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I read 35 books last year! So I’m releasing my micro book reviews in manageable chunks. Here are the books I read while homeschooling or in support of my role as a home educator in 2022.
Books Read for Homeschool
Grimm’s Fairy Tales These were sometimes delightful, sometimes familiar, and sometimes utterly absurd. I pre-read this collection of 55 tales in order to select the best for my son to read for school this year. Here are the ones I chose for their cultural importance and/or entertainment value: The Cat and Mouse in Partnership, The Frog Prince, Briar Rose, The Fisherman and His Wife, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Elves and the Shoemaker, The Water of Life, The Golden Goose, The Table, the Ass, and the Stick, Red Riding Hood, Tom Thumb, Frederick and Catherine, Snow White and Red Rose, The Four Accomplished Brothers, The Giant with the Three Golden Hairs, Hansel and Gretel
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (My copy translated by Marie Borroff) This is probably the first epic poem I’ve ever read all the way through. What does that say about the education I received from Kindergarten through college?!?!? I pre-read this before having my 13-year-old read it this year. It’s a little bazar but also fun. The alliterative style of poetry was new to me, but I enjoyed it. Here’s a passage that highlightss the story’s themes of Providence, courage, and integrity, as Sir Gawain tells how he cannot turn back from meeting the enemy:
Fair fortune befall you for your friendly words! And conceal this day’s deed I doubt not you would, But though you never told the tale, if I turned back now, Forsook this place for fear, and fled, as you say, I were a caitiff coward; I could not be excused. But I must to the Chapel to chance my luck And say to that same man such words as I please, Befall what may befall through Fortune’s will or whim. Though he be a quarrelsome knave With a cudgel great and grim, The Lord is strong to save: His servants trust in Him.
Lines 2118-2139
Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula (read aloud) This is a years-long read-aloud project that we finally finished this past summer, reading it alongside our history book (see next). I highly recommend Trial and Triumph as a good survey of individuals whose stories inspire our faith and play an important role in church history. I dare you to read it aloud to your kids without crying.
The Story of the World, Volume 4: Modern Times by Susan Wise Bauer (read aloud) This has been an incredibly enjoyable journey through all four volumes of The Story of the World. This one on Modern Times was a really great read at ages 12 and 10. My boys were old enough to handle the challenging level of violence that makes up modern history. Bauer traces patterns and events well, helping the reader to see how events connect chronologically, geographically, and in parallel.
The Fallacy Detective by The Bluedorns (read aloud) This was an incredibly fun read—my boys would constantly ask for it, or ask for me to read more when it was time to stop. Fallacies may not be the most ideal way to get acquainted with logic for the first time (it’s generally recommended for any discipline that you learn the rules before you learn how they are broken), but this was so accessible and fun (not to mention I won a copy as a door prize at a local homeschool event) that I couldn’t resist. The boys love to identify errors in thinking: in the news, each other…. We have urged them, though, that they don’t actually know logic yet, so take it easy. These are tools to help us evaluate arguments and propaganda, not for us to tear others down.
Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? by Richard J. Maybury I pre-read this book for my 7th grader this year. I don’t remember having any early and gentle introduction to economics before being thrown into it in high school—having to read a large portion of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations over the summer and take a test over that tome on the first day of class. I wish I had learned a little bit along the way and in the context of history. Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? supplies this need quite well, covering topics like money, inflation, boom and bust cycles, the role of government, and more in short, well-explained chapters—err, uh, letters, from Uncle Eric to his nephew. This would NOT make for a complete economics course for high schoolers, however. Just like The Fallacy Detective is not a comprehensive study of logic, Penny Candy is not a comprehensive study of economics–but both books can whet the appetite for further study.
Gather by Pam Barnhill and Heather Tully This was less for school and more about it. Gather is about what many homeschool moms refer to as Morning Time–a time in the school day when most everyone in the family is together for shared learning or activities, ranging from worship and singing to reading, making, and exploration. This book is full of inspirational and practical essays and full-color photographs from a handful of homeschool families in various stages and of various sizes. It’s a pretty great day-in-the-life kind of encouragement for homeschool moms. I enjoyed it.
These are the issues of CommonPlace Quarterly that I read cover-to-cover last year: Lonely Places, Way of the Will, Balance, Method, and Ordo Amoris.
I have read every issue from the first year of publication. It is a little pricey, but the content is very encouraging in the faith, in loving and educating my kids well, and in growing in my own education toward what is true and good and beautiful. About a year ago I was thinking super-frugally and canceled my subscription, and my husband questioned me on it, saying I’d probably regret that. And he was right. 🙂 This makes for excellent bedtime reading when I’m too tired to read a stiff book. If you are into Charlotte Mason homeschooling, this is a resource worth checking out.
The following article has been adapted from a talk I presented at the Natural State Charlotte Mason Retreat in April 2021. This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of these links, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you.
Here’s a little literary puzzle for you: What do the following books have in common?
Literary nerds would say most of these are examples of “The Hero’s Journey”, but my husband says they’re all just backpacking stories.
Getting Outside to Live the Adventure
This spring my family reached the halfway point of the 223-mile Ouachita Trail.
We’ve been section-hiking the OT ever since I read True Grit back in 2018 and wanted to walk down where the story takes place.
2018: Had to bring the book along with us on that first trip!Fast forward: Reaching the 100-mile point! Others had marked this milestone and it seemed like a good photo op! We’ve now logged over 115 miles on the OT. Enjoying a rewarding view.
