Thanks for the CM quotes, nee1. I’m working my way through her work, but I’m using her original words and it takes me a while - I can’t read it with half of my attention while doing household tasks. I guess it’s not so much teaching that I miss in pure RC, but interaction with my kids about what they’re doing. After all, RC was developed by a single dad who needed to work while the kids were doing school, so they had to do things completely on their own. I don’t want that. But reading blogs, most people do it more like Mandab, and that is something I could do. There’s still a lot of parental involvement at first, but it phases out over time.
Mandab, I agree: RC doesn’t have nearly enough material. I think I’ll supplement with the Ambleside Online list, a Charlotte Mason curriculum of great books. They use classics as well. http://amblesideonline.org/
I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the past few days, and I think Mandab’s description is much more like what I’ll be doing, using narration to assure comprehension of these challenging books. As they get older, they’ll be able to do more and more on their own, but at the beginning, I expect it will be buddy reading, then individual readings with narration every page, then narration every chapter, then (written) narration after each book. A blog suggested doing narration on the math as well: read the lesson, then tell Mom what you learned. If you don’t seem to understand, read it again; otherwise, go on to the practice problems.
I also thikn we’ll throw in some memory work, some sort of history spine, and a CM Book of Centuries, in which anything historical gets some notes made, to try and have a better sense of timelines through history. I might expand the history part even more, to give a sense of cause and effect, since I did major in history and love it.
And I’ve come up with a method for teaching writing that I like! It’s from www.design-your-homeschool.com/how-to-teach-writing.html, and it works up to being self-taught from classic literature, though I’ll be heavily involved in the early years. There are two components. For the early years (after they’ve mastered copywork), I’ll use Classical Re-Writing. This is the method Ben Franklin used to teach himself to write. You choose a well-written passage and summarize each sentence in three or four words. Then put those aside for a while. Come back to them and try to rewrite the passage from your prompts. Compare with the original. Another thing Franklin used, not on the website, was to write each sentence of the passage and then cut them up and shuffle them, and try to put them in the correct order.
Actually, before that I’ll teach the six traits of good writing. Then I’ll explain one type of passage (descriptive, anecdotal, letter, persuasive, etc) and we’ll talk about how we can recognize a good example of that type. Then we’ll choose a passage together for the Classical Re-Write. We’ll either only do this a few times a week or have more than one going at a time so that they have time to forget in between sessions.
When they’re more advanced, we’ll move on to Modeling. Actually, first will be brainstorming things to write about. Then we’ll outline a passage of the type we’re working on. Then try to write a passage in the same style, but with her own ideas. So if we were working on letters, we’d pick a letter out of the text of a novel. Then we’d outline it. Then we’d write a letter about our own life, but in the same style as the model.
My goal with all of this is that by the time they start college-level science, at 12-14 (I figure EL can shave at least 2 years off RC’s ideas), I will also print off some scholarly journal articles on literature and history they’ve studied, hand it to them, and say, “Here. Teach yourself to write like this.” If they can do that before they “graduate,” college will be easy.
So my overall plan looks like this: Math first (I’m really leaning toward Life of Fred, with additional practice problems printed off the web, instead of Saxon, but I don’t know), starting with narrating the lesson to Mom before starting the problems but phasing that out over time, and of course reworking any problem they get wrong. Then we’ll take a break and do Classical memory work, in some way that gets us up and moving (singing, games, etc). Then reading time from RC and Ambleside, with frequent oral narrations phasing to written narration at the end of each book, and Book of the Centuries notes. Then a few minutes of grammar (I take CM’s “no grammar before 10” rule as only applying to non-EL kids). Learn a few parts of speech and then diagram a sentence with those parts at the whiteboard with Mom, getting more complex as time goes on. After a little bit, it will just be diagramming a complex sentence they read or wrote recently. I might throw in reading aloud some sort of history spine to all the kids for a couple of minutes next. Then writing, which will start with copywork and dictation. Once writing is physically easy, studying types of writing and how to judge whether it’s good, and Classical Re-Writing. Later, brainstorming, outlining, and Modeling. Oh, I also mean to introduce editing and rubrics with Modeling and let them grade themselves a week or two after finishing a piece of writing.
One advanced book from the AO list will be read aloud as a family as a bedtime story, I think. And I plan to start as early as necessary to get done with all the schooling by lunch and have afternoons free. Art and music practice might be required at a certain rate in the afternoons, but other than that, it will be free choice. I hope we’ll spend lots of that time outside.
I think if you focus on phonics really thoughly for 6-12 weeks you will have them ready to get started on the easier books in the set. Then I would gradually wean myself out of their reading time. Do this by buddy reading, then having them read for the first 5 minutes then you listen to them read, then just increase the independent reading time until you hit how long you want them to read for. You may have to increase it gradually for such young starters. At this point I should me toon that I still like to listen to my kids read if they are working on books above their level. This way I can correct mispronunciations and help with difficult words and ideas. You will find kids need more help with the beginning of a book than the end of it.
i have assumed that the school will never cover 9 and 10 properly (teaching writing with style and teach writing forms) but I must admit they have already had a crack at it in grade 3. OK it was an introduction by our standards but i dont think the introduction will get much more depth over the years unfortunatley. More like just more practice at that light level. They do learn styles of writing (narative, pursuasive…etc) but not writing to a style set by an author. So they will be unlikely to ever learn to write in the style of the classics stories without help at home. their writing is likely to remain basic without my intervention.