It's easy to do, but I also think as homeschoolers we are perfectly justified in doing plenty more than our schooled counterparts. Finances can be a self limiting factor! I have found that when I have overscheduled, and I have, things do balance out after a while. We took on Karate- it had been on my mind for years to do it. We loved it initially- then we realised it was becoming a drag to go out at 6pm two nights a week- right on dinner time for us. We hung in there for 6 months, getting belts and everything...then I just felt to let it go, so we pulled out. It was a relief! Soon after, we found a gymnastic class one evening a week- somehow it just clicked for my gym loving kids, much better than karate, so that took its place. My daughter just dropped a sewing class she has been doing for 2 years- I told her I had had enough paying for it when I felt she had learned all she was going to learn from it. Instead, she will ride her bike to a local guitar class- no work for me, much, much less cost, she still gets to "do" something that afternoon. We naturally adjust as we go. I burn out easily, so I try to be very efficient in our activities. I also rarely schedule mornings out- I fiercely protect our schooltime. And, I don't like being out at night much either, lol. So all in all, I naturally adjust whenever things get "too much". The kids are ok- they do see other kids almost every day.

I have the opportunity to buy TT Algebra1 (also Geometry but I doubt I would get that yet) 2nd hand (not a bargain, but things are not cheap down here) so I am considering it. Both my kids are using an Australian program and are working on grade level. My dd14 however is beginning to reach the edge of where i can help her with maths. I am amazed at how hard it is, since I did well in maths at school- this is beyond what I ever did. My son has LDs and maths is not easy for him. He makes progress, he keeps going, he gets it, but its not easy or fast for him. Maybe TT would help, I am not sure. My question revolves around timing, mainly. With the programs they are using, which i am not sure either will be able to continue with, I am choosing about half of the practice sums (which is what the private schools who use this textbook do, I am told) so that we can keep maths within an hour or so a day, and hopefully finish the textbook. This works well for our newish CM approach of not letting the lessons get too long, or allowing maths to take up a disproportionate part of the day. Neither are mathy/sciency people but this approach helps everyone not get bogged down. So i am wondering how long a TT lesson takes, and if its ok to skip some of the practice sums if the child is understanding it. Or, like Saxon, is the program set up to make sure the child does every single bit. In other words, will it take well over an hour, and if so, would it be possible, and still do the progam effectively, to trim each lesson back a bit? I hope I have made myself clear. I am just weighing up whether it will work for us before handing over rather a lot of money.

Lol, its so funny to see a thread on this. It's just perfectly normal here in Australia- everyone hangs their clothes on the line, knickers and all. We even have a national clothes line called the Hills Hoist, which every home in the maybe 50s, 60s and 70s had- a bit metal contraption. Here is a link to a picture of a Hills Hoist. Every home over 20 years old has one in the backyard. (its the first two pictures). http://www.onlinedirect.hills.com.au/cattleprod/products/A1000PRO However, we rent and obviously our Hills Hoist was demolished by the owners- the hole is there, but alas no Hills Hoist. There is an against the wall of the house clothesline that is right under the TV aerial, where the birds sit. You cant hang clothes there! However, the house has a laundry that is the size of a medium sized bedroom, so, I have three foldaway clothes racks in there. On sunny days, the clothes racks go out the laundry door to the backyard to the sunshine. On overcast days (there arent so many of them, but right now its winter and rainy) the racks just stay in the laundry. Its takes approximately a day for the washing to dry, on the racks, in the laundry- 24hours. 2 loads fit on the racks, fairly easily. So the system works really well for me, and its cheap! No, the clothes arent stiff.

Do you know how to search? Go up to the search box at the top right hand corner of this page, click on it, type in Charlotte Mason and click on posts. Voila. Lots of posts.

Look for the blessings rather than focus on the negatives. Take time alone, get up earlier than everyone else and meditate, go to bed early, go for walks in nature, eat well, take care of myself, have baths. Cuddle the rabbits. Blob out on the computer, or watch a good tv show, until I feel better again. Stay fairly organised so things don't pile up. Just try and stay in the moment, and get through the moment, rather than worrying about the future. Cook. Listen to music. Rearrange furniture. Go shopping. Read an inspiring book, or even a novel. (I don't read novels much because I get so addicted to a good one, it takes over my life). Try and accept myself, and whoever I might be mad at. Do some healing work, forgiveness work, letting go of toxic emotions work, some inner work.

