Today’s Charlotte Mason podcast episode is an interview with Min Hwang, a homeschooling mom who has taken her enthusiasm for and knowledge of the Charlotte Mason method outside her own homeschooling circle to parents in traditional educational settings. You will be inspired to hear how she  shares the beauty of Ms. Mason’s simple truths with parents in all walks of life that have children in public and private schools. Min’s fervent love for God and trust in Mason’s sound Biblical principles of parenting and educating is  bringing hope to parents in all settings. She shares practical tips for you to consider how to approach all parents with our common desire to raise children to know God, be the persons He has created them to be, and be confident in their role as parents.

Listen Now:

“But let the imaginations of children be stored with the pictures, their minds nourished upon the words, of the gradually unfolding story of the Scriptures, and they will come to look out upon a wide horizon within which persons and events take shape in their due place and due proportion. By degrees, they will see that the world is a stage whereon the goodness of God is continually striving with the wilfulness of man; that some heroic men take sides with God; and that others, foolish and headstrong, oppose themselves to Him. The fire of enthusiasm will kindle in their breast, and the children, too, will take their side, without much exhortation, or any thought or talk of spiritual experience.” (1/249)

“Therefore, let the minds of young children be well stored with the beautiful narratives of the Old Testament and of the gospels; but, in order that these stories may be always fresh and delightful to them, care must be taken lest Bible teaching stale upon their minds. Children are more capable of being bored than even we ourselves and many a revolt has been brought about by the undue rubbing-in of the Bible, in season and out of season, even in nursery days. But we are considering, not the religious life of children, but their education by lessons; and their Bible lessons should help them to realise in early days that the knowledge of God is the principal knowledge, and, therefore, that their Bible lessons are their chief lessons.” (1/251)

“Very likely such parents are not less, but more worthy than the persons they give place to; but that is not the question; they are invested with an officialdignity; it is in virtue of their office, not of personal character, that they are and must remain superior to their children, until these become of an age to be parents in their turn. And parents are invested with this dignity, that they may be in a position to instruct their children in the art of living. Now, office in itself adds dignity, irrespective of personal character; so much so, that the judge, the bishop, who does not sustain his post with becoming dignity has nothing to show for himself. So of the parent; if he forego the respectful demeanour of his children, he might as well have disgraced himself before their eyes; for in the one case as in the other, he loses that power to instruct them in the art and science of living, which is his very raison d’être in the Divine economy.” (5/199)

For the Children’s Sake, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

Home Education, Charlotte Mason

Richele Baburina’s Mathematics: An Instrument of Living Teaching

Elementary Arithmetic Series, Book I

Picture Study Portfolios

Art Middlekauff’s 20 Principles Teacher Training Video

A special interview from A Delectable Education: how does a Charlotte Mason education work when your child has dyslexia? Mitchell Williams, son of ADE’s Nicole Williams, shares his experience as a dyslexic child about to graduate from his CM homeschool years and head out into the world.

Listen Now:

Little Britches, Ralph Moody

Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling

Jeeves books by P.G. Wodehouse

livingliterature.net–online high school CM Literature and Composition classes

Davis Dyslexia Tutors

Orton-Gillingham

Audio Books Sources:
–audiobooks.com
–BARD
–audible.com
–librivox.org
-and check your local library for their online audio book system (Hoopla and Overdrive are two common ones)

John Muir Laws

Charlotte Mason’s method of education was taught over a hundred years ago and A Delectable Education’s podcast this week reiterates its relevance for the twenty-first century educator and student. After an introduction by Emily, Liz, and Nicole stating their reasons for holding to Mason’s philosophy, Art Middlekauff reads his own criteria for determining which new ideas and applications are authentic to her method and how and why to dismiss those that are not.

Listen Now:

“We believe that what will ultimately survive all changes and chances will be [Charlotte Mason’s] philosophy, and our danger at the present moment is the limiting of it to fit current conditions of thought and practice of life generally, that of “schooling” in particular.” –Elsie Kitching

“Great secrets of nature, for example, would seem to be imparted to minds already prepared to receive them, as, for example, that of the ‘ions’ or ‘electrons’ of which that we call matter is said to consist. For this sort of knowledge also is of God, and is, I believe, a matter of revelation, given as the world is prepared to receive it.” (4/86-87)

Sabbath Mood Homeschool Science Guides

Richele Baburina’s Math Handbook

Original Article by Art Middlekauff, published on CharlotteMasonPoetry.org

Charlotte Mason Poetry

CMP Podcast Feed: iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher

See also this article on CMP.org

This Q&A podcast episode addresses why Charlotte Mason included Arabella Buckley’s books, how a child can come to the history rotation and always be in exactly the right place, and why all advertised Charlotte Mason curriculum does not necessarily fit in her feast.

