In my pantry are some foods I think of as staples. They can be included in a variety of dishes and used in a variety of ways. Take potatoes, for instance. I can add them to a stew or pop them in with a roast. I can bake them, boil them, mash them, slice them, […]

We just returned from a homeschool convention in Texas that required four days on the road and three days at the convention hall. You do the math. During those days away from home, we ate in many different restaurants, and I noticed a trend among the informal ones. As we came in the door, an […]

How well do you know The Pledge of Allegiance? I’m pretty sure most of us can recite it. Want to try? (Those of you residing in a country other than the United States, bear with me while I make a point.) But how well do you know The Pledge of Allegiance? Try putting it in […]

I like simple. Well, let me amend that statement. I like simple as long as it’s effective. As we continue our series on narration questions and answers, let’s look at a simple description Charlotte gave for using narration effectively. This one statement can answer several of your questions. Here’s her statement: “The simplest way of […]

When I began using Charlotte Mason’s method of narration, I thought it should look like this: We sit on the couch. I open the book and read the next chapter. I close the book and ask a student to retell the chapter in her own words. End of lesson. But sometimes I would get blank […]

I was listening to a music teacher talk about Chopin yesterday. He mentioned that some people might think Chopin was a lesser composer than Beethoven because Chopin’s compositions are so much shorter. But the music teacher set everyone’s doubts at rest over that matter. Chopin’s works might be shorter, but they are just as well-planned, […]

So far in our Narration Q & A series, we’ve talked about the reason we use Charlotte Mason’s method of narration and how it cements the material in the student’s mind; we’ve discussed what narration is and how to get started with it, how long of a passage to read and how many times to […]

It’s easy to look at narration as the be-all and end-all Charlotte Mason method of learning. What we don’t realize is that we are focusing on just a portion of the picture. We are mistaken if we think that a CM-style lesson is, They read. They narrate. That’s it. Narration is a powerful tool, but […]

I love this comment that Megan shared on our blog! I did my first oral narration with my 9 year old son today after watching (and being SO encouraged) by the living and learning DVD set. He did pretty well, but most importantly, he enjoyed it and twenty minutes later came up to me and […]

Eat three square meals a day.Brush your teeth twice a day.Change the oil every 3,000 miles.Take the trash to the curb once a week. Many of us love guidelines with numbers, because it’s easier to wrap our heads around the information that way. It helps us get a mental picture of what we should expect. […]

When we think of narration, we often envision a parent and a child sitting comfortably on the couch. The mother is smiling and nodding—the book closed and resting in her lap—as the child earnestly tells the story in his own words. But what does it look like with two children? or four? or fifteen? As […]

In our Narration Q & A series so far, we have covered the foundation. The tips and techniques that we have discussed apply to most age ranges and give the broad view of narration. During the rest of this series, we will focus on how this powerful tool can be tweaked and adapted to be […]

Last time we talked about some ideas for getting started using narration with younger children. Today let’s address some questions about starting the method with older children. Narration Question #41: In the Fall I will have a 4th and 1st grader. I am going to try to have my 4th grader be more independent and […]

We’ve been discussing oral narration for several weeks now. It’s time to move on to the next step in composition. Wait a minute! you say to yourself. The next step? I thought written narration was composition. So often when we discuss composition, we focus on the writing. Writing is, indeed, a part of composition, but […]

Can you touch your ceiling? I can’t touch the ceiling in my kitchen even if I jump. It’s a standard height, but I can barely reach it with a 2-foot-long fly swatter. Now can you imagine jumping over your ceiling? That’s the current world record for high jump: a smidgen over 8 feet. It boggles […]

As we have worked our way through the Narration Q & A series over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to group the questions by topic. We have a couple more big topics left to cover, but today I want to touch on two great questions that didn’t quite fit into those larger topics. […]

This year we graduated our third child from our home school. All three of our children were taught with Charlotte Mason methods, though I refined my techniques over the years as I researched and learned more. Some of the refinements I made were in how I used narration during the high school years. Here is […]

When I started homeschooling with the Charlotte Mason Method, my focus was all on the children. I thought this endeavor was about giving my children the kind of education that I hadn’t received. Little did I suspect the added bonus that awaited me. You see, not only did my children receive a generous and enjoyable […]