A Book of Discovery by Synge is a book that covers many historical explorers and their adventures- Alexander the Great in India, Captain Cook and Australia, those sorts of things. I intend to use it for Geography at some stage, doing lots of mapwork alongside.

I have just designed my 473rd (jsut kiddin', sort of) schedule and its a checklist template I found on a CM schedules Yahoo group, that I then adapted for myself. I am very pleased with it, and if you would like to see it, email me at peela at iinet.net.au and I will send you a copy. I have one for each child pinned on a board on their desks, and one for each child pinned on board on my desk, so that I can glance at it and say "Gen, I see you are just finishing up Latin, how did it go? ready for Language Lessons? " or whatever. It keeps me in tune with them. It has check boxes for each lesson for each week, for 10 weeks (we have 10 week terms). It also has approximately the times each lesson should take. Last term, I did a separate weekly schedule each week, printed them and had them tick them off. This term, on one sheet of paper, I have their whole term's schedule. I am getting smarter ;) (actually, they are just getting older and it makes it easier to do this way). My son's has his music practice and Brain Gym written on his, because he often tries to skip them- wheras my daughter doesnt have her music practice written on hers, because she doesnt need to.

My kids are 12 and 14 and I still like to do some of our reading aloud- I try and keep my two together for a fair amount of things and we go much more in depth when we do stuff together, so it works well. So, I don't pre-read our together books, and I save the hardest, meatiest ones for together. That way it's an adventure for me, too. With their independent reading, I do try and read it more and more as they get older, but no, I dont get to it all, so I just prioritise.

And there's those of us Down Under who are NOT on summer holidays right now :) However, on school days, while my kids are doing their work, I sit in the same room with them, at my desk, pretending to be doing very important research or whatever, while I visit here and they do their schoolwork. Of course, they are not fooled for a minute, but I have to be able to give them some sort of excuse, since they are not allowed any recreational computer time during the schoolweek.

I am not going to analyse your post Peek. I am already in too deep and I may well even be wrong in my impression. I am sure not all Christians feel that God loves only Christians, but isn't it a part of the Christian culture to believe that when we die, only the Christians and only the good Christians at that, go to heaven? Isn't that part of the package? And the rest of us? Sorry, I am not so familiar with evangelical Christian beliefs, I don't know if they differ. But from a personal, non Christian perspective, it does often feel like people become soooo black and white over things like this homosexuality stuff, and it often looks from my perspective like they are using the Bible, and their absolutely rock certain belief in its literal correctness, and therefore their absolute certainty of what God judges to be good and bad and right and wrong, to back up what I am suspicious (but have no proof) may be a personal prejudice. I probably just got myself in deeper. I have no proof. I have no certainty. And I am certainly judgemental and all those things myself, it's a very human thing. I just don't say "God says" to back up my judgements. In the end, there can really be no effective conversation on these kind of issues between people who don't believe the Bible is the literal truth and word of a God, who don't even believe in the Christian perception of a Christian God who judges humanity in these ways, and those who do. But it's sometimes fun trying, or sometimes it just feels like it's worth saying something anyway. Remember, the non Christians are the minority here- what can we say to "but God said"?

Its ok, I dont.

Oh yes, I forgot that one too! It's a family tradition here- go to flea market every Sunday, buy junk, later, when house is too full of junk, sell some at a profit! Or, wait, no, often it's- put it out on the verge on yearly council pick up week to make room for more junk in house. No, really, dh is very good at buying 2nd hand and both kids have learned his knack too (as have I).

Sure, dh is an excellent handyman. Also, he teaches them philosophy, psychology stuff. And he is a whizz with an omelette :)

Yes, its called water. I only use water. Have for years. I don't smell. If I have some dirt on my hands or feet or knees form gardening, I use washcloth and scrub a bit.

I have a child using the Highschool book, and it is totally inspiring her as a year long creative writing course, which is what it is- she is learning about character development, settings, plot development. No grammar. It has editing practice and dictations, and creative writing. Dd uses AG for grammar. So no- not really university preparation work, however, if you know that, it works as part of an overall plan. I do find, now that we have been using them for several months- that I prefer dictation etc to be regular, rather than none for several weeks, then dictation every day for 6 or 7 school days. Same is with editing, and copywork for my son. So I went through the books, made out a schedule for both my kids, where they do dictation once a week (actually using Spelling Wisdom at a level I feel matches them both well)- and the other lessons are done the other days. Sometimes I have put two lessons on a day because a lesson seems so light. So, I am making them work for me, but I agree- they are great for adding to.