Listen Now:

“System leads Nature: assists, supplements, rushes in to undertake those very tasks which Nature has made her own since the world was. Does Nature endow every young thing, child or kitten, with a wonderful capacity for inventive play? Nay, but, says System, I can help here; I will invent games for the child and help his plays, and make more use of this power of his than unaided Nature knows how. So Dame System teaches the child to play, and he enjoys it; but, alas, there is no play in him, no initiative, when he is left to himself; and so on, all along the lines. System teaches the child to play, and he enjoys it; but, alas, there is no play in him, no initiative, when he is left to himself; and so on, all along the lines. System is fussy and zealous and produces enormous results––in the teacher!” (2/168-169)

“Ideas alone matter in Education––The whole subject is profound, but as practical as it is profound. We must disabuse our minds of the theory that the functions of education are, in the main, gymnastic. In the early years of the child’s life it makes, perhaps, little apparent difference whether his parents start with the notion that to educate is to fill a receptacle, inscribe a tablet, mould plastic matter, or nourish a life; but in the end we shall find that only those ideas which have fed his life are taken into the being of the child; all the rest is thrown away, or worse, is like sawdust in the system, an impediment and an injury to the vital processes.” (2/38)

“This, of getting ideas out of them, is by no means all we must do with books. ‘In all labour there is profit,’ at any rate in some labour; and the labour of thought is what his book must induce in the child.” (3/179)

“These few hints by no means cover the disciplinary uses of a good school-book; but let us be careful that our disciplinary devices, and our mechanical devices to secure and tabulate the substance of knowledge, do not come between the children and that which is the soul of the book, the living thought it contains.” (3/181)

“It cannot be too often said that information is not education.” (3/169)

“The main thing, however, is to lead the children to see what is around them, and to enter into the life of all living beings. In this way they will learn to look upon nature as part of the one great scheme under which we all live, doing each our own work, for the good of all, as best we may; that by our efforts we may both improve ourselves and help others, leaving the results to the Great Being in whom we live and move.” (Buckley, Arabella B. “Training of Children in Observation of Nature.” The Parents’ Review, vol. 7, 1896, p. 459

System vs. Method: Home Education, Volume 1, pp. 6-10; Parents and Children, Volume 2, pp. 168-170

Our Island Story, H.E. Marshall

The Door in the Wall, Marguerite de Angeli

Arabella Buckley’s Eyes and No Eyes Series

Among the Pond People, Clara Dillingham Pierson

William Long

Dallas Lore Sharp

Sabbath Mood Homeschool Living Science Study Guides

Episode 12: Chronology of History

Time-Tools: Episode 15: History Things and Episode 112: Notebooks and Paperwork, Part 2

Living Books Library

Nicole’s article on Nature Study seeming like a foreign language

Charlotte Mason was concerned not only with the child’s mind, but all of his person. This week’s podcast episode is an interview with a new Charlotte Mason-educating mom who has deliberately considered both the beauty and function of their school area and shares abundant ideas to inspire you to enhance your children’s connections with their lessons by making deliberate efforts and choices regarding the organization and appeal of the schoolroom  itself.

Listen Now:

“Children are born persons.” (Principle 1)

“Neatness is akin to order, but is not quite the same thing: it implies not only ‘a place for everything, and everything in its place,’ but everything in a suitable places, so as to produce a good effect; in fact, taste comes into play. The little girl must not only put her flowers in water but arrange them prettily, and must not be put off with some rude kitchen mug or jug for them, or some hideous pink vase, but must have jar or vase graceful in form and harmonious in hue, though it be but a cheap trifle. In the same way, everything in the nursery should be ‘neat’–that is pleasing and suitable.” (1/130-131)

“Children should be encouraged to make neat and effective arrangements of their own little properties…Nothing vulgar in the way of print, picture-book, or toy should be admitted–nothing to vitiate a child’s taste or introduce a strain of commonness into his nature.” (1/131)

“[M]eantime, let us look in at a home schoolroom managed on sound principles. In the first place, there is a time-table, written out fairly, so that the child knows what he has to do and how long each lesson is to last. This idea of definite work to be finished in a given time is valuable to the child, not only as training him in habits of order, but in diligence; he learns that one time is not ‘as good as another’; that there is no right time left for what is not done in its own time; and this knowledge alone does a great deal to secure the child’s attention to his work.” (1/142)

“Let him always put away his things as a matter of course, and it is surprising how soon a habit of order is formed, which will make it pleasant to the child to put away his toys, and irritating to him to see things in the wrong place.” (1/130)

Charlotte Mason Soiree Retreat

Episode 4: Three Tools of Education

Jessica’s Instagram Feed

IKEA Picture Hanger

Simply Charlotte Mason’s Picture Study Portfolios

“All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy” by Mrs. Flora Annie Steele (Parents’ Review, Vol. 16, No. 6, p. 401)

Jessica’s Scaffolding Form

Jessica’s Scaffolding Chart

Jessica’s Exam Planner