I get so confused. Just when I think I have everything figured out a new thought enters my head. One that makes me question everything I'm doing and the way in which I'm doing it.
I really like the Charlotte Mason (CM) approach but I also like doing unit studies. Which are totally against the CM phylosophy. I also like lapbooks and notebooking too. One would think after 14 yrs of homeschooling it would be easy to figure out which approach to do. First I have to consider Jake's learning style. Second, I need to take into account my own teaching style and weaknesses. Third, I need to figure out how to fit it into our lifestyle.
Right now we are eclectic. I have textbooks from Rod & Staff and Horizons, a bought unit study on the Human Body, a self-created unit study on Leonardo Da Vinci, CM grammar, writing and literature aproach (Pippi Longstocking), a bought hands on geography course and a bought living history curriculum.
In the past I've tried using lapbooks. Jake enjoyed cutting them out but hated coloring in anything. His handwriting really suffered using them. Just writing one or two words onto the cut-outs and/or writing without using lines made his penmanship illegible. I loved having a beginning and an ending to the topics. It was great for creating a portfolio to show others his work. I also liked that he would "touch" each piece of info that a subject contained. The drawbacks for Jacob was the handwriting, the craftyness of it (I enjoyed this part), and retaining the knowledge. He really had trouble recalling the facts later on. This troubled me and is the main reason I stopped doing lapbooks.
We haven't really tried notebooking until recently. We have been using this approach for his CM studies. As a place for him to write his literature prompts and grammar lessons. So far, he is doing well with these items. After reading his literature book, he does narrate back to me. I don't document it though, which is an area I would like to improve on. He then picks one of his writing prompts, dictates the sentence to me (which I write down on a regular notebook page), then copies the sentence into his writing journal. We also try to fit in a grammar lesson a couple times a week. I have created these very simple lessons with a small topic per lesson. He then uses his literature reading selection for his grammar lessons. His handwriting is getting back to where it was before lapbooking. He's also not frustrated with running out of room to write (another complaint against LB's).
Over the last couple of days we've been trying to use the CM approach with his textbooks. I've been having him read his Bible reader from R&S and then narrate it back to me. He had trouble remembering the order of the events. He was finally able to tell me the whole story but he needed lots of prompting. It still feels like we should have done something "more".
This is getting long, so I'll close my thoughts here and continue later.
