As Many Begin the School Year

by Anne White

If you are familiar with the priest/poet Malcolm Guite, you may also have followed his You-tube study visits over the past few years. In one of the most recent, he read from the chapter “The Three Sleepers” from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Guite titled the video “At Aslan’s Table,” referring to the way that the scene and certain objects described in it mirror those of older legends and even Scripture. In this passage, a group of  travellers land on an island and are invited to feast from a well-spread table.

But on the table itself there was set out such a banquet as had never been seen, not even when Peter the High King kept his court at Cair Paravel. There were turkeys and geese and peacocks, there were boars’ heads and sides of venison, there were pies shaped like ships under full sail…there were nuts and grapes, pineapples and peaches, pomegranates and melons and tomatoes. There were flagons of gold and silver and curiously-wrought glass; and the smell of the fruit and the wine blew towards them like a promise of all happiness.

However, wary from previous experiences with Turkish Delight and other nasty enchanted things, they hold back. It is the chivalrous and swashbuckling mouse Reepicheep who takes the leap of faith.

…the Mouse, standing on the table, held up a golden cup between its tiny paws and said, “Lady, I pledge you.” Then it fell to on cold peacock, and in a short while everyone else followed its example. All were very hungry and the meal, if not quite what you wanted for a very early breakfast, was excellent as a very late supper.

Lucy (we all know Lucy, don’t we?) asks their hostess (whose name we don’t yet know) why the place is called “Aslan’s table.” “It is set here by his bidding,” said the girl, “for those who come so far.”

Sometimes food, even in Narnia, is just good food.

We may approach the educational table with some of that same nervousness. Are we even supposed to be here? The food looks good, though not what we’re used to; but, on the other hand, those three hairy men sleeping around the table might throw up some red flags. (Later it turns out that their enchanted state had nothing to do with the food.) The sane, sensible, cautious adults may hang back, wondering what they’ve gotten themselves and their children into. We are invited, our children are invited, and yet we hesitate.  This does not look like food from the children’s menu. The peaches and grapes should be okay, but cold peacock?

I cannot possibly describe my bewildered, fascinated disbelief when the first batch of books arrived. Of them all, 'Plutarch's Lives' hit me hardest. Those long, measured periods in difficult language! Alison, at eleven, would not understand a word! How on earth was Robin going to assimilate 'Mankind in the Making' and 'The Spangled Heavens'? What was Charles going to make of 'Pilgrim's Progress'? ("To Prosper in Good Life and Good Literature" by Joyce McGechan, in The Parents’ Review, January 1967)

Even those who have been here before may feel a bit of hesitation, an uncertainty over these new-again pomegranates and pies shaped like ships. But we nevertheless light the candles, bake the back-to-school cookies, and raise our cups of tea.

We bashed--and that is the only verb that describes our progress in those early days--through the text-books, got the gist of them by determined attention, and miraculously found ourselves enjoying every minute. Narrations were wobbly affairs, half inarticulate, half incorporating remembered phrases from the reading. Parsing and Analysis they found absorbing and rewarding. French and Latin were fun. After all, languages were words, weren't they? A sudden word-hunger seemed to grip them all; and a new world had opened up. When, at morning prayers, they sang: 'Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning! / Praise for them springing / Fresh from the Word!' their eyes shone. They were not thanking God as a dutiful routine, but joyfully. (Joyce McGechan, same)

We come by invitation, "for those who come so far." Languages are words, and food is food. We eat and drink by God’s provision, and under his protection. And we pray that this small leap of faith will bring others to the table as well.

A Flood of Utterance, or, check your sources

 by Anne White

Recently I have been reading some Thomas Carlyle, and, as I knew there were Carlyle references in Charlotte Mason's Series, I decided to check through them on the AmblesideOnline website.

Now, we know already that Charlotte, brilliant as she was, was not always careful to quote things word for word, and hardly ever cited her sources. But it does appear that, regarding Carlyle, she may have created an unfortunate tradition of “Carlyle said this,” at least twice, that doesn’t show up anywhere outside of C.M. circles. Which is usually a clue there’s something odd going on.

Here’s the first one, and it’s a big one: “Masterly inactivity.”

'Masterly Inactivity.'––A blessed thing in our mental constitution is, that once we receive an idea, it will work itself out, in thought and act, without much after-effort on our part; and, if we admit the idea of 'masterly inactivity' as a factor in education, we shall find ourselves framing our dealings with children from this standpoint, without much conscious effort. But we must get clearly into our heads what we mean by masterly inactivity. Carlyle's happy phrase has nothing in common with the laisser allez attitude that comes of thinking 'what's the good?' and still further is it removed from the sheer indolence of mind that lets things go their way rather than take the trouble to lead them to any issue. (V.3, p. 28)

The website Bartleby.com quotes a 1989 book (titled Respectfully Quoted) in attributing this to Sir James Mackintosh in his Vindiciae Gallicae And Other Writings on the French Revolution, which you can read online. Here's the passage in question:

Guided by these views, and animated by public support, the Commons adhered inflexibly to their principle of incorporating the three Orders. They adopted a provisory organization, but studiously declined whatever might seem to suppose legal existence, or to arrogate constitutional powers. The Nobles, less politic or timid, declared themselves a legally constituted Order, and proceeded to discuss the great objects of their convocation. The Clergy affected to preserve a mediatorial character, and to conciliate the discordant claims of the two hostile Orders. The Commons, faithful to their system, remained in a wise and masterly inactivity, which tacitly reproached the arrogant assumption of the Nobles, while it left no pretext to calumniate their own conduct; gave time for the encrease of popular fervor, and distressed the Court by the delay of financial aid. Several conciliatory plans were proposed by the Minister, and rejected by the haughtiness of the Nobility and the policy of the Commons. 

 According to Bartleby.com and Respectfully Quoted, this was also a phrase used in American politics, and particularly associated with John C. Calhoun. Now, Carlyle also wrote a book about the French Revolution, and it could easily have included that phrase, but it doesn’t; he may have quoted it somewhere else, but it seems that Charlotte may also have misremembered who said what and where. Until someone else proves this wrong, let’s give Sir James Mackintosh proper credit  for that "happy phrase."

Here’s the second instance of C.M. Carlyle-isms. In Philosophy of Education, Charlotte writes: 

Now, good citizens must have sound opinions about law, duty, work, wages, what not; so we pour opinions into the young people from the lips of lecturer or teacher, his opinions, which they are intended to take as theirs. In the next place there is so much to be learned that a selection must needs be made; the teacher makes this selection and the young people are "poured into like a bucket," which, says Carlyle, "is not exhilarating to any soul." Some ground is covered; teachers and Education Authorities are satisfied; and if, when the time comes, the young people leave school discontented and uneasy, if their work bore them and their leisure bore them, if their pleasures are mean and meagre, and if they become men and women rather eager than other wise for the excitement of a strike, that is because the Continuation, as the Elementary, School will have failed to find them. (V.6, p. 288)

Now, Charlotte Mason's people have used that quote forever. I’ve seen it used within Charlotte’s words, as a standalone, and even, in a book which must go unnamed, with Charlotte’s words around it but the whole thing attributed to Carlyle.

