We’re two homeschooling families with eight children and about twenty-two years’ Charlotte Mason experience between us. Over the years, whenever we’ve (Karen and Sonya) gotten together we’ve talked Charlotte Mason and books. At the same time, our husbands (Doug and John) have talked computers and the Web.

Shafer and Smith families

We’ve been excited in recent months to see a resurgence of interest in Charlotte Mason methods among the homeschool community. More and more moms are coming to us for help in getting started. They love the CM approach and they know that they want to use it, but they can’t figure out the details. We hear the same question over and over: “That’s great, but what do I do tomorrow?”

When we get with our experienced CM friends, we thoroughly enjoy comparing notes and seeing how each person can choose different books and plan unique approaches to various subjects but still apply the CM methods. In other words, “Don’t tell me what I’m supposed to do tomorrow!” Then we all go home and sit up into the wee hours of the morning planning.

Definitely two ends of the spectrum.

We know that we don’t have all the answers, but we think we have a great idea of how to help both the beginners and the pros. So we’re pooling our experience and knowledge to build an on-line tool that will help beginners know what to do tomorrow, still give experienced CMers the flexibility they crave, and save both a lot of time.

We hope you’ll follow our progress and tell us what you think.

Terralien logo

The company that has been turning our CM Bookfinder and Organizer ideas into reality is Terralien, headed up by Nathaniel Talbott. Nathaniel is a talented programmer who was homeschooled (not Charlotte Mason, but we don’t hold that against him) and then apprenticed in his trade. He does great work, is very organized and helpful, communicates well, and we’re happy to have him as part of the team.

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