“O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”  Psalms 8:1

After a large Thanksgiving meal, for which we were duly thankful, my mother, my sister, my sweet husband, my son Joseph and I set out on a slow, easy walk around the pond.

The beauty of the woods enticed me to think on happy things.  My mind was renewed as my thoughts flew to getting back into school after a week of cooking, eating, and relaxing.  We have the marvelous AO Year 5 books to devour.  This season offers the chance to study some of the greatest music of all time.  Handel’s Messiah comes to mind.  Music appreciation should flow almost without effort. 

In my Charlotte Mason reading this morning, exercising the mind was the subject of her writing.

Most of us have met with a few eccentric and a good many silly persons, concerning whom the question forces itself, Were these people born with less brain power than others?  Probably not; but if they were allowed to grow up without the daily habit of appropriate moral and mental work, if they were allowed to dawdle through youth without regular and sustained efforts of thought or will, the result would be the same, and the brain which should have been invigorated by daily exercise has become flabby and feeble as a healthy arm would be after carried for years in a sling.”

Oh what encouragement to push ever onward in the coming week! And though it might sometimes seem an inconveniece to my child to forgo mindless (insert name of modern pop star who most gets on your nerves) videos on YouTube, in favor of a more noble pursuit:

Do not let the children pass a day without distinct efforts, intellectual, moral, volitional; let them brace themselves to understand; let them compel themselves to do and to bear; and let them do right at the sacrifice of ease and pleasure… 

I find that we are not without things to work on.

Wishing you a beautiful and productive Saturday,
Lynn

‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. ”  Psalm 19:1

When I was a teenager we had a friend visiting from the mountains.  In driving around our county I was commenting on the beauty of it all.  My mother seemed a bit embarassed and noted that our friend, having come from the mountains, was from a place where the land really was beautiful.  While I did see her point, I didn’t agree at all that the mountains were any more beautiful than the sandy soil, scrubby oaks, pine trees, and blue skies where I had grown up.

I used to kneel down in the woods behind our house and marvel at the soldier moss growing at the foot of one of our oaks.  The sandy trail that cut through our woods looked like a secret path to me, and I often saw snakes and birds sitting in the trees, looking at me as I walked on tip-toe trying to be really quiet like the Indians would have been.  We had a montrous tangle of blackbeery bushes that offered up many blackberry cobblers through the years.  I felt rich.

It is humbling to think of the beauty God has put around us to enjoy.  I went outside this morning and sat in the morning sun with a cup of water infused with a few drops of Ashwagandha.  (I think my adrenals are struggling, but that’s another post for another day.)

The sun on my face felt so wonderful and Annie enjoyed running around in the garden.  Over the weekend I went on a foraging walk and gathered many rosehips for winter teas.  They are currently drying in a sunny, upstairs window. 

I woke up this morning so renewed and encouraged that Nature Study is a vital and easy thing to undertake.  Michaela’s first lesson today will be outside.  I may even have her continue there, but it’s cold.  We’ll see how warm it gets.  She’s been admiring the art in a new picture book here and I think I’ll have her experiment with the method of illustration done in the book.  It appears to be black outlining filled in with colored pencils.  I am hopeful that it will make a lovely start to Michaela’s Monday.  Surrounded by the beauty of falling yellow leaves, purple poke berries and bright nasturtium flowers, I don’t see how a bit of nature can escape from ending up in her drawing.

I thought you  might enjoy Charlotte Mason’s thoughts on sunshine, from Vol 1.  of Home Education, pp 34-35:

But it is not only air, and pure air, the children must have if their blood is to be of the ‘finest quality,’ as the advertisements have it.  Quite healthy blood is exceedingly rich in minute, red disc-like bodies, known as red corpuscles, which in favourable circumstances are produced freely in the blood itself.  Now, it is observed that people who live much in the sunshine are of a ruddy countenance–that is, a great many of these red corpuscles are present in their blood; while the poor souls who live in cellars and sunless alleys have skins the colour of whity-brown paper.  Therefore, it is concluded that light and sunshine are favourable to the production of red corpuscles in the blood; and, therefore–to this next ‘therefore’ is but a step for the mother–the children’s rooms should be on the sunny side of the house, with a south aspect if possible.  Indeed, the whole house should be kept light and bright for their sakes; trees and outbuildings that obstruct the sunshine and make the chidlren’s rooms dull should be removed without hesitation. 

