Our Charlotte Masony Week

I love it Celeste - Charlotte Masony! And since you asked below in the comments, "just what are we doing?", here it is:

I have taken much verbatim from Elizabeth Foss's wonderful, fabulous book. It integrates the learning with the living, which is exactly what I want. I want them to live and learn simultaneously, and ideally love every minute of it. I want the boys to explore creative outlets and not get bogged down in workbooks.

So step one was I dropped all of our Phonics workbooks for the week. MCP Phonics, Beyond the Code, English for the Thoughtful Child (not because it was a workbook, but because it was really over Brennan's head - it is a second grade book after all!). For Phonics I have taken the "Name Game" word families from off of the back of the Little Stories for Little Folks readers and I use it to write three word families on the board. Brennan reads those each day, and then reads a easy reader of his choice. He has picked "Pizza Pat" this week. We "rabbit trailed" off of it this morning to make our own pizza crust for lunch. You should have seen Brennan flipping dough in the air. No, I don't have pictures (camera is still lost!). This means no more of the actual Little Stories Readers (Brennan never liked them). He prefers Dr. Seuss or Arnold Lobel books at the moment. I hope to introduce him to Syd Hoff on our next library visit.

Step 2 was to take the spelling lists and condense the activities. So each week we will practice one of the spelling games from the back of Spelling Power with the weekly words. We will not (for now) do all of the specific studying and testing of these words. The only main part of the program I am keeping is the idea of placing the words in a Spelling Dictionary (write them on a page with the starting letter at the top).

Step 3 was Math. And I kept the workbook here. I did drop all of the extra practice pages, and I have turned the flashcards into a game - if he knows the fact he can "keep" the card. After five minutes, we see how many cards he has kept. We record his score and try to beat it each day. This he loves, and he has not complained once about this workbook - his one and only!

Step 4, History, already was devised in the spirit of Charlotte Mason. So is Science. No problems here! They were already Brennan's favorite subjects (could it be the approach?).

Everything else: For rounding out Language Arts, I have him orally narrate the daily story to me. And Religion, well, he has loved the Mater Amabilis plan for Religion, so we are sticking to it! We have studying paintings by Raphael this week (that's what we did for tea time - discussed a painting. For 30 minutes! I was impressed). We have also sketched a copy of one painting, as well as done a lesson in Draw Write Now (Brennan's handwriting too). Tomorrow is the Art with a Purpose Lesson. Music has been Beethoven this week. And we have been listening to Lesson One of Learning Spanish with Grace. Brennan now greets his Dad each night with "Buenos Dias", all on his own will.

Speaking of tea time - the china was a hit! Even Philip, my dear two year old was ever so careful. We set a full table, which they also enjoyed immensely!

As for me, I have LOVED this week. And Brennan has not complained once about school. Even more noticeably, the TV has been off all week, and Brennan has not asked once for it to be on. We have most likely killed a small forest in paper, but the creativity has been such a blessing. Best of all is that my energetic (shall we say hyper) boys have done so well that we are all in great spirits.

As my trial week has been so successful, I want to keep this program in place. Yet I still have this nagging fear that Brennan will fall behind his peers if I do.

As for next week's plans, we will be having another Charlotte Masony week. One more won't hurt!