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KC in TX
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Jenn,
You've made some interesting comments. I've been looking at myself as well in terms of as an example to my children. I am constantly on them about cleaning up their toys at the end of the day yet my countertops in the kitchen are cluttered. I don't have as much self-discipline as I would like so how can I expect them to. Of course, I do, but I know that it will come back to the example I lead. It's something that's been bugging me for the past few months and I'm still working through it. I haven't read Education is a Life yet, just skimmed it, but I want to develop something good in my children through their habits. I'm not sure I'm succeeding.
Just a few rambling thoughts.
__________________
KC,
wife to Ben (10/94),
Mama to LB ('98)
Michaela ('01)
Emma ('03)
Jordan ('05)
And, my 2 angels, Rose ('08) and Mark ('09)
The Cabbage Patch
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JennGM
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KC in TX wrote:
Jenn,
You've made some interesting comments. I've been looking at myself as well in terms of as an example to my children. I am constantly on them about cleaning up their toys at the end of the day yet my countertops in the kitchen are cluttered. I don't have as much self-discipline as I would like so how can I expect them to. Of course, I do, but I know that it will come back to the example I lead. It's something that's been bugging me for the past few months and I'm still working through it. I haven't read Education is a Life yet, just skimmed it, but I want to develop something good in my children through their habits. I'm not sure I'm succeeding. |
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Every day is a new day, right? Some days it's every hour (or a few minutes) I have to start anew and not beat myself up for failing at the habit. God's grace is so good -- I just need to remember to ask him for the help!
I also have to approach my son in the same light. Especially at his young age he thinks in the present and his actions are in the present. He's not thinking about how many times he hasn't cleaned up his toys. It's this one time we're focusing on. Perhaps I wouldn't be so annoyed if I could not dwell on the umpteen we've had to do this. 
And those kitchen countertops are the bane of my existence, too. I love them clean, and they are always covered. Must be vigilant!
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to  & ds1  '03 & ds2  '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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marihalojen
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Elizabeth, I tried to PM you, your box is full!
I noticed that there are no comments on your third post Education is a Life. Shall we just leave our links here at 4 Real, or would you prefer us to drop down to a previous post in the series? I have truly enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts this summer. 
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~Jennifer
Mother to Mariannna, age 13
The Mari Hal-O-Jen
SSR = Sailing, Snorkling, Reading
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Elizabeth
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Jen,
Thanks for letting me know. My computer has been a struggle lately. I just fixed it and comments are open for links on that post.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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marihalojen
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Awesome!
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~Jennifer
Mother to Mariannna, age 13
The Mari Hal-O-Jen
SSR = Sailing, Snorkling, Reading
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Mackfam
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Jenn,
I have so many thoughts on Education Is... and Laying Down the Rails. I haven't been able to blog them yet. I hope to come back here later this afternoon when I have more time because I'd love to join in this discussion! 
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Jen Mackintosh
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Adele Anirudhan
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I do not have a blog so it may be appropriate to give a short introduction. I am wife to Rene, mother to 3 - Tania 11, Michael 6, Leanne 2 and two in heaven. Hubby and I are born and raised in Singapore and we moved to the USA 8 years ago and moved 2 months ago to Redmond, WA. This is my first year of homeschooling and it feels great altho I still get the jitters every now and then.
I relished the ideas set forth by Sonia Shafer and Elizabeth Foss. The section on Education is a Life is very foreign to me but I see it as very achievable and appealing but not without constant discipline. Whilst reading the said section I pondered how I would make learning delightful to my children. In this regard, I would like to "sustain my child's inner life with ideas". I noted that a text book should be only a medium for ideas. The rest of the learning experience is something for me to create. I imagine reading living books to effectively stretch and broaden areas of my child's topic of study or interest as their minds fill with living ideas and not lists of facts and figures. A generous curriculum is a wonderful option for me to consider. I have invested in manipulatives and my children always ask for more of these. I hope to get more manipulatives and materials which I hope will give me the courage to steer away from text books. The list on page 41 is very helpful so I will use it to plan a course of study during this summer so that come fall I will have a something nice for my children learn from. I hope to keep the drudgery out of learning. Elizabeth has nice ideas for art and music study and I can see that happening in my home (I Hope).
Daily I pray for sustained discipline as I am realising it is so important to educating at home. I am struggling with self-discipline and making habits stick. Laying Down the Rails is the book I need this summer. Thank you one and all for making this forum possible.
