Well, dear friends, I had hoped I would be able to draft enough posts ahead of time to keep this series going through the next couple of weeks....but alas. That didn't happen. Over the next couple of weeks our family will be moving to a new house, observing a birthday, an anniversary, Holy Week, and Easter. All wonderful and good things....but all things that will keep me more or less offline.
I hope each of you have a special celebration of the resurrection of our Lord, and I will see you back again in this space when the dust settles on the other side.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
From My Commonplace: On Going Home
"It seemed as though he were never able to forget his ultimate purpose and goal – he was going home; home to his own master, home where he belonged, and nothing else mattered. This lodestone of longing, this certainty, drew him to lead his companions ever westward through wild and unknown country, as unerringly as a carrier pigeon released from an alien loft." (p.52)
~Sheila Burnford, The Incredible Journey
My Bookbag This Week:
Devotional: The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission
The Cloud of Witness (Gell)
A Sacrifice of Praise (poetry anthology, edited by Trott)
The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost (Wright)
Theological: The Screwtape Letters (Lewis)
AO Book Discussion Group: Paradise Lost (Milton)
Personal Choice: The Clockwork Universe (Dolnick)
With my Hubby: Pride and Prejudice (Austen)
Family Read-Aloud Literature: The Wouldbegoods (Nesbit)
*I am also reading Scouting the Divine (Feinburg) with a women's group at church and Charlotte Mason's Volume 6 for a local CM book club, but these meetings are infrequent and so I just read the brief section assigned as our meetings come up. They aren't really part of my regular reading rotation as the rest of these are.
** Yes. My hubby is actually reading Pride and Prejudice with me. And enjoying it....
Click Here for more Words
Saturday, March 12, 2016
I Give You Permission...
Has spring arrived where you live yet?
It has where we live. Sunny and temps in the 70s. In my mind this is perfect weather.
Too perfect to stay inside.
But what about that math lesson? Don't we need to do that?
What about squeezing all that reading on the AO list for week 8 into week 8 on the calendar?
Relax Mama. I know you want to be diligent in your children's education. Me too.
But pushing too hard at all those things you "should" do without ever taking a break – that leads to burn out.
Ask me how I know.
These sunny 70 degree days aren't going to last forever.
Before you know it they will give way to the sticky humidity and heat of summer.
We won't want to spend all day outside anymore. We'll want to stay inside in the air conditioning.
Which means that we'll have time to pick up the pace again on the math and reading and all those other things.
We'll be refreshed and ready for it after slowing our pace for a few weeks to enjoy this window of perfect weather.
Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
Enjoy these days while they last.
I give you permission….
All photos taken on a recent outing to our local botanical gardens. We got a great deal on an annual pass. We'll be back.
Monday, March 7, 2016
Getting Started with AO Year One: Understanding Narration
Welcome back for another coffee chat, friends.
I hope that our last installment left you feeling encouraged that you CAN do this. It's okay if you haven't read everything and don't know it all, and it's even okay if you don't do everything perfectly because none of us do.
That said…you do need to start somewhere. Once you've gained a general overview of CM's ideas, you need to begin to deepening your understanding a little bit at a time. In the next couple of posts in this series I'd like to suggest a couple of principles that would be good starting places for your further study. Today let's talk about narration.
Very simply put, narration is the act of telling back (orally or, in the case of older students, in writing) what you have heard or read or experienced. Sounds simple, right? It is simple, but it is also profound. In order to narrate, the child must attend to the reading, organize it in his own mind, and reformulate it in his own words. I have reflected before that narration is akin to translation – translating the ideas of the author into one's own language. It's harder work than you might think! Some children take to it like ducks to water, and others really struggle with developing this skill. Narration is frequently misunderstood and its power underestimated. It is also absolutely essential to putting Charlotte Mason's philosophy of education into place in your homeschool. This is why I'd like to suggest to you that deepening your understanding of what narration is, why it is important, and how to help your student develop narration skills is a foundational starting place for further study.