Backpacking has provided our family with many transcendent connections—literary and otherwise. When we set out to cover some ground on foot, we’re getting in touch with a very ancient human practice. When we do something challenging, we have a chance to grow in character. When we face a grueling, rocky climb, our books can inspire us: “It’s the steps of Mordor! Onward to Mount Doom!”
Backpacking isn’t for everyone, but I firmly believe that reading living books and spending time outside are the one-two punch when it comes to helping our kids experience and enjoy what Charlotte Mason calls the science of relations. Some of our best family discussions and most interesting ah-ha moments happen on the trail. And it’s beautiful. But the magic doesn’t happen if we don’t step outside.
Do you know the context for the familiar Charlotte Mason quote “…mothers work wonders once they are convinced that wonders are demanded of them?” It’s from Volume One, in the section on “Out-of-Door Life for the Children.” Miss Mason recognizes that getting our kids outside might require us to work wonders. It’s a high calling. And it may feel at times that we have to climb mountains to make it happen. But the payoff is worth it. The connections made, the character built, and the awe at our Creator’s handiwork are all worth the effort.
I want to address two attitude obstacles, drawing from my family’s journey into backpacking. Even if you don’t choose to get into backpacking, I hope these concepts will help you recognize your own obstacles to getting outdoors and think of how you might work wonders to overcome them.
Attitude Obstacle #1: The Anxious Mama
We have not always been a backpacking family. I’ve enjoyed hiking since my teens, but sleeping outside is another story.
Several years ago, my husband looked into hammocking as a more comfortable alternative to sleeping on the ground. One evening, he set up a brand-new hammock kit in our yard, complete with a narrow “mummy” sleeping bag, bug net, and rain tarp. He tried it out and thought it was great. I tried it out and literally started hyperventilating. I’d never slept in a mummy bag before, and it turns out, I’m mildly claustrophobic. I couldn’t see the sky, I couldn’t move my arms or legs. It was too much all at once.
My hammock set-up with the rainfly folded back so one side is open.
My husband realized that we needed to start by just getting me comfortable being outside. So, he’d set up the hammock on a pretty day and suggest I go out to take a nap or read a book. That, I could do.
Over time, as I got more comfortable, we tried sleeping outside on mild nights with no need for rain tarp or bug net. But I would still sometimes go inside midway through the night. This was not my thing, but it was growing on me.
Fast forward to today: I find my hammock quite inviting after a long day of hiking. And I’ve even gotten to the point where I can sleep on the ground on an ultralight air mattress.
Your husband may not be the one leading the charge into the great outdoors for your family, and that’s ok. You may not be interested in backpacking, and that’s ok—I wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t for my husband. But I hope you can see some of the takeaways from this story.
First off, we need to be patient—with ourselves and with our people. We are all–moms, dads, and children–born persons. So, consider your people and their quirks.
Secondly, we also need to recognize that if there is a strong reaction to something, it may mean we’re doing too much too soon. Start small, with things you can enjoy, and build up gradually from there.
Thirdly, our fears and anxiety may also mean we need more exposure—not less—to the things that scare us.
Let’s say you’re terrified that a snake is hiding behind every rock, just waiting for you to walk by so it can strike. You go over the facts: “Snakes are as eager to avoid me as I am to avoid them.” But often the facts by themselves don’t govern our emotional response until we’ve had the experience of safely walking past 100 or maybe even 1,000 suspicious rocks, with no snake incidents.
Facing our fears and dealing with our hangups is part of practicing masterly inactivity. It’s well worth reading chapter three of Volume Three to get better acquainted with what that means. But Miss Mason does give us a short list of what masterly inactivity involves: authority, good humor, self-confidence, confidence in the children, and a sound mind in a sound body.
Miss Mason adds, “If the sound body is unattainable, anyway, get the sound mind.” 😉
Our anxiety can trip us up, but it can also trip up our kids if we allow it. If we don’t face our fears and cast our cares upon the Lord, we may fail to communicate “confidence in the children,” we may be more inclined to say no when we should say yes, and we may deny our kids opportunities to test their capabilities and to grow in grit and resourcefulness.
Instead of modeling anxiety, we want to model curiosity and wonder at the things God has made. Instead of allowing our fears to keep us inside, we want to show our children by example how to step out beyond our comfort zone and grow.
Attitude Obstacle #2: The Reluctant Child
We know we’ve got to deal with ourselves first, but we may find that our kids are just as hesitant as we are–or perhaps even more so. What’s a mama to do?
Here are some considerations that may help.
Make it Sensitive
My oldest son loves Legos. When we started more serious backpacking the thought of missing out on more than one day of Lego playtime almost brought him to tears. So, for his birthday one year, my husband bought him a minifig backpacker complete with accessories. There’s even a Lego bear, a fish, and some poison ivy. He gets it out when we stop for lunch or after we’ve set up camp, and it’s made our extended time in the woods much more enjoyable for him.
The beloved camping Legos.
It makes a big difference for a child to know that their interests have been considered. If there’s an activity that they already enjoy, taking it outside may be a good way to gently encourage a new love for the outdoors. Take read-alouds or poetry tea-time or something artsy out on the lawn. If your reluctant child can get more comfortable doing ordinary things outside, it can help the transition into more outdoorsy activities.
