The ART of Narration: CM Carnival

I just checked my email and found that the Simply Charlotte Mason blog hosted the CM Carnival this month on... guess what.... the Art of Narration, how providential. I can't wait to spend some time over my afternoon coffee soaking up some ideas in these articles, written by CM style homeschooling educators! Enjoy

Learning from Superman

Superman and I are wrestling with what could be a beautiful art of telling back what one has learned through reading or listening to a piece of literature. I find it amusing that he can tell me all sorts of information about certain things, things that have completely taken hold of his interest and imagination while other things he is an empty vessel. I understand that he is more likely to be captured by and own certain pieces of the stories he reads if they grab his attention but I long for him to pull all pieces of the story together to give him the BIG picture so that it is not in a bunch of interesting but seperate pieces that don't really fit together making it all a little obscure for him. I read Jeannie Fulbright's article for some encouragement on Narration, here is some thing I pulled out from it to use today and I am seeing the fruit as we speak or I type:

Remember that the teacher always learns the most. Narration employs this philosophy. For the child becomes the teacher! It is often good to use words such as, “Teach me what you just learned,” or “Now, you be the teacher! Teach me all about that!”

Let him be the teacher... BRILLANT. He is enjoying himself with the idea that he is teaching me what he is learning and I can see that he is taking in a lot of the information so that he can relay it to me correctly, it is so cute and also effective.

Unexpected Excursion

Don't underestimate the power of nature. It has taken hold of my children and intrigued their minds. They find themselves yearning to be in her presence surrounded by her mystifying and entrancing beauty and it isn't just enough to simply enjoy her with eyes of wonder they are overtaken by their curiosity to touch and feel and learn more about her. Last week while out doors at a local park just enjoying some nice weather they became quickly bored and unsatisfied with the superficial created structure they played on and found themselves drawn to their natural surroundings. They ran off away from the colorful structure meant to fullfill all their playful desires and into another world. I was suprised by this spontanious excursion and felt very proud as we ventured off.

I could not have predicted this little spontaneous adventure. My children's natural curiosity with nature is growing into a true love. I was truly amazed and excited to see them run into the arms of nature as she embraced them and they enjoyed eachothers company.

We all really enjoyed ourselves. The boys enjoyed gathering up acorns and using them as "bombs". T-Rex found a little "sleeping" snail in the dirt...

and on our way back to the car we found this, what appears to be a dog skull or possibly and more excitedly maybe a Coyote skull or something altogether different, we haven't examined it much since we got home.

Nature study is obviously not going to be any kind of a problem in our communion with Charlotte Mason and I knew that already. I am excited about the learning experiences that are going to be found in this aspect of the CM method, we have already learned so much and it has already brought so much to our school room.

On a journey to: Perfect Harmony

I read an article this morning on Homeschool Methods titled "Planting Your Garden" by the Parker Family. It basically dicusses 2 methods, the Classical and Charlotte Mason, and how they can ultimately be harmonized. It was very encouraging for me as I think through these 2 styles of education. I am in love with Charlotte but still cling to the Classical. I feel a kindred spirit with Charlotte Mason and a noble companionship with Classical Education.

Harmonized... "Both Charlotte Mason and Classical methods of instruction have the capacity to be the flame that ignites a love of learning and kindles the essence of a true liberal education;we believe that if we keep their common goal in view,we can more surely hit the mark with techniques drawn from both camps." Parker Family

As of right now I am describing our Homeschool like this: We are Growing Minds of Wisdom down the flourishing path of Classical Education walking closely in communion with Charlotte Mason as we are daily guided by the Light.

Just thought you might want to know :0).

Reforming the reality of Education

Education, you know it, it lives and breathes in your home on a daily basis. Education is something that we can not escape no matter how hard we run and the darkess corner can not hide the light of it's reality, of it being a life. Education is not limited to a desk, to the moving of a pencil, in the pages of a book it happens in the mind as we experience life and when I say book what I mean is a textbook not a "living book". It is such a common misunderstanding or ignorance to understand education in this way, that is that if the child or adult is not knee deep in a dry textbook and busy work then knowledge is not being obtained, that it can only come through at a desk, table or floor with a book and a worksheet in an atmosphere of serious rigidness. Basically the idea that knowledge can only be found in the formal way of learning, this is a disillusionment passed down from many generations through the govermental public school system. Children"are in danger of recieving much teaching with little knowledge"* in the hands of this type of education. Now I have to be honest, I have been guilty of this idea of education! This has been our habit of learning over the past couple of years and it was the path we were continueing to tred until CM stopped us dead in our tracks and pointed out to us, me, that education is much more than that, simply "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life."* What a profound thought, no what a profound reality!

Life being a continual never ceasing experience of learning is the mother of all lessons! Life is full of lessons that God has put in our path to challenge us to grow in a life of transformation to the image of His Son. I challenge you to view education as a life experience of growing in the knowledge of Him.... challenge the norm, challenge the traditional way of education, experience education in the way God meant it to be... a daily experience through not only our lessons but also through His creation and with grace, with hope, with love, with joy, with liberation and with a lens of it being an amazing way for us to come closer to Him uniting us closer as a unit, a family.

I am in the process of transforming Growing Minds of Wisdom to this reality of education. I must express my thoughts as to the struggles going on within me. I know that CM's philosophy of education is dead on but my "old" mind is having a hard time agreeing with my "new" mind. The fact that education for my child does not have to be a tormenting experience constantly interrupting life is almost unreal to me, that I can actually lead my children's minds down a delighted path of learning!

My thoughts this morning were dug up after reading this quote:

“The difference between school and life? In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.”
~Tom Bodett

I wasn't posting this to enter but if the shoe fits....find more dug up thoughts at the Heart of the Matter.

