Inspired by a very dear friend of mine as well as my own hearts desire for a more away-from-the-desk-and-get-outside approach, I’m discovering the treasure of the Charlotte Mason method.  I had never even heard of her before.  But, slowly and surely we are easin' in. 

For a while, my mind was boggled with so much preparation and I bombarded my friend with a million questions, (just a little exaggeration) and spent many hours searching other bloggers sites as well as Ambleside Online and Simply Charlotte Mason for answers.  Studying Nature was my first love.  I love being outside, although I don’t do it enough.  I haven’t a clue how to get started, I’m just jumpin in.  However, as I look back I realize that I’ve already started. I had the children sit in the garden last fall and observe as many living creatures as possible and draw them and then try to find out what they are.  They had so much fun and everyone’s turned out WONDERFULLY!

Each of my children as well as my self, have their own 3 ring colored binder.  They each personalized their covers by drawing a picture and inserting into the plastic. For mine, I just inserted a cut out cover from an old planner I had.  I put notebooks together with tab dividers.  I found plastic insert tab dividers to be handy.  Because I use a lot of plastic sheet protectors, regular dividers are too short, so they don’t stick out enough.  I have a separate 3  ring binder where I printed out all the pages for the Ambleside Online Yearly booklists and schedules.  This helps me to decide what material I plan to use and purchase. In my binder, I have my Weekly Schedule, 12 week checklist, a calendar printed out from www.incompetech.com, dividers for each subject I need to plan for, each child’s progress report, and a back section of School Supplies Needed list.   I also purchased 5 Nature journals.  I can’t wait to start!

Currently, I am working on the children’s 36 week schedule and 12 week checklists.  Things have been a bit slow, but by God’s grace and help, I’m pressing on. 

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Posted by timbuck2mom

Oh, my goodness. Did Grace draw this picture? It is too cute. I'm glad you're taking the plunge. :) You'll have so much to teach the rest of us shortly, I'm sure.

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