SWITCHING TO AMBLESIDE ONLINE | Charlotte Mason Homeschool Curriculum

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Has your family ever used Ambleside Online before? Let’s chat about it! Also, have you heard the buzz about Made 2 Homeschool?! It’s a new homeschool community made *for* homeschooling moms *by* homeschooling moms, and I’m so honored to be a part of an awesome team of ladies working hard to get it off the ground. We’re launching June 1, but a limited number of people can get in on early access next week! Learn more here and sign up for the waitlist to be alerted when early access opens: www.made2homeschool.com/a/2147529243/x3ofUa2f

[@gbcflower]

I would certainly be interested in how you are adapting AO for your family. You absolutely need to do what will fit you all the best.

[@tathimitchell]

We love AO! We've used AO since the beginning. I have combined my kids (2 kids, 18 months apart)until now. They'll be in separate years next year. My 7th grader will do year 6, and my 5th grader will do year 5. Combining works when mom is doing most of the readings, but when they get older and are more independent, it makes sense to separate them. We still do a lot together, hymns, nature's study, geography, Shakespeare, etc. Hope you'll all love AO as much as my family has! ❤

[@JuliaCantley]

We did AO from year 1 to year 5, but started later, so we did year when my oldest was in 6-7th grades. I absolutely loved it, but once my older special needs 7th grader was going into 8th grade we had to make some major changes - so we left AO behind.

[@HomeSweetHomeschoolLife]

If I had to do this all over again, I would have started with something like Ambleside. I love Charolette Mason’s philosophy.

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Our first couple years were all over the place, but I’ve always been intrigued CM ideology. The more I lean into it, the more I love it.

[@amandamendoza4181]

Would love to see more on this as we are exploring Ambleside online for next year with 3 of my children.😊

[@DuryeaAndWild]

I also realized I LOVE the planning and piecing together aspect of homeschooling, even though we’re only just finishing up preschool! I’m finding myself researching so many curriculums for future years and it’s so inspiring! Ambleside has been a clutch resource for me among a few others. Thanks for your video!

[@mywarriorshaven8280]

We use AO book list and the Cmec for all the guides (which takes the guesswork and cuts some research time) and their Charlotte Mason Mother’s education courses and we love it! ❤

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

I love that we can pull from different things to make it work for our family!

[@eddiequiroz3227]

Oooh this is great to know. I'm a new CMEC member. I'm going to check AO booklist!

[@woveninstory1290]

YES to Ambleside Online! We also adapt it 😊

[@lifebytheseaside2262]

Hi from NS canada. We will be entering our 9th year of homeschool in September. I use ambleside as well 👍🏻. And like you I have always made it my own. I have 4 kids and have always combined everything except math and language arts. I use ambleside as more of a book list and guide and make it work for my family. There is no wrong way 💕

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

So happy to hear you’ve had success using it that way! I am very excited for the homeschooling year ahead.

[@truthnotlies]

Yes! We have combined everything too. It’s way too much to try and track four different timelines, I’ve found lol. Plus our family has so much enjoyment doing things like history and geography together! Of course I will challenge the older students more, I have them go deeper into the topic we are on or do further study. Ultimately though, we have found it wonderful to move through those areas together. It wasn’t my plan either. But it happened naturally that everyone wanted to hear the other student’s history so eventually it just sorted itself out that we were all doing one area of history by accident 😅 It’s much simpler that way, we have found. So glad to see some others enjoying combining these things. I know it says we shouldn’t really, but I haven’t found it to be detrimental at all!

[@jessica_wood]

I’m so excited for you! We signed up for the CMEC this year but I plan to pull from AO and ADE - as well as a few of my own resources. I, like you, also really enjoy the process of researching and planning.

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Thank you! I love the research process!

[@DanielleRoy23]

We have been using AO this year and I love that I can just move things around to work for us. It’s been great.

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Gotta love flexibility!

[@jamiewimer]

Thanks for publicly processing that we all have permission to use AO in any way we choose. 😊 this has been our first year (Y1) and I switched to it from an attempt at ADE last year. I have a soon to be 6 yo and am contemplating how to integrate him. It will really depend on how ready he is for formal lessons when he turns 6 in December. But at some point I plan to just throw him into the mix 😂. I’m always considering other curricula and I do use other pieces like SCM. But I plan to stick with AO history. I’d love to see more videos about how it’s going for you and how you’re adapting it.

