Homeschooling With Charlotte Mason

After watching my two oldest girls struggle with public school due to boredom and friction with “the cool kids,” I decided to home school my three youngest. It was an easy decision, but creating my own curriculum was often confusing. I didn’t want to use the traditional Christian home school programs such as Alpha Omega, Abeka and others. Aside from the fact that they’re quite costly and need to be purchased for each grade, I found them to be more stringent than what I was looking for. While doing some research on homeschooling programs, I came upon the Charlotte Mason … Continue reading

More Charlotte Mason: An atmosphere, a discipline, a life

Recently, I discussed how Charlotte Mason’s ideas about living books and “education as a science of relations” influenced my homeschooling philosophies and methods. Today I want to take a look at another key phrase of Miss Mason’s that also shaped my approach to homeschooling. Charlotte Mason said, “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.” What, exactly, did she mean? Let’s break it down, bit by bit. Education is an atmosphere What is an educational atmosphere? For Charlotte Mason, it’s more than a room full of textbooks. An atmosphere that encourages rich learning is one full of living books written … Continue reading