Who uses Ambleside online or Charlotte Mason?

[iris0110]

Does anyone here use Ambleside online or Charlotte Mason? Kearnan is about to complete his 5th grade year and while we have done well for 1st-4th this year was rough. It took us over 12months to complete and I think we are both feeling a bit wiped out. I've always liked the idea of Charlotte Mason or Waldorf and I am using something very similar to this with my youngest already just naturally because he forced me to. My fear with this program is how religious is it? We are a secular family (atheist with some pagan leanings) and I don't want to constantly have to constantly change the curriculum. Also how complete is it? Do you feel your child is getting a good education? How much time does it take? I want to have more time to just relax and enjoy our time together but I feel like we spend all day "putting out fires" and figuring out how to get through our school work. No one is happy. If I can either make it work so we are all doing mostly the same thing or so everyone is done in just a couple of hours and we can enjoy some nature walks, baking, documentaries and crafts I would appreciate that and so would they. My last question was, what math program do you use with it? It mentions math but I didn't see one. Maybe I didn't look hard enough though. I'm using Saxon for him right now but it takes him an hour to complete and while it is thorough and he is doing ok with it I think it may be part of the problem. I would like to shelf it for a year and just try something else. I was considering Math Mammoth or I have a subscription to Complete Curriculum that I could use the math book at. But if there is a math program here I would try it. Anything else you can say about it?

[7mom7]

http://amblesideonline.org/FAQ.shtml#math

"There are a number of good math programs and approaches that can be used with CM principles, e.g. short lessons, manipulatives where appropriate, and a problem-solving approach vs. never-ending sums and long-division questions. Is one better than another? In the Ambleside archives, there are posts from people whose children floundered with Making Math Meaningful and flourished with Math-U-See, and vice versa. Right Start and Singapore Math usually get great reviews; Miquon Math is popular for the early grades. All these programs have websites with helpful information that you can use in comparing one to another; but the best way of all seems to be to see the materials up close if at all possible before making a decision.

Charlotte Mason did use math textbooks in her schools. I don't think you'd find the particular math books the PUS used too helpful, as besides being old and scarce, they're British (lots of pounds-and-shillings questions). If you want something very similar to these books, Ray's Arithmetic would be the American equivalent, and there are some Ambleside users who do like Ray's because of its emphasis on mental arithmetic."


I also think Life of Fred would fit well with CM.

[iris0110]

Yeah I finally found it last night. This is what you get for searching through a website at 1AM after a very long day. I'm not so keen on the "just pick a program that works for your child". Obviously if I had a program that worked for my child I wouldn't be looking for a new program. I can almost guarantee that Ray's arithmetic won't work because of the mental math and I'm not sure about Life of Fred. I may give it a good look. I'm a little nervous about teaching him everything in book form. Sometimes he can focus and learn and sometimes he can't, leaving his math up in the air like that is hard for me. Perhaps Life of Fred backed up with Khan Academy.

[7mom7]

We have Life of Fred and Singapore. I thought my son would love LOF but he seems to like worksheets better for math. His favorite thing is when I just wing it and write problems on our dry erase board. I leave him with math cubes and a marker to figure it out then come back and check his work.

Personally I love LOF because I feel like it gives purpose for the math. Something I never really "got" as a child. I don't think I had a good math teacher until my junior year in high school!

[iris0110]

Well I went ahead and ordered LoF fractions. He has an easy time with math with the exception of fractions and percents and word problems. Being ASD the word problems are difficult because he can't separate out the extraneous information and figure out what he is supposed to do to solve the problem but he understands the "how and why" of math pretty well with the exception of fractions and percents. So I am hoping this will help him. I learn everything very simply out of books and that is how I prefer to learn. My problem with math was that I do things a bit differently that most other people so I had several math teachers that told me I was doing it wrong. Kearnan learns just fine from a text book but he gets distracted easily and can stare blankly at a wall for hours. I'm not sure if this will improve that or not. He doesn't do well with manipulatives like his brother and I am a bit worried because so far he has shown an inability to listen to lecture type lessons. I'm going to try to get him to read the book to himself as suggested and see how it goes. If he needs more support or practice I will put him on Khan academy. He has learned well from computers in the past but I don't want a full online curric again.