However, Charlotte, as usual, was paraphrasing. The line comes from Carlyle’s chapter “Coleridge,” part of his Life of John Sterling.  Sterling, a young Scottish author,  spent some time with the much-older Coleridge, around 1830. Here is what Carlyle wrote (the bold words are mine):

Nothing could be more copious than his talk; and furthermore it was always, virtually or literally, of the nature of a monologue; suffering no interruption, however reverent; hastily putting aside all foreign additions, annotations, or most ingenuous desires for elucidation, as well-meant superfluities which would never do. Besides, it was talk not flowing any-whither like a river, but spreading every-whither in inextricable currents and regurgitations like a lake or sea; terribly deficient in definite goal or aim, nay often in logical intelligibility; what you were to believe or do, on any earthly or heavenly thing, obstinately refusing to appear from it. So that, most times, you felt logically lost; swamped near to drowning in this tide of ingenious vocables, spreading out boundless as if to submerge the world.

To sit as a passive bucket and be pumped into, whether you consent or not, can in the long-run be exhilarating to no creature; how eloquent soever the flood of utterance that is descending. But if it be withal a confused unintelligible flood of utterance, threatening to submerge all known landmarks of thought, and drown the world and you!...His talk, alas, was distinguished, like himself, by irresolution: it disliked to be troubled with conditions, abstinences, definite fulfilments;—loved to wander at its own sweet will, and make its auditor and his claims and humble wishes a mere passive bucket for itself! He had knowledge about many things and topics, much curious reading; but generally all topics led him, after a pass or two, into the high seas of theosophic philosophy…he had not the least talent for explaining this or anything unknown to them; and you swam and fluttered in the mistiest wide unintelligible deluge of things, for most part in a rather profitless uncomfortable manner. 

So, the Carlyle quote that we want is this:

To sit as a passive bucket and be pumped into, whether you consent or not, can in the long-run be exhilarating to no creature…

And I’ve certainly pumped enough for one post. But I hope you found it, if not exhilarating, at least enlightening.

A daily dose of liberty

"...there is no great gulf fixed between teacher and taught; both are pursuing the same ends, engaged on the same theme, enriched by mutual interests; and probably the quite delightful pursuit of knowledge affords the only intrinsic liberty for both teacher and taught. "He is the freeman whom the truth makes free," and this freedom the steady pursuit and delightful acquirement of knowledge afford to us day by day. 

Charlotte Mason, Volume 6

Excerpt from Revitalized

In this section, young journalist Miss Hagan returns to Miss Mason’s study, with the purpose of finding out more about the PNEU, particularly on the topic of school-books and how they “make for education.” This passage begins partway through their interview.

Miss Mason: Now, intelligent teachers today are well aware of the dry-as-dust character of school books, so they fall back upon the oral lesson, one of whose qualities must be that it is not bookish. 

Miss Hagan: Ah, isn’t it interesting that bookish then becomes a derogatory term. 

Miss Mason: And, to a degree, this can be successful. Living ideas can be derived only from living minds, and so it occasionally happens that a vital spark is flashed from teacher to pupil. But this occurs only when the subject is one to which the teacher has given original thought. In most cases the oral lesson, or the more advanced lecture for the older ones, consists of information got up by the teacher from various books, and imparted in language a little pedantic, or a little commonplace, or a little reading-made-easy in style. At the best, the teacher is not likely to have vital interest in, and, consequently, original thought upon, a wide range of subjects. So this approach often fails because of the natural limitations of teachers.

We wish to place before the child open doors to many avenues of instruction and delight, in each one of which he should find quickening thoughts. Our aim in education is to give a full life. But we cannot expect a school to be manned by a dozen master-minds, and even if it were, and the scholar were taught by each in turn, it would be much to his disadvantage. What he wants of his teacher is moral and mental discipline, sympathy and direction; and it is better, on the whole, that the training of the pupil should be undertaken by one wise teacher than that he should be passed from hand to hand for this subject and that. 

Miss Hagan: What is it that we are responsible to give them? 

Miss Mason: No, not quite give this time. We owe it to children to initiate an immense number of interests; “Thou hast set my feet in a large room” (Psalm 31:8) should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul; but we cannot give the children these interests. I know you may bring a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink; but what I complain of is that we do not bring our horse to the water. We give him miserable little text-books, mere compendiums of facts, which he is to learn off, and say, and produce at an examination; or we give him various knowledge in the form of warm diluents, prepared by his teacher with perhaps some grains of living thought to the gallon. And all the time we have books, books teeming with ideas fresh from the minds of thinkers upon every subject to which we can wish to introduce children. It is rather like keeping a boat anchored close to the shore, and complaining that we cannot catch enough fish, when the waters are full of them.

Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking–the strain would be too great–but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest. We prefer that students should never say they have learned botany or conchology, geology or astronomy. The question is not,–how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education–but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him? 

Miss Hagan: Is it not perhaps expecting too much of children to be interested in such things? Are these methods really suitable for the average student? 

Miss Mason: Of course there are highly gifted and precocious children, the ones who are reading at two years of age and composing at five, the Morrises and Macaulays. But all children are reasonable beings. Our grandfathers and grandmothers recognized children as persons of mind and conscience like themselves, but, needing their guidance and control, as having neither knowledge nor experience. This is the note of home-life in the last generation [Study 1]. So soon as the baby recognized his surroundings, he found himself morally and intellectually responsible. And children have not altered. This is how we find them––with intelligence more acute, logic more keen, observing powers more alert, moral sensibilities more quick, love and faith and hope more abounding; in fact, in all points as adults are, only more so; but absolutely ignorant of the world and its belongings, of us and our ways, and, above all, of how to control and direct and manifest the infinite possibilities with which they are born.

In her third volume, School Education, Charlotte Mason examined most of her educational principles: authority and obedience; the respect owed to personality; and the uses of environment, habit, and living ideas. She also compared the educational ideas of her Parents’ Union with other psychological thought and worldviews; explored the building of early affinities through literary examples; and provided specific application of those principles through samples of student work. In Revitalized, by Anne E. White, this rich treasure chest of thought has now been re-imagined for a new era, using formats such as letters and conversations, while attempting to remain as faithful as possible to the original work. Revitalized is available on Amazon, in print and Kindle formats.

Setting Yearly Goals for Written Narration

by Karen Glass

I did write extensively about the whole process of learning to write through written narrations in Know and Tell, but that big picture has to be broken down into individual school years, and semesters or terms, and—of course—individual weeks. What will we do about written narrations this year? What do I need to do this week?

I’m going to try to break this down into steps that you can use to evaluate your student, set realistic goals, and create a plan that will allow your child to make progress this school year—just this school year—without worrying too much about the Whole Thing. I’m assuming you understand the purpose of oral and written narration, and that you desire to make narration the foundation for a significant portion of your child’s writing instruction (there’s room for some outside resources, but that’s not what this is about). Let’s figure this out.

Okay, the first thing you need to think about is what your child is doing right now. What was the norm when you left off at the end of last school year? If you’re just getting started, the obvious place to begin is at the beginning, with one written narration per week. But maybe you’ve already been doing written narrations, and last year your child was doing two per week, or three. That’s where you start now. For the first four to six weeks of this school year, just let your child get back into the rhythm of doing what he already knows how to do. Don’t ask for anything else just yet.

As you think about this—where your child is with written narrations—there are two things to think about—how frequently the written narrations are done, and how long they are. As children make the transition from oral to written narrations, the earliest written narrations may be much, much shorter than oral narrations. Don’t worry about that. Some children can just barely write a sentence or two when they begin, while others are ready to write multiple paragraphs. No matter what your child is doing when you begin written narrations, accept what they can do.

