When I started homeschooling over 10 years ago, I really didn’t know anything at all about how to get started.

I learned from my cousin, a more experienced homeschooler, about some of the different approaches to homeschooling, including the Charlotte Mason method.

As soon as she described the gist of the Charlotte Mason approach, I was hooked. It has been the foundation for our homeschool ever since. 

Fortunately, I came to learn about the wonderful resource of Ambleside Online (AO) through Ann Voskamp’s blog, A Holy Experience.

I was always impressed with the literature-rich focus of her homeschool, so I set out to discover more about the resources she used, one of which was Ambleside.

So What is Ambleside Online?

AO is “a free homeschool curriculum that uses Charlotte Mason’s classically-based principles to prepare children for a life of rich relationships with everything around them: God, humanity, and the natural world.”

You can learn more about the history of AO, how it was created, etc. on the Ambleside Online website.

Ambleside was the perfect starting point for me in my homeschooling journey. When I was just beginning to homeschool, I wasn’t sure how long it would last. I didn’t want to invest in a lot of curriculum.

Also, we were a family on a budget, so I didn’t want to spend much money for our curriculum. AO was a win-win in these regards.

Besides those perks, AO is fairly easy to start using. All you have to do is select the year of your student (year 0-year 12 is offered!), gather your resources, and follow the week-by-week schedule which is already mapped out for you. 

Top Tips to Make the Most of Ambleside Online

1-Explore the Website

AO is such a wealth of information that for newcomers, it can be a tad overwhelming. However, there is a lovely section on the homepage geared specifically for homeschoolers new to AO! This includes FAQs, reviews from users, how to get started with the curriculum and tips for beginners.

There is so much information on the Ambleside Online website alone, that the website is really the best place to initially spend your time. 

2-Join the Forum

After you explore and start learning about AO, the next best thing you can do is join their free forum. This is the perfect place to direct any and all your questions, or to find answers to your questions for specific topics. When in doubt, you can ask the forum!

3-Read Charlotte Mason’s Work 

The website provides free access to her six-volume book series in which she describes her approach to educating children. AO strongly recommends you become familiar with her work and her approach to education to make the most of the booklists and curriculum.

I have not read all of Charlotte’s work. It can be quite an undertaking to do so because there are six volumes. Did I mention the books were written over a century ago? Yup.

They don’t exactly read like a modern novel. However, AO does offer a translation of the work in modern English.

How great is that? 

4-Tweak the Curriculum to Work for You

I don’t think there has been a single year that I haven’t tweaked the curriculum in some manner. 

Despite my best efforts, I have never been able to pull all of the daily/weekly work and scheduled readings consistently. I’m okay with that. I like to have the ideal set before me so I have goals to strive for, but I’ve also learned to give myself necessary grace to know what I can actually accomplish in the various seasons of life.

This curriculum (as with any curriculum!) should be shaped and molded to work for you and your family. Sometimes we are afraid to change the way a curriculum is laid out.

Am I right?

We fear that somehow we will ruin it or miss out on something crucial.

I learned that it’s much more problematic to keep using curriculum in a format that isn’t working for you or isn’t meeting the needs of your family!

How I’ve Used Ambleside Online

Again, I have tweaked the AO curriculum every year that I’ve used it. Usually, if I couldn’t find a particular book suggestion, or didn’t want to spend the money to purchase a particular hard-to-find book. I just found a substitution I felt was adequate or that was recommended on the forum. 

My oldest son attended a private school for 4th grade. When he resumed homeschooling for 5th grade, we jumped right back into AO at Year 4. The books are rigorous enough that I had no reservations in doing this. I didn’t want him to miss the literature or history from that year! 

As we progressed into the upper elementary years, I found myself tweaking the program more and more. My youngest son (and soon to be 6th grader) often struggled with the number of assigned readings and the language of some of the book selections.

I lightened the load for him by reading aloud more of his reading assignments, substituting out books, or sometimes even eliminating certain readings altogether. I have absolute peace with that choice.

