We began the new school year today! Hooray!
It's very exciting being an "official" homeschooling family. We homeschooled last year, but as Amara would not be seven before the end of the year, we couldn't make it official. Amara is in 2nd grade this year and Breanna is enjoying pre-k material.
We are utilizing a Classical approach to education with a twist of Charlotte Mason. What does that mean? Well, the Classical approach breaks a child's education into three stages: the grammar stage, the logic stage, and the rhetoric stage. The grammar student is building a solid educational foundation, memorizing key information, rules, etc. The logic student learns to think and analyze, and the rhetoric student learns self-expression. A more in depth explaination can be found at this website. I chose this approach because it makes sense to me: it changes as the child grows and matures.
Charlotte Mason was an English educator in the late 1800's to early 1900's. She believed that children were just as smart as adults and did not need any curricula which were dumbed down. Information about her methods can be found here.
We are eagerly looking forward to the next 180 days!