What I never said plainly in Know and Tell, but wish I had, is that it is better to increase the frequency of written narrations first, and then work on asking for longer narrations. A child who can write three sentences will find it easier to write three sentences twice a week, and eventually every day, than to be pressed to write five sentence. Once he is writing three sentences every day (and that’s just an arbitrary example), the extra practice will be the best preparation for writing five sentences, or half a page, or five minutes longer, or whatever method you find most effective when asking for longer narrations.

Once you have determined where your child is with written narration skills, the second step is to think about where you’d like to be at the end of the school year. This is a goal that cannot be set by any arbitrary rule. You must think about your child’s age, inclination to write, and the amount of educational years still in front of you. If you are just starting written narration with a 9-year-old, begin with one per week, and maybe your goal will be three written narrations per week by the end of the school year. If you divide your school year into three terms as AmblesideOnline does, you can plan to spend the first term doing one per week, and add the second narration per week at the beginning of term two, and the third one at the beginning of term three.

Or perhaps your child is just starting written narration at age 11. You can start with one per week, but you would like your child to be writing daily by the end of the year.  Add a second narration per week within three or four weeks, and another one every eight weeks or so, so that you finish the year with a child who is doing daily written narrations.

Or maybe you finished up last year with a child who had gotten up to daily narrations, but they are still short, only 30-50 words. Your child is 12, and you’d like to finish up the year with a child writing 100-150 words per day. Maybe you’d also like to introduce editing and correcting before the year is over.  Let your child have a few weeks of writing what he is comfortable with, and bump up your expectations about 25 words at a time, every eight weeks or so. As the narrations get a little longer, introduce editing during the second semester with just one narration per week. (Just a note—my preference is to ask for a certain number of words and my children have responded well to that. You may prefer to increase length more generally—“half a page, a whole page”—, or by number of sentences, or by the amount of time spent writing. Choose the method that causes the least stress for your child.)

No one can decide what your goal should be, but you definitely want to have one for the school year, because that helps you to break down the process of getting from where you are to where you want to be into manageable increments.

The third step is to revisit your goal once or twice during the year. Maybe your child has already reached the level you were aiming for by Christmas break. That’s great, but you’ll probably want to thoughtfully move forward during the second half of the year. On the other hand, maybe your 9-year-old is still having a meltdown every time it’s written narration day. Perhaps changing the goal from “three narrations a week” to “two narrations a week” or even “one narration a week without a meltdown” is more realistic. Maybe your 11-year-old is already doing daily narrations and is ready to work on lengthening them a bit. Maybe your child needs a bit of a challenge with creative narrations or would benefit from reading a book on the craft of writing. Another thing I haven’t discussed, but which can be a part of your narration goals for the year, is mechanical correctness. Some children readily begin sentences with capital letters, and others don’t. Keep the “rules” as few as possible, but as your children grow more adept at actually getting words on paper, it’s okay to say, “Please make sure you’ve ended every sentence with a period,” or whatever rule you’re hoping to make habitual.

And that’s it! Plan your work, then work your plan, as they say. Just three things to do, and I think if you do them at the beginning of each term or semester, you’ll find that they keep you on track. Assess what your child is doing now. Set a goal and figure out the steps that will get you there. Reevaluate midway through the process to see if the goal needs to be adjusted. You're on your way! You and your child have an individualized plan that you can fold into your homeschool week, and when the school year is over, you’ll be able to see definitely what progress was made. And then next year, you can do it again, from your new starting point.

There are some charts in Know and Tell that will give you an overview of the process that you can expect to unfold across the grade levels, but they are guidelines and suggestions only. Every child is different when it comes to writing, but if you set realistic goals and work purposefully toward them, this may be your best narration year yet.

CM is just a lot of reading....

by Wendi Capehart

Answer: Not quite.

People often ask for projects to do to supplement the reading in a Charlotte Mason education.  For the most part, this type of supplementation is not necessary.  If the students have spare time in the afternoons (or in some part of the day), they can use it to come up with their own projects.  You may need to remove the screens and let them be bored for a bit in order to give this process a bit of a nudge, but boredom is a great starter dough for creativity.

There are also plenty of non-book activities already built into Miss Mason's philosophy and practice of education. Some of the non-reading things in the curriculum include:

• Singing folksongs 
• Singing Hymns 
• Drill- some sort of physical activity, exercise, sport, physical game 
• Handicrafts- origami, cardboard sloyd, clay work, weaving, soap carving, basket making, cooking, baking, and so on. 
• Map work 
• Timeline, history book or century book work (you need not do all, but they are each slightly different) 
• Picture Study 
• Composer Study 
• Recitation is kind of in the middle, it involves some kind of reading, but the focus is on style and saying the words clearly and with a speaking voice it is a pleasure to listen to. 
• Narrations can be oral, written, acted, drawn set up as a scene using blocks, legos, tinker toys, toy soldiers, plastic farm animals, and more.  Here are some ideas.
•  Nature study, nature walks, and nature journals
• Occasional visits to museums and historical sites, with sketching (sketches here can go in their history books or timelines) 
• Foreign Language 
• Science experiments 
• Some of the map and geography work is more hands on 
• Mason also recommends some sort of service project the children can do 
• She also recommends learning to play an instrument. 

That's off the top of my head, and two or three times I thought I was done, and then I remembered something else. You don't have to do it all every day, or even every month.  I just wanted people to see how many non-book related activities are part of a CM education.

Some children appreciate a bit of input into the curriculum, which can help when you are worried about 'too much just reading', but don't overdo it.  They need to own their education, but they don't run it, they don't decide what topics are or not necessary.  But giving them some choices here and there can be a useful way to get them invested in what they are doing.   Decision fatigue is real, and it's harder for some kids than other, so again, use the following ideas with wise eyes on your children:
Sometimes after a reading ask if your child would rather narrate orally, or set up a scene from the story using his* legos.
 Pack a picnic lunch to take on a nature walk and ask if he'd* rather help learn to make deviled eggs or cut the cheese into squares and make toothpick shiskabobs of the cheese squares and sausage slices with pickles.
For foreign language study, ask him to choose ten nouns or verbs to learn together and then practice using them all week.
 For copywork, let him choose the sentence to copy form his reading. (this is the ideal)
If he is into artistic things, see about learning calligraphy.
When doing the folk songs and hymns, find two versions on youtube and ask which he prefers.

These things should be mixed up and sprinkled throughout your school day, because the schedule should be varied. Read something and narrate, then sing something, or do copywork, or go outside. Read something and narrate by drawing a picture, then read something and narrate with a diorama, then sing a song.  Mix things up so it's not all book reading in a row. 

*or her, hers, or she, of course.

A Charlotte Mason Teacher

By Karen Glass

Not long ago, a homeschool mom on our AmblesideOnline Facebook group (link is in the menu above) was struggling with all that a Charlotte Mason education entails. She is not alone in feeling a bit overwhelmed! This is part of her dilemma:

“"Now I've signed on to CM's philosophy of education. So this means I simultaneously believe ON TOP OF TEACHING ALL BASIC SUBJECTS I need to:
•Secure AT THE LEAST a half day a week in a rural setting, and even in this I’m failing my younger children who ought to have 4 hours a day or more.
•Sustain constant vigilance in habit training
•Feed my own knowledge of wildlife so I have something to pass down
•Feed my own intellectual life so I have something to offer my children as they grow
•Constantly be modeling good habits in everything
•Lead my children in daily devotions

While teaching my 6yo:
•A foreign language
•Art appreciation
•Watercoloring painting
•To play an instrument
•Music appreciation
•A purposeful handicraft
•Shakespeare
•Poetry
•Dendrology
•Folk songs
•Hymns

AND I'M PROBABLY LEAVING STUFF OFF!
This is on top of the basic responsibilities of caring for my 4 yo and infant son."

