You won’t believe this one!

When I saw this contest, I knew I had to blog about it. My Wooden Spoon has been given two New West KnifeWorks knives to give away. This was definitely a contest I had to enter and get as many entries as possible. These knives are just beautiful.

If I could pick only one knife from the whole collection, it would probably be the Fusionwood bread knife. We have been looking for a new bread knife anyway. Choosing colors would be a bit tougher. Enjoying pink as much as I do, I would probably want to pick “Flamenco”, but my husband who is a bit more traditional would probably ask for the “Cowboy.”

Thank you My Wooden Spoon and New West Knifeworks for the awesome opportunity to check out these knives.

On Vacation

Well, I’m not really on vacation, but I probably will be a little less frequent on my blog here for a couple weeks.

First, my Mother-in-law, Sister-in-law, Nephew and Niece are coming to visit this weekend. Yippee! We haven’t seen them since we went out to visit two years ago.

Second, we are planning a birthday party for Bugga while the family is in town. Mom ordered some great decorations, favors and a pinata. I still need to decide on cake or cupcakes and get it ordered and plan activities.

Third, and probably most exciting, I am participating in a new venture. The great people at Chrysanethemoms have started a sister site called Moms In A Blog and asked me to be one of the writers. I am really excited for the amazing opportunity. Best of all, this is their grand opening week, and there will be lots of fun contests and prizes and other fun things going on. Stop by my post about Displaying Children’s Art for your chance to win a copy of “Mom’s Little Book of Displaying Children’s Art.”

So, all of the above means lots of cleaning, a little bit of adjusting of schedules, and hopefully lots of time spent with family too over the next couple of weeks. I’ll try to pop in next Tuesday at the very least.

In the meantime, make sure you stop by The Lazy Organizer to see what everyone else is talking about today and find a few more blogs to become addicted to read while I am away.

A Subject by Subject Approach to Charlotte Mason

History is about more than names and dates. It is a a story about actual people. Next to religion, it is the pivot of the curriculum. Start with the history of your own nation and build out. Also, keep in mind that you don’t have to finish a book in one year. Give yourself time to get intimately acquainted with both the great and common people of an age. Find out what was happening in other places at the same time. Whenever possible, study original source documents. Start with a chronological study to set a good flow, and then as you move along you can start to study more than one country or era at a time. Read literature of the time to enhance your study and keep a Book of Centuries or personal timeline.

Literature is used for character training and should be fun and engaging. All books should be developmentally appropriate to the child’s individual timetable. Literature books will not give you precise information, but they will give you a sense of the time period they were written in or about.

Recitation is training in the art of public speaking. The child should become an interpreter of the thought of the piece they are reciting. Recitations can be read or memorized and can come from poems, hymns, scriptures, speeches, or the books you are reading.

Poetry is meant for enjoyment, not for dissection. Introduce new poems daily and memorize favorites.

Study 3 Shakespeare plays per year (1 per term). When you start studying Shakespeare, read the stories. Then move onto the actual plays. They can be listened to or read aloud. You can also watch movie versions or see live productions. Approximately 30 minutes should be spent weekly and the child should narrate what is covered. Don’t worry about wether or not you understand every line, it is meant to be enjoyed.

Nature Study is about observation and forming a relationship with nature. Set aside a time each week. Have the child do 6 illustrations in their nature notebook per term and label them both with common and latin names. Illustrations can be done onsite or specimens can be brought home. Keep in mind that nature notebooks are the child’s impressions of nature and should not be corrected. Make a plan for what you want to study, but do not negate opportunities as they present themselves. You can study in your own yard, your neighbor’s yard, around the block, at lakes and fishing ponds, or even at the zoo. Some tools you will need are a good journal, a basket or bag for collecting items, field guides, watercolors and paper, and a magnifying glass. Try keeping a calendar of firsts to compare each year, or adopt a tree and note how it changes throughout the year.

Science should include field or lab work as well as a literary component. Make sure the experiments are easy enough the child can do them on their own (with supervision) and then have them narrate the process and results back to you orally or by writing them in a notebook. Study biographies of scientists as well and include natural history and botany year round.

Start Geography lessons in your own locality. Have the child draw a map of their own bedroom, and then gradually expand to the house, yard, neighborhood and so on.