With curtains open and rosehips drying in the windowsill, I’m busy working today and handing out school lessons from my work desk. The tea kettle is whistling. Enjoy this day.

A Child’s Relationship with Almighty God.

I have continued to read on in Charlotte Mason’s Home Education Volume I.  (Thank you so much, Ableside Online, for making these resources available.)

My second son, Joseph, who though dyslexic and not immediately appearing to be the brightest academic star on our tree (just give him time),  has always had sayings and thoughts that made me think he had wisdom beyond his years.  He has always said that little children understand the difference between right and wrong and that you don’t have to give children a lot of reasons for saying no. You just tell them kindly, it’s wrong, and they’ll understand.

Daniel reading his little bible, 21 years ago.

Charlotte Mason wrote:

The most fatal way of despising the child falls under the third educational law of the Gospels; it is to overlook and make light of his natural relationship with Almighty God.  ‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me,’ says the Savior, as if that were the natural thing for the children to do, the thing they do when they are not hindered by thier elders. And perhaps it is not too beautiful a thing to believe in this redeemed world, that, as the babe turns to his mother though he has no power to say her name, as the flowers turn to the sun, so the hearts of the children turn to their Savior and God with unconscious delight and trust.

My morning garden time with my watering can and my camera in my apron pocket have become a nurturing habit. Karen Andreola might consider it a part of Mother Culture.

Charlotte Mason’s words have given me some nice things to think on today.  (And Philippians 4:8 is my own personal memory verse for this week.)

Though I had not nearly enough wisdom when my children were little, I am very grateful to have had wonderful, steady examples in my life, and bible studies to keep me from getting lost in my own way of thinking.

The morning sunlight points out a lovely web for me to photograph for you.

The garden is full of spiders this time of year. While I don’t enjoy walking through a web, I marvel at the creatures and enjoy studying their habits in my tiny little garden.

Spiny orb weaver.

I don’t know the genus and species, but I know this is a spiny orb weaver. It worked away diligently, allowing me to take a picture or two.

Spiny orb weaver up close.

The garden is full and many flowers are totally spent, bloomed out and turning to seed. If I am going to plant any vegetables for the fall, it’s time to get busy planning and doing.

Today, of course, is a work day, but I’ll look forward to breaks in the garden with Lady Earl Grey tea.  This evening I am planning to order some more of the books we will be using with our Ambleside Online this coming school year.  I have much to be happy about today. 

Finally, a resource you might enjoy.  It’s a website that lists books needed for AO and you can categorize them into year, categories, free reading, required reading, etc.   Access To The Classics.   I’ve put the link in my sidebar under “Ambleside Online Helps.”

Happy Monday!
Lynn

Reading in Home Education Volume I continues.  It is of great help to me and I think would be of great help to any new parent, not just one who would homeschool or homeschool using Charlotte Mason’s method.

Okra in the garden.

The Short Summary of Home Education Volume – I, published on the Ambleside website, from Charlotte Mason in Modern English says this:

Charlotte discusses the use of training in good habits to replace undesirable tendencies in children. Automatic habits remove many stressful decisions from the child, making life easier and smoother since a child with good habbits will be well-behaved. In adulthood, the properly trained habits that were acquired in childhood will prevent pitfalls that many people fall into.

It’s a work day, but I steal away into the garden for a few minutes.

I wish I’d read Charlotte Mason’s works when my first child was a baby. My own beliefs mesh with hers in theory because I feel that we should look daily to whether or not, and how, God’s Word is fitting into our lives, but reading Charlotte Mason’s Home Education is helping me work things practically into our lives when it comes to daily training and home education, to help form good habits and take our lives seriously.

Picking green beans yesterday.

Do you want an example of how this has spoken to me?