Make it Special
We can also make our outdoor time more fun by making it special. There are treats we enjoy only while hiking—things like pre-packaged snacks or GORP (good old raisins and peanuts) or homemade apple leather or dried fruit. And this brings up the idea of special responsibilities. You don’t need to do all of the preparations, mama. It can be more fun for kids if they have some skin in the game and can say, “I made the trail mix!” or “I sliced the apples!” Give them the opportunity and see what happens.
We can also give our children special tools as appropriate. A well-timed gift of a compass, spyglass, or pocketknife can be a big boost to a child. If you have a garden or do landscaping around your home, let your kids use real tools as soon as they are capable of safely wielding them. Our kids are often more capable than we give them credit for. If we tell them “no” all the time when they’re little, we shouldn’t be surprised if they shrink from doing big person things when they’re teens.
In backpacker culture, people use special names that in some way describe who they are. My trail name is Persistent Turtle. 😉 My 9-year-old is ALP, which stands for Apple Leather Power. You don’t have to be a backpacker to enjoy coming up with trail names.
Make it Social
We can also make our outdoor time more fun by making it social. My kids love having friends over to play in the woods or in our creek, and we enjoy hiking with other families. It can be a really great way to learn, too, as we observe and wonder at things with friends whose outdoor knowledge and skills are different than our own.
Make it Seasonal
Make it fun by making it seasonal. Nobody really enjoys tick season. So, we do our backpacking mostly in spring and fall. In summer, we do more short hikes to swimming holes. Bonus points if there’s a waterfall to jump off of.
My husband enjoys doing flips off of waterfalls. I’m good for about one jump and then I’m done.
And in winter, our day hikes might focus more on finding waterfalls—frozen waterfalls look really cool.
If you can’t tell, that’s snow falling in the picture.
Other seasonal elements we consider are fall colors, spring blooms, and berry picking season. For years when my boys were small we would read Blueberries for Sal and then go and pick blueberries.
Make it Smile
Make it fun by smiling. This is simple, but powerful. When your kids make an observation or create something with mud or rattle off more snake facts than you ever thought you wanted to know—or better yet they bring a snake inside the house—acknowledge their discovery or creativity and smile, even if you’re simultaneously leading them and the snake out the back door. Miss Mason says it like this: “…if they see that the things which interest them are indifferent or disgusting to you, their pleasure in them vanishes, and that chapter in the book of Nature is closed to them.” Vol. 1, 58
So, keep that book of nature open by showing interest and smiling. Even if it’s gross.
Make it Screen-Free
Sometimes our screen habits are an obstacle to our outdoor habits. One may need to be cut back significantly to make room for the other—not just as a consideration of time but as a consideration of how our habits are training us. Charlotte Mason emphasizes training our children to really see when they are outside. The more we look at screens, the less practiced our eyes are at seeing depth and detail that isn’t pre-focused for us. Carefully consider screen habits in your home, as they can affect attitude on a general level as well as hinder our ability to really see and appreciate God’s world.
Once you’ve addressed attitude obstacles, the rest is just details.
This post isn’t going to go into all of the potentially relevant details, but I do want to briefly address hiking safety. The three most important things I can tell you about keeping your kids safe on the trail are these:
Train the habit of obedience—when you have little ones on the top of a cliff, they need to be able to stop when you say stop.
Train the habit of attention, of really seeing and being aware of their surroundings.
Get every walking member of your family a whistle. In our family, one blast means “Where are you?” or, in response, “Here I am.” Two blasts means “Come here.” And three blasts is an international distress signal, used for emergencies.
Along with these safety tips, check out the principles of Leave No Trace–these are outdoor ethics which serve as an excellent guide to walking wisely, practicing good stewardship, and loving your neighbor while out on the trail.
Take the Long View
Remember that this goal of getting outside is not a competition. To whatever extent we lead our children out of doors, we’re setting their feet in a wide room, and it doesn’t get much wider than the big world God has made and the living books that we enjoy.
Three years ago my family set out on the first section of the Ouachita Trail. I was so sore and tired by the end of our third day that I suggested to my husband that he might need to hike out to the highway and hitch us a ride back to our car in the morning. But after a good night’s sleep in my comfy hammock I felt much better, and we set out to complete the last eight miles of our 24-mile trip. Toward the end of the day, we climbed to a peak and looked behind us. After diligently studying the map and the horizon, my husband told me to look at the furthest peak in the distance.
I asked, “Is that where we started four days ago?”
“No,” he said with excitement. “That’s where we started this morning.”
Messy red arrow points to the peak we started at that day!
Remember that if you and your family just keep taking the next step, before you know it, you will reach a vantage point far on down the trail, look back, and be amazed at the ground that you’ve covered.
Looking for great places to hike and camp or otherwise explore Arkansas? Check out my friend Lindsey’s website: All About Arkansas.
I’ve been reading Charlotte Mason’s fourth volume, Ourselves, and while it is full of wise words, this section I’m sharing here today struck me by its almost surprising timeliness.
