We’re back for Season 12, and today we’re talking about everything we’ve got planned for A Delectable Education this year. Join us in this podcast episode for all our announcements so you can follow along with us this year.
Listen Now:
Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)
ADE Season 12 Reading Schedule
Emily
Welcome to A Delectable Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I’m Emily Kiser and I’m here with…
Nicole
…Nicole Williams…
Liz
…and Liz Cottrill.
Emily
And we just want to welcome you to Season 12, which our seasons are a full year long. We have been podcasting this very same podcast with the three voices you hear today for 11 whole years.
Nicole
Yep. Starting the 12th one.
Emily
I marked this because one of my children was like six weeks old when we started recording these podcasts and he just turned eleven. It’s just incredible.
Nicole
And yet we were just joking that we’re sitting here all nervous.
Liz
Like it’s the first time we’ve ever done this.
Emily
Yeah, it’s so true. We do not feel like professionals, but in podcast years we’re like dinosaurs probably.
Well, this year on the podcast, we are continuing what we started last year, which has been very well received. We are revisiting each subject, adding our combined collective experience from teaching this way and the more that we found in the CM digital collection and our reading and rereading her volumes and really going subject by subject through the whole Charlotte Mason curriculum. Of course, we’re breaking those down into smaller bite-sized pieces to make it easier for you to find exactly what you need if you need to look for a specific age of student or just really wrap your mind around a whole subject.
So we got to the end of last season and we were about halfway through Chapter 10 of Volume 6. So that’s what we’re doing this season, is continuing to cover the rest of the subjects, and some subjects that are not even included in Volume 6 at all which are pretty crucial. So we’ll be doing that this year, and we invite you to follow along with us as we read Chapter 10 of Volume 6, an essay called Towards a Philosophy of Education.
Chapter 10 is called The Curriculum. To make that easy for you, we have created a Season 12 reading schedule that you can download or print from the link in the show notes of this episode. So you’ll see what date our podcast is airing on that topic and what pages to cover, and also what subject that episode is going to be on.
So as we have been talking about what we did in Season 11 and thinking ahead to Season 12, we have been able to put some things into words, and things that we’ve been hearing from our listeners, but also ourselves. And it’s a really helpful practice for us to do this methodically, revisiting each subject and really discuss things together.
Liz
It reinvigorates because we see how it all comes together and all fits together.
Emily
And when we say over and over that a Charlotte Mason education, that those principles that the method it’s founded on are very simple and few, we really mean it. But we do remember how it was when we were just starting out, right? And it just seemed overwhelming and we felt very insecure about well, what do I do? How do I do that? And I think that that is just the confidence we want to leave you with, is looking at the whole curriculum a whole subject at a time, seeing how it fits together, but really how these principles are just the same throughout.
Just the other day Nicole and I were talking back and forth, and I said, I am having a new idea about what she meant by this. Of course, I’ve read these words over and over, but I think because of just seeing the whole big picture, it just really cemented in my mind exactly what she meant. And so we’re trying to impart some of those ideas to you along the way.
Nicole
Yeah. And there’s some ideas that, you know, we always say “Charlotte Mason’s principles”, which is really her Short Synopsis, does not include all of the principles.
Emily
Correct.
Nicole
And there’s been some ideas that have just really taken shape for me as we’ve gone through this. In particular, I always start that first preliminary episode by looking at the scope and sequence from the beginning of school to the end. And to me, that little segment has been so inspiring because I’m really seeing her big picture and that there is this slow, very strong foundational beginning to every subject that we see people push back on. Why are we waiting for that? Why aren’t we doing grammar lessons? Why aren’t we doing science experiments? Why why aren’t we doing that stuff yet? And yet when we look at that full scope and sequence, we see this very strong foundation that she’s laying…
Emily
That makes possible all of the things that come after.
Liz
And the progression matters.
Nicole
Yes. And then we see at the other end where they’re far and away expected to do more than they would be doing in a traditional school scope and sequence, you know, in a public school situation. So that progression matters.
Liz
It builds up steam.
Nicole
Right. And so it’s just been fun to me. I sort of get goosebumps every time I go through that progression.
Emily
Yeah. And I think that it is our understanding of that that makes us so solidly well, Charlotte Mason said, or Charlotte Mason did this, and we trust the method, right? And that’s what we mean.