I couldn't put my finger on it at first, but then it hit me. There is a philosophical problem here, and I'm writing this is because I hope it will help bring things into focus for this mom and others like her. The problem (I think) is the word "teach." That implies a certain picture, in which you, the teacher, are imparting knowledge to your student, and that he is receiving it from you. That’s not the relationship between teacher and pupil in a Charlotte Mason paradigm.

Let me recast your question in a different context. Suppose you were feeling conflicted in a different area, and you felt like this:

“You mean in addition to providing seasonally appropriate clothing, shoes and outerwear for my six-year-old 365 days of the year and maintaining a safe shelter adequate to protect him and keep him warm, I also have to insure that he grows taller and heavier? That his hands and feet grow, and his bones? That his blood supply increases as he grows to meet his larger size? That his heart and lungs develop greater strength to support his larger body? How am I supposed to do all that for him, and my two younger children as well??”

Do you see the problem? You aren’t responsible for insuring that your child grows larger, let alone looking after specific details like making sure his blood supply increases. He will do those things for himself—all of them—under the right conditions, and the condition is that you provide him adequate and nourishing meals. And yes, several times per day, 365 days per year, and if you think of it all at once, it’s overwhelming. But you do it one day at time and one meal at a time. You consider what kind of food will make the most nutritious meals, and you will even take your child’s taste into account, but you’ll also make it a point to introduce him to a wide variety of things and give him a chance to learn to like all the best kinds of food. And it’s a big job—it takes time and money—but it’s done in small increments and one “off” day in appetite or indulging in extra junk food doesn’t ruin the long term effect. Your child is fed and grows physically, as he is made to do.

Now, that is the right picture for a Charlotte Mason paradigm. You aren’t going to “teach” your child all those things, any more than you are going to eat and digest your child’s meals. You are just going to put that food in front of him—you might insist that he eat, but hunger is on your side—and he does all the rest himself. You are going to spread a wide feast for your child—an intellectual banquet—and make him sit down to the table. His natural appetite for knowledge works in your favor, but you don’t force-feed him. He’ll take what he needs, intellectually, and he’ll grow—oh, how he’ll grow. Long before he is old enough to leave home, you will come face to face with a situation in which your child knows more than you do about something, and how did that happen? Because that’s how this works. You feed them; they do the growing themselves.

In that context, a Charlotte Mason education becomes no more complex than some basic meal planning. You aren’t making your child’s liver function properly—you’re just making him a sandwich. You aren’t “teaching art appreciation”—you’re just looking a painting. Or a tree. Or reading an interesting bit of history or singing a song or enjoying a great story.

Education is the science of relations is the principle that lies underneath what we do, and ties everything together. When you break it down into all its component parts—as you must do when  put it on paper with labels like “history” and “science” and “art”—it can feel a bit overwhelming,  just as it would if you had to break down all the necessary vitamins, minerals, phyto-nutrients, etc, that your child needs to grow properly. But what it still looks like, on a day to day basis, is breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and healthy snacks (most of the time). When we talk about the theory and philosophy of what we do—nutritional science or educational philosophy—it sounds more complicated than it actually is.

You can over-complicate anything. Suppose you approached the making of a single meal with the same analytical micro-focus. You have to make sure that you have 20 separate ingredients, as well as bowls, pans, knives, and other utensils. You have to wash and chop carrots AND onions AND celery. You have to peel eight potatoes and cut them into pieces. You have to measure five different seasonings; you have to keep the heat at the correct temperature, etc, etc, etc, and that’s just the soup course. In practice, it’s far less complex than it sounds on paper, and that’s true for education, too. When we talk about it and look at all the different bits individually it feels like a huge, overwhelming job, but when you get in there and start doing it, it all falls into place. You feel how forgiving some things can be. You have two carrots instead of four? It will be okay. Throw in some extra celery or onions, or half of a chopped bell pepper. Some things are less flexible. Don’t mess with the baking powder measurement if you’re making a cake, but experience will teach you (quickly) which things are flexible, and which things needs to be firmly adhered to.

This is firmly embedded in the principles. The twelfth principle is “Education is the science of relations.” That’s a little bit like “Hungry growing children need to be fed meals.” You absolutely can do this if you keep “education is the science of relations” firmly in mind and don’t let yourself get bogged down or overwhelmed by the details.

“Education is the Science of Relations”; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of––
          “Those first-born affinities; That fit our new existence to existing things.” (Principle #12)

Did you catch that? Our business is not to teach him all about anything. That’s a principle (or part of one). Just fix the plate and set it in front of him. Encourage him to take a bite. Take a bite yourself and let your children know it’s delicious. Listen to music. Read a book. Talk to each other about it. Observe the ants on the sidewalk. Take delight in a sunset. You don’t really remind yourself every day that your children are hungry and need to be fed—that becomes a part of your life and you live it. If you can embed “education is the science of relations” that deeply and intuitively into your educational life, you will be a Charlotte Mason teacher.

Planning AmblesideOnline from Table to Table

By guest blogger Dawn Garrett


I've had a lot of people ask how I plan an AmblesideOnline term and how I'm helping my children to learn how to manage their work. Since the two go hand in hand, you get one long post :)

For the quick version, you can go to my profile on Instagram and click on the Highlight circle named "Assigning AO" (I think this is an in-app feature only)

We're doing Year 7 right now, so the first thing I do is go to that page and print the booklists (with the footnotes) and read through everything. I use this to determine what books we own and what we need and order all the books. That can be fun. I try to do this a little ahead of when I'm going to be planning - so a week or two before I'm planning to plan. Then I have these beautiful stacks of books.  For Year 7, I knew I'd be doing some adjustments for R-girl, so I printed both the Detailed and Basic/Lite version.

Once I have the books, I download the modifiable ODT schedule and open it in Open Office and copy/paste the table into your favorite spreadsheet application. It should look something like this:

This year, I pulled out some things that were going to be done with Jason and some things that were going to be done during our Morning Time, Whatchamacallit, and left the rest in the main block. You can see where there are blank rows as separators.

Once I've determined how we're going to approach the work, I create a separate spreadsheet for each week (you can see them across the bottom of the page) and put the week number and the dates for that week number).  Then I copy the subject column to each of those tabs and the assignments for that particular week to the tab. So the column headed Week 2 went on the tab named "2 April 23-27." I made a separate spreadsheet for all twelve weeks (plus break weeks).

Each week's tab looks something like the above. I then split out the reading that is assigned to, at maximum, 5 readings per week. Because I have them, I use the books as I'm doing this and some of them I'll put a small (in pencil) star where I want them to stop for the day.  I put the total number of pages assigned in a column and I have a column at the end for the count of readings for each book. That count is summed. In this case, there are 25 independent readings for the week. I don't count those that will be done in Morning Time or with Daddy.

I can then print that week's tab for them - I do hide the column that has the whole weekly reading assignment, and just give them the split up readings.

25 readings is easy to deal with - they can do 5 per day. They don't have to do any on Wednesday (except we generally do Ivanhoe and Beowulf as audiobooks on Wednesday), but they generally choose to in order to cut down the assignments on the other days.  On Monday, they write the assignments in the daily boxes at the bottom of the sheet. This helps them learn to evaluate a week's worth of work and divide it reasonably. We've worked hard to see how doing a little bit every day is better than cramming too much into any given day. We've looked at how that page number column comes into play.

