Weekend Edition~Free Curriculum Choices

The following four curriculum choices, are 100 percent free for usage. They have no ties to the public school system, and have no one for you to answer to as far as teachers, or overseeing how you use their programs. It is completely up to you what to use of their programs and how to implement them in your homeschool if you choose to use them. So you have the choice to use them completely as they are written. Or just pull what ever content would be helpful to your homeschooling agenda, or not. Totally up to you and your family.

Ambleside Online is a complete curricula, that is free. It has no ties to Common Core at all. Ambleside is a curriculum that is based on Charlotte Mason method of teaching. She was a woman who helped teach children a little over 100 years ago. She developed a method of teaching she believed was very successful for children. A education based on living books, about real life, rather then dry text books. And learning through observation in life. Particularly nature observation.

A group of mothers have collaborated, and come together with as close to Charlotte Masons ideals as possible for this modern age in creating a full curricula.

While the curricula is available online, as well as the scheduling. All of the content can be found in print. All the books can be bought, or borrowed from libraries. The majority is also from public domain books so can be found on googlebooks, or archive.org or kindle books for free. Which you can access through internet devices such as tablets or computers, or printed and bound for paper usage.

As Charlotte Mason believed in teaching the Bible, Ambleside Online has that added into it's curriculum as well. Since this curricula choice has no one to answer to though, and it is completely up to the parent what parts and how they use it. You can either use it as is, tweak it to our beliefs as witnesses and using the New World Translation, or completely skip any of the religious/Bible parts, and do your own thing completely.

Three of these four free curricula are Charlotte Mason inspired. But, Ambleside Online, is not just inspired, but rather tries to completely conform and embrace Charlotte Mason's educational teaching methods as close to her four education books as possible. It's the quint essential Charlotte Mason curricula.

Discovery K12 is another complete curricula that is also free. It does not purposely align themselves with common core, however it does use third-party content, including some resources that are explicitly aligned with the common core standards.

This curricula is completely online. With exception of allowing you to choose free reads, which could be paper books or online books.

It also keeps track of what the child has done and when. Each time the child signs in and does a assignment it tracks it, and allows you to print the record as you would like to.

Discovery K12, is the only one of these four options that is completely secular, and also the only one not Charlotte Mason inspired.

Easy Peasy is very similar to Discovery K12. It also is a complete curricula that is free. And also does not purposely align with common core, but does direct to third party resources that are explicitly by design aligned with common core. It is also completely 100 percent online. Even the reading books are linked to online websites for free access.

Where Easy Peasy differs from Discovery K12, it is not secular. However the majority of Easy Peasy is secular. But, it is Charlotte Mason inspired, it will teach creation instead of evolution, it does have a Bible reading schedule with activities.

I did use it one year, and just tweaked the Bible part to align with New World Translation and our beliefs. But, I didn't like all the skipping of verses and such. It actually inspired the three year Bible reading schedule that uses JW.org and the New World Translation, that I created myself. I just didn't want to tweak a second year! haha

Easy Peasy also does NOT track what you do. However, it does say every so many days, keep this, put this in your child's portfolio etc. Easy Peasy was created by a woman named Lee. She lives in Pennsylvania, where homeschooling parents have to keep portfolios. So she added that in to her curricula. Also her level one was created more for 7 year olds then actual first graders, as that is when Pennsylvania mandates children to start school. (7 years old).

Old Fashioned Education, is the most similar to Ambleside online. The schedule, and outline of the curriculum can be accessed on their website. But, it can be downloaded printed, and completely done off line. Almost all of the books are free public domain books and can be found for free multiple places, as well as many are still printed and can be purchased, so you have choices.

Where it differs. Old Fashioned Education, was designed and written by one mother. While she used Charlotte Masons methods as inspiration, she did not implicitly hold strict to Charlotte Mason ideals. She also designed her curriculum to be very boy learning friendly. As she had all boy children. Where she could, she did add more girl type alternatives if desired, but she didn't go above and beyond in this.