:iagree: with Rosie. And I dont think you are going to get a clear answer. My gay BIL is in a long term monogomous relationship, has told my dh they don't engage in what people traditionally think of as gay intercourse, he considers himself a Catholic, he has been very involved in church based charity endeavours, has a job that involves caring for disabled people....he is pretty ordinary. In the country town where he now lives, the people actually think they are just brothers living together- there are no other gay people there. How does one catagorise them? Can't they just be people? If every now and then they go o a gay festival, does that mean they are living a "gay" lifestyle? If half their friends are gay and half are hetero, does that make them half living a gay lifestyle? I must admit I am taken aback, again, by the people who are so darned certain that they know exactly what the God they believe in, who apparently loves them more than the rest of the world who don't believe in Him, thinks about homosexuality. That kind of certainty is such a dangerous thing. I prefer the "love thy neighbour" and the dont judge everybody else approach, myself. Well, thats the kind of world I prefer to live in, anyway.

Shorter subjects than before- e.g. stopping maths after an hour, no matter how much done. In the end, it is more efficient- they focus better, and we have time for other things. Independent work, followed by "together" work and read alouds, followed by more independent work- breaks up the day. To be efficient and get through the day, we are quite strict about getting up by 7am, chores, and school starting time. Then, we can finish in good time and move on to other parts of the day. For us, using audios doesn't work- neither kids likes them, even though they love me reading aloud. So car time is for listening to pop music nowadays (which is kind of a bonding time between me and them as they get older and we get to discuss things like "have you noticed most songs express a victim mentality?" Or, "what do you think about the words in that song?" ). Both my kids are also very resistant to and suspicious of me trying to sneak "school" into other times- like trying to play classical music in the car. So we don't do it. Schooltime- 8.30am to 1 or 2 pm- is for school. What seeds I plant now may well not sprout, or they will sprout in their own time, later. We don't do health as a separate subject- that is covered in day to day life. We use narrations to cover several subjects- so we may read from 8-10 books during the week, but they do 3 writing assignments a week, so not everything we read and study is translated into words on paper. Oral narration covers the rest, though, and often, these lead onto more in depth discussions. This allows us to cover a lot more books and topics than if we did some sort of workbook or writing assignment for every subject. We don't do workbooks- well, one at the moment, Language Lessons.

Hi Susan, yes, you are completely right. I thought about my post later after writing it and think I may have come across a bit arrogant and prejudiced against Classical, although I was trying to simply show my own path with it all. Of course it is perfectly possible to find one's way with any schooling choice without being an unhealthy parent, and while maintaining a good relationship with our kids. I have noticed an extreme element on these boards, people whose children simply spend all day on academic work, and I guess I was trying to share my antidote to the notion that "more is always better", since that was the OP's request, or one way of taking the question.. But in the end, the method we use is fairly irrelevant- I was just trying to share what had helped me in my own healing from the "more is always better" and "it's never enough" mindset, which I had fallen into and found fairly destructive in my own family.

Thanks everyone. I am getting a much clearer picture, and I think I was confused because I don't remember my own schooling being particularly workbooky, so I hadn't considered notebooking being a novel, unique alternative to workbooks. That makes more sense- I don't know if it's more American to fill out workbooks, or if it was just my own experience was different- at my school, teachers taught and gave assignments, we didn't work through workbooks so much, although I remember using them for French and Latin. I couldn't really see what the big deal was....I just thought thats how everyone did school, for a large percentage of the time. Mystery solved, thanks.

I need to get rid of a lot of stuff too. In the christmas holidays I threw out several large garbage bags full of papers I didnt want to keep. I have a lot of curriculum, and old school textbooks, and even novels, that we will most likely never use again. I want to clean it out, sell some, give others away. I just haven't got around to it. Just Do It. Are you very hard up financially? If by some chance you actually decided you did want to use one of those things you sold or gave away, could you afford to buy it again? 2nd hand perhaps? If not, keep more, be sensible. If you can afford to rebuy, cull, cull, cull, ruthlessly. You will feel so much better. And thanks for the inspiration, I need to get down to the room I have stashed all my stuff I dont use- and sort through it.

