We are about six weeks into our new school year and I am making some changes!! My home school is very Charlotte Mason inspired but I am not what some would call a Charlotte Mason Purist. That means that I do not try to cross every “t” or dot every “i” as far as this home school method is concerned. I love every part of this method but I do not feel strongly about covering everything she did or focusing on it as much as she did. I am a firm believer in the fact that you have to make plans according to what best fits your children and your family. With that belief in mind I felt led to do a little tweaking to our Charlotte Mason inspired school plans for this year. (Just in case your curious HERE was my original school plans)
What am I changing:
1. I am not focusing on one Artist every six weeks. I am going to use the book Discovering Great Artist and pick one project to do every two to three weeks. Each project focuses on a different artist and along with the project they have a short bio on the artist. The only resource I will include is showing a few pieces by the artist from a book or from the Internet.
2. I am not concentrating on one Composer every six weeks.
3. I am not concentrating on one Folksong every six weeks.
4. We will continue to focus on one Hymn every six weeks.
5. We will also just listen to a variety of Folk songs, Patriotic Songs, Composers and styles of Classical music (see Classics for Kids ), the Psalms put to music (see Sons of Korah), a variety of Christian music and introduce music styles from different countries, cultures and historical periods (See Making Music Reference Articles)
6. I am not going to concentrate on one poet every six weeks, I will just read poems from a variety of poets. (one poem a day)
7. I will not have a different nature challenge every week but we will get out in God’s Creation weekly. We are also starting a natural history study by using Considering God’s Creation along with the book called 106 Days of Creation.We will complete one maybe two lessons a week. I had started the 106 Days of Creation last year but we didn’t complete it, so we are starting where we left off.
8. I am also going to start using Spelling Wisdom for my oldest who is now in the third grade. This covers; Spelling, Grammar, Handwriting and memorization skills.
9. We will have a Spanish lesson daily. I will use The Easy Spanish Curriculum (I was supposed to being doing this since we started but I haven’t been =(
10. I will continue our Astronomy study with Exploring Creation through Astronomy but the change will be to only do one lesson per week.
I think that is all the changes for now. I pray that I am right and that these changes will fit us better! Sometimes a change is just what the doctor ordered BUT I do not want to make changes if they are not needed. I encourage you to really evaluate the reason your thinking about making changes. You do not want to change with the wind because that wouldn’t be good for your children or for yourself and that can get expensive and frustrating when the changes don’t end up fixing the problem. When you have come to a place that you feel strongly that changes are needed than move forward and don’t look back!! So has anyone else already decided that you need to do a little tweaking to your school plans? If so please share what changes your making!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TheOneThing 
We are using Considering God's Creation with 106 Days of Creation, too. We're really enjoying them!
Sounds like a wonderful plan! I've discovered that rolling several subjects together works so well for our family. Plus, audio books for literature with children on several different levels. Love the photo at top!
oh good because i was so intimidated by your plans. we use the art book you have and just pick ones that interest us, then i print some of their work on the computer and make our own book with a bio. that way they can refer back later. you are doing a great job. some subjects i do every few days.we do math and reading and writing always but then focus on what sparks for us. like ella is loving studying columbus. she wants to read the whole book now so we are. then we make maps and draw and learn new words. it is actually fun. i never thought history was fun, but then i never read first person books in history. cool!
I've been reevaluating some things, too; love some of the ideas you share here! Thanks for submitting this to the CM Carnival!
I made some changes this year, too, and have planned a curriculum that "picks and chooses" from a few different ones. This being our fourth year of hs'ing, I feel like I know better what works for us.I love how homeschooling can be so flexible!
It's always helpful to see how others are doing things! Thanks for sharing.