It’s easy to get the idea that folks over a hundred years ago lived lives so vastly different from ours that they were somehow either more boring and serious or else more backward and superstitious than people are today. The reality is that humanity is humanity, no matter what the era. And apparently there were people getting obsessive over special diets in England at the turn of the 20th century. They may not have the same names or focus, but they perhaps share the same craze. And it’s the craze, the self-absorption, that Miss Mason calls attention to in her chapter on temperance. I’ll let her take it away:
Conscience is not, in fact, so much concerned with the manner of our intemperance as with the underlying principle which St Paul sets forth when he condemns those who “worship and serve the creature more than the Creator.” This is the principle according to which we shall be justified or condemned; and, in its light, we have reason to be suspicious of any system of diet or exercise which bespeaks excessive concern for the body, whether that concern be shown by a diet of nuts and apples, of peacocks’ brains, or of cock-a-leekie. England is in serious danger of giving herself over to the worship of a deity whom we all honour as Hygeia. But never did men bow down before so elusive a goddess, for the more she is pursued, the more she flees; while she is ready with smiles and favours for him who never casts a thought her way. In truth and sober earnest, the pursuit of physical (and mental) well-being is taking its place amongst us as a religious cult; and the danger of such a cult is, lest we concentrate our minds, not upon Christ, but upon our own consciousness. We ‘have faith’ to produce in ourselves certain comfortable attitudes of mind and body; this serenity satisfies us, and we forget the danger of exalting the concerns of the creature above the worship of the Creator. The essence of Christianity is passionate love and loyalty towards a divine Person: and faith, the adoring regard of the soul, must needs make us like Him who is ‘meek and lowly of heart.’ A faith which raises us to a ‘higher plane’ should be suspect of the Christian conscience, as seeking to serve ourselves of the power of Christ, less to His glory than our own satisfaction. (Ourselves, Book II Part I Chapter III, p. 230-231)
Wow. Fad diets aside, isn’t it so easy to fixate on improving our physical and mental well-being apart from the glory of God? Our culture is drunk with this sort of thing. And while Christians certainly seek to learn and grow, our aim ought to be entirely different.
“Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added,” Jesus tells us in the gospel of Matthew.
It’s good to be reminded that in all our living and striving, our eyes ought to be on Christ and not on …ourselves. Even when writing a book with that title, Miss Mason makes clear that self-knowledge isn’t an end in itself. And neither is self-improvement. In all of our growth, are we growing more “like Him who is ‘meek and lowly of heart'”? It’s a good question to grapple with before the Lord.
What have you read lately? Anything quote-worthy? I’d love to hear about it! Drop a comment below.
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In my last post, I shared Why We Homeschool, and part of our WHY included the freedom to choose HOW.
I explained a bit of our story–how my husband was homeschooled and how I went to public school. And I shared our mission statement:
Since before they were born, my husband Nathaniel and I have purposed to bring our children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and to educate them at home by means of whole/living books, meaningful work and life experiences, and disciplined habits of wisdom and personal responsibility—for school and for life and ultimately for eternity.
In this post, I’ll give a little more of our story and begin to flesh out just how we have come to do what we do–and how we think about it, summarizing Charlotte Mason and classical philosophies as best I can.
A Little More of Our Story…
That mission statement above was written recently, but it pretty well describes what our aims have been from the beginning, owing much to what Nathaniel’s family passed down and to his experience with the literature-based Robinson Curriculum.
Our initial trajectory found further inspiration nearly six years ago when an older mom-friend at the local homeschool co-op first introduced me to the ideas of Charlotte Mason and Christian classical education (yes, both at the same time–it’s taken me years to sort them out! Ha!).
We were already legally homeschooling our five-year-old at this point–attempting to use my mother-in-law’s KONOS unit studies curriculum. Think: a text-only Pinterest board in a three-inch binder (though I’m sure it’s more up-to-date these days). I had already found that, rogue that I am, I took the subject matter we were supposed to cover in KONOS, ignored the binder and its overwhelming amount of options completely, and simply went to the library to check out as many quality books as I could find for us to read aloud on a given subject.
I’m not a crafty mom, nor do I like Pinterest.
While carting books home from the library for our immediate needs, I began to explore Charlotte Mason via Ambleside Online and some of my friend’s Well Trained Mind materials (which are Classical, too).
Somewhere in that first year I also acquired Educating the WholeHearted Child, an excellent resource on Christian homeschooling, by Clay and Sally Clarkson–and I found Charlotte Mason quotes littered throughout.
Hmmm…Interesting. The wheels were spinning.
Half way into our second year, now invested in a couple of those Well Trained Mind materials and a practice called Morning Time (recommended by my friend and expanded upon by Pam Barnhill), I found myself tuning in to a new podcast called Scholé Sisters, “a casual conversation…” for “the classical homeschooling mama who seeks to learn and grow while she’s helping her children learn and grow.”
Inspired by the podcast to “find your sisters,” I invited the friend who had started this mess 😉 as well as a few others to form our own book club and read Susan Schaeffer Macaulay’s For the Children’s Sake–arguably the Charlotte Mason gateway drug.
At this point my research perhaps turned into somewhat of an addiction.
I began to see that Charlotte Mason’s ideas about books, habit training, and real-life learning lined up with so much of what we were already doing–and they challenged me to grow further out of my push-through-to-the-next-thing mindset that I’d acquired in my own school years.
I also began to explore classical education a bit, but never really hopped on the Trivium-as-stages Train. I was delighted to find in further listening and research that the “stages” application of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric was a gross oversimplification–classical education, as I had hoped, has far more to offer.
Since that first year where I didn’t-really-follow-KONOS, we haven’t used any sort of all-in-one curriculum (though I have borrowed a lot from Ambleside Online and we do use curriculum for math). We appreciate the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason and Christian classical education, and we choose materials eclectically guided by a lot of the principles from these philosophies.
So, what exactly are they?