[@verleejenkins]

Brand new to Ambleside. Homeschooling my 3 grands but have homeschooled since my kids were young some nearly 40 years! These 3 are 10, 11 &14 and at very different learning levels per subject. God bless

[@wowitzkate]

So happy I found your channel!

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

🥰🥰🥰

[@bdeffendall]

Thanks for sharing! I am all for combining when possible. I look forward to seeing how you decide to tweak things for your family.

[@kristikinasz1186]

I'm going to be starting my first Charlotte Mason school year in the fall after two years of using other curriculum. I'm planning to use AO so I was excited to see this video!

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Hope you have a beautiful first Charlotte Mason year! I’ve leaned more and more into that methodology as we’ve gone along our homeschool journey, and it’s truly such a beautiful, rich education. The first year I homeschooled my choices were all over the place. 🙈 I learned so much through that though.

[@robertab]

I can’t believe I just saw this video!! We just decided to do AO and your video was the first to pop up in the search, I am so excited!!! 🎉🎉 you are one of my favorites!❤

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Oh, yay! Thank you!

[@KS95x]

We’re finishing up the Gentle and Classical primer this year and we are using AO next school year for the first time! I have a 7 year old going into 2nd grade, 4yo starting pre-k and 2 year old (the littles will be 5 and 3 shortly into the new school year) and we are combining readings from the Y0 and Y1 booklist for literature all year, super excited to dive deeper into fairy tales, tables, nursery rhymes and other classic stories 🧡

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Hope y’all have a beautiful school year!

[@allisonsmith7360]

Would love to hear an update on how Ambleside has worked for your family! I am planning on starting year 1 in the fall.

[@erinsnook8537]

I’ve learned that I’m not a fan of Charlotte Mason, but I do use the AO booklists for ideas. We used it pretty much as written for a few years.

[@Dreblueskies]

What made you dislike the CM style?

[@laundryandliterature4796]

I just decided this morning to switch to AO. I would love more content like this.

[@nataliecrowe2122]

We love AO! Finishing up our 5th year in just a few weeks. :) We had a hiccup in year 2 where I tried A Gentle feast, but we went right back to AO after a couple terms and finished up year 2. AO really has some amazing books that we just can’t quit. Your plans for combining sound good. Sounds like you did your research. :) Looking forward to some AO videos, not many out there. Also, our fav year 3 book (both times) has been Children of the New Forest. 😊

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

I’m really looking forward to our upcoming year with AO!

[@latoyav5963]

We switched to AO for this school year after 3 years dabbling in all the other things and this year has been amazing. We're finishing Y3. The connections being made and retention of ideas and history is what makes it so beautiful, to see that it's all your kids', it's their possession. Hope you have the best journey and growth along side your little ones 😀

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Thank you so much! We're very much looking forward to it!

[@TheGLOSSette]

I follow your channel here and there and im so happy to see you guys jump onto Ambleside Online. We started it couple months ago and love it. The fact that you can get all the booklist and schedules for FREE. We're in a situation (long story short) where im gonna take more than one school year to finish Y1 so its nice to have a free curriculum and then buy the necessary books as we went along. And we can go at our pace like if a reading is long i can break it up several days a week or for aome people maybe they only need to break it up into 2 days. CMEC is sooooooo expensive. Holy cow. And the living books on top of that.

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

It really is incredible all that they provide for free! I’m really excited for what’s to come.

[@Oevuh8]

I’d love if you could explain how Ambleside Online works. I’ve looked into it and it seems so overwhelming for some reason. But I also have a rising highly gifted 2nd grader and a rising 4th grader that struggles a bit. I think my girls would likely do well with L3 as you explained it and would love to hear more!

[@OsoFarm]

We had our first Ambleside year last year and loved it. We came from years of Tapestry of Grace and Ambleside was a better fit for us.

[@dianag6343]

This will be our 2nd year with AO. My grandson will be doing year 3 this year. We love it!

