Charlotte Mason Educators

Oh, the weather has been so lovely in Alabama. My children and I are taking advantage of it too. We have schooled outside all week. We are sitting on our back porch as I am writing. My children are working on their English & I am blogging. Birds are in the background making a beautiful melody to our ears.
Speaking of birds, for two mornings now, my children and I have gotten up early and eased out to our back porch to watch the birds. Yesterday, we saw 5 mocking birds, a humming bird, a red cardinal, a beautiful blue jay that graced us with lovely singing, an acorn woodpecker, and a few that we are not sure of yet. We have a goal though. We planned to identify every bird that makes its way in our yard.
More of our yard was raked yesterday & a portion of the leaves were burned. Hopefully, by the weekend we will have a nice little haven to enjoy the handy worked of God. We try to get our yard in order at the beginning of spring so we can relax the remainder of the season with low maintenance to keep things in order.
Today, we are learning the difference between Subjective, Objective, & Possessive Pronouns. Milestone Education has a wonderful book that we have integrated in to our English program this year. Currently we are working out of the Proof Reading and Editing Grade 7 book. I have discovered that if I will use a variety of workbooks with my children to construct an English program for them they don't feel overwhelmed. By using a variety of books we are not focussing on the same old same old every day. Using several books gives us flavor to our English. This also gives me the great opportunity as their teacher to cover many areas in English over a set period of time. We just started this at the beginning of our school term last year. It seems to be working extremely well for us. It is working so well for us taht I began working a variety of math books also. I am searching for a well rounded education for my children. Personally, I feel like this will get the job done. Using several books means we have a slow go through the books, but we cover lots of ground in many areas during a school tterm.
I love the way Charlotte Mason made the statement "Don't dumb your children down." That statement gives us as parents flexibility. Sometimes we need that flexibility with one of our children. Not every child is geared to every other child. Charlotte Mason's flexibility rule, not dumbing our child down, gives us the chance to give our child equal opportunity, the space they need to learn on their individual level, not having to keep up with the next child. We are loving CM's method of education. We can move at our pace and have an opportunity to learn outside of the box. We are not just stuck in the box and told to learn only what has been placed in the box.
Don't take me wrong. I know that our children need to have a certain pace they are learning at, but that doesn't mean we have to zoom them through the book just to get the work done. What good would that do us if we did that and our child didn't learn the material. Our goal as homeschoolers is to teach our children, give them an education, not just cover material. We want the learning process to take place. We want quality education, not quanity education.
Can't you tell as my reader that the weather is nice and I am feeling great. I'm enjoying it so much that I am rambling on and on. I'd better go for now before this post grows any longer. Happy homeschooling! Enjoy your blessings (your children) God granted you, Traci