Hello, Charlotte
Charlotte Mason, a British educator who lived at the turn of the 20th century, describes education as “an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.” Atmosphere refers to the naturally occurring environment of the child—the home in which they live, the people they live with, the world outside their front door. This also includes the attitudes that they pick up from, say, their parents.
Discipline refers to the formation of habits, whether personal cleanliness, academic, or other habits of character. Again, who we are as parents teaches a lot!
Life might be a bit confusing. By life Mason means “living ideas,” or knowledge that is vital. This kind of knowledge is found by being in living touch with the world around us and especially by being presented with a rich curriculum that puts us in touch with the knowledge made available in books—and particularly books of literary quality rather than dry textbooks which can often strip knowledge of its delight. When Charlotte Mason mamas speak of living books, they’re in this realm of “education is a life.”
Our mission statement corresponds with this framework for education: “…meaningful work and life experiences…” — a big part of atmosphere. “…disciplined habits of wisdom and personal responsibility…” — discipline. “…whole/living books…” — and there’s the life.
Now, that’s Charlotte Mason on a very general level. She also has a list of 20 principles and six volumes in which she develops her philosophy and method. Some of the key elements include training the habit of attention, growing in self-education, narrating back what one has heard or read after just one reading, spending time outside in nature, studying a wide range of beautiful things, and resisting the urge to over-teach so that the child does the work of thinking for him/herself. But that’s just scratching the surface.
When I list Charlotte Mason as part of how we homeschool, I mean that we are happily influenced by her ideas, but I do not mean that I follow her method anything near completely. Her principles resonate with me and challenge me to be a better mom, but I implement them very much in our own way. And that’s perhaps why I sometimes feel that we fit more easily within Classical education (a philosophical umbrella with arguably various methods up for grabs) than we do in a strictly Charlotte Mason approach (a philosophy with a prescribed method to go with it). But they really do meld together well in our home!
Hello, Classical
Christian classical education aims at wisdom and virtue and at cultivating an appreciation for what is true, good, and beautiful. It emphasizes an ancient and long-standing educational tradition that has been abandoned in the past 150 years or more, but it’s making a strong comeback today. Training in The Seven Liberal Arts of Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric (the arts of language); Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music (the mathematical arts) is a key part of the curriculum. But this isn’t the sum total of learning, either. Other elements in this tradition include training in piety, gymnastic, music (in more than a mathematical sense), common and fine arts, sciences and history and philosophy–with Christian theology as both the guide and the goal.
There is a learning curve here, especially since the words I just used to tell you what’s included in a classical education all have older definitions and understandings that are either completely abandoned or else eclipsed by the way we understand them today. There are helpful resources out there, though. Podcasts like the Scholé Sisters, Ask Andrew, and Cafe Schole have been helpful. As for reading, these articles at the Circe Institute can get you started, and the booklet Introduction to Classical Education is a helpful overview. But once you’re ready to dive into a thorough treatment of Christian classical education, be sure to grab The Liberal Arts Tradition (revised edition) by Kevin Clark and Ravi Scott Jain. This book ties all the pieces together with lots of historical references so that you come away with a better and deeper understanding of the whole paradigm and where it all comes from. There’s also a short glossary of key words and concepts at the back of the book that’s a very handy reference!
Charlotte Mason and classical both aim at a holistic education that respects the nature of the child as made in God’s image. As such, children ought to be nurtured and educated in body, mind, and soul–and primarily by those that love them most. Today’s secular school system doesn’t acknowledge the soul of the child, so it falls short even when it aims at a holistic education.
Some of what we do will sound flowery, but that’s because our focus isn’t just on academic skills—it’s on all of life enjoyed and lived to the glory of God—and this includes a lot of things that are both enriching in an enjoyable way and pay dividends academically, too. What we do is academically rigorous, but in a very different way.
We’ve found that both Charlotte Mason and Christian classical education each resonate with our priorities and direction, while also giving a greater depth and breadth to our efforts than we knew was possible.
Do you have to follow either of these philosophies or methods to homeschool you kids well and raise them in the ways of the Lord? No. The best way to do that is to be humbly and constantly immersing yourself and your children in God’s word, believing it and living by it together in your everyday, everywhere life. But both classical and Charlotte Mason philosophies can be extremely helpful to that end–not only for the way they give you many positive things to implement in your teaching, but also for the way they challenge you to peel back the layers of negative influence from our modern, materialistic education system.
Stay tuned for more in this series as I begin to post specifically about how we handle various subjects in our homeschool (without actually concerning ourselves much with “teaching all the subjects”).
In case you missed it, here’s the first post in the series: Why We Homeschool.
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of these links, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you.
Join us as we indulge in a little foolishness!
What kind of foolishness do we find in living books? And what role does it play in our favorite stories? In this chat we take a tour of literary folly: starting with the childish charm of Frog and Toad; to the growth away from foolishness in coming-of-age novels like Anne and Little Britches (and the lack of such growth in Tom Sawyer); and finally to the full-grown foolishness that wields its destructive power in Austen and Shakespeare.
Growth from foolishness to maturity often comes by way of trial–in literature and in our own lives. As we consider the characters in the stories we read, we find insight and inspiration for navigating the crises we face with wisdom and courage.
When it comes to fleeing danger, where’s the line between wisdom and selfishness? In facing danger head-on, what’s the difference between courage and foolhardy recklessness? We hope you’ll join us and find encouragement–both for your family’s literary adventures and for the real challenges you face in these trying times.