Picture Study begins at age 6. Study 1 artist per term, choosing 6 of their works to study. Work with all ages of your children together. Have them look at the picture and simply tell what they see. As they get older have them write detailed descriptions of the pictures.

Music Study also begins at 6. Study 1 composer per term, choosing 6 of their works to study. Listen for 30 minutes each week. Enter the composer’s information or the date the song was written into your timeline.

Language Arts was not covered at the workshop I attended, but includes reading, composition, dictation/spelling, writing, and copywork/transcription.

Some Foundations of a Charlotte Mason Education

Short Lessons

The length of a lesson varies by age.

• In grades 1-3 lessons should be 10-20 minutes each.
• In grades 4-6 lessons should be 20-30 minutes each.
• In grades 7-9 lessons should be 20-45 minutes each.
• In grades 10-12 lesons should be 30-45 minutes each.

During a lesson you should require the child’s full focus. If they are having a hard time focusing try reducing the time per lesson and gradually build up to more time.

In order to keep your whole day going, you should also keep the lessons interesting and on their level, devote your full attention to the lessons as well, and build in changes of brain function through out the day.

Narration

Narration can be done in oral or written form and is simply telling back what the child has just heard or read. It is a means of evaluating what they learned from a reading as well as a means of cementing the knowledge into their own minds. Narrations should be done after only 1 reading of the material.

From the ages of 6-9, when you are just starting narration, you start with short passages and:

1. Tell your child before reading that you will want to hear about what is being read.
2. Don’t stop and make corrections while they are reading.
3. Don’t interrupt their narrations.

At the end of the narration you can ask leading questions to see if you can help them to recognize any mistakes they made or to get more information.

Between the ages of 10 and 12 you start to introduce written narrations. When doing written narrations:

1. Expect them to be shorter than an oral narration.
2. Allow plenty of time (as much as 2 years) for skills to fully develop.
3. Begin with one written narration per week and gradually increase the number as skills increase.
4. Shorten the readings if necessary.
5. The concern is content and ideas.
6. Allow the child to read the narration back to you.
7. Do not edit the written narrations. Assess them and assign skills to be worked on in copywork, dictation, or grammar lessons.
8. Teach and allow your High School age students to edit their own narrations.

Generous Curriculum

A year in a Charlotte Mason education consists of 3 terms that are each 12 weeks long. During that time, several different subjects are covered. Because lessons are kept short children are left with ample time to explore their own interests outside of school time. More details on specific subjects will be outlined in future posts.

Start your day with Bible or scripture reading. Include narration and memory verses.

After you’re done with this foundation, get your children excited for the day. Similar to the philosophy of “Life is short, eat desert first.” is the philosophy that “The school day is short, do something fun first.” Pick something your family is interested in, and if you can do it all together, that’s even better.

As you continue throughout your day and week remember to include variety. Vary day to day the order that subjects are done in. Also remember that your schedule can change several times. It is not set in stone and is totally subject to changes of season, changes of mood, and changes in your family life.

Living Books

Living books are the staple of a Charlotte Mason education. The ideas they contain are the meat that our brains feed on. How do you know if a book is a living book?

Living books will:

• usually have only 1 author.
• contain facts and information in literary form.
• stir the imagination and feed the mind.
• present information in an interesting way.
• be worth rereading.

Living books will not:

• contain twaddle, or ideas that are foolish, shallow, and serve no purpose.
• talk down to you.

Now that we’ve got our foundation in place, let’s start to build our curriculum. Coming up next: A Subject by Subject Approach to Charlotte Mason.

Charlotte Mason on Habits

A habit is simply an action or thought process that becomes automatic. We do not think about the way we brush our teeth or put on our shirt because those things are habits. Our habits produce our character.

When building a new habit, distraction is a worthy tool. When you start to see a bad action building, distract your child into doing something worthwhile.

Some habits that can and should be built in young children are:

• obedience
• attention
• thinking
• remembering
• truthfulness
• observation
• cheerfulness
• kindness
• imagination
• initiative

Even your babies can start to learn some good habits:

• attention
• cleanliness
• neatness
• appreciation of music
• punctuality
• order
• reading
• routine

How to Build a Habit

When building habits it is important to remember to only focus on one habit at a time. Let it become a habit, and then focus on maintaining it while you move onto other habits.

