We are using My Father's World Adventures for a US history overview and have found it to be very Charlotte Mason influenced and think that all of their recommendations (Serl's Primary Language Lessons and Spelling by Sound and Structure),have been right on.  I have gone back and forth about unschooling for a long time.  I won't go into all the gory details here right now, but a love of learning has always been my number one goal for the kids, and I deeply believe that kids already come with a natural curiosity and desire to learn.  There are reasons we need, and thrive, on more structure though, and I feel like what we're doing this year has been a beautiful balance so far.  We love the short, gentle lessons of a CM inspired curriculum and we still have plenty of time for playing and pursuing our interests.  I am not one who feels I have to commit myself to one curriculum and there are some reasons I don't believe we'll use MFW long-term, but for this year we're just going to enjoy where we're at now. 

Here is the annual "first day of school" pic:

(Max demonstrating his fourishness).

Making notebook covers:

Max's spelling "test"

What's funny is that all of my kids think spelling on the white board is just the most fun ever, so they all had to take a turn.  He spelled all those words without help, as long as I enunciated each letter sound as I said it.

Trying to sail Christopher Columbus' ships: