These final three subjects are like icing on the cake.
They are subjects that Charlotte included in her curriculum and they bring a lot of
good ideas to the feast.
We’re in the middle of a series on making the transition to a Charlotte Mason approach
in your homeschool.
We’ve been walking through how you can make that transition in stages, getting comfortable
at each stage before you move on to the next one.
Today is Stage 5.
If you haven’t watched the videos for Stages 1-4, I encourage you to do those first.
Today, I want to tell you about three final subjects that you can add in to your schedule.
It will add wonderful variety to your week and to your children’s education.
Now if you’ve worked for the first four stages and completed their assignments, you’re
already doing a lot of Charlotte Mason in your homeschool.
And your children will be getting a wonderful education with just those subjects done a
Charlotte Mason way.
These final three subjects are like icing on the cake.
They are subjects that Charlotte included in her curriculum and they bring a lot of
good ideas to the feast.
So I encourage you to add them in as you are ready.
The first one is Shakespeare.
Now, some of you may already start to hyperventilate here, but hang on.
So much of our attitudes toward Shakespeare is based on our past experience with him and
the way that you were taught Shakespeare, I’m going to guess, is not the way Charlotte
Mason approaches it.
The way that Charlotte Mason approaches Shakespeare is very doable, very accessible.
You can approach Shakespeare in three steps: The first step is to read the story form of
the play, so you get a feel for the plot and the characters and you know what’s happening.
Then the second step is to actually read the script.
Go through it just in small portions, though.
Take no more than twenty minutes.
Review what happened last time, set up what’s going to happen in the script this time, and
then read just a portion of that script.
I would highly encourage you to use professional audio dramatizations.
Those recordings are going to help you hear the lines delivered correctly the first time.
It was always hard when I was reading Shakespeare aloud with my children.
I would assign them different parts to read, but we were never sure “Okay, is this person
supposed to be shouting or whispering?
And to whom are they speaking?
Is it to everyone or…”
And so, it would really distract us from the lines themselves because we were trying to
figure out the delivery of those.
But if you listen to those professional dramatizations, it really can help and the children can just
follow along in the script.
And then step 3 is: Watch the play.
You can go see a live version.
Be sure to do your homework first.
Make sure that it is true to Shakespeare’s original script, make sure that the director
is not modernizing it in a way that would not be appropriate for your children.
So call them up first.
Make sure it’s going to be a good experience for your kids.
Or you can watch a video version.
Again, preview to make sure that it’s going to be appropriate for your children.
We have a resource called “Shakespeare in Three Steps” that should be very helpful
to you.
It also includes reviews of the video versions that I could get my hands on and watch.
Now you can start Shakespeare...Charlotte started around fourth grade, but you can do
some plays as early as second grade.
I like to add in a play every year or two.
It usually takes only about three months doing a lesson once a week and we can get through
the whole play for the year.
So you can add in Shakespeare as you feel ready and as you feel comfortable.
If you do it in those three steps, you’re going to find it very easy to do.
All right, the second subject that you can add in, as you’re ready, is foreign language.
Again, the method that Charlotte used for foreign language is brilliant and, I think,
very accessible.
Let me talk for just a minute about why we add a foreign language.
Charlotte Mason firmly believed that people in each country, in her country of England
and all the countries, needed to be good citizens of the world.
And it befitted us to learn the languages of our neighbors so that we could communicate
well with them and be a help to them and understand them better.
That’s why we do foreign language.
Now the way that Charlotte taught foreign language was with something called a “series
approach.”
It was invented by a Frenchman, Francois Gwen(?), and I want to walk you through a lesson using
this series approach.
If you have read the blog for awhile, you know I’ve tried to explain this in writing,
but it’s just not the same as watching a video of it.
So, grab a book.
You’re going to need a book.
I don’t care what book it is.
You just need a book for this particular lesson.
A series approach is basically narrating an everyday activity.
You’re going to learn this series in English first, or whatever your mother tongue is.
Mine is English, so I’m learning it in English first and then we’ll narrow it down and
fill it out in the new language.
I’m going to do Spanish for the new language, all right?