Myself, I feel most of her choices however to be very gender neutral and don't see it being overly male dominate, I find it pretty balanced. I enjoy a lot of her science suggestions especially in the elementary years.

That said, as I said above, this is Charlotte Mason inspired, so also does include Bible reading, and such. Again you are in charge though and have complete control on which parts of this curricula to use or not use, or tweak to your desire.

Daily Planner~4/29

   

Daily Planner~4/27

   

Daily Planner~4/26

   

Daily Planner~4/25

   

Weekend Edition~Copy Work

You may of noticed, that I include "copy work". In almost all of the educational downloads that I create. Some have asked me, what copy work is, and why we use it.

Copy work is actually duplicating, through handwriting, well written language. Well written, means it needs to be correct, and be meaningful, high quality passages. This can come from books, poems, and a variety of writings. In my educational downloads, the copy work will be Bible passages. Which we know is, the greatest book ever written, so it is a good candidate for copy work.

Charlotte Mason believed that, copy work, should be short, as well. Not a whole page, but only one line. When I chose which scriptures to include in my educational downloads, I looked for as short of scriptures as possible in the assigned reading. But, scriptures that also had meaning and context to the entire reading. Some verses were very short, that I would come across in the weekly reading. However, they would not have context, or real meaning alone. So I worked at finding ones that could stand alone, and still be well understood with in and with out the context. Also hopefully with a moral or value to instill.

Charlotte Mason, also suggested to use a slate and chalk, instead of pencil and paper for beginning with this. So it would be easier for the child to erase multiple times. This should be left up to the child to choose which and what letters may need to be improved. But, try to explain to the child, their assignment is to replicate as close as possible the text that they are using for their copy work.

The benefits of copy work are many. Copy work develops quality handwriting, as well as having a child in the habit of seeing and knowing quality language, correct spelling, written in correct context and usage of the language. This actually starts a child off with good habits, instead of having to correct or fight bad habits in these areas. Through the usage of copy work, some parents choose not to use other writing curricula and to rely on the copy work method to teach writing, spelling and related subjects.

I personally, choose to use copy work to teach handwriting, correct spelling, comprehension, and many areas. As well as the values and morals I am wanting them to learn through the passages I choose for their copy work. That is the reason, I mainly use Bible verses for our copy work. I can't think of any other book that will never be obsolete, and will always be the highest quality writing we can use.

Weekend Edition~Why I chose to homeschool

At first I thought we would home school primarily because of the amount of time that public school schedules take from the family. At least 8 hours a day of in school then even more hours of homework after school. And all the research I had found said that you could be done with homeschool in the time that it takes the average public school student to be done with their home work alone, or shorter, not to mention all that time they are actually in school. That sounded great, as we have so many things scheduled already each week in our life. And thinking of missing those for homework just was not acceptable. Then we also thought we would be free to go on vacations whenever we wanted to as well!

Then as time went on and the more I researched what was actually being taught in public school systems. It just didn't sit well with me. A lot of leanings towards patriotism and governmental allegiance. Through slanting history to highlight one countries victories over another, even stretching the truth of such conquests. Not to mention the falsehoods in science as well. While when I am in charge of the education I can give my children a balanced education of facts. And of course our literature and the Bible never elevates one country or race above another. And states the facts of both sides of most subjects so that the reader can come to a educated conclusion on matters. Using accurate literature on subjects, like history, science, and pretty much all of the subjects I feel is far superior to what they would have had in public school.

Then there was association, bullying and other such problems prevalent that just were not getting any better.

I have really loved being able to educate my children. It's been a delight to see them learn, see the lights go on when they learn to read, or learn a new science theory. It's been a pleasure, that I am so glad I didn't miss out on! And to be able to just have fun with them every day and really get to know who they are, what is in their hearts. We especially get so much time to study and talk about God's word, which is a real blessing with in it self! I am so glad this is the path we have chosen.

Daily Planner~4/15

   

Daily Planner~4/14

   

Daily Planner~4/13

First day of recorder lesson for the children didn't go too bad!