Simply Charlotte Mason — Charlotte Mason method homeschool helps.

“So they just send you the books, and you do them at home?”

I still remember the puzzled lady at the grocery store trying to wrap her mind around “homeschooling.” I’m afraid she would have been even more puzzled had I told her that I knew of at least five different approaches to homeschooling.

It’s not a one-size-fits-all process, like it is in traditional schools and classrooms. That’s how the lady at the grocery store was thinking of it.

One of the great benefits of homeschooling is that you can select the methods and materials that best fit you and your children. You have choices! [Continue reading Take Your Pick: Getting Started, part 1 …]

Our family has been cooking and serving some meals for large groups lately. That’s a new adventure for us—not the cooking part, the “for large groups” part. So we’ve been scouring the Internet for helpful tips, ideas, and recipes.

Along the way we’ve discovered an important principle: Always know who is giving you advice. If a person posts a tip or a recipe with a hint as to how to make it serve a large group, we check to see if that person has actually served any large groups. [Continue reading Where Do You Get Your Homeschool Advice? Getting Started, part 2 …]

Don’t you love it when you can take just a couple of basic ideas, combine them with a couple of skills, and use them to accomplish a lot?

Take sewing, for example. The basic ideas to keep in mind for general sewing are (1) allow 5/8″ from the edge of the fabric to the seam, and (2) put the right sides of the fabric together.

Combine those ideas with a couple of skills—like (1) learning how to “steer” the fabric as it feeds into the sewing machine, and (2) running the foot pedal—and you can make a pillowcase pretty quickly, or some curtains, or a bedspread. [Continue reading Basic Charlotte Mason Homeschooling Skills: Getting Started, part 3 …]

When I first heard about the Charlotte Mason Method, I envisioned my children and me sitting on the couch, reading wonderful books together and smiling. Well, we have done a lot of reading—and a lot of smiling—with the wonderful books. But over the years I have learned that there is much more to the Charlotte Mason approach.

Charlotte interspersed that reading and narrating with some other activities that used different parts of the brain and body. (Remember, that’s one of the basic principles.)

Today let’s take a look at some of those great Charlotte Mason activities that you can use to add variety to your days. [Continue reading Hands-On Methods the CM Way: Getting Started, part 4 …]

When I got married, I knew how to cook exactly two dishes: canned soup over rice and macaroni and cheese from a box. (And once I forgot to drain the macaroni.) Needless to say, those first few meals required a lot of effort and thinking on my part. But the more I cooked, the easier it got. Now I can cook a meal in my sleep.

It’s the same with getting started in homeschooling. The Charlotte Mason methods may be new to you, something you’ve never done before. At first it may require a lot of thinking and effort on your part; but take heart, the more you do it, the easier it will get. [Continue reading Homeschooling One Step at a Time: Getting Started, part 5 …]

We promised a little surprise this week and here it is: We are pleased to offer you this free book, Getting Started in Homeschooling.

All the information from this Getting Started article series, plus more helpful material, is collected into this one convenient and encouraging book.

Download your free copy of Getting Started in Homeschooling, and feel free to pass it along to your friends. We hope it will be helpful to everyone who is getting ready to embark on this exciting journey of homeschooling! [Continue reading Free Homeschool Book: Getting Started, part 6 …]