Were extra Charlotte Mason areas added to Bigger Hearts for all your sons?
I love your Heart of Dakota (HOD) message board! Looking at your “Let’s Share Our Schedules” thread was very helpful. I have a child who will be using Bigger Hearts for His Glory. Way back in 2008, I found your schedule for your son, Shaw. I thought it really interesting that you added in Greek, Art Appreciation, Color the Classics, and a Nature Journal. Those are all very Charlotte Mason, and yet not part of Bigger Hearts.
Did you only do it that one time with Shaw? Or, did you do these with your other boys as well? I found your November 2010 post of full-speed Beyond schedule (morphing into half-speed Bigger) with Greyson. None of the additional things were in that schedule. Did you feel they were unnecessary or took too much time? Or, were you just not able to keep up with them?
I’m trying to work out my schedule now for Bigger, and I would love to add in those same CM things. Thanks for answering my nosy – I mean curious – questions!
Sincerely,
“Ms. Please Help Me Decide on Added CM Areas for Bigger”
Dear “Ms. Please Help Me Decide on Added CM Areas for Bigger,”
Before we had our upper guides written, and when I only had two kiddos who were school-age, my schedule and my time were both a bit different than they are now!
Bigger Hearts has a CM poetry study and hymn study added to it.
Back then, we did do each of those areas I listed once each week. Prior to writing our guides, I also did poetry once weekly, but once the guides were written (and we included poetry in every guide) that was no longer necessary. You’ll notice Bigger includes a pretty full poetry study (skill-wise), and each of the guides that follow Bigger include poetry in a unique way as well.
We also included Hymn Study in both Bigger and MTMM – with the history of the writing of the hymn, sheet music, a corresponding devotional, and a fully orchestrated CD with which to sing along.
The guides after Bigger Hearts have collectively added CM areas of drawing, painting, nature journaling, classical music/composer study, picture study, and Greek.
Over time, I did discover that some drawing lessons were very helpful prior to our kiddos diving into a nature journal. So, to compensate for that we schedule Draw and Write Through History in multiple guides in row from Preparing Hearts on up to prepare kiddos in that area. We also discovered some work with watercolor painting was also very helpful prior to doing much nature journaling, so we added that into CTC every week to give kiddos experience in that area. Then, we scheduled nature journaling all year in MTMM, once kiddos have the experience of drawing over multiple years and painting in CTC under their belts.
While I loved the idea of classical music, and it is wonderful to have the kiddos listen and enjoy music, we realized that a more formal study of classical music was appreciated more as the kiddos got older. So, we scheduled a year-long study of classical music in Rev2Rev.We also scheduled a formal picture study time throughout the year in RTR, as it matched so well with the study of the renaissance time period. Finally, we planned a Latin/Greek study as a foreign language elective in USII.
We eventually added all these CM areas at the time we felt they were best to be added.
So, as you can see we eventually took all of those strands of a CM style education and wove them within the fabric of our guides at a time that we felt kiddos could really absorb and enjoy those skills most. In the essence of being time conscious, we have not added all of those areas every year.
You’ll notice through HOD that what we try with our own kiddos often becomes a part of our guides, after years of pondering where these types of skills and studies seem to fit best. If you desire to add any of these things earlier, you can of course do that in a very low key way.  Just be sure that you’re not dropping other needed skills from the HOD guide to make added room for the extras.
Blessings,
Carrie