[@garlandofbooks4494]

I started with the same goal of wanting history together. I first heard about CM from a cousin who used AO, but I was at first more drawn to SCM because they do family history spine, and it does seem they try to have family subjects when possible. But then - I started listening to the ADE podcast, and they explained the history cycles that Charlotte used and how we could use them now, and I fell I love with it. So, I have been putting things together from their recs, and pulling book ideas from both AO and SCM - they both have great book lists of ideas! So I am adapting too, in a way 😊 The cycles that ADE / CM uses keep all children in the same history time period together, though the younger children have less cycles, since they don’t add the extra cycles until years 4 and 5. But that way, whatever books or spines they’re reading, you can still come together and have shared topics. And the composers, artists, biographies, historical fictions that the children read that year are also coming as much as possible from that shared time period that all the children are studying together. ADE also give lots of ideas for what things you can combine and how best to do it, and what things to avoid totally combining. I won’t add my 2nd student for another year, so I don’t know what it will look like at that point, haha! 😅😉 But I do plan on always trying to find how to do things together as much as can be. For some years of history, depending where my students fall, they will definitely be reading out of the same books, and they will always be in the same time period, so it will be the same exact parts covered. That’s always a win! I think CMEC uses the same history rotation, but I’m not willing so pay for it yet. Maybe one day, if I’m too confused organizing it all.

[@jerilyn-ourhomeschooltable]

I really like AO for ideas. I just use it for Artist, Composer, Hymn and Folk songs. I pick and choose every subject from different curriculum companies. 😊

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Love that you just pick and choose what works for you. Yay for homeschooling freedoms!

[@alinamillard5883]

I love hearing your plans with AO. I've looked at it a few times in the past, and it tends to feel kind of hard to wrap my mind around it. I'm not even totally sure what my struggle is, but I may look at it again and see if it may fit our needs in the future.

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

I feel like the more I’ve truly understood Charlotte Mason principles, the better I’ve understood AO. The website can be overwhelming, but it has so much great information. I had to really dig in to get my mind around it and envision how I could make it work for our family, but I feel really good moving forward now. I totally get what you mean though because that was definitely me just dipping my toe in previously for certain book suggestions but not truly embracing it. I needed to really dig into the site to be able to really understand how to implement it. Here’s hoping I’ve got it now. 😂

[@genabrady1348]

I use a bit of Ambleside, a bit of WEH, some Heritage History, and some Easy-Peasy. There are so many great free resources to use, it's hard to pick just one.

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

I’m so thankful for all the options!

[@cm6037]

I would love to see a follow up video and learn more!

[@sidneyolson6726]

These are the exact same conclusions I’ve come to for this coming school year!

[@rusticheritagecrochet]

We've used AO...LOVE that you're using it for your girls! Great plan! ❤

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

I’m so excited about it!

[@bethanylowe7864]

I am strongly looking at using portions of AO for the upcoming school year. My kiddos are a bit further apart in age/grade, but I would still like to combine them. I would love to see more videos on AO and how you make it work, changes you've made, schedules, etc. It may help me figure out how I'm going to make it work for my family. Thanks!

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

I know families that do Shakespeare, Trials and Triumph, Parables of Nature, and other books that are read across multiple years together. What grades will your kids be in?

[@bethanylowe7864]

@@TheHomeschoolConvert My older kiddo will be in "7th" grade and my younger kiddo will be in "3rd". It's such a rich curriculum that it's worth it. I just need to figure out how to make it work using one level.

[@lindseybuhl999]

We are doing Simply Charlotte Mason next year, but I am interested in AO in a couple of years once I have more independent readers.

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

I know lots of families love SCM! It's so great that we have so many options and choices to pull from.

[@Mandadee2012]

I’ve tried to wrap my head around ambleside before. Wasn’t successful, lol! I think for the same reasons you mentioned you didn’t feel ready in previous years. I’ve been feeling more drawn to figuring out ambleside lately, because free as a spine can’t be beat, lol!

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

It definitely takes some diligence to get familiarized with it, but it’s really such a beautiful resource for being completely free.

