Labels

Our Weekly Beautiful Things

I know some folks might think I'm jumping the gun a bit or what have you (I mean, we're still very much in Toddler Territory), but I love love LOVE discussing education philosophies, plans, ideas, spreadsheets... the works. ;) On second thought, this is my blog and that's why I started it in the first place, so I guess I'll just stop apologizing and start rhapsodizing.

I am very much leaning in a Charlotte Mason-ish direction with (maybe) some classical influence (we shall see as time goes on, shan't we?). Simply Charlotte Mason uploaded this video about a month ago and it inspired me to try a little weekly rotation of Beautiful Things. (Note: this is where I'm still coming up with a satisfactory description. I dislike the term 'enrichment', particularly as I consider most of the things often falling under that term to be much more in the foundational realm etc. - but in general that's what we're talking about.)

I'm hoping to share more specifics for each as we build up our repertoire (including our current approach to building a routine), but meanwhile I thought it'd be fun to share a little bit of what we've been doing. So, our Little Princess is two (almost three) and every day we're touching on the following in some form (and again, more teaching and resource specifics later, but I am including the current rough time approximation so you can see how manageable this is):

Morning Block Daily

Catechism (30 seconds-1 min)

Alphabet/numbers/shapes/colors in rotation (singing, finger games, or puzzle boards, under 5 min-15 minutes)

Name/address memorization

Trying to get story time in regularly

On Rotation (generally still in the morning block)

Mon - Messy Art Monday (specific ideas later, 15 min-1 hr/depending on the project & her attention span)

Tues - Poetry (at the moment flower fairies, playtime rhymes during story time, or a stanza from a grown up poem recited on the fly, 5 min)

Wed - Make n' Bake Wednesday (generally dessert or dinner for that day, just making sure I get her in there with me, 30 min/whatever her attention span is that day)

Th - Music (a classical piece -- Youtube's been working really well so far, I just play it for however long I want in the background, generally 10-30 min while she's busy with her toys)

Fri - Nature walk/specific exploration with Mommy outdoors (15-ish min) 

I'm really loving this as it makes me remember to actually just pop it in and also that I don't have to do it all at once and then possibly fall off the bandwagon completely the next week. (Not that that happens to anyone else, right? :)) So far we've been doing it for three weeks and it's working beautifully! <3 Let me know any specifics you'd like to hear more about in the comments!

Labels:

Comments

  1. Livia RachelleSeptember 3, 2020 at 4:24 PM

    My mom used the Five in A Row curriculum for us when we were little, and this was based on the Charlotte Mason method. She also had a book from Karen Andreola about the Charlotte Mason method, or maybe two. This was the days when the Andreolas would review homeschool materials in Christian Book Distributors.

    I think that the Montessori method of schooling shares some similarities, Mom mentioned she was always drawn to that as well.

    We had Beautiful Feet Guides for history during high school which I think may also have been based on this method. I think our love for reading was certainly begun with the Five in a Row. We all love and remember the wonderful illustrated books, I remember some of the lessons on art we learned from the different books.

    I remember mom had a homeschool catelog that had a wonderful article briefly delineating each homeschool methodology, I wish I could have saved it, I was just fascinating (wholebooks/Charlotte Mason, Classical, unit method, unschooling, textbook are the ones I remember).

    I unfortunately pushed for traditional textbooks during highschool, so I think I lost some richness there. If I could go back I would have pushed for more Charlotte Mason and classical (Veritas press) mix which is what I would do if I ever have my own kids. I was thinking about and pouring over all the homeschool catalogs myself in highschool.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. HeidiSeptember 3, 2020 at 8:47 PM

      Livia Rachelle,
      Thank you for your lovely long thoughtful comment!

      Yes, it seems that Charlotte Mason, Montessori and Waldorf all have various areas of overlap. And then classical (such as Veritas) and Charlotte Mason actually have some overlap in source materials, but more divergent methods?

      I do appreciate certain things from the Montessori approach, but I'm not comfortable with it (and also definitely not with Waldorf) on the foundational presuppositional level.

      I'll have to expand more on this later, but it really seems like humankind as a whole was created to be shaped and defined by Story (and stories), so that's a large part of what attracts me in the CM direction. (Though, while I consider myself second to none in my appreciation of nineteenth century verbiage, I do wish we had some slightly updated teacher source material there. ;)) I have been reading quite a few of the newer titles by other people describing her method, though, so it's just a little quibble.

      Growing up we had a lot of friends in the classical world, so I feel like I've gained a fairly good bird's eye view of it/a feel for that particular swimming pool. My parents used kind of a modified CM approach, introducing us to good things and letting us delve in + lots and lots of books. At one point in the early years they were influenced by the unschooling approach, but then decided we did need some more specific direction and certain subjects, math, science, etc. I feel like even from an early age we always knew they were there for us if we needed them, but in all of life we were encouraged to try and figure stuff out and just try it out and pursue our interests. I do think they did very well there and I much appreciate everything they did, cultivating that sense of possibilities and wonder.

      Nowadays, I'm also kind of intrigued by certain aspects from the classical approach (particularly the rhetoric/speaking skills and some of the omnibus materials). At the same time I'd like a much broader and deeper reading list than they generally have early on, and also more room for arts and other skills in the high school years, so that's why I'm tossing round the idea of melding the two a bit and making my own (well, mish mash sounds frightfully unprofessional), so I'll say my own thorough and excellent course of study. ;) (And it's already such fun!)

      I'm so happy to discover a kindred spirit who loves poring over catalogs too and it sounds like we're on a similar page there (no pun intended), so that's exciting. Thanks again so much for the comment and I look forward to chatting more in the future!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

"Our job as women -- and it's a phenomenal responsibility -- is to enflesh the weighty truths of our faith. If our role is to make truth taste, to make holiness beautiful, then what does that look like in the details? As a random example of this, take Christmas. Christmas is, of course, when God did ultimately what we women can only shadow. The ultimate enfleshing. At Bethlehem, God's Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the Consolation of Israel was born of a woman -- and that moment was so staggering that even the stars had to come down and see it. And then, every year, we celebrate that moment. We take one of the most difficult theological truths -- the Incarnation -- and attempt to show that truth through our celebrations. The men can talk about the Incarnation, church fathers can write important treatises about it, pastors can preach about it, theologians can parse and define it . . . but we women are the ones who make it taste like something. We make it smell good. How crazy is that? "And for my next trick, I will take Athanasius' De Incarnatione and I will say it with cookies and wrapping paper and cinnamon and marshmallows and colored lights and tablecloths and shopping trips and frantically-last-minute-late-night-Amazon-orders and ham -- and I will do it in such a way that my four-year-old will really get it, and it will send roots deep down into his soul where it will anchor his loves and his loyalties and shape his allegiances well into his nineties." from Eve in Exile by Rebekah Merkle