“What’s your takeaway from the workshop?” “I really need to work on my art anxiety.” I spent last week in the Lake District, with three days at the Charlotte Mason Centenary Conference in Ambleside, put on by the Charlotte Mason Institute and University of Cumbria, the institution that incorporated the Charlotte Mason College (formerly the…
What does it mean that children are born persons? This is Charlotte Mason’s first principle and one of the most important. If we don’t grasp her meaning, we will struggle to make sense of the rest of her ideas and apply them well in our homes. It is deceptively simple. We all have an intuitive…
We are inching closer to the end of our term and I’m attempting to put on tunnel vision to stick with our plans and keep us on track to finish strong. Slightly easier said than done (we are a tiny bit behind on Robinson Crusoe), but all in all, we’re doing pretty well. I’m more…
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! The holiday doesn’t mean all that much to me, but I will still be enjoying our family tradition of eating Irish fare for dinner tonight. In reading this week, I’ve happened to read several articles with criticisms of social media and the way it behaves. I also happened to spend a…
Last month I had a chance to chat with Cherelle German about spreading the feast Charlotte-Mason-style in my homeschool. I know it’s very typical to say that it was a blast and a super fun conversation, but I genuinely enjoyed our conversation and it was a joy to spend some time with her. Cherelle has…
In an effort to be more thoughtful and reflective about what I’m reading, here is a round-up from the past week or so. (I do love a good round up!) Links to books use my Abebooks referral link – buy second hand! Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport I read this not long after it first…
We finished our first week of school after a very long break. It always feels like a marathon, getting back into the routine, and this time even more so: we’re going eight weeks without a break instead of the usual six, due to a family visit. It’s a term of new things: adding in Latin…
We learn in Advent to stay in the present, that only the present well lived can possibly lead us to the fullness of life. Life is not meant to be escaped, we learn, as the liturgical year moves from season to season, from feast to feast. It is meant to be penetrated, to be plumbed…
I enjoyed Alan Jacob’s recent thoughts on focal practices. A lot of thought went into our hearth when we moved into our home. It’s a 1970s house and was a relic of the time period when we moved in. We have a shallow, wide chimney breast which, at the time, had a gas fire that…
My Christmas books (the ones I have received and the ones I have read…minus the Agatha Christies) have centered both on habits and on the liturgical calendar. I hadn’t made the connection between habits – which I typically consider to be daily, or at least frequent, and automatic – and the liturgical calendar, which is…