When we first began homeschooling, there wasn’t a spine necessarily holding us all together. Sure there was wonderful curriculum and books, a beautiful syllabus we followed, and it was all centered on our Catholic faith and Jesus Christ. Yet, there was no spine woven throughout our day that helped unite us in our studies, our discussions or within the arts.

Enter Catholic Schoolhouse - a beautiful and classical approach to a Catholic homeschool education. In many ways, it became the one room schoolhouse that I was craving in our homeschooling.

Catholic Schoolhouse is a wonderfully and lightly structured program that has become the spine of our home education. Even with children ages 11 down to age 4, the program unites us all in our studies, our discussions and in the true, the good and the beautiful. Our family is “on the same page” throughout our lessons, topics and timelines, we are just using materials to cater to each child and ability.

Catholic Schoolhouse is such a flexible program that can become the spine of your home education if you wish for it to, or it can be utilized as a supplemental activity and curriculum to your current home education plans. That’s the beauty of this co-op, it can fall into however you deem it necessary. In fact, I feel confident to say that perhaps some families chose it as a supplemental program at first, only to realize eventually just how much it can mold their day and become the backbone of the home education.

So how do we make CSH the spine of our education and what does that look like?

Before I proceed, please know that my model and description here is how we use it as our spine, others may have their own wonderful description that will stand on its own.

First and foremost, we plan all of our extra subjects around the structure of CSH, or as I should say, the tour guide. My children are all of the grammar age, therefore they are working with the tour guide weekly for memory work and historical timeline. In addition to these things, they are also learning about a saint, an artist and a musical composer. Thanks to CSH, we can sit in unity with these subjects.

I organize our shelves according to tours and quarters as much as I can.

So what does planning look like for us?

HISTORY and Geography

First I sit with the tour guide and plan our history studies to follow along with the historical timeline cards. We take more of a Charlotte Mason approach to history, so from there I invest in beautiful literature and organize our shelves to follow the flow of the timeline. Our books are organized by tours and quarters. Weekly we will read books from our personal library or borrowed from the library and constantly work on our CSH history cards; I then pick subjects, events or people for the kids to notebook (write about, illustrate and/or narrate). Basecamp also has wonderful worksheets that we use for history sometimes. If we ever use a history curriculum just to read from, it’s going to be the Story of Civilization or Pioneers and Patriots from Tan Books. Use code SASHA15.

Right now, we rely strictly on CSH memory work, basecamp worksheets, map puzzles and map games for geography. No extra curriculum needed here for us.

SCIENCE

For science, we also turn to literature and short units from The Good and the Beautiful and Catholic resources such as Tan. We find units that correlate with the science studies for the tour. For Tour II we are using TGTB for botany and astronomy, and Tan’s Chemistry and Physics for the other two remaining quarters. I also organize our picture books by quarters and tours on our science shelves. I would imagine if you search your shelves, you probably already have botany and space picture books for the kids for tour II. Also, just for clarity, I don’t pressure myself to finish these units or if it becomes too much, we revert back to picture books only.

***If your children are younger or if you’re just beginning to homeschool, I would recommend ONLY using CSH chapter day activities, memory work and basecamp worksheets for science. Don’t stress yourself out feeling you need to add in short unit studies. CSH and some picture books is more than enough!

We LOVE The Good and the Beautiful bookshop!

CATECHISM

Our catechism and religious studies will also move around to correlate with the studies of CSH. For example, this year we are using Into the Deep, and we will skip to the weeks that focus on the mass and the sacraments to correlate with the tour guide. CSH has more than enough to suffice for catechism studies, but I do recommend one great book for the family to read and do as a whole.

THE GOOD, THE TRUE AND THE BEAUTIFUL

Other ways we keep CSH as our spine is by studying the saints of the quarter at home and not just on chapter days. I love a good collection of saint books, so we just read about them and learn through videos, books, color sheets and more. We will also discuss the art studies/musical composer and watch fun videos to go along with it (usually provided by CSH’s online platform, Basecamp).

A history and science display on our shelves helps us to show us what we are studying and helps me to organzine based on the books we will need coming up. We have a similar setup for science!

what about the core subjects?

CSH is so rich and provides so much that the only curriculum you really need to purchase will be math and language arts, at least in the beginning and especially with younger ones. We just work these books from front to back as usual, however sometimes I do tie our language arts to match the memory work of CSH each week. For example, if the CSH memory work for the week is about nouns, I will often flip to the nouns section of our work. I find this doesn’t work with every curriculum out there.

If you’re just beginning this journey, seek out a math curriculum that looks like the fit for your child and then seek out a phonics or ELA program that fits as well. Let CSH be the guide for you in all of your non-core subjects, as you get your feet wet and ease into everything! Basecamp even has wonderful handwriting sheets and spelling words! Don’t sleep on what Basecamp has to offer ;)

Core curriculums that I love and recommend looking at: The Good and the Beautiful, Catholic Heritage, Seton, Little Angels Readers, Masterbooks, Saxon Math and Evan Moor

HOW I FEEL ABOUT CATHOLIC SCHOOLHOUSE AS THE SPINE?

What I have experienced is that using CSH as my spine allows me to have some accountability, a beautiful guide and a backbone to our schooling. I know at the end of the day, if my kids only made it to the math and language arts books, but still worked on the CSH memory work, then their day truly contained so much more! It’s more than we realize, it’s richer than we may see at first and it’s more than enough.

I have also sat in and tried to learn more about the dialectic and rhetoric programs of CSH and I can tell you that I feel confident that these programs are also so rich and deep for families. Again, many families may come into CSH just for a fun day for the kids, social activities or for an art and science program, but if you really dig into the upper level program, you’ll see how rich it is!

Making CSH the spine of our homeschooling has allowed us to really see the fruits of the program! I learn something new all the time, and I’m constantly learning how to center our studies around the beautiful timeline and tour guide that this national organization provides us.

I am so thankful for a program that has allowed us the joys and flexibility of a one room schoolhouse!

BE ON THE LOOKOUT SOON FOR OUR HISTORY AND SCIENCE BOOKLIST FOR TOUR II

JMJ+

Sasha