My children are getting older.  I have a 21-year-old living at home.  He has been working and is about to attend a local college.  We probably set into him the majority of what we could set into him as far as a belief system and right-wrong when he was under the age of 5 or 6, but I don’t think it’s ever too late to work on habits.  He’s legally a grown man, of course, but I still have a voice and he still has ears.  He tends to be messy with his papers — mail, receipts, so I am trying to help him form better habits with that.

John and Michaela act silly while snapping beans.

I have an 18-year-old who is finishing up the last bit of his homeschool work and basically has graduated from our homeschool.  He’s a good fellow, but he likes to stay up too late. My 15-year-old son and my 11-year-old daughter are still forming habits as they go through adolescence.  What is it about adolescents that makes them want to stay up late?  They fall right in with their older brother and they would all stay up too late.

If I say, “Don’t stay up too late,” and make it, “because I said so,” it goes over like sandpaper.  But if I remind them that they can be of no help to their family or to their community if they stay up too late and sleep the morning away, then it puts emphasis on this: I am, I can, I ought, I will.  It puts an emphasis on duty.  With gentle reminders, I can see it working.

Still being silly, but the beans got snapped.

Charlotte Mason wrote that there was a Code of Education in the Gospels, “expressly laid down by Christ.” She said to pay attention to three commandments given regarding “these little ones.”

• Offend not
• Despise not
• Hinder not

When I first read it, I thought it might be a point we would disagree on, but I read on.  She noted that these verses can be taken beyond being applied to an adult who has become like a little one and applied to raising these souls sent to us to raise, remembering their duty to live with the knowledge that they will return to God.

She said, “…we offend them, when we do by them that which we ought not to have done; we despise them, when we leave undone those things which, for their sakes, we ought to have done.”

She talks about how mothers instinctively remove literal objects from the way of a toddler learning to walk.  Why, then, would we let our “no’s” to a child be weak and something to be toyed with in regards to bigger things — things regarding character?  If a mother laughs at wrongs, if she teaches her child that he can tease her “no” into a “yes,” and that he can get away with doing what started out as unacceptable, then he has learned that he can do wrong and get away with it. She has then offended, or placed a stumblingblock in his way.

I’ll close with one more quote: 

…who has not met big girls and boys, the children of right-minded parents, who yet do not know what must means, who are not moved by ought, whose hearts feel no stir at the solemn name of Duty, who know no higher rule of life than ‘I want,’ and ‘I don’t want,’ ‘I like,’ and ‘I don’t like’? Heaven help parents and children when it has come to that! 

I hope I have sounded “harpy” this morning. Just wanted to share these Charlotte Mason thoughts and quotes that are really helping me to help my children in their educational process.

Happy Friday!
Lynn

I’ve had people say, immediately upon entering my kitchen, “Wow, this place reminds me of my grandparents’ house.”  I think it’s a compliment. 

One young mother who visited years ago said she loved old houses. She said my house had personality. 

A very sweet elderly lady with beginning dementia wondered if she had been here before until she reached the kitchen where she said, “I know I’ve been here before. I remember this kitchen.”

While people are going wild over ViNtAgE, I’d like to remind everyone that what they are going wild over is pretty vintage.  Vintage that’s in good shape. Vintage that’s been painted or polished up and put in antique stores.    What people don’t like is vintage that is yucky, unsightly and hard to use.  I have got some of both in my 1921 house.

The pictures you are seeing are pictures of my newly-contact-papered kitchen counters.  Yes, contact paper.  Now you people with granite countertops take a deep breath. I know it’s hard to not be jealous.  But try.

Jessamy, if you are seeing this, I know you know the drill all too well.  Do you know how many contact paper designs I’ve been through by now??  In the 80’s and even into the 90s contact paper was in style.  I would go to the store thinking, “Hmmm, wonder what kind of contact paper I’ll choose.”

Folks, I know it’s a shock, but contact paper has recently fallen out of the top 100 decorating designs for the home, and now I have to hunt a little harder for any design.  Now I go to the store thinking, “Hmmm, wonder what kind of contact paper I’ll have to buy.”

The only real choice they had this time was fruit. But it looks vintage, in its own fruity way and it has been a big hit with the fam.  One day maybe I’ll have real countertops.  I can dream.

