Tying topics together

If you are strictly following Charlotte Mason’s philosophy I don’t believe she suggested doing this because you’re trying to make connections/relationships for the child.  However, not being a strict follower, I sometimes do this in small ways.  So I may share a poem about eagles during our science lesson on eagles.  But I generally wouldn’t coordinate everything for them (a hymn, scripture, art project, poem, picture study, and science lesson all having eagles involved).

I have seen my children make the connections on their own too.  So if we learned about eagles a few weeks ago and then they come across a reference to eagles in a hymn or scripture verse they may mention it – if it catches their attention/interest.  They may be flipping through a poetry book a week or so after that and come across Tennyson’s poem The Eagle and love it so much they decide to use it for copywork or memory work.

Another possibility I have seen play out, actually related to eagles, so I’ll share it, is that one year my oldest learned The Eagle by Tennyson.  Then a different year when her siblings were studying eagles after having seen them at the zoo, she taught them the poem.  (They were telling her about eagles and that prompted her sharing the poem.  They loved how dramatic it was and asked for her to write it down for them.  She said, let’s learn to say it together instead.

So it can work both ways.  One danger of saturating their lessons that I can think of is with so much coordination of topic is they will become bored and tune it out, fail to give full attention, and they’re not feasting at a broad varied table of ideas.  Who wants to go to a feast where every dish is made with some form of eggs, or some form of fish, etc.?