books that are specific to her 1st grade, and not something I need my older student to listen in on. I am doing a few separate history readings for her, as well as some separate Nature Lore readings, and her own Literature. So we are looping our way through those, with me reading the majority, but allowing her to read chunks of each page. This is providing her with reading practice, while also allowing me to read from varying subjects. This week, we read a chapter per day of Charlotte’s Web, which surprising has quite a few paragraphs in each chapter that I would say are suitable for an early reader, while still being so rich. We also read from Arabella Buckley’s Wild Life in Woods and Fields. Buckley’s books are short but packed with information in a very living way, while also being very suitable for an early reader to practice. I simply read a loud, and when I come to a sentence that I know would be good for her to read, I tilt the book her way and she jumps in. This is working beautifully so far!

I am doing this same thing for my 4th grader, except she is reading independently. So about 3 times per week, she is reading Literature from her Literature Book list, while the other 2 days she is doing her Science Reading and her History reading during that slot. For example, this week she did 3 days of Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S.Lewis, and the other two days she read Storybook of Science and Benjamin Franklin by D’Aulaire.

As an aside, I’ll share something else that’s been working really well. Lavender loves to listen to an episode each of her favorite podcasts at night- Once Upon A Beat and Discovery Mountain. We give her the ability to listen to an episode of each of those AFTER she completes 30 minutes of reading. She does her reading without us even asking, comes to our bedroom to narrate what’s happening in the story, and then gets her beloved podcast episodes. She just finished reading On The Far Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George, and now she’s switching off between Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Ragweed by Avi.

“Lows” of the Week

I put “lows” in quotation marks, because I really wouldn’t classify them as such. In the first few weeks of a new school year, there are inevitable changes that will need to be made once you see what your days actually feel like. So that’s more of what this section is about.

Our History Spine

We are studying the 1700’s this year, and chose A Child’s First Book of American History by Earl Schenck Miers as our History Spine. I even included it in my free plans that I shared with you guys! I read the first chapter of the 1700’s section, which is Chapter Nine, and…. dry, dry, dry. How did I miss this? I’ve seen so many CM Mamas using this spine, I looked through it myself and compared it to many others. I truly thought it was the best choice for our family. But we could barely slog through the chapter. I’m 33 years old and had such a hard time understanding much of what was being said. I’m interested to see if other families feel the same, or if it’s just me! I definitely know that each family has it’s own “taste,” and perhaps that’s it. I’m going to read ahead (of course, this was one of the only books in our History plans that I didn’t pre-read over the summer, go figure!) and see how the other chapters feel as I’m reading them. If the concensus is that it is as dry as that first reading was, I am going to make one of two changes: I’m either going to 1. switch to America First: Updated Edition by Rachel Lebowitz, or 2. I will continue without a American History spine, and trust that the beautiful biographies, historical fictions and picture books I’ve carefully chosen will be enough.

Handicrafts

This week, we started a new handicraft: paper modeling. Paper Modeling, or Paper Sloyd as it is often referred to in the Charlotte Mason world, is a very meticulous handicraft of folding, cutting and piecing together paper to build things like boxes, envelopes, dollhouse furniture, etc. It requires a ruler, precise measuring, and a careful eye. We had a bit of a meltdown this week when cutting wasn’t done as precisely as the child hoped, and the finished product (albeit completed) wasn’t perfect. This led to tears, which led to a discussion about us needing to try new, hard things. Only doing things that we’re good at leads to quite a boxed-in life with very little adventure. This child reconciled to finish her work and is excited to try another hand at it next week.

Concluding Thoughts

I listened to a podcast interviewing a young woman who had been educated using the Charlotte Mason method and is likewise educating her child the same way. She said something that stuck out to me and that I hadn’t heard before. She said that what she remembered about the elementary years was less about her lessons and more about her childhood. She remembered readings A LOT on the couch with her Mom. She remembered performing Shakespeare plays with her siblings. But mostly, she remembered adventures in the backyard. She remembered using her imagination with her dolls and getting lost in the wonder of childhood. She said that although that sounds like a negative thing (that she remembered her “play” more than her “lessons”), she thought it was beautiful, because it showed that her “school” didn’t steal from her childhood. I feel like I’m kind of butchering it, but this episode freed me because it means that lessons have their place, but it’s okay that they don’t “steal the show” from the real childhood our kids are having: the hours romping outdoors, the rich imaginary world they’ve formed, their personal time with the Lord.

I feel like this week has been filled with sweet, simple lessons that are rich in nature, but not all-consuming. There was still been time for hours running back and forth in the sprinkler, riding bikes ad exploring the neighborhood, playing dominoes with cousins, climbing trees at a nearby trail, and supporting our friends’ sports games. It’s a subtle shift in perspective, but one I needed.

I will hopefully share another update at the end of Term 1, but for now, I’m so expectant and content with how things are going. I will be slowly re-entering Instagram world soon, and sharing more there as well. Here’s to another year of loving the Lord and our families, and living lives worthy of that upward calling. Blessings, sisters!