[@jamiebarba]

We’re loving Ambleside! We started using it in September and it’s worked really well for us. We’ve also done Classical Conversations the last 4 years and we decided to drop that and only do Ambleside. My boys would be 2nd & 4th grade this year (18 months apart) and I chose to put them in separate years. That was not my original plan, and I was going to tweak it a lot to go along with what we were learning in CC, but I saw so many recommendations to separate them that I did and it’s worked well for us. I think combining them for history could work well to.

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

So glad you’re having a positive experience with Ambleside! Thanks for sharing.

[@bw918t8y]

Did you have a look at AO for groups? We use AO, and initially I tried to combine my kids. We had started AO in my eldest’s second year of schooling and so not wanting to miss year 1 we tried to do AO 1 and 2 in one year. We got about half way through the year and I started to see my middle child not being able to understand the AO 2 readings. My eldest also has ASD and the sensory overload / distraction of schooling them together meant he was disengaging. I also looked forward to AO 3 and realised my middle child wouldn’t be ready for it this year. So I split them and have put AO on hold for middle child this year and continued onto AO 3 for eldest child. I am considering trying AO for groups, as it is a lighter schedule so that may work for us. I’ve also been pre-reading some of the AO 4 books and I think some of the content I would prefer to do one-on-one with my eldest. He’s a bit sensitive, so some of the violence / slavery / attitudes to other races in Robinson Crusoe and Kidnapped I want to be sitting with him for. Can’t imagine giving him those to read on his own. But I also don’t use AO purely as written. I like CM principles but I’m not a purist. So I primarily use it for the literature, Bible, history, biography, free reads, artists, composers. (And anything else that looks interesting!!) Although we also use the generations history curriculum (but I basically treat their textbooks in a CM way and we rarely do the workbooks).

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

I did look at the groups option. Since my daughters will be in different forms anyway, it wasn’t the best solution. I feel good about combining this year, and we can always re-assess later if we need to. 😁

[@sarahgamlieli1236]

I’m doing the same with my year 1 and year 3. We are doing year 2 together.

[@joyfullittlearrows824]

Absolutely LOVE ambleside❤

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

We’re looking forward to diving in, albeit with some adaptations here and there. 😁

[@TheHouseofHillman]

Hi! Did you look at the Simply Charlotte Mason history? You can do it family style. I chose to use Simply Charlotte Mason for this reason. She has 6 history cycles, and you can start with the American history cycles first to fit in your high school history. Just FYI in case you haven’t looked into it!

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Hi! Yes, I looked into it. Ambleside is what got me most excited, and I love that it's free, so I don't feel bad swapping things out and adjusting it to suit my family. :)

[@homeschool.pray.repeat]

I definitely want to know more. We’re starting with AO as well. However, my two kiddos thrive independently and my rising 6th grader can read many things on his own. So we are in different years with the goal being getting everyone reading independently. But, I do not care for having so many history books being used at once. I had much rather have one or two, put a bookmark in it when done for the day, and pick it up next time like “regular” reading. Then once that book is done, grab the next one and keep going. The weekly page numbers on so many different books a week isn’t something I see continuing.

[@katiacleroux7376]

We're going into our second year of AO, a but quickly realized that it won't work when I have 4+ kids schooling, so Y2 will be a trial run for my combined readings and changes in litt/other. I'm pretty much merging AO and ADE!

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

ADE has some great resources, as well!

[@AllAboutE1128]

We absolutely love ambleside! We are going into Y2

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

We loved the poetry and geography on year 1 that we used. I definitely want to re-visit Paddle to the Sea again at some point. Have a beautiful year 2!

[@melanievallely9539]

We used Ambleside Online this year for the first time, and it was probably my favorite homeschooling year yet (though I did say that for the previous year too 😅). We use it nearly as written (this year with a Y1 and Y3), but I did combine somethings for sanity's sake (Shakespeare, Holling C. Holling books, and a few other things). We do our own thing for art and hymn study, and I'm not going to do the full Shakespeare plays for my Y4 next year. I have enjoyed doing the history separate - my girls usually sit and listen to most of their sister's readings, so I feel like my Y3 is still getting to be exposed to the things she "missed" from the earlier years. I also love the excuse to fill our shelves with all of the books they recommend 😂

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Yes, alllll the books!! 😂 Glad you’ve had such a great year!