For Easy Navigation:
00:00 – 00:54 Introduction 00:54 – 03:48 Charming, Childish Foolishness 03:48 – 04:52 Foolishness Grows Up a Bit 04:52 – 14:53 Foolishness to Maturity in Coming-of-Age Novels
14:53 – 27:46 Manifestations of Folly in Austen and Shakespeare
27:46 – 37:20 Facing our Current Crisis with Wisdom and Courage
37:20 – End Wrap Up
Books Mentioned
The Bible, especially the book of Proverbs 🙂
Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
Paddington Bear by Michael Bond
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Little Britches by Ralph Moody (audiobook linked below)
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Friends, I am so excited to share this with you! About six months ago my friend Tabitha Alloway (of Pursuing Logos) started a community on Facebook dedicated to living books–discussing the books we find, asking for recommendations, sharing reviews, and yes, even sharing some hilarious book memes. Sifting through all the books out there is a big job. But it’s a little easier (and more fun) if we do it together!
What is a living book? Well, that’s what we sought to address in this first video chat (below!) where we discuss the motivation behind the Facebook group, our own relationship with books, what living books are, and how we go about choosing them for our families.
Want to chime in? Request to join the Living Books Consortium group on Facebook. Here’s the group description:
Welcome to the Living Books Consortium! We share a passion for books here–but not just any books. We’re interested in good books; books that fire the imagination, stir the soul, and challenge the mind and spirit. As John Milton said, “A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit.”
Charlotte Mason was the nineteenth century British educator who coined the phrase “living books.” To her, a book was a living book (as opposed to dull and lifeless “twaddle”) if its text was engaging, its literary elements fine, its teaching qualities commendable, and its truths timeless.
She wrote, “As for literature – to introduce children to literature is to install them in a very rich and glorious kingdom, to bring a continual holiday to their doors, to lay before them a feast exquisitely served. But they must learn to know literature by being familiar with it from the very first. A child’s intercourse must always be with good books, the best that we can find.”
Here in this group we share with one another “the best that we can find.” This page is meant to be a tool and resource for those in search of good literature as we share reviews and exchange recommendations with one another: be it a children’s picture book, a classic, or a fine work of non-fiction, etc.
So whether contributing to this page or just browsing it, enjoy your time here and be inspired to pursue the treasure and pleasure that good literature holds–in the company of fellow book enthusiasts. Ultimately, whether we “eat,” “drink,” or “read books,” we desire to do all to the glory of God. 🙂
We’ll be releasing a new video chat each month in the group. We hope you’ll join us!
Show Notes Below!
For easy navigating:
00:00 – 09:44 — Group History and Introduction
09:44 – 24:00 — Discussion of Some of OUR Favorite Books
24:00 – 33:00 — What is a Living Book? How Do We Choose Them?
33:00 – 35:04 — Handling Questionable Content
35:04 – 40:35 — Resources We’ve Used
40:35 – End — Preview Next Month and Wrap-Up
Books Mentioned:
How to be Romantic
A Gospel Primer
Trusting God
Sherlock Holmes
The Scarlet Pimpernel
A Tale of Two Cities
The Count of Monte Cristo
Les Miserables
Sense and Sensibility (Check out Close Reads podcast on this book now!)
Close Reads is covering Sense and Sensibility right now!
The Ultimate Living Book: The Bible
May we suggest this Bible Reading Plan?
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Ever wondered what homeschooling looks like in our family? Here’s a peak into what we’ve been up to since ringing in the New Year. Since this is the first post of its kind, I’ll include a bit more detail about our usual daily routine. Just make sure you scroll to the end to find out about some of our more exciting learning adventures since they don’t quite fit into a “usual day”. 😉
A Graceful Start
This semester began much like fall of 2017–with me landing on my rear. Literally. There’s just something about that first day back to school that makes me miss my step, aparently. Or maybe it has something to do with fuzzy socks on a carpeted staircase at dark-thirty in the morning. At least I wear shoes to go down my stairs now.
At any rate, once I’ve picked myself up off of the floor at the bottom of the staircase and limped into the kitchen to make coffee, our day moves along fairly smoothly: from quiet time for the parents, to breakfast and Proverbs as a family, then to chores and personal Bible time for the kiddos (while Mama gets her homeschool game face on).
My boys have enjoyed listening to The Jesus Storybook Bible and the free dramatized audio bible available from Faith Comes by Hearing. In the past few months, C-age-8 has begun to read about a chapter a day from the New Testament in his own bible, so the transition from bible listening to bible reading is going pretty smoothly so far!
Then there’s this lovely thing called Morning Time. A dear local mommy friend who’s a little further down the road of motherhood than I am turned me onto this idea several years ago.
“Do things together as a family first! Then split up to do independent work. That way you’re not having to corral everyone back together multiple times throughout the day and you can start with things you value and enjoy most. Like prayer, music, poetry, a fun read-aloud…”
I latched on to this idea and went searching the interwebs, eventually finding further inspiration from Pam Barnhill’s Your Morning Basket podcast and resources (and she has a new book available on the topic if you’re interested!).
That groundwork having been laid and tested over the past couple of years, we usually start out our school day with lighting a candle, going over our calendar and plans for the day, prayer, singing a hymn, reciting from our memory work binder, poetry reading, and currently reading aloud from Story of the World Volume 2 and a children’s adaptation of Pilgrim’s Progress.
