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Archive for the ‘Charlotte Mason’ Category


Posted on October 6, 2009 - by Kay

Shape Shooters

Kate the "Shape Shooter"I got this idea from 100 Best Ideas for Primary Math, by Holly Sar Dye, M.A., to take Kate for a walk around the neighborhood. During our walk I encouraged her to look for different shapes and to take pictures of those objects for us to look at later. We would be “Shape Shooters” – shooting pictures of shapes on our walk. (Clever, I know…) I asked her to look for at least one circle, rectangle, square, triangle, diamond, oval, and octagon.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun this activity was and how easy it was to find all sorts of shapes just on our cul-de-sac. I even brought along my husband’s fancy camera so I could shoot a few with her and really enjoyed shooting completely different subjects than I normally do.

We took quite a few of the shots during our 15 minute walk. It would have been a MUCH longer walk if we hadn’t needed to get back quickly to eat lunch! Kate didn’t want to come back!
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Posted on June 30, 2009 - by Kay

Art Begs You to Notice It

I just recently came across this quote about art and thought it fit with the Charlotte Mason view of art quite nicely.

So I decided to share it with you all here. Enjoy!

Art begs you to notice it.

Why? Because art is God’s way of saying hello.
So pay attention to poetry.
Pay attention to music.
Pay attention to paintings and sculptures and photo exhibits and ballets and plays.
Don’t let all this go unnoticed.

Your world is shouting out to you,
revealing something intrinsically glorious about itself.
Listen carefully.
Love art, the way art loves Life.

~Neale Donald Walsch


Posted on May 18, 2009 - by

Milkweed and Butterflies

“In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf…”

For Mother’s Day we have a tradition of planting in our garden in the back yard. The kids help pick out what we want to plant while we’re at the nursery, then enjoy digging holes in the garden to plant their favorites.

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Posted on November 21, 2008 - by Kay

Not Enough Play Time?

I’ve been making an effort to listen in on my kids more during their independent play times recently.  I’ve been truly amazed to hear them interact with each other in all sorts of pretend roles.  They’re pirates, or puppies, or a family (and sometimes gender doesn’t dictate who’s the mommy or daddy, too!).  I have to say that I’ve loved ‘eavesdropping’ on their creative play.  It’s truly amazing to me what kids will do and think of and act out if just given a little time and space.  And while I know that I’m a much different mom than some, I kind of like that my kids can play really well without me – even at such young ages.  But, I’m also noticing that when I do interact in that time (and even get a little silly myself), I somehow wind up scoring HUGE points in their emotional banks.  So, I’m trying to learn how to do both well.

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Posted on November 11, 2008 - by Kay

The Thanksgiving Tree

I was talking with a friend of mine recently when she mentioned this idea she had seen and I decided Kate and I just had to do it!  (All of that to say, this wasn’t my idea! :)  Thanks for sharing, Sandra!)

Kate and I decided to celebrate Thanksgiving by thinking of things we are grateful for all month long.  And to write these things down, we’re posting them on our “Thanksgiving Tree” on our pantry door.

We took a few pieces of newspaper and taped them together on the back, then drew a large tree trunk and some branches with crayons.  Then we drew some different kinds of leaves on another piece of newspaper, cut them out as stencils, and traced and cut many more out of yellow, orange, and red construction paper.

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Posted on October 27, 2008 - by Kay

Jonathan Haidt on Moral Values

My husband and I have been watching more and more of these TED talks lately and I’ve found another couple that I wanted to share with you. This TED talk is related to moral values and how we are essentially born with a certain set of values. While I don’t necessarily agree with everything that Mr. Haidt concludes, I do love the validation he gives to the thought that all kids are born with a set of ideas. They are NOT born a blank slate. Of course, this reminded me of the basic tenets of Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy, which is why I am sharing this with you.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we’re left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most.


Posted on September 21, 2008 - by Kay

“A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six”

When I first read this list after discovering Charlotte Mason, I was amazed at the things that a 6 year old could do.  While I know that this list was very specific for the time period it was introduced, it still seems to be a good guide for what I can work towards with my 5.5 year old through our “kindergarten year” of homeschool.  And most of it can be accomplished without any “formal” school lessons at all. (Please note that most folks agree that this is a list of things that are to be accomplished by the END of a child’s sixth year, and NOT to be strived to be attained by the time they TURN six.)