The stages for building a habit are:

1. Develop habits for yourself including tactfulness and watchfulness. It will set an example for your children as well as making it easier for you to help them develop their habits.
2. Initiate any new habit with a friendly talk. (”I think it would be great if you had more room to play in. Let’s work on keeping your room neat.”)
3. Never let the habit slip. When we let the habit slip even once we have to start over from scratch to rebuild it.
4. Use gentle reminders with no nagging or scolding.
5. Watch out for the dangerous stage. After something has become a habit we tend to think of rewarding the child’s hard work by allowing the habit to slip for a day. Don’t do it! Find some other way to award a child.

So, after all this habit training, what does a day in a Charlotte Mason education actually look like? Coming up next: Some Foundations of a Charlotte Mason Education.

Charlotte Mason on Children Under 6 Years Old

Charlotte Mason’s philosophies on education begin at birth, not at school age. While the early years look different than the school years, it is vital to use them as a time to lay the foundation for later learning. Here are some of the things to keep in mind for the early years.

Fill their love tanks.

Every child needs to feel loved. Every child also needs to learn how to show love to others. Use the early years to create this love in them. Also, instill a love for nature and life.

Give them your time first.

Mom is at her best first thing in the morning, and doesn’t it seem natural that our children should get our attention when we are at our best? Set aside a time each morning when you can spend a few minutes, one-on-one, with each of your young children. For me, this means resisting the urge to get on the computer and chat with my online friends first thing.

No formal academics.

Other schools of thought state that because a child’s brain is doing most of its developing during the early years that it is necessary to use those years to put as much information into it as possible. Charlotte Mason believed that it is important to allow your child to learn and grow as naturally as possible with the things that surround them. Allow them to spend time outside exploring and getting to know the world around them.

Teach them to acknowledge God.

Help your child to develop a love for God’s word. Teach them to recognize their conscience. Surround them with God’s creation and help them to recognize his hand in all things.

Understand the will.

Many people will tell you that a child who regularly says “no” is a strong-willed child. The opposite is actually true. A child who regularly argues is actually weak-willed. They are unable to command their self and recognize the difference between what they want and what they need. As a very young child, the will is mostly commanded by the parent, but as they grow they will learn to command their own will, and eventually give their will over to Christ and allow Him to govern their life.

Will is more important than intellect.

Teaching your child to control their self is more important than any history, math, science, or language lesson you will ever teach them. Becoming masters of their self will allow them to accomplish more than book smarts ever will.

Take the child outside.

Become familiar with the outdoors, giving your child the things they need for their brains to develop. When you first get outside, allow them to play. This will help the muscles to develop and give ample opportunity for development of gross motor skills necessary for proper brain development. After you have had some time to play call them back and play a game of observation. Have them look at a small landscape (your flower-bed, a corner of the yard, etc.). Have them turn away from the landscape and tell you all that they remember about it. You will open their eyes to everything that surrounds them.

In the early years, Charlotte Mason also speaks of building habits. Coming up next: Charlotte Mason on Habits.

Prophets

Bugga: Mom, I want to be a prophet.

Me: A prophet?

Bugga: Yep

Me: Oh really. What does a prophet do?

Bugga: Oh, nothing. They just walk around

Looks like we need to have a discussion about what prophets are.

Charlotte Mason

It’s been 5 days, and I’m still excited. On June 21 I was able to go to a Charlotte Mason Workshop. It gave me a great opporunity to wrap my mind around some of the concepts of a Charlotte Mason education that have spoken to my heart. I love this method, and I am so thankful I was guided to it. I think it will be a perfect fit for our family.

I am especially greatful to Sandy and Susan for preparing and presenting something so wonderful and inspiring. I am also thankful to Alison for organizing the whole thing. It was an amazing opportunity and I’m hoping that they will be doing more workshops or classes in the future. I’m even trying to figure out how I can get to the Charlotte Mason Discussion Group in the future.

Because I don’t want to forget what these 8 pages of notes mean, I’m going to start transposing them. I hope that I can share some of what I learned with you. Even if you’re not a fan of Charlotte Mason or perscribe to a different philosophy or method that is fine. Read, or ignore, at your pleasure. But if you have any questions, comments, or differring points of view, feel free to leave them in the comments. I’m all up for polite discussion on various methods. Just because the core of our family is based on Charlotte Mason does not mean there aren’t other worthwhile schools of thought out there.

