The Upper Years & Combining Students with Arielle Tuttle

I was so pleased when Arielle Tuttle of Revival Acres blog and Youtube offered to answer some questions about what it has been like to use the beta version of TCT with her five children this year. I appreciated hearing what the year has been like for their family, and I hope you do too!

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Welcome to Arielle Tuttle who you may know from her YouTube or Blog, Revival acres. Today Arielle offered to answer some questions about her experience using The Children’s Tradition curriculum with her older elementary age kiddos. Arielle has 5 kiddos and one on the way and lives in Massachusetts. Welcome!

What are the ages and grades of your kiddos, and what curriculums have you tried previously? What drew you to TCT over those?

Hi Kate! Thanks for inviting me to share my experience using TCT. It’s so encouraging to know there are others out there pursuing the classical tradition within their family and homeschools. I have three school aged children. In the fall they will be in Year 7, Year 5, Year 3. I also have a 5 year old,1 year old, and expecting another soon. We have used My Father’s World, A Gentle Feast, CMEC, and AmblesideOnline before settling into The Children’s Tradition.

The reason I began researching the classical tradition, and searching outside of the Charlotte Mason method, was because I started to lose my joy of homeschooling. It makes me so sad to admit that, but it was a very real issue I was struggling through. I prayed for help and guidance and I truly believe the Lord led me to TCT. Meeting Amanda and diving into TCT opened my eyes to a world that included Charlotte Mason methods, but was so much more; a legacy of truth, beauty, and goodness that extends across millenia. What a treasure we have access to!

How has this year been different for you than prior years using a combo of other Charlotte Mason curriculum?

This year has been like a breath of fresh air! I feel like I’ve gotten my inspiration and focus back. I was ‘given permission’ (not that I needed TCT to do that, but I think as homeschool moms we need the assurance of others and their experience to know we’re not out in the weeds) to sit in the poetic mode with my children, love good literature, and quality time spent together learning in a virtuous way, in the way I believe God intends for all of us. I was able to use the philosophy expertly expounded upon and outlined in TCT to build a year of education for our whole family, fully confident in the process and texts used because I knew they stood the test of time and scrutiny of scholars.

That’s so good to hear! Can you tell curious moms how you practically used the curriculum and combined for all the grades and ages you are teaching? Did you have three separate lists of readings ?

This is a question I am asked a lot, and let me begin with… I totally understand the instant anxiety one gets looking at a curriculum booklist when you have multiple ages of students. It can feel so overwhelming! I am only one (imperfect) person! How can I do all the things? But that’s it, you don’t have to! You, as the mother-teacher, have the authority to adjust as needed because you know your family best. And if you’re using TCT, you’ve already done the hard work of reading and wrestling with the philosophy. My guess is it’s rocked your world and is already seeping into your bones. You’ve got this. Imperfectly yes, but your love of God and of your family (and awesome literature) will propel you forward.

So, with that in mind, and alongside the Holy Spirit, let your path be directed by the same things we ask of our children; truth, beauty, and goodness. All of which is most definitely found in TCT. If you’re coming into this with kids already school-aged, ask yourself: What books have you already read? What books have you not? Can you combine everyone for those books not already read so you can do read-alouds all together? That’s the first thing I did when jumping in with a Year 6, Year 4, and Year 2. We combined over half of our curriculum and did it together. Thankfully, combining will be even easier with the newest edition of TCT because Amanda has outlined how to loop years together. Years 1-2, Years 3-4, Years 5-7 can be combined. That will hopefully free you up as the teacher to spend adequate time with the lower years who need your attention more, especially with copywork and read alouds, while your uppers can read together or do audiobooks when appropriate. Also remember your Benediction Table can easily be done together, although some bigger families like to do an Early Years Table and then an Upper Years. Do whatever works best for your family!

We’d love to hear more about the upper years for moms who are starting in later elementary. What has this year been like for your fourth and sixth grader from a day to day perspective?

