In studying to put together our new book, Hearing and Reading, Telling and Writing: A Charlotte Mason Language Arts Handbook, I was once again amazed at the way Charlotte could take a simple idea and pack it full of benefits. Take copywork, transcription, and dictation, for examples. Each of those methods is pretty simple to […]
Charlotte Mason thought that the Bible lesson should be the most important lesson of the day. We think so too. But as my children grew older, I found it harder to apply Charlotte’s wonderful principles of direct contact with Scripture and forming your own relation with it through forms of narration. You see, in the […]
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 […]
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 […]
Planning season is upon us, and many people are using our free SCM Curriculum Guide to help make those decisions easier. We’ve been getting some questions on how our History, Bible, and Geography modules work, so let’s take a moment to walk through that flexible part of our curriculum guide. I’m a firm believer in […]
In this final installment of our Way of the Will series, let’s look at how the habit of attention affects your child’s success in strengthening his will to do what is right even when he doesn’t feel like it. The habit of attention is necessary to help him distinguish between “I want” and “I will” […]
As we mentioned last week, we are very excited about a newly-completed project. Our Books & Things Seminar is now available on DVD! Charlotte noted how an education based on books and things can simplify our home schools. Using good living books and the things around us to educate our children is also a very […]
We’ve spent much of this series on high school talking about academics. And it’s easy to focus on the books, the grades, and the transcript, especially in the high school years. But our goal is not just to graduate our children. Our goal is to equip them to be godly young men and women who […]
High School. Maybe it’s the name. Maybe it’s the emphasis our culture seems to place on its importance. Maybe it’s the expectations that we carry from our own past experiences. Whatever the cause, it seems like many factors can contribute to a sense of intimidation when we think of teaching “high school.” Then, along with […]
Charlotte Mason had a knack for keeping school interesting. Not only did she include a variety of subjects, but she taught those subjects with enjoyable (and effective) methods. Take the subject of spelling, for example. Most of us were taught spelling with lists of words. Charlotte realized that lists have drawbacks: they aren’t interesting and […]
We’ve all been there. We hear about a great book, we do the research, we gather raving reviews from others, and we spend the money. Full of eager anticipation, we dig into the first chapter with our kids gathered around. But for some reason that book just doesn’t click with our children. When we ask […]
Today was one of “those” days. It took a Herculean effort just to make sure we accomplished all that needed to be done: meals, vitamins, exercises, beginning reading, copywork, math, bread-baking, groceries, Bible, Latin, English grammar, literature, Scripture memory. Not to mention conference calls, e-mails, and scheduling. I’m sure your to-do list looked just as […]
You may be thinking, “Combining all my students for certain subjects sounds like a great idea, but what does it look like?” Glad you asked. Let’s talk first about Family subjects that are taught primarily with living books. In our house those subjects are history, geography, Bible, poetry, science (in the younger grades), and Shakespeare. […]
Ever since we began homeschooling, I’ve combined all the school-age children for as many subjects as possible. That decision has saved countless hours, both in planning and in teaching. I love to recommend that strategy everywhere we go. At some recent seminars, several moms have had questions about how to combine the grade levels. So […]
When we started Simply Charlotte Mason several years ago, we asked the Lord to make our efforts a blessing to the families He would bring our way. But we never realized how much the families He brought our way would bless us in return! You are an encouragement and a blessing in our lives, and […]
If you remember back to our first post in this Early Years series, we talked about a parent’s chief duties. Do you recall what those two duties are? 1. “To form in his child right habits of thinking and behaving,” and 2. “To nourish a child daily with loving, right, and noble ideas” (Vol. 2, […]
My children have always loved a good book. I remember when my first two were preschoolers, we had two reading times set aside each day. They would come running to the couch with their arms full of their book choices—often from their special favorites—and we would read . . . and read . . . […]
A new arrival always brings excitement, and we’re excited about the new arrival at SCM—The Early Years: A Charlotte Mason Preschool Handbook! This book is filled with Charlotte Mason’s ideas for the preschool years, presented in bite-size chunks with modern-day examples, inspiring quotes, and practical tips. The ideas presented in our series on the Early […]
“In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mother’s first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it spent for the most part out in the fresh air” (Vol. 1, p. 43). Did you […]
In my daughter’s baby book are two great “early years” photos. One is a picture of her after she tried to eat a chocolate ice cream cone. The front of her shirt is covered, her hands are dripping,—and how she got it in her sandals, I’ll never know. The other picture is of her standing […]
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