I think you’ve done a great job of distinguishing between CM and most of what I’ll call the Neo-Classical movement. However - let me say that if you follow the WTM your child is going to get an excellent education. There is nothing wrong with that method of educating - it far surpasses most of what is out there. I have hesitated giving too much detail about Charlotte’s philosophies as they can easily be misunderstood and presented wrong - especially by me. It is important that parents read her original works.
I’ve mentioned before that I don’t buy Dorothy Sayers version of the trivium. Most children are not memorizing machines as long as she thinks they are. My first would only tolerate the brute memorization as a general mode of learning till he was 6. Right now my toddler loves it. And I find I can input lots and lots of stuff now and he loves to regurgitate it all day long. We’ll do this as long as he will let me in the form of songs and games, but then we will use it as a method only as needed in connection with real learning. ,
As far as the graduation of knowledge - you’ll have to explain that better so we are on the same page. When it comes to history there are a couple of cycles of history so she is building on former knowledge and we do it all the time. However, she doesn’t advocate shoving in disconnected facts to use as pegs later on. She would be mortified at the thought of teaching toddlers the periodic table of elements so that when they come across it later they can build on it. (This does not mean I think you should or shouldn’t teach your toddler the periodic table). You will not find first year students memorizing the preamble to the Constitution either. Those are ideas that should be taught in context. The graduation of knowledge as I understand it is the heart of education. You give as much information as a child can understand at this age and then introduce more the next time - not just repeating but repeating and building.
CM will provide you with depth and rigor. The fact that she eases a child into the curriculum path doesn’t mean that it lacks depth. The progressive nature of narration for many children is enough to make them excellent writers. I’m not sure I like spending 6 years on nature study. That is why we are combining Nebel with our studies. This will cover all the sciences. Also, as far as living books for science that is all in one I don’t have one. Our library is great and my house has so many that I haven’t needed to worry but I am sure someone knows of something. However - www.yesterdaysclassics.com is one of my go to resources for older living books. The science books are wonderful and while it isn’t just one book, the are all delightful. You can get most of these free of the internet. However, YC and the Baldwin project haven’t just scanned these from the originals, they have been re-typeset and the formatting is terrific on a e-reader. Plus there aren’t all those strange characters that show up on the scanned versions. Plus they are cheap, super cheap when you purchase the entire collection. Like $50 or something for over 200 books. I paid over $100 for them and there weren’t as many books in the collection. I haven’t been sorry. I enjoy reading them.
One last note, just so nobody is confused, when we are talking about abridged versions of works, we are talking about an abridged “Alice in Wonderland” or a Charles Dickens novel or you’ll often see Children’s Illustrated Classics. That is not the same as Lamb’s or Nesbitt’s Retelling of Shakespeare, or Sutcliff’s “Black Ships Before Troy”, or Alfred Church’s “A Children’s Homer”.
Just a followup on Sonya_Post’s recommendation for the Yesterday’s Classics collection! It really is a fantastic collection, and very well done…here is the link to see all 225 books, or just to download the free sample book to see the difference. One really cool thing is that you can get them in Kindle Format, ePub format, or both if you request! http://www.yesterdaysclassics.com/o/hsf.php
Bonus: the folks at Homeschoolfreebieoftheday are offering a special deal at the moment. If you use their affiliate link to purchase the Yesterday’s Classics, they throw in a set of 48 Mp3 dramatizations of many of the classics http://www.wholesomechildhood.com/YesterdayBonus/
Please, there’s this other book I’ve been searching for. It’s called 'Two-book course in English’, Volumes 1 and 2 by Mary Hyde. I’ve found free copies on archive.org here (http://archive.org/search.php?query=TWO%20BOOK%20COURSE%20IN%20ENGLISH%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts). I needed excellent well-done paperback copies. Unfortunately, Yesterday’s Classics does not have the books. Other publishers on Amazon do stock the books but I’m not sure about the quality of the print/images.
Please are there any other excellent publishers of old-time texts you could recommend, i.e. publishers that have taken time to retype the books as Yesterday’s Classics have done? Thank you so much.
All of these are free. Check on the right sidebar and click categories. You will find a Children’s bookshelf and an education bookshelf.
Also: http://www.dollarhomeschool.com/ is another one. The books come on CD, there might be a download not sure. I’ve not used them, but have considered purchasing it.
Thanks, Sonya. What I actually meant was paperbacks that could be purchased on Amazon, etc.
As I mentioned before, I’ve seen copies of ‘Two Book Course in English’ on Amazon, but it appears the publishers simply scanned the copies. I don’t want those ones. Yesterday’s Classics does not stock the book in question, hence I wanted a recommendation of other publishers that took time to redo the text and then sold them as paperback copies. Any ideas? Thank you.
Sorry I misunderstood. I don’t know of any that have that one. I looked on Gutenberg and it wasn’t there. Sometimes it is worth it to print it out and then have it bound at Staples/Kinkos or something like that. I will keep an eye out for it. What about a used copy or the original. I have had great luck with a wonderful text we used in 7-9th grades called Sentences and Thinking. The copies were pretty good and usable. That is the only option. I looked on amazon and there weren’t any reformatted texts available.
I could print them out, but sometimes, the text appears squashed and uncomely due to the way the book was scanned unto archive.org. I really loved it that Yesterday’s Classics took time to reformat the text and photos, and wanted to buy that from them. And I would not mind buying a used copy of the original, the only problem is that I’m yet to find that. The book in question was published in 1901, and I’m yet to find a used copy of the original.
both volumes in different publication dates, multiple copies.
I couldn’t find it anywhere else.
However, www.forgottenbooks.org has a copy of both volumes you can download 5 books free as a PDF. They didn’t retypset them, but the copies they used seem pretty clear. I printed out the first couple pages and it seemed ok. But you should check it out yourself.