[Texasmom]

I'm thinking about using the Charlotte Mason method or Easy Peasy curriculum I found online for free. I love the idea of letting them reading living books and learning from that.

[jc12551]

I use AmblesideOnline level 5 for my sixth grader. He is an excellent reader, but the material at level 6 was blowing his mind mainly due to deficiencies in his non-homeschool education over the last 2.5 years.

Originally Posted by iris0110 Does anyone here use Ambleside online or Charlotte Mason? Kearnan is about to complete his 5th grade year and while we have done well for 1st-4th this year was rough. It took us over 12months to complete and I think we are both feeling a bit wiped out. I've always liked the idea of Charlotte Mason or Waldorf and I am using something very similar to this with my youngest already just naturally because he forced me to. My fear with this program is how religious is it? We are a secular family (atheist with some pagan leanings) and I don't want to constantly have to constantly change the curriculum.

It is not overly religious. We are very religious (Seventh-day Adventist) and I looked for a curriculum that I could mold to our unique beliefs. You would leave off the daily Bible work and there would be a few texts that you wouldn't buy (Christian Liberty Nature books, Child's Geography of the Holy land, and the missionary bios come to mind). For science you would just use a normal secular text book. Some of the living texts will mention God and religion's role in the history of the world. But that is part of history and can be taken as just that I suppose.

Originally Posted by iris0110 Also how complete is it? Do you feel your child is getting a good education?

Any curriculum is what you make it. DS1 is getting all the basics plus a lot more. I think he is being better educated than the high school students I teach. I am guilty of skipping some of the extras sometimes because I am too tired when I come home to work on them (art, music, Shakespeare, mythology, King Arthur, etc.).

Originally Posted by iris0110 How much time does it take? I want to have more time to just relax and enjoy our time together but I feel like we spend all day "putting out fires" and figuring out how to get through our school work. No one is happy.

DS1 is very independent. He gets up early to do his farm chores and then does most of his work before lunch. It is A LOT OF READING! So if your child hates reading this will be hard. I spend a good deal of time working on his lesson plans. More so than if I had bought a packaged curriculum.

Originally Posted by iris0110 If I can either make it work so we are all doing mostly the same thing or so everyone is done in just a couple of hours and we can enjoy some nature walks, baking, documentaries and crafts I would appreciate that and so would they.

It is not really possible to link grade levels together with AO except for a few areas. The forums have more info. DS1 and I have a lot of non school time together.

Originally Posted by iris0110 My last question was, what math program do you use with it? It mentions math but I didn't see one. Maybe I didn't look hard enough though. I'm using Saxon for him right now but it takes him an hour to complete and while it is thorough and he is doing ok with it I think it may be part of the problem. I would like to shelf it for a year and just try something else. I was considering Math Mammoth or I have a subscription to Complete Curriculum that I could use the math book at. But if there is a math program here I would try it. Anything else you can say about it?

DS1 doesn't know his times tables (one reason I pulled him back out of school!!) so we are doing Timez Attack until he catches up. He used Saxon the past two years and hated it. There are excellent free math (secular science and history) books at CK-12 foundation.

Typical Monday for us:
Devotions
Acts of the Apostles/Bible reading
Timez Attack
This Country of Ours (US history)
Cursive practice
King Arthur
Mad Libs
Intermediate Language Lessons
Spelling Power
Listen to the Composer
Recite/Read/Research the Poet or Poem
Practice our Hymn
Read Plutarch
Free Reading
Dictation
Narration (usually after any independent reading)
Book of Centuries (as we work through a text)
Mapping (as we work through a text)

I can PM you an entire week's schedule if you are interested.