:001_smile: Well I don't know much, but I think they are two different things. Lapbooking is where you get a manila folder and fold the edges in and stick stuff all over it, so you get this cute little folder lapbooky thingy. Notebooking is a way of displaying your ongoing work in a ring binder, I think. Probably wasn't a good question anyway, thanks for trying. .

I think you will get different answers here than you might at other places where homeschoolers gather. This place seems to attract a high percentage of "driven" homeschooling parents, parents whose aim is ultimately to get their child into the best college they can, preferably on scholarship. I am not criticizing that and I have been very "driven" myself, as I have a fairly academic family who had high hopes for me and I didnt fulfill them, but somehow I wanted my children to fulfill them. The whole Classical thing is probably the cream of the cream as far as that "end" of the homeschooling spectrum is concerned. It's where people who want real academic excellence gravitate, including the obsessive and driven ones. Toward the end of last year, I had quite a change of heart when I found myself returning from a week long silent retreat, and yelling at my son for not cooperating by doing his schoolwork when and how I wanted him to. Ihad had the same scene with him hundreds of times before. I suddenly realised this is NOT what I want for my children. I don't want to push any more. I don't want their memories of their years of homeschooling to be of a pushy mother, always trying to get them to do their best, always stretching them- they were NOT inspired by the classical education I had given them so far, although they liked parts of it. My heart wasn't happy about it all. I researched outside the classical field again, looked into unschooling, tried it briefly, kept thinking and trusting I would find my way. I did. I re-found Charlotte Mason. It put the heart and the respect for the child back into the whole picture, for me, in a way I hadn't really allowed before. I started making changes, and now I am mostly CM/ AO/HEO, and we are much happier. Many similarities to the more common neo classical flavour, but a shift in emphasis. I do not have a strong outcome in mind, as in, certain marks, a definite university time and subsequent career...I don't know. Both my kids are potentially entrepreneurial. I think they will be ok. I came back to the present. This is our life, now, it's not primarily a practice or a preparation for a future- even these busy teenage years. I love CM's emphasis on free time, on living books, on respect for the child. But for myself, the important thing is that I am not pushing and driving my kids any more, we just flow through the day- and we get plenty done. Pretty much no workbooks or busy work at all anymore. Will it prepare them for possible university entrance? I believe so. They can do right through Grade 12 with me, THEN do a year of university preparation, or wait another 2 years- working, travelling-and gain mature entrance. or most likely get straight in with a portfolio, depending on what they want to get into. Meanwhile, they would have happy memories of homeschooling, not stressed ones of their mum pushing every day for them to achieve academic excellence. It's too unbalanced- for my family.

Thanks I presume you mean notebooks rather than lapbooks?

Intending to homeschool, and the truth is I think its mainly for social reasons, even though academic reasons are also important. We do have a good local public highschool. My son has learning difficulties- that is a strong reason and also a stand alone reason- but perhaps some time in the next couple of years he will also outgrow them. But for us, the social and"wholistic" benefits of keeping the kids at home have always seemed the strongest reason to plan to keep going. They both have awesome social lives with other great kids through both homeschooling circles and Scouts. Scouts in particular is becoming very central to the kids' lives. Yes, it involves lots of running around - rather, driving around- and money, on my behalf. But it's so worth it. Both of the kids are very, very social people, and suffer no lack in that area due to homeschooling. Why would I want to mess that up by sending them to school where they will be with a range of peers who I wont know, wont have much contact with, and may or may not support my kids in being themselves. They shine with homeschooling. They are themselves to a large extent. They are loving and open. Already my 14yo has 2 jobs, lots of contacts, various certificates- I just cant imagine school giving her more opportunities- although of course it might give her different ones. Yes, both might also enjoy highschool too, socially. I doubt they would enjoy the work after a while. They don't realise how spoilt they are, of course. They would both do just fine if they had to go to school, on many levels (still not sure about my son in some academic areas). But wow, what a blessed life they are living- no isolation here! By the time they are ready to leave home, I just cant even conceive the possibilities that will be open to them, or what they may have already achieved.

Thats the whole point of oral narrations and why they are so effective right through highschool. If you can articulate what you just read about, you have understood it pretty well, most likely. Even if you are just telling mum. And, you have learned to use your voice- your unique voice.