It’s Monday, a work day for me, but I got into the garden for my requisite few minutes this morning.

I filled up a dry-as-a-bone bird bath.

I searched for creatures and found that in the shadow of a black-eyed Susan, the spider had won.

I continue to study Home Education by Charlotte Mason, in preparation for the upcoming school year.  I am reading aloud to Michaela every evening from Little House on the Prairie. We are slowly moving our way through the Little House books as bedtime read-alouds, along with beautifully illustrated nursery rhymes (do these ever get old — even for adults?), and some nature readers.

Michaela is reading to me from Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and practicing narration.  We are doing only a little a night — maybe only a paragraph and I am already seeing an improvement in her ability to remember details.

Today’s Thought on a Charlotte Mason education.  Method versus System:

Teaching with CM is to use a method.  Not just a system.  A method has spirit, and touches every part of our lives.  A system can be just a series of things to check off a list each day.  

Method implies two things–a way to an end, and a step by step progress in that way. Further, the following of a method implies an idea, a mental image, of the end of object to be arrived at. What do you propose the education shall effect in and for your child? …The parent who sees his way–that is, the exact force of method–to educate his child, will make use of every circumstance of the child’s life almost without intention on his own part…”  ~ Charlotte Mason.  Home Education Volume 1.

Happy Monday
Lynn

Come into the garden with me…

and let’s talk about Ambleside Online. 

Will I be using it?

Yes, I will be using Ambleside Online.

And that was the answer to the first question in my mind.

The second question required just as much thought, if not more, to find an answer to.

What year of AO will I place Michaela in?

I had to look at several factors:

• This past year was Michaela’s first year homeschooling and thus it was a big transition year for us.  We did a ton of fun field trips and nature studies.  We did lots and lots of playing.  I wanted it to be a gentle transition year for her so that she’d want to homeschool again the next year.  The point here?  I don’t want to turn around and put her into something this year that totally overwhelms us both.
• While I believe that her education was acceptable in public school, and that her education was acceptable this past year at home, I am keenly aware that she is not used to narration, just as she is not used to a steady diet of challenging classics and “living books.”  Last year was our transition year into homeschool.  This next year will be our transition year into Ambleside Online.
• She technically is entering 6th grade.  She will be doing 7th grade math.  But her reading level — and this is key — is right at grade level.  That’s all.  So I need to be careful not to place her in a year with books that are too demanding.  I have no doubts that Year 5, and even 4, will challenge us. 
• Ambleside Online says right in their FAQ section, about one-third of the way through the page, in the section At which Year/level should I place my child?, “An Ambleside Online ‘Year’ does not mean ‘Grade’ as it would in public school.”

So those are the facts.  Yesterday, armed with the facts, and the booklists for years, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, I went to The Homeschool Gathering Place to start looking at books and trying to decide for myself, which year do I choose?

I think handling the actual books, looking at the content, and imagining yourself assigning reading from them is a good way to get a feel for which year to use.  I also think that having the child read from some of the books will give you an idea if they are able to do the reading on their own throughout the year.  This latter suggestion has been mentioned in the support group as well.

Pulling books from the shelves for various years and leafing through them, I got a sense that Year 5 would be a good start for us.  Year 4 and even 3 have some wonderful books as well, and I’m sure they are even challenging, but I wouldn’t want to put Michaela so far back that she felt bored or demoted.   And as I mentioned, she’s a grade-level reader, so I want us to go forward, not backward!

Probably what tipped the scale for me was a statement on the Year 6 Booklist about year 6 being the transition year between childhood education and the education of the upper years, and as such the subject matter being more mature.

Year 5 it will be.

The third step was to start buying books. 

Note: The two books in the foreground don’t have anything to do with Ambleside.  They are just a couple I picked up while out.  Ken, I found a used copy of Spelling Power!  I like the way it looks.  Joseph and I are excited to finish out the summer with it, and I hope Joseph will continue to use it even after he’s been handed his diploma. 

Be still my heart, I bought a new copy of Lessons at Blackberry Inn!  It’s the sequel to Pocketful of Pinecones.  I started reading it this morning.  I found a used copy of Handbook of Nature Study.  I went ahead and bought the Christian Liberty Nature Reader Book 5. 

