End Of Year Update Ambleside Online: What We We're Changing & What We Liked
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- čas přidán 4. 06. 2024
- Here’s an honest update as we finish our first year using Ambleside Online with 3 kids. It was challenging, beautiful, frustrating at times, and full of beauty too. Come see what we liked, didn’t like, what we’ll keep or change, and if we’ll continue with it all next year.
My biggest struggle was the amount of time it took us, and the amount of readings. It left us feeling little zeal for more, because everyone was tired. But the books were fantastic and we learned SO much. I’m hoping that next year it will be smoother because I’ll have two better readers + more audiobooks, and possibly a toddler in preschool.
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I am an AO dabbler but have never jumped fully into it because of having multiple kiddos (8, 6, 2, and a baby) and the thought of organizing that many separate years makes my head spin. But, I found a resource that has an AO "feel" but is much easier for me to manage. It's the read aloud banquets from Gateway to the Classics / Yesterday's Classics. I love the book choices, and I just print off each week's reading packet for the two older kiddos. They read and narrate what they can, and if they're struggling, I read with them. It's been so much easier than juggling a ton of books, like I was doing with other CM curricula I've used. Then, we can add in the riches that we do together. Nature study, composer, artist, handicraft... all of that is combined. Anyway, it sounds like we had similar years with not getting through as much as we wanted, but maybe a simplified reading plan will help.
These end of the year videos are my absolute favorite type of homeschool videos to watch! I think its totally normal not to get through a curriculum in its entirety. I've been curious about AO. I've been following your videos on it. Thanks for sharing.
Just something to consider with having your preschooler go to a preschool…1. It still takes away time to transport. So it will still interrupt your flow. 2. When they come home to “homeschool” down the road they will have a more school mentality. “Well, my teacher did it this way…” etc. This happened to me with my daughter because I worked fulltime until she was 5. It took several months to undo the “school” attitudes. 😊 She is in 5th grade and we still struggle with it sometimes because the structure was engrained. 🤷🏻♀️
Grateful for your critical review of AO! Your critiques are many of the reasons why I don’t think the program as it stands would work for us anytime soon.
You are absolutely not the only one who can't get all AO done. The Advisory themselves always tweaked the program. I know some moms use ADE schedule cards to pare down AO to a timetable model instead of checklists. Great review!
THIS is the video I needed. I'm an author (working on a children's novel!) and a homeschool mom to four daughters ages 9, 7, 5 and 2. It will be our first year using Ambleside and I'm a bit nervous because my eldest is not a strong reader yet and will need my help at least to start. Your tips and encouragement and even sharing your struggles is exactly what I needed. I'm not sure what to expect with our two-year-old in the mix of everything. I imagine she and her Kindergarten sister will be playing together quite a bit while I'm working with the older two. We'll see!
A lot of this resonates with me! We just finished our first year of Charlotte Mason homeschooling and it's hard to balance the books and THINGS Charlotte Mason talks about in her volumes. Read her books if you haven't. Also, Sabbath Mood is very CM aligned and so great to spice up science for your family! We are using Alveary+ this year to jazz up the "things" of our school so we aren't drowning in all the books!
This is off topic but have you seen the beta version of The Children’s Tradition? I have often considered A.O but then I get overwhelmed but when I heard Amanda speak about the above curriculum and it sounded like a great alternative.
Im just always torn as well. Like isn’t it super important to let the kids have free time? At what age are they supposed to just hunker down and read more books?
I highly recommend the Warfare by Duct Tape books. I have all boys and they weren’t interested in handicrafts, but they have crafted so many shields, swords and helmets. They have so much fun using their finished products to re-enact the battles we’ve read about in history!
Thank you for your honesty ❤
Ooh thank you for sharing! We are eyeing AO for our formal education so these videos are all part of my research! 😅
This was so helpful and I really appreciate your honesty. Thank you!!
I so appreciate the honesty about time! We had a very similar situation this year with a yr1, yr3, and yr 5, and two 2 and under. We decided to pick and choose some AO this upcoming year and went with something to be family style. But AO is so rich, and I love it, but I could not do the multiple levels.
We just listened to the folk song, hymn, and the opera music at lunch while we ate and it worked well for us. We skipped all the handicrafts and have no plans to add that in. I take time out of the weekend to catch up on readings, especially Bible (we do together). I also look at our week and in the more busy days I’ll have my kids pick a shorter book or reading. Someone in the Facebook page made readers so it’s really easy to have it all together in a binder, that may be an option to look into for you to help condescend it. I definitely beefed up the science a lot
I love the idea of putting the paintings in the bathroom
It feels like a lot to try to finish everything!!! Trying to finish by morning is unrealistic in some cases. I have a 7, 5, and almost 2 and we just never finished by lunch and I felt the same sometimes. We are doing the CMEC next year for the 3rd year and it's very very family oriented with how they combine many subjects within forms. Highly recommend! We do use AO Composer and Artist study with our co-op but other than that we do so many things together and I love it. I think as our toddlers get older, life will get a bit better haha
I appreciate this honest review. I LOVE the idea of putting the art print in the bathroom and will be doing that. We also didn't get to composers, nature study, or handicrafts. I have become much less doctrinaire about CM this past year because now I have a young child and I believe that younger kids need more explicit instruction. We did a form of creative writing this year with a "story starters" book that had picture prompts and I wrote down what my Y1 dictated to me.
This has been so helpful for me! I just watched your video last night on the book baskets and getting started. We have been an unschooling/Charlotte Mason family for 4 years and we’ve done everything together, which I have loved. I felt drawn to AO because of the organization but I was overwhelmed by the price of books for each kiddo. Your recap video is so helpful to allow me to do what I feel in my gut is right and not just do a pre planned system just because. Thanks for sharing!
I followed some readings from AO Yr4 this year and I can see how this would be really hard to have multiple grades, but I think when you have more older kids it will be a lot easier because they do so much more independent reading from 4th grade on. I know they don’t recommend combining, but I highly recommend it. 😊 Also, please make sure to do Christina Rosetti in Poetry. I think she us in the Year 2 Anthology. My daughter loves all her poems. ❤