Andrea’s recent post about her use of a Charlotte Mason (or, “CM”) curriculum inspired me to share a little more about how we use Miss Mason’s methods in our homeschool.
Charlotte Mason, a 19th century British educator, was unmarried and childless, but she had a keen understanding of children and an expert’s eye for what interests them. One of the most prominent tenets of her philosophy — her belief that educators and parents should make use of “living books” rather than textbooks — has had a strong influence on our homeschool and on my personal philosophy.
I was just beginning to learn about CM methods when we embarked on our first year of homeschooling. The use of living books was most intriguing to me. It appealed to my own love of literature and to my girls’ devotion to their favorite reading. As my personal philosophy grew and evolved that first year, it became inextricably intertwined with some of Miss Mason’s ideas.
Though I had headed into homeschooling with a bit of a classical bent, I quickly shifted gears as I researched curriculum options and considered my daughter’s learning style. I wasn’t very excited about workbook options, and I knew she wouldn’t be, either. She learned best when she was fully immersed in a book she loved, and that year, she loved Little House on the Prairie and the world of the American Girls.
Based on Charlotte Mason’s advocacy of living books, I decided to design our curriculum myself around the literature my daughter loved. We read the entire Little House series that year, as well as many of the American Girl books. Literature became our history curriculum, as we created a timeline and marked the appropriate time periods for our “girls of the year,” Laura Ingalls and Samantha Parkington. We went on to add all of Laura’s family and all of the American Girls to the timeline, as well as the birth dates of members of our family, including grandparents.
Our literature-based curriculum that year bore much fruit. The history “lessons,” in the form of read-alouds and discussion, were lively and fun. The hands-on activities delighted my then-preschooler as well as my first-grader: the making of butter, the yarn dolls, the cooking from scratch, and the Victorian crafts were all opportunities to cement in their minds the things we learned in our reading. The connections my daughters made, thanks to a combination of living books and activities, became a foundation that has served them well, and continues to do so.