Secular Charlotte Mason

I've always been a firm believer in the"better late than early" school when it comes to homeschooling.  With my own children, I found that up until they were ten or so there wasn't a lot of need for actual curriculum--and not a lot of actual ability to physically sit and "do school" before that point.  Simply being home with them, being involved in their lives and letting them be involved in daily life around the house, plus reading to them from many different kinds of books, accomplished everything we needed on the school front.  The younger boys listened in on their older brothers' lessons, but spent most of their time playing.  Both of my older boys tested right in the middle of their grade level when wehad them tested in first and third grade, even with this very relaxed attitude.  (The only reason the youngest didn't was because I was feeling rebellious by that time and never registered him with the school district.)  All three boys have gone on to success in formal school settings, entering their appropriate grade at grade level. 8th for the older two and 6th for the youngest. (Though quickly proving that their first years homeschooling made a huge difference in their ability to receive and process information--and gave them a definite lack of patience with ridiculous hoops and general bullsh*t.)

As Charlotte Mason believed,children learn best when they have time to be children.  My homeschooling years can best be summed up in that philosophy:  giving my children time to be children, to find their own selves in the midst of everything going on around them--and then making sure they can read, write, and last but not least, suss out information and ideas and think for themselves.  This is why I'm rather relaxed about homeschooling younger children. 

However, as always, what homeschooling is about is discovering what works for you and your family.  We often wound up going against whatever flow was out there, neither unschoolers nor classical schoolers, nor totally Charlotte Mason in our approach.  We found a path that worked for us, including accommodating my needs as a somewhat high-maintenance mom.  But everyone is different, every family is a different combination of parental figures and children, and those various needs and experiences will make everyone's homeschooling experience ultimately unique to their own family.

Thank you for this post.  I have a looooong list of books I want to read to my 6 yo but I don't know how quickly we'll get them read.  Reading aloud to him is what is working best right now.  I have plans for copywork and phonics and such but I really don't know how well that will go.  I am on vacation right now and plan to *try* when we get home.  On the plane he did some beautiful lettering in a handwriting book and seemed very pleased with himself until I complimented him on it and then he said, "I'm done."  UGH.  So I will have to figure out what works best for him.  I plan not too push toohard.  He's busy being a kid and he likes for me to read to him before bed.  It's nice to hear a success story from someone who didn't push early academics.

I read my friends' comments on their facebook status and it screams what they think is important about traditional school for young children:  growing up, independence, making friends.  I still don't understand why we need to send them off in order to accomplish this...and I probably never will.

Chai Mama,

I agree with Lisa. When my eldest was Ham's age I pushed him way too hard (must have been the public educated teacher in me) with KodyGirl, who is 5 years younger, I have taken a much more relaxed approach and she definitely has better learning habits and attitude than Drakon did at that point. With all my kids I think the one thing I did right at age 6-8 was read a TON to them, do a lot of arts, crafts and science projects and play math games. THAT is what got them excited about learning. With KodyGirl, even now, as long as she doesn't think it is "schooltime" or "schoolwork" she will happily do it but if I even breathe the word school she gets a bad attitude which is why I do more CM with her than with my eldest. He, on the other hand, does like his academics to be more formalized and have an actual "schooltime" but until age 10 or so everything he did was as hands-on as possible. Now, I realize I should have done more field trips and such with them because that is the learning they still remember to this day. Sure folks who rely more on workbooks and traditional schooling move at a faster pace through their academics but I am finding that this just does not work for my kids until late middle school or high school. And with KodyGirl, she did copywork at a young age only because she asked to but I never used those copywork books with her because she just had me write what she wanted to copy. Far more immediate and relevant that way. This schoolyear we will do formal copywork for the first time but she wants to do it so I figure why not. The older kids do dictation but we do it rather quickly and because it is a painless way to model grammar. Both Drakon and Tide enjoy dictation, for whatever reason. At Ham's age I'd just do whatever keeps him excited about learning and ignore the pressure from friends and family. Trust me, their kids will burn out on learning LONG before Ham does. I've seen it happen time and again. We just spent the week with relatives and the one thing that stood out is how much more Drakon and KodyGirl love learning (Tide is the exception but that is her personality) as compared to their cousins. Much to my surprise even my grandma has now decided that homeschooling is a good thing!!! This is a major change for her.

I will refer to this thread again, believe me.   Thank you.  Ham is insisting I read to him this trip A LOT.  I love this kind of insisting!  Read! Read!  It could be that we are away from all his stuff and back yard too.  We found the library here and got a whole stack.  My Mom thought it would take a long time to read all of them but in 2 days we've read most of them. LOL  I'm getting a crick in my neck from reading to 3 little boys crowded in the backseat of the car but it keeps their hands and voices quiet. lol   Craziness with 3 little boys!