Making homeschool decisions easy
Once Thanksgiving has come and gone, we enter the rush toward Christmas. With family, church, and homeschooling obligations it can seem like we are always a little bit behind during the month of December. Why not consciously plan ahead and choose to create a little margin? Homeschooling offers us that kind of flexibility. In our homeschool, we will be setting aside the bulk of our
For almost twenty years I’ve been looking at, comparing, purchasing, and reviewing a wide variety of homeschool curricula. In all those years, one option has always stood out, Ambleside Online. Ambleside Online is an incredible Charlotte Mason curriculum. Spanning all the grades with a few extra options for lighter years and catch up years, it covers all that Miss Mason would have covered in her
Nature studies. Outside time. Looking. Investigating. These are the things we love! I ran across something called Exploring Nature with Children and was really curious about it – it looked like something we would really enjoy – and I was right! Exploring Nature with Children, a Charlotte Mason Method This Charlotte Mason type study consists of a 240 page pdf file by Lynn Seddon of Raising
On any ordinary day, after we have put in a good share of work, you can find us gathered at the table sharing a pot of tea. After everyone is settled with tea and cinnamon toast, I open a book of poems and read one. We might return to the poem again in the coming days. But that’s the heart of our simple practice–tea and
There’s an idea popular in some homeschooling circles that the classical model and Charlotte Mason homeschooling are very different things. The first is for serious scholars, the second is a less rigorous course of study. In her book Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition, Karen Glass clarifies both the historic tradition that Charlotte Mason writes out of and the sometimes limited understanding of
At our house handwriting practice was causing friction. My verbal, creative 2nd grader just didn’t like any kind of writing. I was on the look out for something that might change her mind. She liked how fancy my own cursive handwriting looked! Maybe cursive was the solution to our handwriting troubles? We started a program at the beginning of the school year, but she found
I have a wonderful reference book I want to share with you! The Story of the Orchestra by Robert Levine is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to introduce their children to classical music. First, let me back up a bit and share how I came across this wonderful book. One of my favorite aspects of a Charlotte Mason education are the lovely extras
So now your children know how to read. Congratulations! That’s a major step, but does it mean that their reading instruction finished? Not at all, we’ve found. How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading teaches the average reader how to understand, analyze, and learn from books. It takes students beyond the basics of reading to become scholars. It is, I think,