This week, I’ve also re-attached our Preschool Prodigies Music lessons as well as 5-10 minutes of Spanish to our Morning Time routine. I tried to shorten Morning Time by moving these things to the afternoon, but found that they simply didn’t get done!
Confession: there have been many days in the past quarter that I have skipped Morning Time to dive right into math because we were just short on time, but I have been finding lately that when life has gotten heavy and my energy reserves are running thin, starting the day with Morning Time ministers to my soul, helping me to take a deep breath, enjoy the time with my kids, and humbly move forward with my heart more focused on the Lord.
Turns out biblical truth and delightful learning are a great way to start the day.
The Three R’s
Moving on to math, D-age-6 finished Right Start Math Level B in February and has moved on to Level C after a well-earned week of playing math games.
My older son, C-age-8, is half way through Level D, currently working on mastering multiplication facts and applying them to solving area problems.
As for me, I’m learning to read ahead in our math books and plan our lessons accordingly. This subject has been the hardest for me to keep to short lessons. Partly because my kids just take longer than expected, and partly because the lessons sometimes require two days rather than the one day suggested by the book (or more realistically speaking, the one day expected by their mother).
I started out last semester working with a timer, keeping our math lessons to 20-30 minutes. That worked well until I stopped using the timer (oops). This quarter, I still haven’t been using the timer so much, but I am learning to repent of the pride that drives me to want to push my kids further and faster.
I’m teaching my kids, not a lesson. This is not a race. Our math curriculum itself is built upon understanding and enjoying math, not racing through to the next thing. Embrace the time it takes to grow.
When I keep things in perspective, it’s a lot easier to see how much work is reasonable for a given day (it’s a lot less than what I used to think!).
For language arts, we’re continuing to work through First Language Lessons levels 1 and 2. My oldest could have been into level 3 by now, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after level 1, so we stalled out for a year. That means his brother is only one book behind him. Oh, well! They’re both learning and enjoying their lessons on basic grammar, poetry, story and art narration, copywork, and dictation for my oldest now in level 2. I love that this curriculum has been a gentle introduction for me to these classical methods of teaching.
We also have enjoyed these free copywork resources from Simply Charlotte Mason this quarter. They include scripture, poems, and hymns.
Overlapping a bit of reading and language arts, C-age-8 reads aloud to me from McGuffey’s second reader about once a week, narrates the story to me, and then says and spells the words listed at the end of the lesson. D-age-6 is reading aloud to me almost daily from McGuffey’s pictorial primer in order to continue progressively practicing his budding reading skills (we used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons to start the process). I use these readers because they’re progressive, they use older English so that we’re starting out in the direction of classic literature, and because they were hand-me-downs (read: free).
Living Books
Any further discussion of reading blends into everything else we’re learning: history, literature, nature/science. C-age-8 has recently finished The Tale of Desperaux, The Secret Garden (with some guided discussion on the ideologies presented), Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Great Brain, Julie of the Wolves, The Little Prince, Because of Winn Dixie, and The Burgess Animal Book, among most of the books in the Boxcar Children series (these are free reads). I can hardly keep up for record-keeping purposes! Nathaniel decided to give him a more challenging read to slow things down a bit: G. A. Henty’s For the Temple, historical fiction covering the Roman sacking of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD. We just covered this event and the diaspora in Story of the World, so he’s got some points of connection with it already. He’s also reading a chapter a day in Seabird by Holling C. Holling for geography and natural history. I ask for him to narrate, or tell back in his own words, what he has read on days when I’m paying attention. Admittedly, there have been several days (weeks perhaps?) in the past quarter that I have been too busy to ask for a narration for every bit of school reading!
D-age-6 has recently enjoyed moving from Frog and Toad readers to The Boxcar Children and Amelia Bedelia books. He’s enjoying reading more fluently for himself, but soon I think he’ll be ready for more assigned books. I think Whinnie the Pooh is in order next. We’ve read it aloud many times over, so I think he’ll be delighted to read it for himself!
Learning from Life
This section could be a post all its own, so I’ll try to let pictures do most of the talking with a few extra words here and there for things not pictured.
We enjoyed a Little House book club party with a local Charlotte Mason group.
Exploring historic Ft. Smith after mama read True Grit.
New strategy games: Risk, Battleship, Ticket to Ride
We took in a stray German Shepherd dog that followed me home last fall–right after the 500th anniversary of Luther posting of his 95 theses, so naturally we named him Luther. C-age-8 had almost full responsibility for feeding him each day. There was plenty of character development in caring for a dog, and even more when we decided he needed a family who could care for him even better. It was hard to let go of Luther since he had been a part of our family for three months and had in that time doubled in size and made it through the coldest winter we’ve had in years. It was hard to let go, but we all learned a lot and are thankful for the part we had to play as a doggy foster family.
Hiking in 20 degree weather to see this 95 foot waterfall when it was mostly frozen. Petit Jean State Park.
Bird poster and Calendar of Firsts helping us to learn to pay attention and take note!
Gardening, listening to classical music, watching the ants in our ant farm.
Our four-day backpacking trip on a 24-mile section of the Ouachita Trail in the Winding Stair Mountains of eastern Oklahoma.
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Field trips to animal shelters and to learn about hippotherapy (that’s with horses).
Ice and roller skating and get-togethers with our Schole Sisters group–watercolors, poetry and tea, fish feeding and nature walk.
