Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Simply Charlotte Mason- All Day CM review


Okay- I promised this review to you guys a while ago, so I figured that I should probably get around to finally posting it! 

About a month ago I bought a few homeschooling resources with a bit of our tax return and the All Day Charlotte Mason Seminar on DVD from SimplyCharlotteMason.com was one of them.  I purchased the set that had four DVDs for the seminar, including Laying Down the Rails (which is all about establishing habits), along with the Laying Down the Rails book and the guided seminar notebook to take down my own notes in.  I plan to review the Laying Down the Rails portion at a later date, once I have finished the book (it is rather large!).

I thought that this seminar and accompanying notebook were extremely well prepared and thought out.  The seminar is long (hence the three DVDs) but is extremely thorough in covering how Charlotte Mason suggests you teach each subject for a full education- everything from the core subjects to extra-curriculars. 

Sonya Shaffer (the speaker and creator of the workshop) is engaging to listen to and uses many direct quotes from Charlotte's works.  She uses Charlotte's methods throughout the workshop to teach the listeners in order to give an even better understanding of the how-tos of the Charlotte Mason process, which I found to be inventive and helpful.  I thought her teaching style was very effective and I came away from (watching) the seminar feeling as though I had actually been there, and now have a much better understanding of Charlotte Mason and the realities of using this method.

The package was a bit on the spendy side but a resource I am sure I will return to over and over again through our homeschooling years, and am confident that it was a wise purchase and helpful addition to my teaching library.  I plan to use a mixture of Charlotte Mason and Unit Studies and this DVD definitely helped me get a better grasp on where we are headed and what it will look eventually like.  I recommend this set to all moms using or planning on using this approach in their homeschool, and if you are a local friend you are more than welcome to borrow it!

Please note that this post was not sponsored by or affiliated with SimplyCharlotteMason.com in any way.  All materials were purchased at my expense and my honest opinions were given.

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