One year ago, I assumed I wouldn’t do any sort of a formal preschool with my kids. Charlotte Mason advocates starting formal lessons no earlier than age six. So why complicate things? I trusted the method, and the wisdom of many home educators who said, ‘Wait on formal academics’. How things change in a year,…
It’s easy to think that there isn’t much to do school-wise for the first six years of a child’s life when you plan to home educate the Charlotte Mason way. She assertively states in her writing that a mother’s (modern-day me reads that as ‘parent’s) chief responsibility is to make sure that a child’s first…
Parents are investing more and more time into their children’s development, Alia Wong points out in the beginning of her recent article on The Atlantic: The American Obsession with Parenting. Wong points to several studies showing that this is quantitatively true, and I think we all know in our gut that there is an intensity around…
[sc name=”Disclosure” ] A few weeks ago, I mentioned that N age-nearly-three asked me if we could make a rainbow. I saw this as a great opportunity to follow his interest and to expand his experience with rainbows. Today I want to share a few, simple activities we did together to ‘go with the flow’…
I will be the first person to admit that I am a bit pooh-poohey about home preschool curricula. We know that young kids need to play. A lot. So, for the most part, I don’t have any big plans as N. approaches the age of three. Lots of unstructured time, outdoor play, reading stories and poems, listening…
When N was much younger, a friend asked how was getting on. This happens to be one of my favorite topics, and I quickly started describing how he was hitting different toys with a mallet – obviously figuring out the different noises they make through a rigorous set of baby experiments. My friend commented, ‘Oh, he’s…
Crayons. Finger paints. Glitter. Cotton balls. Glue sticks. All things that come to mind when you think about art for young children. Pinterest is teeming with ways to involve children in creating pieces of art. While I’m not a big fan of coloring-inside-the-lines, everyone-copies-teacher sort of projects, giving the children opportunities to learn techniques and…
Recently, I introduced Charlotte Mason’s concept of masterly inactivity. Her thinking was that it is often best to ‘let children alone’ except in situations where we need to provide guidance and support, or to assert our authority. Additionally, in School Education (affiliate link) Miss Mason explains that there are several areas where parents really should practice masterly inactivity. I’d…
As I mentioned last week, we’ve moved house recently. The backyard in our former home was mostly a brick patio, with a patch of grass roughly the size of a postage stamp. Our new garden isn’t enormous (especially by American standards). However, there is plenty of room for the boys to run, play, and enjoy…
Imagine you are at the playground with your toddler. He makes his way to a ladder leading to a slide. After considering it, he climbs up one rung and stops. He looks at you, and starts to fuss: he seems unable, or at least unwilling, to finish climbing the ladder. What do you do? From…