2020 School Year

We are two weeks away from starting our new year of school.  I am mostly ready to go and trying to spend these last couple weeks hanging out with Brishen rather than obsessing about school planning. 

This year's school plans are very different from the past three years.  I feel like we needed something special and gentle for the time when I added seven new children to our homeschool routine, and A Gentle Feast was absolutely perfect.  I learned so much from that time immersed in a Charlotte Mason educational style, and pieces of a CM education will follow me into this year and the years ahead.

I did feel, however, less than satisfied with the CM method of language arts, and the diversity in the books in virtually every Charlotte Mason curriculum is not enough for my tri-cultural family.  Little by little I decided to tweak this or that until I reached the point that I cannot say we really are following any curriculum anymore. 

This is familiar territory for me.  I have always worked better with a goal and some guides.  I have the benefit of so many guides after 16 years of homeschooling, and I have learned from each.  That is what I take with me as I venture back out on my own, piecing this and that from all I have loved in the past.

Here are the parts of the A Gentle Feast/Charlotte Mason way that I do not want to lose:

1.  Narrations--having the children tell me about the books they read and the books I read to them gives me a huge glimpse into their growth, abilities, and even emotions each day.  The children learn to listen well, speak well, organize thoughts, and eventually write.

2.  Beauty Loop--I love the rhythm of studying art, poetry, music, or fables just a bit each morning.  I feel we are all enriched in such a simple, beautiful way.  I just have to make sure all our poets, composers, and artists are not quite so white male-ish. 

3.  Geography--I LOVE learning geography by reading a book seeped in a place far away.  I wish I had done this with Brishen.  He would have loved it.

4.  Science--Again, I love living books to lead us through scientific discoveries and topics.  Nature study books have brought my family closer to nature and to each other without a doubt--Burgess Bird Book for the BIG win!  We are different people after reading a chapter here and there over the school year.

5.  Slow reading--When Brishen was little I hated curriculum guides that would have me "Read page 4-8" when the book was only 17 pages long, and my son and I had plenty of time and interest in reading the whole thing in one sitting.  A Gentle Feast taught me the beauty of coming back for another little bite over and over rather than gulping it all down at once.  The learning is different, somehow, and I like it.

6.  Basia--every bit of A Gentle Feast has been great for Basia.  She is only in Form III, but the fit is so beautiful.  She learns without frustration.  She loves the books.  The language arts is just perfect for her level.  We are substituting history and literature books to include greater diversity and some Landmark books, but otherwise sticking with the entire AGF plan for her.