Rather than re-invent the wheel, I am going to leave you today with a collection of links that will send you well on your way to a deeper understanding of narration. Take some time over the next few weeks to read and take notes and ponder. Feel free to come back and leave your questions in the comments, or hop on over to the Ambleside Online Forum and join the conversation there.
Narration Helps from the Ambleside Online Advisory Board with LOTS of links for further study
Karen Glass on Narration
More from Karen Glass on "What's the Point of Narration"
Your Morning Basket Podcast on Narration with Sonya Shafer
The Mason Jar Podcast Interview with Karen Glass (not solely about narration, but she does make some good points with regard to narration to keep in mind)
Brandy Vencel on Narration vs. Discussion
Also, if you haven't already subscribed to Brandy's Newbie Tuesday newsletter, go do that now. The first issue is all about narration, and I believe you get that immediately when you sign up.
Happy Reading, Friends!
PS – For those of you who may be looking for an online discussion group to go deeper with CM's principles, it looks like there is a group forming over on the AO Forum to go through Brandy's 20 Principles study beginning in April. I did this study myself with a group of Forum ladies several years ago and I would say that that was the thing that really cemented my understanding of what CM is all about. I highly recommend this study to you, especially if you don't have access to a local CM study group. Click here to get more information (you need to be registered on the Forum to access this link).
Thursday, March 3, 2016
From My Commonplace: On Prayer and Distraction
"Whenever they are attending to the Enemy Himself, we are defeated, but there are ways of preventing them from doing so. The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him towards themselves. Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce feelings there by the action of their own wills…Teach them the desired feeling; and never let them suspect how much success or failure of that kind depends on whether they are well or ill, fresh or tired, at the moment."
"…you must keep him praying to it – to the thing he has made, not to the Person who has made him."
~CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #4)
(For those of you who aren't familiar with The Screwtape Letters, they are a series of imagined letters from a Senior Demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, Wormwood educating him in the nature of tempting his patient – a human being - and keeping Him from entering in to a full and living relationship with God. Their 'Enemy', of course is God. They are rather amusing and tongue-in-cheek at times, but the reversed perspective also gives rather intriguing commentary and insight into the nature of sin and temptation. Very, very interesting to be reading this alongside Paradise Lost, although to be completely honest I haven't touched Paradise Lost for nearly two weeks. But it's all still simmering away in the back of my mind…)
My Bookbag This Week:
Devotional: The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission
The Cloud of Witness (Gell)
A Sacrifice of Praise (poetry anthology, edited by Trott)
The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost (Wright)
Theological: The Screwtape Letters (Lewis)
AO Book Discussion Group: Paradise Lost (Milton)
Personal Choice: The Scent of Water (Goudge)
With my Hubby: Pride and Prejudice (Austen)
Family Read-Aloud Literature: The Wouldbegoods (Nesbit)
*I am also reading Scouting the Divine (Feinburg) with a women's group at church and Charlotte Mason's Volume 6 for a local CM book club, but these meetings are infrequent and so I just read the brief section assigned as our meetings come up. They aren't really part of my regular reading rotation as the rest of these are.
** Yes. My hubby is actually reading Pride and Prejudice with me. And enjoying it....
Click Here for more Words
Monday, February 29, 2016
Getting Started with Ambleside Online Year One: You Don't Have To Get Everything Right the First Time
Welcome back for another coffee chat, friend.
So, have you been diving a little deeper in Charlotte Mason's ideas since we chatted last? I hope you have, and I hope you've been inspired and encouraged by the ideas you are encountering. There's a lot to take in though, isn't there? It can feel a little daunting. What you start to realize is that Charlotte Mason education, regardless of if you follow the Ambleside Online curriculum or not, is more than just an-open-and-go curriculum. It's a whole paradigm shift that's likely to change your life and the way you look at the world. It can be easy to freak out a little bit and want to get it right all at once and then get discouraged when you can't or don't.