And that maybe gives us a little bit of a reputation because we seem maybe like a little stuck in the mud or you know like a little too inflexible about those things. We love flexibility where we can and we think that there’s plenty of room in a curriculum for innovation. And it really goes against the innate desire that a lot of people have to just tell me what to do. And you’re like, well no, this is where the flexibility is supposed to come in. You’re supposed to look at the children in front of you.
But we are immovable on those key principles and practices that Charlotte Mason talks about because we have seen the beauty of this, we’ve seen the fruit. I mean, y’all were still a hundred percent in the Charlotte Mason trenches yourselves when we started this podcast eleven years ago.
Liz
Yes indeed.
Emily
And I had not yet even begun. And so now we’ve just – you’ve graduated children. I have got my last-year-before-high-school student and it’s just crazy. So it is that foundation that gives us the confidence that we want to share with you. So hopefully you will be encouraged as well.
Nicole
Yeah.
Emily
So also this season, just like we did last season, we are on YouTube. So you can watch us if you want. I don’t know.
Liz
Do not know why…
Emily
It feels weird. But we are on YouTube as well. And that is a great place if you want to know what a resource looks like we do try to show those on the video. So if you only ever listen to us in your ear pods you might enjoy tuning in to just look at the resources.
Well, we have come out with some new products this summer, as we always do. Everyone’s like are you having a restful summer? And I’m like that’s when we do all of our work for A Delectable Education. So Nicole, do you want to tell us about what we’ve got?
Nicole
Sure. We’ve got some fun things this year. We have a Form 2-3 Plutarch demonstration lesson that Solveig does. It’s super good. There are several topics here that I’m gonna cover that are things that sometimes we get nervous about, but seeing them done is so great. A Form 1-2 Handwriting demonstration lesson that our helper Jessica Barber has put on. And that is those students doing it at the same time.
Emily
Yeah.
Nicole
So I think that’s really useful. Form 3 Recitation demonstration lesson that Liz did with one of her grandsons that is so great. He’s so great! So you’ll have to, we have to watch that one. And then Form 1 Sand Modeling. This is a Geography subject. We’re gonna cover that this year. It’s a demonstration lesson. And you know, Geography was one of those things that we didn’t really have worked out when Liz and my kids were young.
Emily
No, because we didn’t have the digital collection. We had her words in the volumes.
Nicole
Exactly.
Emily
But that didn’t really give us a sense of what does this look like fleshed out?
Nicole
Right. So I never did this with my kids, and it was so fun to watch. And I think it would be incredibly inspiring for people. And then we also have a High School Geography demonstration lesson with you, and we have a High School Poetry demonstration lesson with your husband Jono.
Emily
Yeah.
Nicole
That are really good. And again, we’re always asked about high school stuff. So these are really good ones.
Emily
And those are live lessons that we did with moms and dads who participated at the conference, so they’re not…they’re probably less equipped than your typical Charlotte Mason high schooler. But we did lessons that were appropriate for that age.
Nicole
Exactly. So you can kind of see what goes into that and what part is your part to do with your high school student because they do a lot independently. But these are some things that we need to do.
We also have some new Teacher Training Videos. Jono is one of those also who did “Lighting Lamps: Discussing Poetry”.
Emily
So a workshop instead of a lesson.
Nicole
Exactly. So you can really understand what is involved in that. And then there’s one called “From Parsing to Reasoning: Exercising Logic through Grammar”. Which is so great because back when I was homeschooling, I remember that whole topic of Logic was something that people always tried to pull into the Charlotte Mason education. And this shows you that it’s already there. So it’s really great.
And then also, this one was far more excellent than I could have imagined. “Schooling in the Lean Years: Spreading the Feast in Time of Famine”. Again, Jessica Barber does this and says so many creative ideas and encouragement because there’s a lot of us who homeschooled on a tight budget, you know, single income, and this has really great ideas.
Emily
And single incomes that are stretched more and more as inflation continues to rise.
Nicole
Yeah. So that was a great one.
Emily
We also have some Teacher Helps that are coming out. Liz has done a few…we get asked about this and while we will not give you Dictation passages to copy or instruct your children with because we agree with Charlotte Mason, that those have to come from the books they’re actually using for school, Liz created a resource that kinda gives you some practical how do I help my child study the words and study the passage? to help you do that.