Some day, I hope to hand them the week's assignments and they'll split out the readings, but that day is not yet.

This is the newest step and one we've done for a little more than a term, so it may not stay the same. So far it has worked beautifully. Because we have one set of books for three students, a standard timetable schedule is a nightmare. Also a nightmare: lessons that take all day because there's no sense of urgency or accountability. This system was borne of sheer desperation.

We do Whatchamacallit from 8:30-10:15. After a 15 minute break, the independent work portion of our day begins.

I have a duplexing printer, so I print the above form on the back of their weekly assignment page.  Each day, the children take the book list they have made for the day, Math, Latin, a written narration, and penmanship and assign the work to half-hours. Some things take a full half hour, some don't. They have to be careful with the different books and assign them in appropriate blocks. They have to plan if they're going to read with someone else, or that they don't plan the same books at the same time. It takes some juggling and thought. I love it. So far, it has worked well, with just a few growing pains. It fits with my general philosophy of helping them learn to manage their own workload so they can be independent.

Now, I can start the pre-reading. It's plenty of work, but it's good work.

So, there you go - from AO and their weekly table to the individual day's table how we're planning AmblesideOnline at this time.

It's sure to change.

Dawn Garrett blogs at ladydusk.blogspot.com and is a 
collaborator of the CharlotteMasonIRL account on Instagram. 
She homeschools her three children in Central Ohio.

What if my child doesn't remember?

by Karen Glass

A lot of times, I hear AmblesideOnline/Charlotte Mason moms lament, “What do I do when my child doesn’t remember?”

Maybe children don’t narrate well at the time, and maybe they don’t recall much about a topic later. We all hear the lovely stories and testimonials about the amazing connections that other children are making. What about the child for whom things don’t seem to stick? Who doesn’t remember?

You probably aren’t going to like the answer, but…that’s the way it’s supposed to be. It took me a while to come to terms with this, too, so I sympathize with your reluctance to accept this idea. Who follows an educational method that expects children to forget? And narration is supposed to help with remembering, so surely the children are expected to remember?

They won’t forget everything, of course, but in a Charlotte Mason education, remembering a lot of specific information is simply not the object.

Our first hint that this is the case is actually found in the principles:

Our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him make valid as many as may be of—‘Those first-born affinities.’ (From principle #12, A Philosophy of Education, p. xxx)

In other words, education is the science of relations, and relationship trumps information in our educational endeavors.

One day, I was happily reading through A Philosophy of Education, when I was arrested by this paragraph:

Education is a life. That life is sustained on ideas. Ideas are of spiritual origin, and God has made us so that we get them chiefly as we convey them to one another, whether by word of mouth, written page, Scripture word, musical symphony; but we must sustain a child's inner life with ideas as we sustain his body with food. Probably he will reject nine-tenths of the ideas we offer, as he makes use of only a small proportion of his bodily food, rejecting the rest. He is an eclectic; he may choose this or that; our business is to supply him with due abundance and variety and his to take what he needs. (Philosophy of Education, p. 109)

My mind suddenly re-shaped that word-fraction, nine-tenths, into a percentage.

 

90%

 

“Probably he will reject 90% of the ideas we offer,” and if you flip that around, “Probably he will accept and remember (only!) 10% of the ideas we offer.”

Those are some staggering numbers—they’d represent failure on graded tests—and this is what Charlotte Mason is offering us? But passing tests isn’t the point of education in this paradigm—our object is to “sustain a child’s inner life,” and the only way that can happen is if he is offered an abundance and allowed to take what he needs. Charlotte Mason tells us that children hang the facts they remember on the ideas they take in, so if they are only taking in 10% of the ideas, they are also likely to remember only a portion of the associated facts.

If you want to educate your children using Charlotte Mason’s philosophy, the wisest thing you can do is embrace this concept. Your children are learning, but they are learning in a relational way, not a remember-all-the-facts way.

It is a great thing to possess a pageant of history in the background of one’s thoughts. We may not be able to recall this or that circumstance, but, ‘the imagination is warmed’; we know that there is a great deal to be said on both sides of every question and are saved from crudities in opinion and rashness in action. The present becomes enriched for us with the wealth of all that has gone before. (Philosophy of Education, p. 178)

It is very easy to lay hold of the idea that “it is a great thing to possess a pageant of history in the background of one’s thoughts” and gloss over the uncomfortable truth that “we may not be able to recall this or that circumstance.” If we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that we would, indeed, like our children to be able to recall “this or that circumstance.” And sometimes, they do. But other times, they do not. In either case, we have laid the foundation of that pageant, warmed their imagination, and enriched them by exposing them to the wealth of all that has gone before. This is true even if they can’t remember a single king from Our Island Story.

Along the same lines, parents often lament that a child doesn’t understand some things, and they feel compelled to explain. This is a fine practice if the child has requested an explanation, but something to forego if he has not.

In a very useful pamphlet shared with a group of PNEU schools (Notes for the Conference on PNEU Methods by H. W Household), quite a severe warning is given about the practice.

There are teachers who are not happy until they have made certain that there is not a line, not a word, that the child does not understand. Of course they are wrong. They are wasting time and hindering the child. The child has many years before [him], and [he] has [his] own times and ways of arriving at understanding. Next year, without our having said one word, [he] will understand much that [he] does not to-day. Let [him] do [his] own work upon the books.

He underscores this point by emphasizing that “it is not expected that the children will grasp everything.”

Viewed correctly, this should take a huge burden from the shoulders of the Charlotte Mason teacher. We should not expect children to grasp (or remember!) everything; we should expect something else, and if we understand the philosophy behind the educational methods we are following, we know what that is. Children are born persons. Education is the science of relations. We’re going to give children every opportunity to form relationships with a wide variety of knowledge. We’re going to ask them to narrate and tell us about the things they read and hear. And then, we’re going to get out of the way and let them go about the business of apprehending that 10% that is going to become a permanent possession for them.

Looking back on my own school days, I cannot remember one thing that I learned in second grade—not one. I do remember that on some days, I was allowed to leave the classroom and be a “helper” in the kindergarten room. That responsibility—I felt so important—I do remember. I don’t remember a single thing I learned in fifth grade, either, but I remember that my teacher read The Hobbit aloud to us, and I loved the story, so I borrowed the book from the library to read for myself…faster. My snippets represent less than 10% of what my teachers must have tried to teach me. Presumably I learned enough to move on the next grade. But the bits that are a possession to me, many decades later, are the things that “warmed my imagination” and caught my heart.

It will be the same for your children. Read the books together. Narrate to each other (it’s a relationship building activity). Take joy in the 10% that your child pockets as a personal treasure, and be willing to accept that the other 90% isn’t what he needed right now. When your child doesn’t remember, the right response is not to go back and retrace the same ground. Instead, go forward, so that your child can find new ideas—the ones that will enrich his soul and sustain his inner life.

Enough

by Donna-Jean Breckenridge

Picture this:

The table is full.  There’s a computer, there are notebooks and art prints - and stacks and stacks and stacks of books.  

It’s a typical summer scene, one that has been here in my kitchen for years.  Dinner, if I can manage it during these weeks of planning, is spread on a picnic table out back, or on trays on the porch.  When I’m really in the thick of it, I have been known to mutter from behind a wall of history, biography, and free reads, “Fend for yourselves.”  There is organizing, combining, synchronizing, and tweaking the calendar (Do I use the half week of Thanksgiving as a catch-up week?  Do I spread that week over two weeks?  How long do I stop for Christmas? Do I try for summer lessons, or just use that time for anything we miss?).