[iris0110]

Originally Posted by jc12551 I use AmblesideOnline level 5 for my sixth grader. He is an excellent reader, but the material at level 6 was blowing his mind mainly due to deficiencies in his non-homeschool education over the last 2.5 years. It is not overly religious. We are very religious (Seventh-day Adventist) and I looked for a curriculum that I could mold to our unique beliefs. You would leave off the daily Bible work and there would be a few texts that you wouldn't buy (Christian Liberty Nature books, Child's Geography of the Holy land, and the missionary bios come to mind). For science you would just use a normal secular text book. Some of the living texts will mention God and religion's role in the history of the world. But that is part of history and can be taken as just that I suppose. Any curriculum is what you make it. DS1 is getting all the basics plus a lot more. I think he is being better educated than the high school students I teach. I am guilty of skipping some of the extras sometimes because I am too tired when I come home to work on them (art, music, Shakespeare, mythology, King Arthur, etc.). DS1 is very independent. He gets up early to do his farm chores and then does most of his work before lunch. It is A LOT OF READING! So if your child hates reading this will be hard. I spend a good deal of time working on his lesson plans. More so than if I had bought a packaged curriculum. It is not really possible to link grade levels together with AO except for a few areas. The forums have more info. DS1 and I have a lot of non school time together. DS1 doesn't know his times tables (one reason I pulled him back out of school!!) so we are doing Timez Attack until he catches up. He used Saxon the past two years and hated it. There are excellent free math (secular science and history) books at CK-12 foundation. Typical Monday for us: Devotions Acts of the Apostles/Bible reading Timez Attack This Country of Ours (US history) Cursive practice King Arthur Mad Libs Intermediate Language Lessons Spelling Power Listen to the Composer Recite/Read/Research the Poet or Poem Practice our Hymn Read Plutarch Free Reading Dictation Narration (usually after any independent reading) Book of Centuries (as we work through a text) Mapping (as we work through a text) I can PM you an entire week's schedule if you are interested.

I would be super grateful if you don't mind. I'm interested in if you do all subjects everyday or if there are some you do just a few times a week. I think what I'm struggling with is juggling the fact that while my oldest can be independent in some things I'm afraid in a curric like this he is going to need a good bit more support and my youngest is only at 2nd so he will still need me full time. Just trying to figure out if there is a way to modify this to meet their needs and still actually have it be a sound program. Keeping in mind that my oldest has quite a few special needs and I need to work around his therapeutic needs as well.

[jc12551]

Originally Posted by iris0110 I would be super grateful if you don't mind. I'm interested in if you do all subjects everyday or if there are some you do just a few times a week. I think what I'm struggling with is juggling the fact that while my oldest can be independent in some things I'm afraid in a curric like this he is going to need a good bit more support and my youngest is only at 2nd so he will still need me full time. Just trying to figure out if there is a way to modify this to meet their needs and still actually have it be a sound program. Keeping in mind that my oldest has quite a few special needs and I need to work around his therapeutic needs as well.

We don't do all subjects every day. You will need to provide him with lots of support (especially in the beginning). You may even need to go down a level or two so that the info is more accessible.

[iris0110]

Originally Posted by jc12551 We don't do all subjects every day. You will need to provide him with lots of support (especially in the beginning). You may even need to go down a level or two so that the info is more accessible.

Well with him being SN and needing help in certain subjects and my youngest being gifted and advanced in areas it may be possible to meet them in the middle. I bought Life of Fred for Kearnan for math next year, I expect he will probably be able to handle that on his own as he is gifted in math he just wasn't loving Saxon. We will continue with Spell By Color year two, I think it fits well with the Charlotte Mason approach and I know he can do it on his own. That just leaves me trying to decide what to do as far as history, science, and the core reading. I don't think it would be a problem to choose books that fit both of my boys considering Kearnan is immature for his age (his emotional and developmental level is more at his brother's level) then Tharen will continue with his phonics program and they can both do copy work. I would like to see them both do more writing.