Enough rambling then. On with the show!

The aim of a Charlotte Mason education is to create vital interests in as many directions as possible. It is not about how much you know, but how much you care about what you have learned. It is more than just passing on information. It is about creating a lifelong love of learning.

Charlotte Mason spoke about education being an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.

An educational atmosphere will be positive, alive, and encouraging. The best atmosphere is natural, not contrived, and will almost always be in a child’s own home. The atmosphere is vital for learning.

Some people dislike the word discipline because it carries a tone of no flexibility. For Charlotte Mason, discipline was about creating thoughtful habits. It isn’t about being rigid or demanding. A lack of habits will create friction, while well thought out habits will make your life easier. (I’ll have more on habits in a later post.)

We all accept food, water and air as life sustaining. When Charlotte Mason speaks of education being a life, she is referring to the way our minds feed on ideas the way our bodies feed on food, water and air. Our mind grows when it is given the appropriate food and water of the BEST art, music, literature and more. Daily access to God’s creations is the air (literally and figuratively) for our minds and is as vital as breathing is to life.

Charlotte Mason’s School Motto

I am.
I can.
I ought.
I will.

The words seem so simple, and yet a little confusing all at the same time. The words can take on so many different meanings depending on who reads them.

I am a child of God; a divinely created individual.

I can do it. This is not above my means to accomplish.

I ought to do this work. It is not about what I want to do, but what I ought to do.

I will do it. I will make the commitment to be disciplined and work hard.

While the motto mainly applies to the student, Charlotte Mason also spoke of the mother when she said that what is “demanded of [mom] is a thinking love.” (emphasis added) It is up to me to not just be here, but to carefully consider all that I do with my children in raising them. That includes maintianing their education on a daily basis. A tall order, but I hope I am up for the challenge.

 And that is the end of page 1. Fell free to leave questions, comments, or other in the comments section. Coming up next: Charlotte Mason on Children Under 6 Years Old.

And the Answer Is…

So, did I thoroughly confuse you last week?

For those of you who are just tuning in, here is the riddle I posed a week ago. It took me about 30 minutes to figure out the answer.

3 men go into a motel. The man behind the desk said the room is $30, so each man paid $10 and went to the room.
A while later the man behind the desk realized the room was only $25, so he sent the bellboy to the 3 guys’ room with $5.
On the way, the bellboy couldn’t figure out how to split $5 evenly between 3 men, so he gave each man $1 and kept the other $2 for himself.
This meant that the 3 men each paid $9 for the room, which is a total of $27, add the $2 that the bellboy kept = $29.
Where is the other dollar?

Go ahead, think about it before you continue reading for the solution. You will be amazed with how simple it really is.

First, the fact that each man paid $9 is true, multiply that number by the 3 men and you get the total amount paid as $27, which is also true.

The logic in the riddle of adding what the men paid to what the bellboy kept seems sound enough at first glance. But the $2 that the bellboy kept is already included in the amount paid. $25 for the room + $2 to the bellboy = $27

When you add the money the man at the desk kept ($25), the money the bellboy kept ($2), and the money the 3 men got back ($3) you will see that there is still $30. No money was lost anywhere in the motel.

Another way to think of it, is that each man paid $9 and you multiply that by 3 to get the total paid of $27. Simply subtract the $2 that the bellboy kept (instead of adding it) and you’re left with the $25 that the man at the desk kept. All the money is still accounted for.

 Ah, the simplicity, but what a big difference adding instead of subtracting can make.

Harry the Helpful Horse

This week I’m playing show-and-tell for Princess Bugga instead of myself. This is her latest creation. She saw an episode of Little Bill where they read a book about Harry the Helpful Horse and then he sends a picture of it to his friend in the mail. I had her write a letter to Grandma, and on the back she drew this picture of Harry, because that’s what you do when you write a letter. Notice how Harry has 9 legs, making him much more helpful than the 4-legged variety of horse most of us know and love.

I think I forgot to post my usual reminder last week as well. To read what other people are talking about today you can visit The Lazy Organizer by clicking on the banner.