And when I’m finally done with getting ready for the school year, I find that the beauty that is a Charlotte Mason/AmblesideOnline education looks abundant and very, very full.  

Then a funny thing happens. 

When the books find their way to the designated shelves, when the notebooks and supplies land in desks or in bins, when the calendar is in the laptop or phone or absorbed into a daybook, when the homeschool lessons actually begin - 

Suddenly, everything changes.  What was seen as so much, even a little daunting, morphs into inadequate. There is a temptation, even with a rich feast of a curriculum like AmblesideOnline, to use it as a base from which to do more.  

Just read a poem a day?  Yes, that’s nice - but how about several poems read each day for comparison? What about researching the poem, looking for its literary devices, and defining vocabulary words?  Surely several highlighters are needed, at least, maybe in a few different colors?

Literature?  Great books are good, yes, but what about study guides, or supplemental readings, or, again, those lists of vocabulary words?  

History?  Is this the actual best prescribed rotation for the story of mankind, and shouldn’t some of the tales from long ago and the uglier viewpoints of the past be left out?  And why on earth start with the history of a country other than our own?

Nature study?  OK, but my little yard isn’t all that exciting, and a walk in this neighborhood doesn’t yield much to see - so isn’t it best to add videos of nature, of important and real nature, and focus on stuff happening in rainforests and places far away?

Narration? Just ‘tell it back’? Really? That’s it?  Isn’t there more? Shouldn’t it all be written down, corrected, recopied, and used for a study of the principles of composition?  

Hymns and folk songs - just sing them? Don’t we need musical analysis, the history of each work, and lots of hymn recitation?

And just like that, a path of freedom and beauty turns into drudgery, and becomes instead a path towards burnout and exhaustion. 

This feeling that more is needed is just that  - a feeling.  It bears no resemblance to the truth.  I know this now because, well, I’ve been at this for awhile. I’ve homeschooled this CM/AO way since 1990, and the children whose curriculum plans were on my kitchen table this past summer include two of my three grandchildren - the ten- and seven-year-old daughters of the little girl I began to homeschool all those many years ago.  

I’ve learned a lot of things through homeschooling my four children (three of them graduated, one still in high school) and now through helping to homeschool my grandchildren.  And the main thing I’ve learned is this:

It is enough. 

It is enough to park in the poetic mind of one man or woman for a season, and hear their words read aloud, singly, daily, for the inspiration or challenge they bring.  Before long, a student recognizes the poet’s style, and a phrase or stanza or even the entire poem stay with that student, often for a lifetime. 

It is enough to walk around the same yard, the same street, the same park or field, on a simple walk - and find that your child gets familiar with a single tree, with the sound of a returning bird, with the flow of a stream or brook, with the change of the seasons, with decay and renewal, and with wonder over God’s creation.  And the intense observation that comes from sketching a leaf, a feather, a nut, a web, or an animal track is the foundation and the essence of real science.  

It is enough to read a book - not someone else’s take on it.  Imagine if you were given the choice of whether to stand in the front of the crowd and hear Abraham Lincoln give his second inaugural address, or to read a political commentator’s evaluation of it in a newspaper?  It’s the same with literature. There is simply no substitute for interaction with an author, for getting to know and witness firsthand the strength of the words and the force of the worldview.  

It is enough to narrate - to use this powerful tool, even through the first steps of objections, last-word parroting, and missing facts. Very soon a pattern emerges out of the new habit, due to a strengthening of mind muscle, of attention, and of building associations.  Blank stares are replaced with “this reminds me!” discoveries, and connections with other books, history, life.  And the analyzing, categorizing, connecting - and yes, the composing - is done by the child, not the study guide. 

And it is enough to sing, just sing a hymn, and to learn to sing it even - maybe especially - without accompaniment.  There may be no instruments available for your child when he walks in a hard place or wakes from a nightmare or waits for difficult news, and finds comfort and guidance in singing quietly (or bravely),  “When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well, with my soul.’ “

There are some supports used at times in an AO education, of course, such as a study guide for Plutarch, an introduction to a new book, or a more specific essay style-question for a narration. But the general Charlotte Mason principle that “the mind feeds on ideas, and therefore children should have a generous curriculum” does not require for its implementation a paid advisor, an insider’s interpretation of the six volumes, or a heretofore unrevealed new approach to one subject or another.  This method is well-tested, and many of us have lived the harvest of its beauty and simplicity. 

So to the young mom whose table or laptop or library card or Amazon account has been full, and who is daring to go forward but feeling a little bereft and uncertain without charts, unit studies, and workbooks - 

Be reassured. It is enough. 

To the harried homeschool teacher who’s been at this for awhile but life has gotten very tense and now high school looms large, with worry about tests and college and jobs and the future - 

We’ve been there.  It is enough. 

And to the new homeschool mom whose children know facts but don’t care, and who is seeking for them to know Robert Louis Stevenson and Johann Sebastian Bach and William Shakespeare and, above all, the Bible, at least as well as or better than they know the current athletes, musicians, and celebrities - 

Join us, and countless others.  We’ve discovered - it is enough. 

In fact, we’ve learned it’s not just enough. 

It is more than enough.  

Guest Post: Year 1 Review

We want to welcome back Diana, who has very graciously allowed us to host her review of Year one and how it worked for her. I was so excited to share her post that when I posted the year 3 review I forgot to mention two generic caveats:

1. This is how this year worked for Diana with her child. It's not to be considered a full endorsement by AO (neither is this very generic caveat to be seen as a disavowal of anything in particular). It's one example of how a family made AO their own. We hope it inspires you. It's not meant to be a recipe or a list of commands.

2. Any list of books in order from easiest to hardest is going to be just a bit subjective (Diana addresses this as well).  I recently read aloud a very easy picture book to a group of kindergartners- and I had to stop and explain things several times.  They all live on a tropical island.  Most have never lived in America (even the two or three with American parents).   While their English is excellent, among the class were children who had no idea what such things as a moose, a bonfire, autumn leaves, and jam were because they have never seen them or been exposed to them, or they use different terms.

So without further ado, here's Diana!

 Last month, I was able to write a guest post for Ambleside Online's official blog, Archipelago, detailing my family's journey through Year 3. Today I am writing a similar post about our experience with Year 1.

 This is my second time teaching Year 1, which was way more easy than the first time around since I, myself, have begun to wrap my mind around Charlotte Mason's philosophy. Of course, every home school is going to look different, even if we're using the same wonderful Ambleside Online curriculum. I definitely believe that our uniqueness (both strengths and weaknesses) as mothers and as a family at large are what makes each set of parents the best teacher of their own children. Just know going into this post that we are a very literate family. I mean, none of us have been awarded a Pulitzer or Nobel Prize, but both Dear Husband and I are working writers, and two (so far) of our three sons have been early readers. Maybe your family is more of a hands-on or science-y type. That is great! I hope that you are playing to your strengths and covering for your weaknesses just as we are striving to do.

 One more note about us. Our Year 1 student, L6, is ... well ... slightly different than most kids his age. First, we suspect that he may be on the autism spectrum. Although he gets along very well in this world, he has a few symptoms that have lead us to this theory. We have not pushed for a diagnosis in the past, but we may in the near future. 