How I Currently Use Ambleside Online

Once my boys entered middle school, I stopped using AO as our primary curriculum and more as a reference point. For example, I pretty much used all of the science recommendations from year 6 for my 7th grader, but chose a different program for history so I could combine both of them together.

Having an active preschooler at the time, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up with all of the readings and narrations if they were separate. Some of the literature selections we kept, and some I replaced.

I’m sharing how my own experience with AO has changed over the years, because it wouldn’t be fair to imply we are still solely using AO. We did in the younger years, but not currently.

At some point, I may transition entirely and solely back into AO. It’s hard to tell. What I do know, however, is that every school year I will continue to look over the curriculum as I map out the plan for our school year.

I also share how my own experience with AO has changed because I want any mom considering AO to know that it’s definitely worth trying! But also, that it’s okay to let it go if and when you need to. That should be the case with any curriculum. Also, your experience may be different than mine.

How Do I Know If I Should Try Ambleside Online?

I think you should consider using AO if any of the following are true:

• after looking at the curriculum you’re intrigued by AO

• a literature-rich, living books education makes your heart sing

• if the Charlotte Mason approach resonates with what you want your child’s education to look like

If any of those are true, then by all means, give it a try! You’ve got nothing to lose!

Let me also assure you that while the Charlotte Mason approach is a gentle approach to education, that is not to say it is easy or academically inferior. With the AO booklists, actually, quite the opposite is true.

When my oldest son started reading Plutarch, I personally found it challenging as an adult who holds a Master’s level education, let alone a 4th grader! Thank heavens for the study guide to accompany it. Needless to say, he rolled with it quite naturally.

Practical Implementation of Ambleside Online

Basically, after doing the hard work of locating the books I need for each particular year, I print off the year’s schedule for each child.

Because I use the spiral notebook method for planning out what my children need to do each day, I just reference the weekly schedule, and space everything out over the duration of a week.

This was great during the early elementary years as we were able to complete school in just 4 days, leaving Fridays open for field trips and the like.

Other activities, sometimes referred to as the riches, like artist and composer study, poetry, and handicrafts, I lump together to be covered during Morning Time. Mondays we might do artist study, Tuesdays the composer study, etc. along with the other items in our Morning Time basket.

I’m pretty sure when I was getting started with AO I scoured the internet looking for other mamas who used AO to see how they were doing it in their homeschools. Brandy Vencel’s Afterthoughts blog is very resourceful. At the end of the day, however, I still had to make it all work for me.

In that sense, I believe it’s best to start slowly with everything. For the first week of school, perhaps you just cover one or two things, like handwriting and science. The next week, add in a literature and history reading.

As you go along, you’ll start to discover how things will best fit together for your family, and can start developing a more concrete schedule.

Final Thoughts About Ambleside Online

I have not used AO beyond year 7, so I cannot speak to the curriculum beyond that. My oldest son is going into 8th grade for 2021-22, and while our homeschool continues to lean toward a Charlotte Mason approach, I am using very little of the AO curriculum with him (government, logic and science).

However, I will say that using AO for our elementary school years benefitted my children in so many ways. The richness of the literature selections alone are enough to make me recommend it.

It’s an incredibly rich and full curriculum that presents an incredible feast of ideas to children. It provided an excellent academic foundation for us that I wouldn’t trade.

While no curriculum is perfect, I also understand that it’s not a program for everyone. It’s not a boxed curriculum that comes right to your doorstep. It doesn’t already map out what needs done each and every day. 

It also requires an understanding, or at least an ongoing education, of Charlotte Mason’s principles and methods. Without it, you may start to wonder why you are having your kids carve a bar of ivory soap, or are listening to a composer you’ve never heard of in your life. 

Regardless of the challenges, (and all curriculum has them), I can truly and whole-heartedly suggest you give the curriculum a try for at least a school-year.

See how it works for your family. It just might be the best free curriculum you have ever tried!