CM/Ambleside - how much can you teach together?

[3lilreds in NC]

I am continually drawn to Charlotte Mason principles, and am beginning to think I should just jump in and do my best to have a CM homeschool. The primary thing that's held me back is not knowing how much I can teach together - I have two girls who are a year apart in age. I have taught almost everything together up to now, and I'm afraid that I've held my oldest back a bit and not pushed her to learn all she could, in the interest of keeping them together.

 

In looking at Ambleside and Living Books Curriculum, I'm interested in how much I could combine. Right now, they're definitely together in math and LA; I'm getting ready to step LA up a notch with my older girl so that would have to be separate. Actually, though, in looking through the LBC stuff, at least, I could probably combine most of it - Bible study, history, geography, nature study, music and art. Does that sound about right?

 

I think I've answered my own question in typing this out, but I'm curious how others have made this work. Also, if this has been discussed and I've missed it, please feel free to link posts. TIA!

[Another Lynn]

This isn't quite the same situation because my two "combinable" ones are younger - and I'm not too terribly worried how much my K-er picks up (but I don't have time to do a separate curricula with her). So I'm doing a combination of AOYr1 and American History read alouds that I made up. I will combine my K-er and 1st grader for the read alouds. They will be separate for skill subjects - handwriting, phonics (well, actually they might drill phonograms together), and math. The only other way I *might* be careful to separate is *if* I asked my younger for narrations (which I think she's still a little young for anyway), I might do it one on one so that she's not comparing her narrations to her brother's. That would be my main concern (off the top of my head) - that I wouldn't want his level to discourage her at her level, kwim?

 

BTW, we love AO here!

[Tami]

In CM's PNEU schools, all students were working on the same time period. I think it is fairly easy to combine students by teaching to the oldest, and using a product such as "TruthQuest" to find appropriate literature for youngers. It is also very easy to add in some type of activity book for the youngers.

 

I'd actually place my oldest in the structured program (Living Books, AO, et) and get the corresponding TruthQuest guide to find appropriate younger literature that lines up roughly with what the oldest is doing You can also find younger reading lists in TWTM, Sonlight, Veritas Press, etc.

 

AO is a 6 year rotation, so the upper and lower levels do correlate roughly.

 

*edit* I just noticed how close your kids are. I would personally build a book basket using the AO free reading lists and let each child choose their personal reading. I would combine them for everything I can. Take advantage of their close age and have them do some of the work as 'partners.'

 

HTH!

[Peela]

I am using Ambleside, my kids are 17 months apart but the younger has LDs, older is very smart, and so there is more than normal gap between them. They do a lot together. Both are in the same Ambleside year. However, they do different maths books, and I have quite different expectations of them both in their writing. The older does more work, a heavier grammar text. I help the younger a lot more. More and more though I am combining them, especially since I am making up their writing assignments myself rather than leaving them to a curriculum- so I often give them the same topic. I love that we read the same books and so can have 3 way discussions- when it comes to CM and narrations and talking about books, I think that is a real advantage of having more than one child doing a year- they can really learn by seeing what the other child sees in a book or character or perspective.

 

One thing I do do though is slightly vary their free reading, appropriate to their temperaments. Mine are a boy and girl, and my girl read Little Women, my boy read Little Men (and loved it!). I "feed" them both literature I think they will really enjoy. So I do try and individualise their programs for them, while it just seems to work out that we combine more and more as well.

[Rhonda in TX]

We use Ambleside, but beginning next year, I won't be combining. DD will be doing Sonlight Core 5 (not AO, obviously) and DS will be doing AO Year 5.

 

My kids are very different - different interests, different strengths. DS needs one-on-one attention that he was not getting because I tended to gear everything towards my more-enthusiastic DD. They also requested that I split them, so we're going to give it a try.

 

That said, with your kids only a year apart, it would be easy enough to combine. Many people do.

[3lilreds in NC]

Thanks, ladies, for all your input! I am feeling a little better now about combining the two. I could split them, but the "other one" is always concerned about being left out so they would end up doing everything together anyway, you know? If we did year 2 for one and year 3 for the other everyone would listen to all the books.

 

They will have to do some things at their own level, of course, but this past year they really were together on pretty much anything. My younger dd needed phonics still, but that's all that she did that my older dd didn't do. I guess I'm just nervous about jumping into CM. It's not a huge stretch, but it's a pretty big change from what I thought my long-term plans were, you know?