Without a Net

This year I'm trying something very new. Well, sort of new and sort of old, but very different. Well, not as different as it might be, but . . .

I've been using Charlotte Mason's principles and methods of education in our home school since before My Girl began officially schooling, and this fall she's entering grade 9. This year, because our lives won't already be interesting enough (ahem), I was inspired to go textbook-less with our Science curriculum and go entirely with living books.

Several years ago I was convinced of the idea of Nature Study being the natural precursor to science in the early years of school, and have done only Nature Study and living science with the boys. But when My Girl entered grade 8 I felt a sudden panic to make sure that she was getting all the foundational science in and turned to a well-known science program. And we didn't like it. It was memorization and dry reading (even when the author was being conversational). And it took at least 45 minutes every single day to complete it! I wasn't sure that I wanted to continue in that framework for the next four years.

One of my friends had participated with her daughter in a pilot project for a CM-style living books science course and loved it. And then in June I went to the ChildLight USA Charlotte Mason Conference in Boiling Springs, North Carolina and heard a wonderful-fantastic presentation about stepping away from the safety net of a textbook based curriculum and using living books and keeping notebooks. There was a lot more to it that the workshop presenter spoke about, and it inspired me to step onto the high-wire of a truly Charlotte Mason science course.

I've spent much time these past weeks selecting and ordering my books (not just for science, and for much more than just the next year, but that's for another post), and now that I'm through that, I'm ready to take that first scary step off the platform and begin travelling along that wire: pre-reading selected books, scheduling readings, planning out the note-booking process. I am so eager to have this work, and I can't wait to begin!

I am incredibly thankful to Jennifer G. for her presentation at CLUSA's CM conference, and hope to be able to share here at PeaceLedge some of the experiences of walking the high-wire of science without a net.

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Okay, the photos don't have anything at all to do with the post, but I couldn't stand having yet another post without pictures! These three are from our recent trip to Vernon, BC, where we spent a full 24 hours with my sister and her family. Much too short a visit, and much too long since the last one. But, again, that's for another post.