Second, L6 is what some people call "gifted" but is better labeled "asynchronous." It's funny because you would think the higher the IQ the easier a child is to teach, but that's not always the case. Often an asynchronous child thinks differently or faster than their peers but still at an age appropriate maturity and emotional level; hence, the out-of-sync label. Basically, teaching an asynchronous child -- and "twice exceptional" if our suspicions of autism are correct -- can be very frustrating because you're not sure when to push for excellence or when to back off. Thankfully, AO's curriculum is a broad feast. It's absolutely perfect for an asynchronous child. Basically, if some of the stuff we do in Year 1 seems strange, it probably is just a little.

 Okay, so just like in my Year 3 review post, here is a list of the Year 1 books in order of hardest to easiest (in my humble opinion):

• Parables of Nature (AO’s paraphrased edition) by Margaret Gatty (Literature)
• Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula (History Tales / Biography)
• Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling (Literature)
• Paddle to the Sea by Holling C. Holling (geography)
• The Burgess Bird Book by Thornton Burgess (Natural History / Science)
• The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang (Literature)
• Viking Tales by Jennie Hall (History)
• Bible: New King James Version (Bible)
• Our/An Island Story by H.E. Marshall (History)
• *Shakespeare for Everyone: Henry V, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It (Literature)
• The American history books by Ingri D'Aulaire
• James Herriot's Treasury for Children (Natural History / Science)
• Oxford Book of Children's Verse by Iona and Peter Opie (Poetry)
• A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson (Poetry)
• Now We are Six by A.A. Milne (Poetry)
• Aesop's Fables (Literature)
• Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin (History)

*Our family does Shakespeare together in morning time. We have substituted Shakespeare for Everyone in place of Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare – a personal preference.

  Specific Scheduled Book Advice This ranking is very subjective. At the Year 1 level, I am prone to label a book "more challenging" because its stories are longer -- even if you chop them up into different sittings -- rather than just by an elevated writing style. There are several books on this list that L6 could "read" as far as de-code the words, but he could not read these at length and comprehend, so these have all been read aloud to him.

 If this is your first time doing Year 1 with a student, all of these texts are probably new to you. L6 is my second student to complete (nearly!) Year 1, so these books are my old friends but somewhat new to him.
  An Island Story and Trial and Triumph are both books we will be using for the next two years. L6 listened in quite a bit with British history when his older brother passed through it, so he has taken to An Island Story very easily. He especially enjoyed the chapters around the King Arthur era since we have read several Margaret Hodges picture books of the same setting (Saint George and the Dragon, The Kitchen Knight, Merlin and the Making of the King). L6 is a HUGE fan of picture books. He's a lap sitter and a snuggler. Bedtime reading is a big deal to this kid.

  Trial and Triumph contains a lot of death and church history, both which can be confusing to a six year old, but I'm glad to introduce some church history to my kiddos. I've seen many AO users comment that their child is too sensitive for this book, but so far my boys have weathered it well. In fact, L6 was very excited to pick up on the use of "creeds" in the chapter on the Nicaea counsel because we memorized the Apostle's Creed as part of our morning time recitation work this year.

 Fifty Famous Stories Retold is probably the easiest book 

scheduled for Year 1. This one, along with Aesop's Fables, is not only great for teaching history and literature, but they are also excellent for teaching children to narrate. L6 is already a master narrator. I'm not sure if it's from watching his older brother or if it's because he's particularly good at holding thoughts in his head.

The stories in these two books are so short and so focused that narrating their central theme is fairly easy. If your kiddo is struggling with narration, these two texts are great starting points to work on that. We happen to already own a different version of Aesop's Fables than the suggested Milo Winter edition. Rather than bouncing around the book to follow the AO schedule exactly, we just read them in the order they are placed in our book. No big deal!

 (Wcapehart's note: HOORAY!!  This is exactly correct!  Sometimes, the very best book is the one you already have!)

We're still reading through Viking Tales by Jennie Hall, but it's a very lovely addition to An Island Story, Year 1's main history spine. I'm so glad the AO Advisory made sure our Year 1 students had a little bit of understanding of the Norwegian influences in European history. This book sort of lays the groundwork to understand The Little Duke in Year 2 since the main character's family in that book is descended from the vikings. L6 is in love with Scandinavia because he attended a vacation bible school program that was all about Norway. When we busted out the Viking Tales in Year 1/term 3, he was very excited! This is also a good time to add in the D'Aulaire book Leif the Lucky, if you happen to own it.


 Speaking of D'Aulaire, the three of those books scheduled are all very fun and beautifully illustrated stories of American history. I've sometimes seen other CM communities give AO some flack about focusing so much on British history in Year 1. To each her own, I guess, but let me just chime in from my experience. First, the D'Aulaire books do introduce American history in Year 1. And, second, having seen my 9 year old pass through Years 1 and 2, absorbing all of this British history, I can tell you that when we got to honest-to-goodness American history in Year 3, he had a very good understanding of how the first English settlements came to be. It was astounding. Hang in there in Years 1 and 2 with your British / European history. You are building a foundation that will really begin to shine in Year 3.

  Paddle to the Sea by Holling C. Holling is really not that difficult of a book. It has some lingo in it that can be challenging, but all of the illustrations really help support the text. I rated it a bit challenging because it was L6's first foray into geography. L6 did some amazing map work (thanks to maps purchased from Beautiful Feet Books) to go along with the chapters. (This is geography. Do the map work!) I hear there's a short film about this book on available on YouTube, but we haven't watched it yet.


Holling's books transport you, as a reader, to another world. You really just have to jump in and be swept away. Yes, Year 1's main character is a wooden Indian in a canoe. Hold onto your hat, though, because in Year 2's Holling books the main characters are a tree and a bird carved from whale bone. Year 3? A hermit crab. Yep.

 As already noted, we traded Lamb’s Shakespeare for a line of books called Shakespeare for Everyone written by Jennifer Mulherin. I found the Georgian / Victorian language used in Lamb’s only confused Shakespeare’s Elizabethan era plays, so we opted for a modern retelling followed by film viewings.

 I know most people advise to "start with the comedies," but since my Year 3 student had just read about Henry V of England, we started our family-wide Shakespeare project with that play. Maybe it's just because we're a house full of mostly boys, but Henry V went over very, very well. In addition to the retelling, we studied the St. Crispin's Day speech ("We few, we happy few, we band of brothers ...") and watched the Kenneth Branagh film -- which my boys were happy to see included not only Gilderoy Lockhart, but also Professor Trelawney (Emma Thompson), Rubeus Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), and Batman (Christian Bale).

 Because we do Shakespeare as a family, we had our own rotation going rather than juggling Year 1 and Year 3 assignments. Now I see that AO has moved to a Shakespeare rotation, we will probably try to jump on board (so long as we don’t repeat what we’ve done recently). 

Do not be intimidated by James Herriot's Treasury for Children. These are really just a bunch of picture books all in one binding. I don't know about your kids, but it really wasn't a stretch to read picture books about farm animals to my kids. Just enjoy these little gems, and feel free to read the entire book, even though not every chapter is scheduled. You may find that your Year 1 student wants to become a vet for a while after reading this book.


 The Scheduled Bible readings for Year 1 are basically just a list of popular tales from the Bible. My kids are all quite familiar with the New King James Version as that is what we read from at home all the time (and use for recitation). No matter the translation you prefer, don't go into Year 1 Bible worrying about whether you child understands absolutely everything. You don't have to turn this into Sunday School with a planned craft or song. Just take time to familiarize them with these iconic stories and get them used to reading from the Bible rather than a Bible-type book (even though there are some excellent Bible story books out there, too, like The Jesus Storybook Bible.) Make this time fun and relaxed, because the Bible is a book they will enjoy reading every single year with AO and, hopefully, daily throughout their lives.

