Enki Education
Enki is a multicultural homeschool curriculum that can be easily integrated with your own spiritual inclinations, and with
other methods, such as Charlotte Mason, including the free Charlotte Mason-inspired curriculum Ambleside Online.
The stories lend themselves quite well to narration and copywork, for example, but are not imbued
with any explicit spiritual message, besides a moral one, in a manner
similar to fables and fairy tales. Ambleside Online uses Aesop's Fables and
Tanglewood Tales even though they originate from the Greek culture, and it
uses fairy tales, even though they come from fantasy. So if you are not
comfortable presening Aesop's Fables or fairy tales to your child, then
don't consider Enki. If you are comfortable using them, then you might want
to take a look because Enki offers a great collection of multicultural stories.
I'm currently using the first and second grade reading and math materials
with my 12 yo dyslexic son. Here is an example of what we do: We read a
fairy tale from the first grade math book - the Golden Apples and the Nine Peahens, from Russia. In a more Waldorfish approach, my son uses beeswax
crayons and draws an apple tree with golden apples, and nine peahens
surrounding it, in his main lesson book.
So I take that concept, and we go
over the concept of odds, multiples of three, division using nine, etc.
using word problems based on the story. My son is gifted, but delayed b/c he
has dyslexia and auditory processing disorder, so I use the stories as an
imaginative springboard to learn the four processes at a higher level than
the materials provide (there are currently no materials for higher grades).
We also use Montessori manipulatives for a more sensory approach to math
(blackline masters using these manipulatives are also included with Enki
materials).
It also works very well with children who have any type of learning or
sensory issues. This is basically the reason I starting using some of the
materials - this program integrates learning with skills development,
remedial or otherwise. I have found very little offered that really reaches
my son in the same way.
The teacher manuals are only a very small portion of the curriculum, but do offer insightful information on how to teach your child at different ages,
based on various educational philosophies, more so than any religious ideas.
Quite a bit of the material in the teacher's manuals is about timing,
scheduling, and special needs concerns. Caveat: I do have an earlier copy of
the manuals, so I can't speak about the newer ones. I do know there is some
information included about meditation in the new manual, although I haven't
reviewed it.
With AO available free, I wouldn't recommend you purchase
the whole Enki curriculum if you are going to integrate it with other
things. Consider purchasing the components that interest you from the web site,
and see what you think. If you like the materials, as I do, then you can always purchase more. There are also a multitude of free or inexpensive
resources for Waldorf-inspired activities, verses, and stories that you can integrate with Enki, particularly with an older child.
Join the CM-Waldorf group to discuss how you integrate
Enki with
Charlotte Mason and Waldorf methods.
