Thank you for the update. I like the shared poetry. I also need to remind myself that we do not have to do everything on the AO Schedule, do what works for your homeschool.

@LizBlueandHazel

10 ай бұрын

Yes, I always want to remember it's ok to make changes and adapt if needed!

So excited to have found your channel recently and that you’re sharing your experience with AO! We just started Year 1 a couple of weeks ago.

@LizBlueandHazel

10 ай бұрын

Thank you! It'll be so nice you can kind of ease into it then. Hope you have a great first year!

Thanks for sharing! CM is new to us and we are excited....it can be a lot, too, though! So grateful for this journey

@LizBlueandHazel

10 ай бұрын

Awesome! Yes, it's a lot of moving pieces but each one fairly short thankfully. So much to learn! Hope you have a great year :-)

I love your videos, I'm considering switching to Ambleside and this is helping me see what may work for us and how I can change things to fit.

@LizBlueandHazel

9 ай бұрын

Thank you! Glad this was helpful. As a newbie I'm also encouraged by so many who have made AO work with a few changes specific to make it work for them.

So helpful! I'm planning to Strat homeschooling my daughter in a few months, so hearing the ins and outs of the day-to-day is SO wonderful. Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to more!

@LizBlueandHazel

7 ай бұрын

Glad it was helpful!

AO is such a learning curve. Lots of grace to you. My children all read their own poetry - once they can read - per their year. I also read poetry to them at our gather time because I like to. Usually Fridays they share their favorite with us. Just thought I'd share how we do it. :)

@LizBlueandHazel

10 ай бұрын

Thank you for sharing! Everything helps. I can see how poems would be an easy add for your readers. Can I ask when and how your kids began incorporating the scheduled bible readings? When about did they begin that and was it all independent? Thank you!

@goodmeasurehomestead7903

10 ай бұрын

@@LizBlueandHazel I have never actually used the AO Bible readings. We've always just done our own reading schedule. Their independent Bible reading has varied depending on ability - for my girls around 8yrs old, a bit older for my boys. (They do not read from KJV...)

@naturalmama_of_5

10 ай бұрын

​@@LizBlueandHazelin third grade we start swapping back and forth reading bible verses together. I did that in 4th grade too (he reads a verse, I read a verse etc) 5th he'll read on his own unless he comes across something heavy and wants to read it together.

Please keep us updated! I'm digging to Ambleside and considering starting after we wrap up this current school year. Although, I really want to start up in the new year, I think I'll just overwhelm myself! So maybe I need to spend the remainder of this year studying Ambleside and grasping their method before jumping in.

@LizBlueandHazel

7 ай бұрын

Awesome! I’ll try to keep doing update videos as we go. I think you could jump in whenever you have a pretty good grasp of the Charlotte Mason method. I found reading Know And Tell by Karen Glass SO helpful in starting narration, which is a daily thing and cornerstone using Ambleside! I’d never done that before this year and it really made me feel prepared and helped me have a realistic starting point for narrations. Another awesome book that’s helped me as a newbie has been Karen Andreola’s book called A Charlotte Mason’s companion. SO practical and gives an overview of everything used in Ambleside (or any Charlotte Mason curriculum). Hope that helps and have a great rest of your year!

This is so great. You really think like me. I kind of shift from CM to classical as the kids get older, but I have landed on setting a routine that has different subjects/reading lists (many times using AO) sprinkled throughout the week and then each of my children has a weekly checklist I print that corresponds to the weekly routine. It builds in flexibility that AO schedules don’t have. If we have a crazy week, I just cross some things off. Once a child finishes a book, I just refer to the book lists that corresponds to that part of the schedule. I would be happy to send you my excel spreadsheet, if you would like! Also, I was prereading Age of Fable for my eldest child (age 11), and decided it would be better for older ages. We use Classical Writing and they incorporate Plutarch and Shakespeare in older grades, so we have tabled those for now too. Just not enough time!😭

@LizBlueandHazel

10 ай бұрын

Thanks for all your insight! I love how you have found a way to make AO work for you while still using other resources that work for your fam. This year I was trying my best to try things mostly "as is" being brand new, but I know with my personality I'm going to want to use other things too. The schedule isn't very flexible without removing reads! I'd LOVE to get a view of your excel sheet! Thank you! My blog email is blueandhazelblog@gmail.com.

We just started AO this year as well and I have a year 1 and 3. I decided to use Biblioplan for Bible and History b.c I wanted to start from the beginning and us do it as a family. We are doing AO very similar to you and I am really enjoying it!

