A Charlotte Mason Education Works!
Throughout my 20 years of homeschooling, I sought to model Charlotte Mason’s ideas, insights and inspiration.
I hope that in these Charlotte Mason pages you will discover bits of wisdom to help you cultivate a love for learning in your children.
Nature study builds into our children something wonderful. Something that cannot be attained through any other means. It instills a spirit of freedom and a sense of awe. A depth of understanding of God’s beautiful creation. And a curiosity that stays with our children their entire lives. The more time they spend outdoors exploring nature—freely… Continue reading How to Make Nature Study Awesome!
Training your child's character can be likened to tending a garden. Nurturing to life the good character qualities you want to see grow and blossom. It’s about watching over what’s sprouting up and carefully cultivating that which will one day bear fruit. It requires tilling the soil and weeding out anything that is not fructiferous… Continue reading How to Train Your Child’s Character – The Charlotte Mason Way!
Free time in the homeschool is an art. One worth pursuing. It’s a long forgotten yet invaluable rhythm of education and is truly one of homeschooling’s best kept secrets. Not only is it necessary to understand the importance of free time, you need to know how to implement it into your homeschool day. Leisure was… Continue reading How to Cultivate the Art of Free Time in Your Homeschool
Narration is a game changer. It's one of the things we got right in our homeschool. I can say this with confidence because I see in my adult children today that same love for learning that was cultivated through narration early in our homeschool—a love for learning that has carried them through their college studies and… Continue reading Narration: A Homeschool Game Changer
Early in my homeschool journey I discovered that Charlotte Mason’s methods were the most effective way of educating children. So I knew I wanted to apply her principles to my science books, specifically writing living books that delve deep into the subject matter, as well as using time-tested methods such as notebooking, narration, and hands-on… Continue reading How Notebooking Benefits Your Child’s Learning
Many educators promote the spiral or survey approach to education, wherein a child is exposed over and over again to minute amounts of a variety of science topics. Those supporting these approaches aim to “expose” the child to science each year giving a bit more information than was given the year before. This method has… Continue reading Immersion Science
Some people leave the womb with a natural inclination toward spelling. For others, spelling is a lifelong struggle. I have children in both categories. With my natural spellers, I don’t think it mattered what curriculum I used. Spelling made sense to them. With my poor speller, who also struggled with dyslexia, well, let’s just say… Continue reading Spelling Solutions for Your Homeschool
We all know how important knowledge is, but what about creative expression? Could it be that creativity is the missing link between joy and learning? Albert Einstein said, “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” He believed creative expression to be an essential element of all academic… Continue reading Notebooking: Cultivating Creativity
There are several philosophies and methodologies that homeschoolers use when educating their children. Some people choose one and follow it all the way through, others mix and match depending on what they want to accomplish, still others begin with one then change their methodologies as the years wear on and they begin to understand more… Continue reading Homeschool Methodologies
Over the years, I’ve shared my story at conferences and workshops about how God led me to teach my son to spell. As a result, I've received many queries about the program that I used. In essence, I did not use a program, but a procedure. I want to share it with you in the… Continue reading The Truth about Spelling
