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Keeping the “simple” in Simply Charlotte Mason
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Well, I am happy to report that after two weeks of purging, I have finally found it….the top of my desk. Over the Christmas holiday I realized that it had slowly been piling up with “must read” homeschool articles, missionary magazines, curriculum alternatives, etc…so much so that I could no longer see it! You know how it is, you get something in the mail and you think, “Oh I must read that,” or “Oh, I must have that!” But what I am learning (again) is that too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Many times my “must-haves” are nothing more than a distraction to what the Lord has really called me to do. (I have a tendency to succumb to the “grass is always greener syndrome” when it comes to homeschooling materials.) So for the past two weeks I have been sorting through, and really examining what is necessary and what is not…what is a distraction, and what is a blessing.
So as I write this, I must tell you how good it feels to look over at my desk and see only my Bible, and a few neat piles of homeschool materials. There is peace in my heart and in my home when I keep our lives simple. Just wanted to post this in case there were any homeschool clutter-bugs out there like myself! May God richly bless your families in this new year!
Thanks for the reminder to keep it simple and focus on the true priorities. We were talking just the other night at Bible study about studying to live a quiet life.
Blessings,
Cindy
Happy New Year to you, too!
I needed that reminder too. As I look at our 2009 schedule and all the things that I want to do, it’s easy to feel stressed. Thank you for the reminder to hold them all up to our Father with open hands and ask Him to do the choosing. What a blessed truth that the yoke our Savior asks us to share is easy and His burden is light. This stress is because I’m not looking to Him and waiting on Him to lead. Thank you!
Thank you from me too for such a great reminder (especially as a homeschooling newbie!)
It’s great to know others feel this way and have found peace and rest in just trusting the Lord with all the plans and all the *stuff* that can just get in the way.
Bless you 🙂
Lusi x
Fellow clutter-bug here! I started the day with a spruce up plan, and I see that others feel the need to purge the piles after the holidays. I’ve got my shoes on and I am tidying for 15 minutes in each room, then my other goals for the day are to vacuum and start taking down the Christmas decorations. My kids are having their fun day with extra time playing video games.
Any other flybabies here? I think Flylady may have read Charlotte – she is always on about the 15 minutes (short lessons = short tasks?). It sure works for me!
This is a great reminder! I was just questioning myself as to whether I should be having my oldest daughter (7th grade) doing Omnibus. I really like the concept and I think I would find it interesting (at 37yrs old), but I don’t think we could handle it! I don’t think my daughter could handle it! She’s just not that scholarly bent though she’s a great reader.
It’s always best for me to go for simplicity and what’s doable. There is some challenge to our day, but it’s not strenuous. I had to forget I had bought all this other stuff and streamline what we do because none of us were happy. What I am thrilled about is that my daughter is using her free time, even on weekends, to work on a book she’s writing (in the spirit of narnia). So, when there is free time, she is adding her own schoolwork and is being led by her delight rather than my mandate. So, our simple plan has become more enriching than the plan I could have come up with using all the other stuff I had.
Keep reminding me.
Thank you for posting this! What a blessing and confirmation…I have been going through the same thing…I am a clutter bug, as everything can be good for “something” sometime, and I have now been forced to declutter. We have so much snow this winter that rats have decided to come inside to live. (EEEWWWWWWW!!!!) I have been working for days to declutter so that we can see the source of the problem, and although it has been exhausting and stressful, it is a great feeling to be living in this simplicity. It has also really shown me how the past 5 months I have allowed too many things in life to get too complicated, and how I rally need to simplify more than just the house…including our school schedule. More books, less “stuff” will add value. I couldn’t believe what my kids were doing over Christmas when there was “no school!” (DD 8, copied out Magic school bus books onto 11 sheets of paper and created a presentation for everyone which she did on New Years Eve!)
Thank you so much for vocalizing what I’ve been doing in my house. My motto this year is Peace. Peace in my marriage, my parenting, my homeschool, my house, and my life. It’s something that’s been lacking for so long! Along with this peace comes simplicity, which is why I love this CM way of learning. I keep telling all my friends who are stressing over testing and curriculum that they need to establish peace and simplicity and the learning will come in leaps and bounds! We have drastically reduced our activities and stress in our learning this year, and I can see the fruits of it in my children. My friend has asked me if my kids are upset that we don’t do as many activities as last year, but they love it! They love being home doing what they love with the people they love. Thank you so much to all of you for being here and being encouraging throughout this endeavor. I am completely serious when I say that I couldn’t do any of this without you!
Faith 🙂
Well I’m glad to hear that the message and blessings of simplicity are ringing true in many of your homes as well! I did want to add one thing to my original post though and that is, one of the areas in our homeschooling day that needed simplifying was math. I found that we were spending a good 45 minutes per child, each day on math – IMO too much for a 1st and 3rd grader. And many of these math lessons ended up with tears. I wanted so much to find a CM friendly math program for the elementary years. In my quest, I came upon a website that some of you might find worth while looking at. It offers free downloads of arithmetic primers from the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Most of these books are from Harvard’s library. They are so refreshingly different from our modern day math programs. Now I fully realize that MATH is MATH, and there’s no getting around that some days it’s going to be just plain difficult. But if you’re interested in some old fashioned math lessons where they instruct the student to write on their “slate”…give it a look! SO far, we’re enjoying it. No tears. I’ll let you know in a few months how we’re faring with it!
Wow – what a great math resource. I thank you for posting this, all4purity. Hopefully there’s a link to this thread when someone searches for math related questions because I think it’s worth looking at. I’ll be watching for an update as to how well this is working for your 1st & 3rd grader.
Okay I got into the math site today, and I personally think it is fantastic!!! =) So simple! I’m going to introduce it a little bit for fun and see what DD does with it…we are just starting to introduce multiplication and I love the way it goes about introducing the why!
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