Mason's Alveary...and What It's Like by Acacia Buschbach (Age 13)

A Curriculum Designed after Mason’s own Heart…
Okay, so maybe not quite, but it’s very close.

​“To introduce children to literature is to install them in a very rich and glorious kingdom, to bring a continual holiday to their doors, to lay before them a feast exquisitely served. But they must learn to know literature by being familiar with it from the very first. A child's intercourse must always be with good books, the best that we can find.” ~C. Mason

        Hi.  I’m Acacia Buschbach.  I am 13 years old.  My mom is Heidi, and if you did the Alveary this year, you might know that she was the respectable author the sol-fa(solfege)/musical games lessons for programs 1,2, and 3.
        My schooling with Ms. Mason has been in existence for as long I as remember, which means I must have a very bad memory since we’ve only been using Mason since I was seven.  I have loved every, well…almost every minute of homeschooling.
       For the past six years we had used a different curriculum, and I quite liked that.  If any of you also use a different curriculum, I would pat you on the back and say, “Make sure everyone of your children, unless they really hate history,  reads aloud with you every chapter of Our Island Story, and on their own(or together) all of This Country of Ours!”  These were two of my favorite books from when I was younger.  However, I’m not supposed to tell you about that, but the Alveary.
       As it was a pilot, and mom was writing the lessons for music, there were a few bumps along the way, but still a wonderful thing that was always in progress!
       The first term (or program 1) was crazy as you can imagine. Or maybe you can’t…papers flying off the printer at a million miles an hour, schedules being formatted, lessons being taught, books getting lost, piano and violin being practiced, and pretty much anything that happens anytime throughout your week all blurred together into what seems like now just a few days.  It was all worth it.
       I think mom said in her blog that the biggest help for her was accountability, but I think that having the lessons with page numbers, books, and other people figuring out what you have to do to be able to get finished was the most helpful for me, since I’ve never really had a set out curriculum before.  The science lessons for weather were not written by an Alveary lesson writer, instead they scheduled Nicole Williams’ separate curriculum, but I think they were my favorite thing.
       The thing that I didn’t really like was the Ancient History book, or the whole of the history lessons.  Personally I didn’t think the Ancient history book was very good, and wasn’t able to get into it.  But I think that some of my “dislike” was also coming from the fact that, because in our old curriculum, I was in a different place in our history rotation so I was ready for World War 1 and 2.  I was kind of tired of learning about the pilgrims, and was ready for something new. Obviously Ancient Hist. is very different, however I was excited about doing more recent things because we haven’t done WW 1 and 2 yet. However, that part is not the Alveary’s fault, it is just another thing about switching curriculums.  
       Overall, I thought that the Alveary was a great success. Excellent support(from what I hear), great lessons and wonderful books.  A little harder for someone who has been doing something different for a long time(like we have). But for a family new to homeschooling or new to Charlotte Mason’s Philosophy, I would highly recommend this.
         

You cannot fail unless you quit.
~Abraham Lincoln

 “The measure of a man's life is the well spending of it, and not the length.” ~Plutarch