Liz
It gives your child ideas so they can study independently.
Emily
And then you did another Language Arts help on…
Liz
How to Write a Précis.
Emily
Yes, a précis, which is another – had you ever heard of précis before we saw it in Charlotte Mason’s programs?
Nicole
No. Not at all.
Emily
It’s a very useful tool for your high school writers’ composition.
And then we have a little bit more Bible breakdowns for the– well actually y’all, I’m gonna tell you, we revamped our high school rotations to be a little different than they have been so far, and we have our forecasting breakdowns for those, which include exam questions, to help make your… you can do all of this without these. We just have done them and hear over and over how much of a time saver they are.
And we have a breakdown for the second book of Ourselves for Form 5-6 students, or Form 5 students, but 6 if you have not started it at that time.
And then Melissa Petermann has got year 4 of Swedish Drill, she’s got a Folk Dance video to learn a new folk dance if you’re–
Liz
Gosh, this is a ton of stuff.
Emily
I know! And even more, I’m sure I’m forgetting something but we have lots of great resources if that will help you as you embark on your new school year.
Nicole
I don’t think I’ve told everybody before but I did an all-day class immersion, just chose Form 2, kind of like it’s right in the middle, chose a week of the year okay it’s gonna be the first term of their fifth grade year, you know, and pulled all these resources and just was able to okay here we go. Everything was prepared for me. And I remember that was when it really hit me because I wasn’t schooling anymore at that point, but that is when it really hit me how much time all of these resources save you that we didn’t have and you have access to, so again all of it can be done by yourself.
Emily
Yeah and I think this is where the balance happens, between everybody thinks they want “open and go”, but really you miss out on those personal connections and seeing the child in front of you that Charlotte Mason was adamant about. But we do have things that Charlotte Mason never gave people in terms of forecasting that they had to figure that out themselves. But it can just really cut down our planning time and save us so much effort, mental energy that we don’t have to pour into that.
Nicole
But getting that done. So that your school year goes so much more smoothly.
Emily
Yeah, yeah. And that does free you up to be a little more creative, or you know in tune with what your child needs at any given time.
Nicole
Yeah.
Liz
And then next February, here we come again. This will be our seventh annual ADE at Home conference. And it’s online. It goes live February 5th and 6th but you do have access to it, because it’s recorded, for up to three months afterwards.
And early bird pricing goes live for you… on Black Friday through Cyber Monday there will be an even more discounted value that you can take advantage of. Early bird ends January 15th and the final deadline for…
Emily
Registration.
Liz
Registration, thanks, is February 4th.
Emily
Yeah. And we do have a card cut off. Every year we hear from people who wait until the last minute or thought that they had registered. We cannot add you after the day of the conference.
Liz
But it is so full of content, so much inspiration, and most people don’t realize how many connections they can make with other friends over that weekend. And it’s just been a life giving event every year. So we’re doing it again.
And during that there will be a book club, and I bring this up because we have a live discussion and this year you might want to get a hold of this book and if you’ve read it before, reread it because I’ve read it many times. But Persuasion by Jane Austen will be our conference book club discussion.
Emily
We used to do that on the podcast and now we do it live and it’s so great because it’s not just the three of us talking at one another. We get input from people who are participating. It’s so so fun.
Nicole
Yeah, and you know, our conference…it’s so fun that we are able to do such unique activities like demonstration lessons with children around the table so you can watch somebody else…
Emily
And it’s in their native environment, so it’s not like…I’ve been to a few conferences where even a parent would bring a few of their kids and they would do a lesson, but they’re doing it in front of an audience.
Nicole
Yeah.
Emily
And it just… you can tell they’re nervous or you know it’s just not their normal location. But now because of the online format we have the opportunity to just kind of peek into their actual morning lessons. And over and over we hear that that is the most valuable part of it, and how many of those demo lessons do we do per conference?
Liz
I think it’s around 15.
Emily
Yeah so we do arrange, you know some are in cottage schools or hybrid schools as well as online classrooms or individual students or a family who’s doing multi-age, we try to have a range of subjects. We also do a range of ages of student so that you really can get that every time. And we do release a few of those every year, but it is not nearly the amount that we have every conference. And so that is just so, so valuable.