Homeschooling through Chaos
The past two months have been a bit crazy. There were many times I said to my husband, “I just don’t think we can do school next week with all we have going on.” He gently encouraged me to try. And we did. We kept going through sickness (though we did take a week off when it was really bad), a job change and consequent change of insurance and all other such things, two grandmothers in the hospital, a car wreck, among other things. I think I would have given up somewhere along the way, so I’m thankful for my husband’s gentle encouragement to just keep going. Like I said above, our scripture and praise-filled Morning Times were a balm to my soul during a such a hectic season.
Up Next
I suppose in terms of the average school year, we should be wrapping things up in about two months. We plan to keep going with our current routine, and we’ve got some fun activities planned with our homeschool group, including Field Day which my husband and I coordinate. Should be a fun spring!
How about you? What’s up in your homeschool world?
And who would have thought that it would come from two very different experiences happening on the same day?
I’ve posted before about the initial struggles I had with our math curriculum. Since that first-year learning curve, it’s been pretty smooth sailing. Until this week.
Our curriculum made some huge leaps this week, as far as I’m concerned. My oldest son struggled with two separate lessons that took his addition skills and subtraction skills up a few notches. And by a few notches, I mean like FIVE. There were some tears, and I decided to split his work for one lesson over two days. “Short lessons” is one of many principles of education promoted by Charlotte Mason, a British educator at the turn of the 20th century, whose methods I have been reading about in For the Children’s Sake.
We would revisit his worksheet tomorrow, I said. In the mean time, I did some digging.
Looking back over our lessons, I realized that while the jump in addition may simply be larger than I agree is appropriate (at least for a child who is young-for-grade-level), the leap in subtraction was mostly difficult for two reasons:
I didn’t exactly understand what I was to be teaching, since it is something that simply isn’t taught in a traditional approach to elementary math (let me know if any of you are used to learning to mentally subtract two-digit numbers with borrowing BEFORE learning the pencil-and-paper algorithm, k?). Once I did MY homework, however, and began to really understand the strategies for myself, I realized that I had made things more complicated than they were intended to be.
The curriculum did not focus on subtraction for nearly 30 lessons! Sure, there was occasional practice in a warm up or on a review sheet, but the concepts were not discussed in the slightest. I had to realize that the lessons alone were NOT sufficient to prepare my son for the challenge of mental subtraction with borrowing. But, as I examined my text book, they weren’t intended to. Our curriculum, you see, is more than lessons–it includes many suggested math games and facts practice sheets. The lessons introduce new material. The games provide the bulk of the practice. But we rarely played the games if they weren’t already included in a lesson’s activities.
My conclusion from this negative experience is that I’ve been too focused on getting to the next lesson. Or to the next child on a given day. My son is slow to get his work done, so we’ve not had time leftover for games. Instead of seeing that as a hint to slow down, take a day off for a “Game Day”, and build the skills that would help him work faster, I’ve plowed forward, getting us further in the book but not necessarily further in skills and understanding.
As all of that was sinking in this morning, I had the pleasure of a very positive experience with my younger son.
Today I got to introduce my five-year-old to “one-thousand”. Place value may not seem that exciting to adults, but when you’re five, and you’re the little guy, it’s pretty exhilarating to finally feel like you are catching up with your big brother. After the concepts were introduced, one of the exercises was to write in his math journal “5000 dogs”, “8000 pigs”, “3000 cats”, etc. This little man is just beginning reading lessons, and we’ve been stuck pretty much at the beginning. He often forgets his letters and their sounds, and the idea that sounds, once identified, can be blended together to form words has been pretty much lost on him.
But today…
I helped him say each sound of each word in turn, then write the correct letter. He actually guessed the letters correctly most of the time. Then we worked on sounding out the words he’d written. He blended sounds together rather painlessly for the first time ever!
We were both thrilled!
He happily copied his name and the words “can read!” right next to where I had written them on his paper. A math lesson turned into our most successful reading lesson yet!
We were so excited and felt so full that it seemed silly to do anything more! In the past, if we had made some progress on reading I would have thought “more is better” and pressed on to do the next lesson–or at least tried to re-focus us on finishing the math lesson. But today I realized that the joy of learning is the ultimate goal. And I saw very clearly how pushing for more would have ruined the moment for both me and my son.
It made me wonder: How often has my son had a “moment” in his learning, but I didn’t detect it? How often have I squelched his joy in learning by trying to move ahead too quickly?
With my oldest’s recent painful math lessons, I saw how my desire to “finish this today” and “check off a box and move on” over the past several months has done him a disservice. We would have done much better to have played more games by insisting on less arbitrary “progress”. Behold, the negative effects of ignoring Charlotte Mason’s concept of short lessons.
Once I got around to my second-born, I was ready to put the rubber to the road, and we had the incredibly awesome experience of seeing the joy of learning spill over into the rest of the day because we didn’t bury it in any more school work.
Less is more. Especially when you’re five. And maybe even in your thirties, but that’s another post for another day.
We are forging ahead, but our destination is now a more distant consideration. Stopping to smell the proverbial roses along the way is now on my list of “objectives”.
I have learned today that I am teaching a child, my child–not a subject or a curriculum. I’ve heard others say that before, but now I own it by experience.
Any other teachers or homeschool mamas out there? Have you had this “a-ha” moment, too? If you’re into Charlotte Mason’s philosophies, how has implementing the principle of short lessons helped you and your students?
Kept and Keeping 