Starting out with Ambleside Online and now using Mater Amabilis, I have often seen forum posts wondering how to use these programs with multi-ages kids. They make me think, “I’m barely doing this with two; what will happen with three?” In my own homeschooling, I didn’t feel that books were central, we didn’t have enough “fun” learning, and I wasn’t sitting and “teaching” my children much. What was wrong?

This, misguidedly, was how I created my schedule last fall. I had creatively scheduled workbooks and readings such that one was doing workbooks while I was reading to the other. In the end, I realized that the workbooks were really so much busy work and the kids never got my attention as a teacher, only as a reader. My boys are only 2 grades apart each; why are they not doing more together?

The biggest barrier to combining kids with both AO and MA is the year to year format. Unlike Sonlight or KONOS in which the same material is used for a variety of ages, with MA and AO each year has a new curriculum and very little overlap. Even my earlier idea of creating 3 year cycles didn’t really work well with my particular situation—every few years I would end up with all 3 in a different cycle!

I was not, however, going to walk away from the wonderful materials chosen by MA and AO. Yet I also have burgeoning bookshelves with many more wonderful books I want to incorporate into our schooling.  How could I put all this to good use?

It took me almost two years to finally understand well enough, and to get comfortable with, the Charlotte Mason approach. I starting this homeschooling journey so concerned that my children learned what was taught in schools so as not to leave any “holes;” then I wanted to make sure I completed everything that was laid out on the AO/MA web sites so as not to miss anything "important."  Now I realize that by keeping great books and interesting learning central to our schooling, our children will thrive.

Given all these things, this is how I made over our term 3 schedule. I made a list of all the subjects I wanted to cover and how much time I wanted to dedicate to covering each subject. I filled out a weekly schedule, broken into 20 minute slots, and filled in the subjects. This step was very important for me to see that I was dedicating too much time to science and language arts such that there was little time for anything else! I reassessed and adjusted my first step.

Next I choose books and activities that both boys would enjoy. Subjects in which the boys are clearly at different levels, like math and language arts, they either work on them at the same time with me present to answer any questions, or I give one child reading/study time while I work with the other. Each year I will look at it anew, combining as many children as appropriate as my youngest starts schooling and my oldest grows more independent.

Regardless of how the years change, my first stop will always be Mater Amabilis, especially for Religious books, and next to Ambleside Online to extend our literature list. Finally, I will turn to my own bookshelf to take advantage of the many gems I have placed there waiting to be read.