When we first start homeschooling, we rarely have the benefit of watching other people educate their children on a daily basis (unless, of course, we were home educated ourselves!). We pour over schedules, book lists, and examples of the homeschool days of other families. This can be helpful, but sometimes all the variety can be…
Not long after I started my first son on homeschool lessons, I shared my process for scheduling a term with Ambleside Online (a free, Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum). Since then, I’ve been through that process several more times and added another student into the mix. I know many moms wonder where to start with a…
Too often in homeschooling, math feels like a subject tacked onto a literature-rich, Charlotte Mason based curriculum. Not only can it feel dry and rote, but it can also be a solitary subject, with our kids working on their own math problems at their own pace. But while individual work might be necessary, it doesn’t…
The latest addition to our Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum is scouting skills. Scouting doesn’t receive nearly as much attention as other Charlotte Mason staples, like nature study or artist study. However, there are strong connections. The modern scouting movement has roots in Charlotte Mason’s work, and scouting was taught in Parents’ Union Schools. Scouting as…
If I wake early to read my Bible and pray, and have not love when my children interrupt me, I am only a donkey in a lion’s skin. I may hide under a mane of righteous actions, but the bray of self-centered entitlement exposes me. If love is patient and kind, I am anything but…
Charlotte Mason advocated for children to receive a broad and generous education. While we, as educators, see the importance of setting aside planned, structured time to give our children a ‘feast’ of ideas, it can be more challenging to partake as a mother. There is a tension between the practical demands on our time and…
From the last two principles, we see that we have a will, a capacity to make choices about the ideas we accept or reject, and that we also have reason, which justifies the ideas we accept. This brings us to Charlotte Mason’s nineteenth principle: The main responsibility that we have as persons is to accept…
From the last post in the Mother Culture Roadmap, we learned that the will is our means of choosing to do what is right, and that it is easily fatigued. We often try to reason with ourselves in order to work up our will to do the right thing, but this process usually wears us…
In Charlotte Mason’s fourth volume, Ourselves, she describes a country called Mansoul. This country is full of potential – there are fields, natural resources, cities with libraries and art museums. But bounty is not guaranteed. The success of the country depends upon the government, which could just as easily squander its many assets as it…
Mother culture is about the pursuit of education for ourselves. We recognize that ‘education’ is not something we finished years ago. It’s not something our kids need to go through before they hit adulthood. If education is about the formation of our character, then we are still on the journey, pursuing the same goal as…