 Speaking of enjoy, my kids and I have all enjoyed Parables of Nature. I know that sounds crazy because they are crazy-long. Sometimes I even find myself dreading to begin one of these, but I'm not sure why (other than length) because my kids always enjoy them. It's really the same with Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book. I think, perhaps, my kids appreciate parables and fairy tales more than I expect they will. Funny story: I took L6 (and his brothers) to see a live performance of Beauty and the Beast at our local community theater. After the show started, L6 (who was, of course, sitting on my lap) whispered to me that the show wasn't like the book. I told him it's supposed to be like the Disney movie ... and he had no idea what I was talking about! I completely forgot that he had never seen the film. He was primed to see a performance of the Blue Fairy Book story. That's a proud AO moment. ;-)

Oh, The Burgess Bird Book, how I dread you some days. It's not so much that the stories are a bit repetitive (describing birds can get old), but it's more that I know L6 wants to color a picture of each bird, and it's so difficult to find coloring sheets of birds that look like a Flycatcher or a Martin -- there are helpful mom-created web sites out there, though. I've also found several coloring images here. These resources just aren't comprehensive of the whole book. If someone systematically went through this book and created companion coloring pages, I would appreciate that! L6 wants to color each bird just right, and I hold my breath each time as his little perfectionist heart goes to work. I do appreciate this book, though, for getting us thinking about birds but still being a narrative form.

I'm glad we also have a field guide and online resources at our disposal to liven things up. We've looked up birds on YouTube and at the Audubon web site to see videos and hear bird calls. We also bird-watch at our feeder. We read a picture book called The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon this year. I thought that was a nice tie-in. Whatever you can do to blow the dust off Peter Rabbit, Jenny Wren, and all the endless parade of bird varieties the better. With my oldest son, I simply read the book, and he really didn't get much out of it. With L6 I've made these efforts to make it more of an interactive experience. Oh, and remember, you don't have to read the chapters in order (or even all of the chapters). Pick the chapters by the birds you want your child to learn.

I'm going to lump the poetry books together even thought they are each wonderful in their own way. It has amazed me with both of my Year 1 students how much kids love poetry if someone will just make time to read it to them. Kids are not nearly as afraid of rhyme and meter as we adults are. In fact, L6 and I recently read a free verse book called Love That Dog by Sharon Creech -- we loved it! It dealt with the death of a beloved pet dog, which is something our family just went through. Now We are Six by A.A. Milne is a particular favorite of my children's because it's so funny. All of the AO poetry options come in colorful illustrated editions, which is not always necessary, but is nice for a 6 or 7 year old.

I find Rudyard Kipling to be challenging. I want to like him, but I am just not there yet. Just So Stories scheduled in Years 1, 2, and 3 were hard for me. That said, I was able to punt those readings to Dear Husband for now. That sort of feels like cheating, but until I can love Kipling I wanted the kids to hear him read by someone who does. Another option is to get an audio book. It would probably help if I would spring for a picture book version, but right now we just have a cheap paperback. I need to get on board, though, because Kipling is sprinkled throughout the AO years. Thankfully, everyone in this house but me has loved Just So Stories.

Free Reads Free reads for Year 1 are mostly read-to-me type of selections. There are not many that L6 could and would read on his own and still comprehend. That said, he is a skilled reader and has read some on his own (those are in bold). This year we have read:

• Charlotte's Web
• Peter Pan
• The Red Fairy Book (some stories)
• St. George and the Dragon
• The Velveteen Rabbit
• Plenty of Fish
• Seeds and More Seeds
• Let's Get Turtles
• Frog and Toad books

We have read countless books at bedtime as well. As previously noted, L6 loves picture books, and he is usually able to read any picture book (to himself or to his little brother) off the shelf at the library. I could never list all of them, but we tend to follow the advice of booklists from sources like The Read Aloud Revival, Housefull of Bookworms, Honey for a Child's Heart, and others.

 Much to my chagrin, L6 has read all of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and every single Dav Pilkey (Captain Underpants, etc.) book. Additionally, he has read some Roald Dahl books -- The BFG and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for sure -- and we have read several books together as a family, including The Hobbit, The Borrowers, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and the Ramona series (Beverly Cleary).

  Various Daily Instruction

 We are a Math U See family. L6 is nearly finished with the Alpha book. He has taken to math very easily like his older brother. When the day comes that he is ready to run with math, I think he will be exceptionally good at it. Right now, though, he'd rather do his one page of math and then go ride his bike. I'm not going to argue with that at age 6.

 L6 has naturally good handwriting (much better than his older brother who struggles), so Copy Work is a breeze for him. We haven't really started Foreign Language with L6 just yet. I want him to go through Classical Academic Press' Song 
School Spanish curriculum with his friend, but that friend is not quite ready yet.

Since he is reading on his own, we are not taking time for daily Phonics or Reading Instruction, although I do love Starfall.com for those skills (in addition to actual books).

We do Recitation together in morning time, choosing to memorize favorite poems or Bible facts set to music.

 I am not great with Handicrafts. I hate that about myself, though, because I see others making things and wish I had that skill or drive. The boys are probably behind in this because Dear Husband and I are both inept, but we are trying. We do paint and draw a lot, and we do a lot of freewriting (ala Brave Writer). I've taught the boys a bit of handsewing.

  Weekly Instruction Subjects

 We very closely follow AO’s artist, composer, and folksong/hymn study rotations, utilizing morning time to do this as a family. Additionally, I have taken A9 and L6 to a couple local symphony performances for a little in-person music appreciation. A9 and L6 both take piano lessons from me at home, we hope someday that L6 might take violin lessons. With his hyper-focus abilities and dexterity, we think he might have a knack for it.

 We also learn about nature topics in morning time, according to my own reading of the Handbook of Nature Study, various picture books, and field guides. A9 and L6 both sketch in nature journals, and we belong to a weekly hiking group for kids (taking its cue from the Wild and Free movement). J4 and L6 both like to attend a monthly nature class at our local Conversation Department, and all three boys are involved in Cub Scouts.

 We also attend a local school co op one day a week, which gives the boys 4 hours of classroom experience each week. In order to fit this in, we stretch the 12 week AO terms into 15 week intervals.

  Sports and Recreation
 All three of our boys all take a weekly swim class designed for homeschoolers at a local indoor pool. L6 and his brothers are now playing Little League Baseball, and I think A9 and L6 might be interested in track next spring (2018). Our community also has a monthly "homeschool skate" at our local roller rink. We've only been once, but L6 loved it! He's turning out to be an individual sport type of guy (no surprise there!). Probably our best source of recreation, though, is living in a cul de sac where the boys ride their bikes and scooters up and down the street.

  An Introvert's Life Unlike my extremely extroverted oldest child, L6 is typically content to stay home and play in the backyard. He's probably more involved in activities than he would choose just because we travel as a pack, but it's probably good for him. We try to make concessions for both boys who are pulling in opposite directions. This is our Year 1. It's probably as different from yours as each child is uniquely made, but I hope this helps someone out there. Until next week (or so). I’m reading: Novel:

• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas (audio book)
• The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (Family read aloud)

Moderately challenging books:

• Personal Reflections of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain
• Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (Reading along with CiRCE’s Close Reads podcast)
• Be Different: My Adventures with Asperger’s and My Advice for Fellow Aspergians, Misfits, Families, and Teachers by John Elder Robison

Stiff books:

• Mind to Mind: An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education by Karen Glass
• For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay in conjunction with Brandy Vencel’s Start Here study (for my CM study group)

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