@LizBlueandHazel

9 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing how you guys are doing it! I like seeing how others can adapt it. Are you leaving out the AO history picks, or doing two tracks of history, or a combo? I’ve never heard of Biblioplan so curious how it works! Hope you have an awesome year.

@TheJhchildress

9 ай бұрын

@LizBlueandHazel I'm leaving off the AO history right now and we'll see how it goes! I was like you and didn't want each child at a different time in history. I have heard Biblioplan will use some of those books as read alouds so I'm still hoping to get some of them in. I just found it this year and it goes through a 4 year cycle. We're just a few weeks in but really like it so far!

Loved this video! We've just started AO and I have a year 1 and year 3. At the moment we are all doing the Y1 readings together (I really don't want my eldest to miss out) and he is doing Y3 lit readings himself. We've also combined the enrichments and we do a 4 day schedule till lunch time and have a co op (really just field trips) and nature study + scouting 1 day. I've really embraced the audio books and its been so helpful! We are mostly doing AO but I questions still quite eclectically which works for our family in this season (I also have a 3year old and almost 1year old) 😊

@LizBlueandHazel

10 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing how you're doing AO with a co op day built in! I feel similarly about my year 3 missing some good ones! I've noticed any kid nearby tends to listen in...especially for enjoyable ones like 50 Famous Stories Retold, Blue Fairy Book stories, and Aesop!. Sometimes they say, "Do I have to listen?" and I tell them no if it's not their year's reading, but I'll notice them hanging around. We've been doing Trial & Triumph separately, but someone with a year 1 & year 3 mentioned simplifying by reading year 1 Trial & Triumph to my year 1 & 3 together. Not sure what we'll do. I did notice already overlap between readings, which I'm sure was well planned by the Advisory! For example, Martin Luther was in Trial & Triumph for year 3, and also mentioned in a year 3 history reading. Thanks again for sharing your experience!

@Mbo2013

5 ай бұрын

Is this still working well for your family? Next year we are switching to AO and I’ll have a Y1 and Y3. I am wanting to combine Y1 to include both so my oldest isn’t missing out, but wasn’t sure how realistic/practical that is.

@AmeliaBloore

5 ай бұрын

@Mbo2013 yes, it is working really well. We've just been on our summer holidays (we live in New Zealand) so will be returning to school in about a week, so we will see how it goes going forward. The only thing I'm changing is that I'm starting a Charlotte Mason co-op for the riches and bible/worldview, so that will replace our current field trip group.

@Mbo2013

5 ай бұрын

@@AmeliaBloore Thank you so much for responding! I’ve heard other families say the same thing about doing the riches in co-op, so that’s good to note as well!

Thank you for this video, it was extremely helpful. I agree with the mythology. We also leave those books out even though it does provide background references for some literature. It is just not worth it. Just a forewarning, Viking Tales scheduled in Y1 Term 3 is all Norse mythology. I bought it not knowing and ended up not using it last year. There are other readings that provides history of the vikings without focusing on heavy mythology. I love that we get to choose what is best for our families!

@LizBlueandHazel

7 ай бұрын

O thanks for the heads up! Not sure what we will do with that one at this point. I love that y’all are comfortable doing what is right for your fam, and being ok veering from “the curriculum”. To me, that’s an important thing to allow as homeschool mamas!

It will get easier. AO is actually really laid back. "Age of Fable" is only difficult in the intro and the readings are often very short, sometimes only a paragraph long.

@LizBlueandHazel

10 ай бұрын

This is good to know about Age Of Fable! I also see it’s stretched over year 5 too if I saw that right? We are really liking AO so far! I think we will find it even more manageable once I swap a book or 2 for the big kids to be audiobook instead of reading it all ourselves. I wonder if there are any families that find it manageable without audiobooks? Seems it would be harder.

Hello!!! I am so excited to see this, we are in similar boats! It is so fun to hear a voice sharing familiar topics and struggles, and I am so excited to check in occasionally and see how things are going and share the journey!! I have 4 kids, we have Y4, Y2, Y0/1 and 2 year old- would love to connect!