Liz
And the participants also contribute with, you know, showing their crafts that they’ve been doing or their nature notebooks and pictures and sharing so many ideas. It’s wonderful.
Emily
And this is our third year of doing the Live Lessons where we have some Charlotte Mason teachers who are doing a lesson, just like we talked about, the two of the videos came from this the first year we did it, and it was so well received. And I think it’s one thing to see a family doing it, it’s another thing to actually participate yourself.
Nicole
Right.
Emily
And so we wanted to do both of those things. So we have a few where it’s over video, but you still get to narrate with the group, you get to participate in all of the parts of the lesson. So it’s just a great time.
Nicole
Really feel what it’s like to be a student.
Emily
Exactly. Plus, you know, our dozens of workshops on deepening your understanding of various parts of the Charlotte Mason method.
And then Nicole, you want to tell us about our Patreon, which we always are mentioning, but what do people need to know about that?
Nicole
You know, we started our Patreon because Patreon was a way to allow people to support our podcast, because a podcast is just not something that you make money on, it’s free.
Emily
And actually costs money.
Nicole
Yeah. That’s true.
Liz
But we do a lot of work, and it helps keep the work coming to you. Some of those products would not be here if we didn’t have that support.
Nicole
Right. So that’s kind of the idea behind Patreon and how it got started. But maybe just because we’re us, we couldn’t leave it at that. You know, a lot of them would just kind of like once in a while there’s a blog post or something, but we really try to give our best to our Patreon.
We do early releases of things so they can get teacher helps for free. Where, you know, later we’ll put them on our website for sale. We do special discounts. We just talked about the conference, and Patreon members will get a discount to the conference for the entire time that registration is open.
Emily
So they get content every month of the year.
Nicole
We sometimes do exclusive podcast episodes for them…
Emily
…or meetups or you know Q&A’s where they can submit questions and we will reply to them.
Nicole
Yes. Yeah. So we have just a lot of encouragement. Liz writes blog posts just for them.
Liz
And Nicole sometimes puts awesome nature videos on there.
Nicole
Yeah. Last year I did a whole series of just individual worksheets where people could go out and just have a fun little adventure in nature.
Emily
Yep. So fun.
Nicole
So yeah, so we’re always trying to do something over there. It’s not just a forgotten place. It’s important to us.
Liz
And it is vital to this podcast. We could not do it without their support.
Nicole
Yep.
Emily
Yeah. And we so appreciate all of you who do support us over there.
So if they want to join our community at Patreon, what do they do?
Nicole
Well on our website there is a link to Patreon. That’s probably the easiest way to get there. But Patreon.com/ADelectableEducation is another way to get there.
And I didn’t mention that often you give ideas for organization.
Liz
Yeah, if you want to know how she maintains her sanity with four children, teaching, and doing all this podcast.
Nicole
And one of the most fun things you’ve done year after year is show a time lapse of your morning school, that’s like over 10 minutes, all shrunk down, but you can see everybody getting up and doing Drill and back down, and you’re working with these kids, and now you’re over here working with these. And it’s just such a good thing to see.
So our Patreon has like just a regular monthly fee and you have access for everything from the past year. But if you do go in at a higher level, you get everything from, you know, further…
Emily
That’s ever been posted.
Nicole
Yeah, yeah. And then you can kind of compare those over the years. It’s really fun to see. So yeah, lots of stuff over there.
Emily
So we have a lot going on this year on A Delectable Education, and we hope you’ll join us for it.
We are excited to continue our journey through the rest of the curriculum with you this season. As has become a tradition here at A Delectable Education, I’d like to close this very first episode of the new school year with a liturgy from Every Moment Holy, Volume 3.
O God, who in wisdom laid the world’s foundation, remind me it is no trivial task to teach, to inspect and wonder, to discipline and discern, to see the world through the eyes of those still fresh in learning it, to show them nature as you made it, and invite them to know it more fully.
Teaching often seems summed up in mere grades and emails and papers and raised hands and disruptions, but really it is a feast, a community, a gift, a discovery of the world and its inherent value. We see in teaching a divine act that forms and shapes. It weaves in all of history and matter and truth and goodness and offers it to students in a way which may guide their thoughts and their decisions and may change them for good.