 

“A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six“, a reprint of a curriculum outline from a Charlotte Mason school in the 1890’s. (from Summer 93 Parents Review pub by Karen Andreola)

1. To recite, beautifully, 6 easy poems and hymns
2. to recite, perfectly and beautifully, a parable and a psalm
3. to add and subtract numbers up to 10, with dominoes or counters
4. to read–what and how much, will depend on what we are told of the child
5. to copy in print-hand from a book
6. to know the points of the compass with relation to their own home, where the sun rises and sets, and the way the wind blows
7. to describe the boundries of their own home
8. to describe any lake, river, pond, island etc. within easy reach
9. to tell quite accurately (however shortly) 3 stories from Bible history, 3 from early English, and 3 from early Roman history (my note here, we may want to substitute early American for early English!)
10. to be able to describe 3 walks and 3 views
11. to mount in a scrap book a dozen common wildflowers, with leaves (one every week); to name these, describe them in their own words, and say where they found them.
12. to do the same with leaves and flowers of 6 forest trees
13. to know 6 birds by song, colour and shape
14. to send in certain Kindergarten or other handiwork, as directed 
15. to tell three stories about their own “pets”–rabbit, dog or cat.
16. to name 20 common objects in French, and say a dozen little sentences
17. to sing one hymn, one French song, and one English song
18. to keep a caterpillar and tell the life-story of a butterfly from his own observations.


Posted on September 3, 2008 - by Kay

Charlotte Mason’s 20 Principles

Not many people I know are familiar with Charlotte Mason. Heck, I didn’t even know who she was and I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education from Baylor University!

Charlotte Mason was an educator in England in the late 1800s and early 1900s. She had a very unique and specific approach to education that many folks are catching onto again. I’m forever grateful to Ambleside Online for introducing me to this fabulous woman and her educational philosophy. The moment that I read the below 20 principles that she outlined, I knew I was done looking for the ‘right’ curriculum. There are so many things in this list that just resonated with me – not just as a teacher or a mom, but as a spiritual being. She had such incredible insight, and it’s all still true a century later!

  1. Children are born persons.
  2. They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good and for evil.
  3. The principles of authority on the one hand, and of obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but––
  4. These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestion or influence, or by undue play upon any one natural desire.
  5. Therefore, we are limited to three educational instruments––the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas. The P.N.E.U. Motto is: “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.”
  6. When we say that “education is an atmosphere,” we do not mean that a child should be isolated in what may be called a ‘child-environment’ especially adapted and prepared, but that we should take into account the educational value of his natural home atmosphere, both as regards persons and things, and should let him live freely among his proper conditions. It stultifies a child to bring down his world to the child’s’ level.
  7. By “education is a discipline,” we mean the discipline of habits, formed definitely and thoughtfully, whether habits of mind or body. Physiologists tell us of the adaptation of brain structures to habitual lines of thought, i.e., to our habits.
  8. In saying that “education is a life,” the need of intellectual and moral as well as of physical sustenance is implied. The mind feeds on ideas, and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.
  9. We hold that the child’s mind is no mere sac to hold ideas; but is rather, if the figure may be allowed, a spiritual organism, with an appetite for all knowledge. This is its proper diet, with which it is prepared to deal; and which it can digest and assimilate as the body does foodstuffs.
  10. Such a doctrine as e.g. the Herbartian, that the mind is a receptacle, lays the stress of education (the preparation of knowledge in enticing morsels duly ordered) upon the teacher. Children taught on this principle are in danger of receiving much teaching with little knowledge; and the teacher’s axiom is, “what a child learns matters less than how he learns it.”
  11. But we, believing that the normal child has powers of mind which fit him to deal with all knowledge proper to him, give him a full and generous curriculum; taking care only that all knowledge offered him is vital, that is, that facts are not presented without their informing ideas. Out of this conception comes our principle that,––
  12. “Education is the Science of Relations”; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of––
    “Those first-born affinities that fit our new existence to existing things.”
  13. In devising a SYLLABUS for a normal child, of whatever social class, three points must be considered:
    • He requires much knowledge, for the mind needs sufficient food as much as does the body.
    • The knowledge should be various, for sameness in mental diet does not create appetite (i.e., curiosity).
    • Knowledge should be communicated in well-chosen language, because his attention responds naturally to what is conveyed in literary form.
  14. As knowledge is not assimilated until it is reproduced, children should ‘tell back’ after a single reading or hearing: or should write on some part of what they have read.
  15. A single reading is insisted on, because children have naturally great power of attention; but this force is dissipated by the re-reading of passages, and also, by questioning, summarising, and the like. Acting upon these and some other points in the behaviour of mind, we find that the educability of children is enormously greater than has hitherto been supposed, and is but little dependent on such circumstances as heredity and environment. Nor is the accuracy of this statement limited to clever children or to children of the educated classes: thousands of children in Elementary Schools respond freely to this method, which is based on the behaviour of mind.
  16. There are two guides to moral and intellectual self-management to offer to children, which we may call ‘the way of the ‘will’ and ‘the way of the reason.’
  17. The way of the will: Children should be taught,
    • to distinguish between ‘I want’ and ‘I will.’
    • That the way to will effectively is to turn our thoughts from that which we desire but do not will.
    • That the best way to turn our thoughts is to think of or do some quite different thing, entertaining or interesting.
    • That after a little rest in this way, the will returns to its work with new vigour.