Guess what: you won't. Get it all right the first time that is.
And guess what else: That's OK. I don't think anyone gets it all exactly right.
Charlotte Mason's ideals are a worthy goal to shoot for. But the fact of the matter is that we are all limited by our understanding and our circumstances. We are all – from the very beginning beginner to the seasoned veteran who has been doing this for 20+ years – on a continuum. We are all learning and growing in our understanding and implementation of CM's ideas. And we all have those seasons in which certain things need to get laid aside. So if you are one of those very new newbies…don't compare yourself too much with those who have been at this for a while. Start where you are and commit yourself to learning and growing as you go.
I'll tell you straight up that we haven't "arrived" yet. My poor oldest student has been quite the little guinea pig as we've gone along. My lack of understanding of and trust in Charlotte Mason's methods in the beginning led me to try multiple different supplementary curricula. She's been inflicted with spelling programs and writing programs and science textbooks with demonstrations and experiments. None of these things are really in line with CM's vision for these subjects, especially for younger students. And after a while, I discovered that we really didn't need them after all. Copywork and dictation – oral and written narration – nature study – these are really enough. Did any of this bumbling around on my part really hurt her though? No, not really. (Hurt my pocketbook some, but that was the only real harm done!) We still don't do foreign languages all that well, and don't even aspire to learn multiple foreign languages as was Charlotte's practice in her school. I'm very haphazard about habit training too. That's not to say we don't do it, it just doesn't look all neat and packaged as it appears to be in CM's writings. And I'm not comfortable with watercolor paints, so we use colored pencils or watercolor pencils in our nature journals - I figure its better that we keep them with pencils rather than waiting until I can figure out the dry brush watercolor technique that Charlotte Mason's students used in their journals. That's not to say that we can't learn eventually, but in the meantime...that's what it is.
I don't tell you these things to give you an excuse to do things poorly. I do tell you these things because I want you not to be afraid to jump in, even if you only know a little right now. You will learn and grow over time right alongside your children.
Just do it, my friends. You'll be glad you did.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
From My Commonplace: Thoughts from Elizabeth Goudge
"The conservatory door was open and they passed out into the garden, breathless for a moment while the scents and sounds of spring broke over their heads like a wave. Jean was visited by one of her rare moments of happiness, one of those moments when the goodness of God was so real to her that it was like taste and scent; the rough strong taste of honey in the comb and the scent of water." (p.65)
" 'My dear,' he said, 'love, your God, is a trinity. There are three necessary prayers and they have three words each. They are these, 'Lord, have mercy. Thee I adore. Into thy hands.' Not difficult to remember. If in times of distress you hold to these, you will do well.'' (p.94-95)
"I had not known before that love is obedience. You want to love, and you can't, and you hate yourself because you can't, and all the time love is not some marvelous things that you feel but some hard thing that you do. And this in a way is easier because with God's help you can command your will when you can't command your feelings." (p. 140)
~Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water
This, my friends, is why I love Elizabeth Goudge.
Enough said.
My Bookbag This Week:
Devotional: The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission, The Cloud of Witness (Gell), A Sacrifice of Praise (poetry anthology, edited by Trott), The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost (Wright)
Theological: Screwtape Letters (Lewis)
AO Book Discussion Group: Paradise Lost (Milton)
Personal Choice: The Clockwork Universe (Dolnick)
With my Hubby: Pride and Prejudice (Austen)
Family Read-Aloud Literature: The Wouldbegoods (Nesbit)
*I am also reading Scouting the Divine (Feinburg) with a women's group at church and Charlotte Mason's Volume 6 for a local CM book club, but these meetings are infrequent and so I just read the brief section assigned as our meetings come up. They aren't really part of my regular reading rotation as the rest of these are.
** Yes. My hubby is actually reading Pride and Prejudice with me. And enjoying it....
Click Here for more Words
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