Like I said above, we combined a lot. My Year 6 would break off a couple times during lessons to go read books on the Year 6 list. I also put any books we didn’t get to in the morning on my kiddos ‘free read shelf’. We require them to read at least 30 minutes a day from these books that I’ve picked out from TCT. This helps us get in any we may not have time for in the morning. My kids also have Yotos they use during quiet time and have access to many TCT books in audiobook format.

[On a practical note, see Amanda’s list of recommended reads if your child is starting “late” on her Substack]

Was there a lot of “catching up” to do? How did you approach the books they “missed” according to the curriculum?

I would say many of the TCT books in Years 1-3 are common in the classical and Charlotte Mason world. This helped make the transition fairly seamless. We had read over half I would say, so I really focused on the ones we hadn’t read (and some we had never even heard of) before. Using our afternoon free read/rest time helped us with any that were missed. Audiobooks are a really great way for all ages to engage with and learn to love classic literature, and give mom a break. Just remember not all recordings are considered equal! Make sure the ones you buy are unabridged and have pleasant narrators. There’s nothing like a dull voice to turn someone off from a good book!

How did this amount of work feel on you the mother teacher? Do you recommend this to other moms of multiples and older kiddos?

I’d like to quote Charlotte Mason before answering this question.

“We are waking up to our duties and in proportion as mothers become more highly educated and efficient, they will doubtless feel the more strongly that the education of their children during the first six years of life is an undertaking hardly to be entrusted to any hands but their own. And they will take it up as their profession––that is, with the diligence, regularity, and punctuality which men bestow on their professional labours. That the mother may know what she is about, may come thoroughly furnished to her work, she should have something more than a hearsay acquaintance with the theory of education, and with those conditions of the child’s nature upon which such a theory rests.” (Vol. 1, Home Education, pp. 2-3)

As mother-teachers, who have been endowed by God with authority and care over our children, we owe Him and them a ‘thinking-love’. We must not look at homeschooling as a burden, but a privilege. The second we begin down that path of discontentment, we are setting ourselves up for the pursuit of vices, not virtues. Our job is to nurture minds, hearts, and souls for God’s glory and delight. That is a serious undertaking, not a checklist. As embodied souls ourselves we must rise to a task that we are unfit for apart from Christ, but will be sustained by Him and through him to do the hard work. With that said, using TCT will require some prep and planning, but it will be a delight. I can vouch as a recovering curriculum junkie, that TCT will require far less planning and pre-reading than most Charlotte Mason curriculum.

I have to submit a plan every summer to my school district and so I use the doldrum of those long New England winter months to plan my upcoming year so that by summer, I am ‘done school’ as well. I will have already made my schedule (that I know will change about five times the first month of school), I’ve purchased the books, and have a list of supplies I’ll purchase when the back-to-school sales hit. But as soon as temperatures warm above the 60s (we raise them hardy here in the north) and sunshine hits our faces, we all want to be outdoors. Doing this small amount of prep in the dark cold months gives me motivation and excitement for the year ahead. It frees me up to enjoy the sunshine and be with my kiddos for a much needed summer holiday. TCT will help give you and your children a rich, classical education, but not at the expense of your family or soul, but quite the opposite. Christus Victor!!

TCT as currently written ends in year 7, which your oldest will be this fall! What does the future hold for you guys as far as 8-12th grade?

This is actually an exciting question for me! I get the honor of coming alongside Amanda, as we both study and research what the later years of school looked like in the past, as John Senior describes in his works, and how we understand the adolescent years to be like using the legacy of the classical tradition today. I have a feeling my family will gladly be the first beta family, working out in real-time a curriculum Amanda will surely write with as much grace, beauty, truth as she did with TCT. We already have ideas and meetings in place to begin our deep dive into the adolescent years once TCT is launched in a few short days!

Thanks again, Kate for this opportunity to share my heart as a fellow homeschooling mother, and my love for TCT!

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What questions do you have for Arielle or Kate? Feel free to leave your questions in the comments! And for Narnia & Lattes readers use code NARNIA for 10% off any purchases from The Children’s Tradition.