* Charlotte Mason's words found in her Original Homeschooling Series.

The Green Hour, Challenge #2

So we didn't stay in our back yard this week we decided to venture out there and go to a near by park. It was an absolutely oddly gorgeous day, 80 degrees! We were outside all day long, after my miserable visit to the dentist.

Now relax and join us in our Nature Walk highlights:

This was a funny little guy, he unexpectidly jumped on Superman into the water. He surprised us all. We lost him for a minute in the water but soon found him snuggled up under a rock. I moved it and he allowed us to snap a few pictures of him. We found out he was a Plain Leopard Frog, very cool!

A hole! What the imagination can think of when one sees a hole in the ground!

Superman speculated that lightning struck this tree causing the split down the middle of it, as for all the holes in it, he is stumped.

Interesting and a little scary was to find a large cage out in the trees, some sort of trap we all concluded. T-Rex and Superman assumed to catch the wandering Lions, Dragons and Hippopotami.

These, whatever they were, hurt.

Here are Superman's Hairy White Flowers.

The thorny tree that lead us into a discussion about the crown of thorns that Jesus wore.

Clover with purple marks in the middle of each leaf, we searched for a 4 leafer but left empty handed.

A cluster of berries on a bare bush.

A slippery slope into the mud shed a few tears from T-Rex.

On our drive down our street I noticed some blossums and thought Superman would enjoy looking at their faces. I reminded him of the closed flower, Daffadil, we saw last week and showed him what they look like when they are opened:

And then on the way back to our house he accidently disturbed a big hill of ants with his foot and we watched as they frantically searched about in the devastation:

We had a truly amazing experience in our Nature Walk today! After we finally got home I began dinner and encouraged the boys to journal about their nature walk:

Superman's Journal is above and Momma's is below, I am working on helping T-Rex with one of his own. He has a journal but I am trying to assist him.

At dinner we all discussed our words of description.

Our 1 word to express what we "heard" on our nature walk: tweet, splash and snap.

Our 2 words to express what we "saw" on our nature walk: berry tree, underwater frog and thorny tree.

Our 3 words to express what we "felt" on our nature walk: White hairy flower, inclined uncomfortable bench and rusty old branch.

I leave you with a picture of my handsome boys and myself together after our excursion!

Green Hour Challenges can be found at Heart of Harmony! Thanks Barb, you are an awesome encouragement!

Stay in the Lines

Children become discouraged by their lack of expertise if they are used to "coloring in" an adult's outline. For the Children's Sake, p.129.

I am eager to begin a study of art with my children and experience their creativity! How truly wonderful to allow them the room to express themselves with a pencil and piece of paper with out relying on lines to stay in leaving little or less creativity and possibly causing discouragement for the future. The thought of coloring pages has never occured to me before. Charlotte Mason discourages the use of these "creativity limitations" for children. I think that in handing our children coloring pages we are discouraging their minds to create and express itself in all of it's beautiful and magnificent capabilities, it is forced to hold back. I love to place a crisp white sheet of paper in front of my children and put an idea into their mind and then sit back and watch eagerly as they transform it into a collection of colors or just a few but there on that piece of paper no longer blank is the mind the creative beautiful images that were stored in the child. The blank paper gives him all the room to explore his own mind and express what he sees and feels and it never fails to be an amazing experience in the eyes of the teacher. I feel that I have missed out on many of these opportunities to allow for creativity to blossum in my children because of the ease of coloring pages.




Let the mind of the child express itself in its own original pictures!







*art from the little mind of Superman at age 4

3 Great Minds

I have been consumed in 3 great minds over the last couple of weeks, Macauley, Beechick and Mason. For the Children's Sake, Heart and Mind and the CM series volume 6 are prooving to be extremely benificial in the direction and current passion of my heart and mind :0). I am also amazed at how they are all coming together meeting eachother and conversing unknowingly; the saying is true: Great minds think alike. They have crossed eachother many times as I have gone from one book, to the other, to the other wading in 3 intellectual and very spiritual minds who's passions alike are all intwined around the Maker of the 3 subjects discussed of mind, heart and education.

I began reading the CM series in Charlotte Mason's orginal wording before I realized that there was a paraphrased version in Modern English, it has been a lot easier for my mind to decode all of her thoughts. I was reading her series with a dictionary by my side and a continual pause and reflect patteren, slowly obtaining information but not sure how much I was actually retaining able to reproduce it in my own words as I repeat it to my husband, know what I mean? So the paraphrased version has been a wonderful blessing to my mind and my time, though I like to look back at the original for the exact wording.

If anyone has any helpful information on Charlotte Mason's philosphy of education I would be delighted to gain your resources. What are you reading that has been benificial to you?

Now Airing...

Don't miss the 11th edition of Charlotte Mason blog carnival:

"Mother Culture"

The Beginning of my CM Evolution

I have become engrossed in the philosophy of Charlotte Mason and I have only barely begun to reach in and unwind. I can hardly put down For the Children's Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay it keeps drawing me in with the intent for more, more, more. I have a feeling that my ideas or direction of my teaching in some subjects and the way of each day are going to change slightly as I continue to be drawn in more and more into her passion and life. I have very naively adapted some of our education to follow her ideas but not with out a full understanding, now I will not stop until I understand her ideas more clearly for myself and that of my children.

I think it would very benificial for every school teacher to read her thoughts on education, on teaching, on life and on the personhood of each child. I think that one of the huge downfalls in the school system is the fact that most authorities in the walls of education lack the vital importance of understanding all of these factors, those of CM, and implementing them in their methods of teaching. They only see a class of children, desks filled, rather than a class of individual "persons" and I realize the enormous incapability to achieve this at its full capacity but even if the idea, the passion the understanding were there... then the heart of education would be, or possible could be.. found.