    (This adjunct of the will is familiar to us as diversion, whose office it is to ease us for a time from will effort, that we may ‘will’ again with added power. The use of suggestion as an aid to the will is to be deprecated, as tending to stultify and stereotype character. It would seem that spontaneity is a condition of development, and that human nature needs the discipline of failure as well as of success.)

  18. The way of reason: We teach children, too, not to ‘lean (too confidently) to their own understanding’; because the function of reason is to give logical demonstration
    • of mathematical truth,
    • of an initial idea, accepted by the will.

    In the former case, reason is, practically, an infallible guide, but in the latter, it is not always a safe one; for, whether that idea be right or wrong, reason will confirm it by irrefragable proofs.

  19. Therefore, children should be taught, as they become mature enough to understand such teaching, that the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of ideas. To help them in this choice we give them principles of conduct, and a wide range of the knowledge fitted to them. These principles should save children from some of the loose thinking and heedless action which cause most of us to live at a lower level than we need.
  20. We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and ’spiritual’ life of children, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their Continual Helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.

These are Charlotte Mason’s own words. The Original Home Schooling Series by Charlotte Mason is provided here for public use. It can be read in her original words or a paraphrased version.


Posted on August 22, 2008 - by Kay

What Do I Do with ALL that Artwork??

When you live with a budding artist, you live with piles and piles of artwork.  And ALL of it is special. And NONE of it can be thrown away.  At least, that’s what my 5 year old tells me constantly.  And as gung-ho as she is about recycling, I still can’t manage to convince her that we can recycle some of her artwork, too.

So, instead of living with the masses of piles everywhere, I started looking for ideas of what to do with it all to help contain it and keep it from taking over my entire house.  I came across several great suggestions like these:

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Posted on August 21, 2008 - by Kay

Photography as an Art Form

My 5-year-old is an artist.  She loves to color.  She loves to draw.  She loves to paint.  She loves to cut and paste.  She loves to bead.  She loves to write cards.  She loves to stamp.  And she loves to take photos.  Not only does she have her own kid-friendly camera that she uses non-stop until the batteries run out, but she also loves to grab her daddy’s iPhone and take photos on it.  She’s gotten relatively good at it (we have several photos of family members that she took that are part of our collection), but the most recent addition to her collection is particularly interesting.  It’s obvious that she blurred whatever it was that she was shooting.  BUT, the resulting image was just too beautiful to delete.  We’ve printed out a copy and framed it to put in her room and I’ve got it set as my desktop pic on my computer, too.

Makes me wonder what other gorgeous pictures she could get by purposefully blurring the image…

I’m not sure if Charlotte Mason would consider photography a ‘handicraft’, but I’m thinking that in this day and age it’s most definitely an art form!  And one that I want to encourage in my artist-of-a-daughter, too.