I also found a beautiful copy of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, which I am going to have Michaela read aloud to me, so that we can work on her reading skills the rest of the summer.  We will begin to practice narration.

As for buying the books, I love nothing more than a beautifully bound, hardback book that I can hold and smell and love.  Do you love the smell of a book?  I love books.  Hopefully I can find many of them used to save us some money. 

Now that I’ve chosen what year we’ll be using and started accumulating the books, I will print off the Weekly Lesson plans for Year 5.  I will start thinking about how to best set up our daily schedules, looking at what days work best for us as far as the weekly lessons and how we’ll set up our school days. 

I will continue to read the Home Education Series and the Ambleside’s FAQ, making notes for myself in my homemade CM notebook.  I’m enjoying reading the daily digest from the Ambleside Online Support Group and getting to know the people there.

One last thing. We’ve got some chapter books that we’ve accumulated through the years that aren’t that great.  I’ll be weeding out to make room for better books.  I won’t be getting rid of too many books, mind you, but some!

I’ll close with a quote on really paying attention to our children, understanding what they mean and how they learn and how best to guide them to be useful men and women.

Nothing is trivial that concerns a child; his foolish-seeming words and ways are pregnant with meaning for the wise. It is in the infinitely little we must study in the infinitely great; and the vast possibilities, and the right direction of education, are indicated in the open book of the little child’s thoughts. ~Charlotte Mason, Home Education, Volume I 

Happy Thursday!
Lynn

I continue on reading Charlotte Mason’s Home Education.  I love her!  As an educator, she freely admitted that the first and foremost influence on a child was altogether the mother, the father, and the homelife, but especially the mother in the early years.  She did her best to impart useful ideas to parents without telling parents exactly how to carry them out.  She gave tips, but she put a lot of faith in mothers.

From the Preface to the Third Edition:

Believing that the individuality of parents is a great possession for their children, and knowing that when an idea possesses the mind, ways of applying it suggest themselves, I have tried not to weight these pages with many directions, practical suggestions, and other such crutches, likely to interefere with the free relations of parent and child. Our greatness as a nation depends upon how far parents take liberal and enlightened views of their high office and of the means to discharge it which are placed in their hands.

Miss Mason goes on to say:

The parents of but one child may be cherishing what shall prove a blessing to the world.  But then, entrusted with such a charge, they are not free to say, “I may do as I will with mine own.”  The children are, in truth, to be regarded less as personal property than as public trusts, put into the hands of parents that they may make the very most of them for the good of society.”

And there’s no ambiguity in what she’s saying.  She is saying that the sole responsibility for making the child the most he can be does rest on the parents, and especially on the mother in the early years.  She quotes Pestalozzi who said, “Maternal love is the first agent in education.”

Some things to think on today.

Lynn

Just a few pictures from the garden and some quotes from today’s reading.

“As a stream can rise no higher than its source, so it is probable that no educational effort can rise above the whole scheme of thought which gives it birth;…”  ~Charlotte Mason

Regarding education and the law that governs education, “there is no part of a child’s home life or school work which the law does not penetrate.”  ~Charlotte Mason

“The mind feeds on ideas, and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.”  ~Charlotte Mason

“…the mind is not a receptacle into which ideas must be dropped…”  ~Charlotte Mason

“…a child’s mind is…a spiritual organism, with an appetite for all knowledge.  This is its proper diet, with which it is prepared to deal, and which it can digest and assimilate as the body does foodstuffs.”  ~Charlotte Mason

“…so we must train him upon physical exercises, nature, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books;…”  ~Charlotte Mason

“Children should be taught to distinguish between ‘I want’ and ‘I will.’ “  ~Charlotte Mason

“We should allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and spiritual life of children; but should teach them that the divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their continual helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.”  ~Charlotte Mason

I have enjoyed so very much reading A Charlotte Mason Companion — more than once.  It was my first exposure to Charlotte Mason’s ideas.

Now I am enjoying reading Charlotte Mason’s Original Home Education Series.  It is rich with ideas that I’m soaking up right now.

I hope to share here what I do with the ideas.

Lynn