Because that’s the one I’ve practiced, you know.
All right, here’s how it goes.
Listen first to this series in English: “I take the book.
I open the book.
I close the book.”
Now you have to do the actions with it, so do it with me, with your book.
Ready?
“I take the book.
I open the book.
I close the book.”
Good.
Now, we’re going to narrow it down to just the three key words, the verbs: Take, open,
close.
Again, do it with the actions, do it with me, just those three key words.
“Take, open, close.”
Good.
Now, we’re going to learn those words in Spanish: “Tomo.”
Say it with me: “Tomo.”
And do the actions.
“Tomo.”
“Abro.
Abro.”
Do that with me.
“Abro.”
Let’s do both of those.
“Tomo, abro.”
Good.
The last one is “Cierro.Cierro.”
Let’s do all three, shall we: “Tomo, abro, cierro.”
Good.
Now all we need to learn is “the book” and we’ve got the whole series down.
“El libro.
El libro.”
Let’s try the whole series.
Here we go: “Tomo el libro.
Abro el libro.
Cierro el libro.”
Now we’ve got the series down, we can encourage our children to look around and say “What
other kinds of things can we ‘abro’?”
People usually say “the door” first.
“La puerta.
La puerta.”
And so we’re going to practice, do the actions: “Abro la puerta.
Cierro la puerta.”
Yes!
How about “la boca,” your mouth, “la boca.”
“Abro la boca.
Cierro la boca.”
And so your children start to think in that foreign language and it becomes just a part
of their everyday conversation.
Again, it’s called a “series approach” and the curriculum that I’ve found that
follows this approach is from Cherrydale Press.
It’s good to do your foreign language lesson about twice a week.
Now, of course, you’re going to practice it and use the language throughout the week
as much as you can.
All right, that’s foreign language the Charlotte Mason way.
Now the third add-in subject is handicrafts and I like to pair that with art instruction.
I’ll do one of those each term.
I might do handicrafts the first twelve-week term, and then do art the second twelve-week
term, and then the third twelve-week term I could do another handicraft or another art
type of media.
That’s how I like to approach it.
But however you want to do it, it’s good for the children to have regular opportunities
to work with their hands, using a variety of materials.
And, in art, it’s important to give your children an opportunity to try out different
media, not just drawing with a pencil.
A child who isn’t very good at drawing might excel at watercolor or pastels or sculpture.
So when you’re ready, start including a handicrafts lesson or an art instruction lesson
once a week.
A great resource that I know of for art instruction, I am not an art person myself and so I need
to find a good resource, and the one that I really like is Creating a Masterpiece.
They have a video library that is just full of different media to try and different levels
of projects, from beginner all the way up through advanced.
You can just subscribe to that library and you’ve got access to all of those videos
that you can use as you see fit.
So, your assignment for Stage 5, the last stage: Add in Shakespeare, foreign language,
and handicrafts or art instruction as you’re ready for more.
Now, if you’ve watched the whole series, you’ve heard me mention the lesson plan
books that are available and now you know how to do everything in them.
So if you want preselected booklists and ready-to-go plans, feel free to grab those lesson plan
books.
You’ll find them in three different categories: History studies, which include history, geography,
and Bible.
There’s also enrichment studies, which give you everything else you can do as a family:
Art and music and poetry and scripture memory and Shakespeare and art instruction and handicrafts,
nature study, all those great things you can do as a family.
And then the third category of those lesson plan books is those individual studies that
we talked about last time.
For math and language arts and sciences in the upper levels need to be done individually.
So if you grab one history plan lesson book, one enrichment lesson plan book, and one individual
for each grade level you’ve got, then you’ll have a complete Charlotte Mason curriculum
plan with all of the booklists and all of those daily plans to help walk you through
it one day at a time.
You know, we’ve talked a lot in this series about making the transition with the methods,
what you do during school time, but I think it would be good to also take a little time
and discuss making the transition in your thinking.
Most of us were not brought up with a Charlotte Mason education, so it might be helpful to
take a look at some, shall we call them “mental transitions,” that will keep you on track
and headed in the right direction.
We’ll talk about those next time.