This Wednesday I’ll share some of my kids’ favorite words. Once upon a time we memorized the riddles from The Hobbit. Well, we’ve been getting morning time done, and that includes memorization. I have the riddles slated to review once a week, but we’ve done them daily, per the children’s request. This is one I… Continue reading The Best Thing We Ever Memorized (According to my Kids)
My middle son has been reminding me of his upcoming birthday. He wants to have lasagna for dinner. He wants a book for his Kindle. He has a categorized list. And, he tells me, this will be his only doubled-digit birthday for eleven more years. He will turn the big one-one (11) in a few… Continue reading Raising Children: Letting Go
It’s that time of year. We’ve finished term 1 and it’s time to dive into term 2. I have three school age boys to plan for, plus kindergarten / year 0 for my daughter. My 8 and 10 year olds are fairly easy to plan. Term 2 seems to be a step-up in most of… Continue reading Planning a Term
Last year I read Charlotte Mason’s third volume, School Education, with a group on the Ambleside Online forums. The phrase that stuck out to me was “Books and Things“. In her Educational Manifesto, Miss Mason writes: Children can be most fitly educated on Things and Books. I’m a bookworm. I love words and language. I… Continue reading Handicrafts: Making Things
I am a lover of nature. The love of nature and good books drew me to Charlotte Mason, but reading her works, seeing what her students could do, left me feeling inadequate. You see, I’ve spend a lot of time in nature, and I’ve looked at the forest. But I’ve missed the trees. Miss Mason… Continue reading Nature Study for Mom
After reading Brandy’s series on Keeping at Afterthoughts and Jeanne’s post containing examples of Charlotte’s students’ Books of Centuries, I’ve decided to make more entries in mine. So here are a few entries from The Birth of Britain: King Alfred, Edward I, and a sketch of a Viking long-ship that was modelled from the one… Continue reading Keeping my Book of Centuries
Yesterday my year 5 student had dictation. We’ve just started Spelling Wisdom, book 2, and the beginning selections are short. He has done some dictation, but we’ve not been consistent. He is still learning the method. He is confident and quick with languages. This was the passage: All great things are simple, and many can… Continue reading A Dictation Lesson
I powered off my computer and went outside, where my kids were. And the day changed from crummy to sweet.
From the Handbook of Nature Study, Part 1: “The Teaching of Nature Study” – which is my favorite section. Therefore, the object of the nature-study teacher should be to cultivate in the children powers of accurate observation and to build up within them understanding. Comstock goes on to emphasize: But, more than all, nature-study gives… Continue reading Why Nature Study
I’ll spare everyone the day one details. In short, it went better than expected. We need to do math year round, because even just having a month off I had dual melt-downs of the “I can’ts”. We moved through that, and managed to get most things done except for Latin for my eldest, because we… Continue reading Day One: The Science Journal