@saragoodell1858

10 ай бұрын

we do a co-op once a week that covers lots of the riches- if your co-op is unrelated to AO, you could just choose some "swaps" to take off your list that were covered at co-op. For instance if co-op includes art, then take some of your art or drawings riches off your list. Another idea that I've off and on found to work for us is to do some of the "light" or "fun" readings and riches on saturday or sunday afternoons as a whole family. (to make more space during the week)

@saragoodell1858

10 ай бұрын

sorry one more thought, ha ha, I saw you mention needing to start a timeline in your description- maybe this will help! I bought each kiddo a small ring of index cards from the dollar tree, and whenever they have a history reading they draw on one while they listen. I help write dates and captions if need be (reluctant writers over here) and then we just paper-clip them on a wire I strung up in the kitchen (mostly just visible from the dining table). its sooooo simple, and when they do start their own Book of Centuries, I just plan to un-paper-clip their old entries and let them glue it into their own book, so it will be already started! Thank you for sharing your journey, and organization! That's where I really struggle and I've already got some great ideas from you. blessings from nebraska

@LizBlueandHazel

9 ай бұрын

Thank you for all the detailed suggestions about how y'all do the timeline! I can see it's super important now that we're a few weeks in and I"ve yet to set one up. I'll decide on something this weekend. That's awesome your co-op does a lot of the riches! It sounds like a Charlotte Mason co op or even an AO one?! Awesome. I hope you guys have a great year and thanks for saying hello and sharing what's working!

The Farmhouse Schoolhouse blog (Elsie) has a lot of old scheduling posts. She does CM with Classical Conversations, so there's a built-in community day on her schedules.

@LizBlueandHazel

10 ай бұрын

Thank you for the info! Just followed her on IG. Scheduling posts can be so helpful with the many parts of CM!

I'm making notes as I watch lol... My second time through year 3... I swapped out Davinci for a picture book by the same author as some of the other biography picture books. Fornmy oldest hes just sitting in on the retellings with his younger brothers. I've created a loop for parables of nature and shakespeare retellings because I have 5 kids who are every other grade - we'll just keep looping through. Plutarch we're doing the stories of rome by Beesly and then moving on to Publicola from Anne White. The riches. Don't ignore them. Theyre easy and the fun part ❤️ I put their poetry book and a print out of recitation into each child's bible case and do that as a subject with each child. Nature study is still a struggle for me. Weve used AO from the start and nature study still slips through the cracks. AO is a full curriculum so adding things in sounds super overwhelming to me. We use the geography books that AO suggests, the readings, and map drills. Follow Modern Miss Mason. Lots of Charlotte Mason users say you should keep a map with you when you read history and geography. Or an Atlas. The map packets are overwhelming for me lol Also... My oldest is heading into 5th and we havent finished Robinson Crusoe. It was a lot 😅

@naturalmama_of_5

10 ай бұрын

Scheduling - I schedule things out for 4 days. My 5th grader is more independent and it's a bigger load. They say year 4 is a step up but year 5 feels like a bigger step up 😅 I schedule a few things on Friday. Easier readings and only independent work. My 3rd grader just some independent math drills, copywork... First grader is only 4 days a week. Fridays our homeschool group gets together for different things. Not a co-op. Just field trips/gym days/one time classes etc. I'm hoping to have Friday be a brush drawing lessons day but that hasn't worked in the past 🤷🏻‍♀️ We'll see.

We have co-op 2 days a week. So I have a couple of loops going. So no matter the day we are able to do the loop, we pick up where we left off. So I have a loop for Spanish, ASL, Composer, picture study. Monday we might have time to do a Spanish lesson but It might be Wednesday before we can pick up ASL. But this way we cover everything equally.

@LizBlueandHazel

10 ай бұрын

Thank you for explaining this! Glad to know it’s possible to do a co op at some point using AO. Are you cutting out some of the readings to make 2 co ops doable or spreading them to say afternoons and weekends? I’d love to hear more. We haven’t yet utilized audiobooks in the first few weeks so that would probably significantly lighten my load.

@ashleighoverturf3599

10 ай бұрын

@@LizBlueandHazel when time allows in the afternoons or on weekends then we will read some of the read alouds and they will do free reads from the list. But I don't worry if we are unable to. Also I just pick and choose what we are going to do from the list and what I am going to use from elsewhere especially with my oldest. I am not as heavy with how often we do each subject because they receive theology, science, ancient history, language arts, formal art, and creative writing (preteens-teens only) at Co-op. Math we do every day at home. Language arts are done on non co-op days. This is our first year of co-op as well as using AO. After 6+ years of homeschooling and learning from others, I have learned that you seek God and decide what you can do depending on the season you are in. Every year looks different; sometimes even every 3 months.

Congratulations ❤❤❤

I've found the suggestion useful to alternate terms for Plutarch and Shakespeare rather than week by week swapping. Do one Shakespeare play or plutarch life a term. Just a thought.

@LizBlueandHazel

10 ай бұрын

Great idea. Thank you!