Spring is upon us, and as we begin wrapping up the 2021-2022 school year, I’m already planning and looking ahead to next school year! If you’re curious what we’ve been using for our curriculum this year, you can visit my post here. If you’re interested in what are plans for next year look like, keep reading to see what program we’ll be using for the 2022-2023 school year!

2022-2023 Homeschool Curriculum Reveal

This year we will be using…. the CMEC. Again! In my curriculum reveal video last year, however, I don’t think I was prepared to share the goodness that the CMEC provides as I hadn’t been through (almost) a full year with their program.

Watch This Year’s Curriculum Reveal:

Learn more about the CMEC in my video below…

What is the CMEC?

The CMEC (Charlotte Mason Education Center) develops their own comprehensive curriculum, provides support on how to implement the curriculum, and offers ongoing education for mothers. They actually started as just a few moms who studied Mason’s methods and wanted to form a small co-op in the Philadelphia area. Their little community eventually turned into The Mason Academy, a blended-model learning program. The Mason Academy opened up their programs to families all over the world a few years back and that is how the CMEC was born! Although we’ve only had access to the programs for a short time, The Mason Academy has been using these programs for almost ten years. I follow several moms who have high school students that have used the program guides with their children, and I’m always extremely impressed by what they share from their high school student’s work. In other words, the results are there, at the end of the road!

Why I Chose The CMEC:

The CMEC has truly been a valuable resource for me in my first year diving into formal lessons with my daughter. Some of my favorite unique qualities of The CMEC are their focus on community, the amount of time they dedicate to developing a mother’s skills and abilities, and the dedication to the original philosophy of Charlotte Mason and her methods. I heard about it through a good friend’s friend in Oregon who had just completed Form 1B with her daughter in 2021. After chatting with her and then exploring The CMEC’s website, I knew it would be our curriculum pick for this past year. Since we had such a positive experience our first year, I knew we would be renewing our membership for the 2022-2023 school year.

First and foremost: The CMEC follows Charlotte Masons’s original methods.

The CMEC employs the use of a mother’s logbook, a family timetable, and things like Swedish drill, and paper sloyd. All things that Charlotte Mason recommended her mothers and students do. Not only do they recommend that you use these things, but they offer education and training on how to use them.

The CMEC provides:

Community Support:

There are Community Form Meetings. We had one at the end of term one and one at the end of term two, heading into term three. There’s also a Fall retreat and a Summer retreat! So many opportunities for us to connect with other families and learn more about Mason’s methods together. The form meetings are all live, with chats or you can watch recordings of them later on.

There is a members discussion board and La Pianta, on The CMEC website. A place for parents to discuss all things homeschooling and beyond. I’ve joined in a bit this year, but I look forward to participating in this more next year.

Support for Mom:

The CMEC provides coursework. Yes! How wonderful is this? They have a few, but some of my favorites are the Mother’s Education Course, the new Composition Course, and the Art Instruction Course. I took the Art Instruction Course almost right away because I had no idea how to implement art lessons the Charlotte Mason way. The course is an invaluable resource.

I mentioned this above, but The CMEC hosts retreats. They have one in the summer, and one in the fall. These are usually on the east coast. I love that even though I couldn’t attend I could watch them live!

The “support for mom” aspect of The CMEC really sets it aside from other Charlotte Mason programs that are available out there. They go above and beyond in supporting us in this homeschool journey.

Curriculum:

Program Guides (Early Years through High School)

Obviously, the program guide is one of my favorite aspects of The CMEC. It’s an extensive document outlining every book we need to read for each term. There is also a wealth of resources available on how to teach lessons in geography, history, nature study, art instruction, etc.

Shopping Lists for each form

Each form has a shopping list, and it’s extremely easy to purchase the materials needed!

Truth, Beauty, Goodness songbook

The truth, beauty, goodness songbook is a compilation of hymns, folksongs, scriptures, and poems that all of the CMEC works on throughout the year. This allows for families to possibly meet locally and participate in group activities!

Composer/Artist Study Guides

The composer study/artist study guides are such a valuable resource. There are links to information about the composer or artist and their works. There is also a detailed description and analysis of each song/painting to help you with your study in your homeschool.

Hymn and Folksongs selections

I love that the TBG songbook comes with hymns and they have the accompanying sheet music! It’s the little things.

Many, Many Resources:

Aside from the program guides, there is an extensive “Common Subjects” section that has helped me out tremendously. I don’t have to choose all of these resources and subjects on my own. Plus The CMEC helps provide instruction on how to teach them! Here are some of the benefits:

Art Instruction Videos

Singing Games + Supplements

Folk Dances

Modern Language Stories + Song Selections

Swedish Drill (free)

Special Study

(I go into detail about these benefits in my video here.)

 

Your Questions Answered About The CMEC

You can watch this FAQ video here:

What curriculum will I use for other subjects, like math and reading?

Arithmetic:

As with all of Charlotte Mason’s programs, we get to select our own math and reading curriculum. If you’re curious about what we will use, we’ll be purchasing Book Two of the Simply Charlotte Mason Elementary Arithmetic program. Full review on my experience using Book One coming next week!

Reading:

We will continue using the Charlotte Mason method of teaching reading. I talked a lot about how I do that in this video here.

Closing Thoughts on The CMEC:

Overall, I’m very satisfied with my experience using The CMEC this past year. I tell every homeschooler I know about them, because their work is to help educate children with a Charlotte Mason philosophy, but to help support mothers too. Their membership includes countless benefits that I’ve been able to use to better our first year in formal lessons. I can’t wait until next year! if you want to join The CMEC, you can click here.

If you want to watch the video version of today’s blog post, you can view it here.

I hope this post was helpful to you! Thank you so much for reading!