[@hannahgravelle]

We are also Ambleside adapters :)

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Cheers to making things work for our families! 😄

[@TheGLOSSette]

I dont see why not combine both kids if only 1-2 grades apart. I heard from AO moms that a lot of people dont cuz older kid feels like why are they on a lower grade with their siblings when they are older. I think that mentality comes from public schools that 5 years old is K and 6 is grade 1 etc. My daughter is 5 and she knows she's going into Kindergarten but not to toot my own horn she's doing grade 2 math (i was advanced in math too growing up). She doesn't need to know its grade 2. She just knows its what she's doing now and at her level of knowledge.

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Yes, this is a great point! Also, my 9 year old is such a champion for her younger sister. She compliments her all the time on how bright she is, and she actually enjoys being able to read the same books so that they can talk about them and share recommendations. It really is so sweet. I don’t see “going down a level” being a complex for her, especially because we won’t even be talking about what year of curriculum we’re using.

[@meyerscrewx5]

If we are starting at Year 8 - do I need to do some combination years?

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

If you are just starting, you may want to start at a lower level. My recommendation would be to not go based off of grade level if you’re brand new because it is likely very different from other curriculum you may have used, and it’s pretty advance once you get above 7. There’s a link on the website that gives recommendations for the suggested “must reads” before advancing to year 7. You could pick and choose from there or start at year 6 or 7 if you haven’t already done similar CM style learning. Just my two cents! 😄

[@nancyann1090]

It's interesting you chose Ambleside over Simply Charlotte Mason. I think Ambleside is a really great curriculum but I tried it a few times and didn't work. I need more stuff laid out for me and the short lessons of many many different topics ( The Feast) actually didn't work well for my kids who need less subjects and more focus. I struggled with The Feast of Charlotte Mason it really stressed me out to engage in so many topics for short amounts of time. It was too chaotic. But I do think a literature focused curriculum is good and I like the narration of CM. Beautiful Feet and Sonlight work well for us.

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

The beauty of homeschooling is being able to figure out what works best for our families! 😁 We’re doing things different this upcoming school year, but we had a great year adapting AO to meet our needs.

[@intentionallymade]

I started dipping into AO last October but started my 9 yo in year 4. I should have started him in year 3 because now here I am moving him to y3 haha. We ended up unschooling a lot and doing some readings but it definitely gave me an idea to switch him. So now I’ll have a y1 and y3 but I will approach it the same for my y3 because he will be ten in June. We are doing OIS as a family as well as parables of nature and 50 famous stories. The rest I’ll loop for y1 and my y3 can choose to listen in or not. But he will do his own readings for mostly everything except for a few things. I add Texas history in bite sized chunks also so he’s ready the story of Texas and twenty Texans biography right now. And I’ll sprinkle in more later. Im also doing the Holling geography books as a family so we will start at year 1 and just keep on trucking. I felt peace when I finally figured out what I could do together as if we didn’t even know about AO and just wanted to tackle British history and geo together and a few other living books. So now I feel like we are getting even more of a feast bc I have the guides to follow with the rest. At the end of the day we are not married to any of it. It’s a blessing to have this exposure and I’m excited to dig in! Praying your year is delightful. 🍃

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Praying the same for your family! I agree with you - the exposure alone is a blessing and will pay off dividends! We just love this way of learning.

[@stephaniel2797]

I’m coming back to Ambleside this coming school year after using The Peaceful Press and A Gentle Feast..but am changing it up a bit as well! I feel like I am at a point where I understand CM principles well enough that I can piece together a curriculum perfect for my family using different guides or booklists which is so freeing/exciting! I’ll be using Year 4 (with a few subs) for my 9 and 10 year old and using books from A Gentle Feast for my (nearly) 6 and 8 year olds. Very excited for our year!

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Yes, it’s so freeing to be able to make a curriculum our own and feel empowered in our choices! We know our kids best. ♥️

[@barefootonthehomestead]

It's crazy how similar this video is to me lol

[@paularodillo]

I am combining levels / books (level 3,3.5,4) from Ambleside for my incoming 4th grader. 😅😅😅

[@TheHomeschoolConvert]

Hey, do what you gotta do to make it work for you!