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Rachel May
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JennGM wrote:
| But the quote from Laura Berquist resonated with me -- not necessarily the contents of the quote, but how much of this living approach to education does not clash with the classical curriculum. I'm not saying they are one in the same, but it's "Real Learning" in action, where some elements can be extracted and applied seamlessly to the learning at home. We don't have to have a single philosophy of learning. It's very freeing to not feel caged by one approach. |
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This is exactly why I got so excited when I read Real Learning. To me, my classical curriculum tells me what to teach and Charlotte Mason via Real Learning tells me how. I've seen other homeschools who use the same curriculum as I do, but they look very different from ours.
I was noticing this week how little life has changed now that "school is out." The kids don't have table time now, but our morning habits, our musical practice, our reading, gardening and conversation have continued with a little added time for crafts and outdoor recreation. That to me is education as a life. Where "school" blends almost seamlessly in with what we are doing anyway.
One other way I see education as a life is field trips. Growing up, if we traveled, we tended to go to see something and learn about it. It was natural to us to want to take a ranger lead hike into the Grand Canyon or visit the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center as a part of our family vacations. We didn't just pursue entertainment when school was out.
Our family is the same now. A day of ice skating at the National Mall provoked tears when we didn't have time for the art museum too. To me that's education as a life. Always being open to what is around you that is good and beautiful and true.
Reading Elizabeth's comments, I loved the idea of "unit study" in parenting etc. I had never thought of it that way, but of course, that's exactly how I live.
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Rachel
Thomas and Anthony (10), Maria (8), Charles (6), Cecilia (5), James (3), and Joseph (1)
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Rachel May
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Adele, I forgot to say welcome! I'm off to ponder what you said about "how to make learning delightful for my children." What a lovely goal.
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Rachel
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Adele Anirudhan
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Many thanks for the warm welcome, Rachel. You have a large and wonderful family. I agree that education as a life is something that can happen simply by being aware of the present. We visited a beautiful nursery yesterday and the children chose their own little plants to pot. We came home and set to work, soil all around and on us but making an afternoon out of it. It was a rich experience. I shall ponder today your comment on "being open to what is good, beautiful and true".
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JennGM
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Adele Anirudhan wrote:
| Daily I pray for sustained discipline as I am realising it is so important to educating at home. I am struggling with self-discipline and making habits stick. Laying Down the Rails is the book I need this summer. Thank you one and all for making this forum possible. |
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Welcome, Adele! I'm so glad you're here and shared your thoughts.
This is totally my struggle, and I'm looking forward to reading and PUTTING INTO ACTION the self-discipline for me!
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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JennGM
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Rachel May wrote:
| This is exactly why I got so excited when I read Real Learning. To me, my classical curriculum tells me what to teach and Charlotte Mason via Real Learning tells me how. I've seen other homeschools who use the same curriculum as I do, but they look very different from ours. |
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Rachel was the first person I met that integrated the classical and CM. I had really seen them as worlds apart until I saw how she did it. And I know she must be tired of me asking her a "day in the life" questions.
Rachel May wrote:
I was noticing this week how little life has changed now that "school is out." The kids don't have table time now, but our morning habits, our musical practice, our reading, gardening and conversation have continued with a little added time for crafts and outdoor recreation. That to me is education as a life. Where "school" blends almost seamlessly in with what we are doing anyway.
One other way I see education as a life is field trips. Growing up, if we traveled, we tended to go to see something and learn about it. It was natural to us to want to take a ranger lead hike into the Grand Canyon or visit the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center as a part of our family vacations. We didn't just pursue entertainment when school was out.
Our family is the same now. A day of ice skating at the National Mall provoked tears when we didn't have time for the art museum too. To me that's education as a life. Always being open to what is around you that is good and beautiful and true.
Reading Elizabeth's comments, I loved the idea of "unit study" in parenting etc. I had never thought of it that way, but of course, that's exactly how I live. |
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So true! I just had to quote you completely, Rachel! I'm realizing that "Education is a Life" because there are no lines drawn. Working in our garden, dealing with the baby and his routine and needs, play time, helping Daddy build the new furniture, dealing with birds and ticks, making dinner, prayer and Mass time, visiting Mount Vernon, talking about work in general...this is a snapshot of our life the past few days. In between the lines are books and discussions and observations. The whole time we are learning -- the parents learn from life and our children, and vice versa.
And it's living life all together, not compartmentalized into school time, family time, chores, vacation, playtime, prayer time.... It is not segregated into my time vs. your time. All of life is a learning banquet that we do as a family. Education IS a life.
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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Adele Anirudhan
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It's wonderful to be here, Janette.I look forward to a summer filled with happy lesson planning as I learn with Charlotte Mason and seek to discipline myself seriously.
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italianalaskan
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I am LOVING Laying Down the Rails. It's a welth of information and I am learning sooooo much.
I have just finished the attention part and boy have I been wrong so far in letting my kids dawdling(I also learned a new word that I am enjoing showing off!)
Thank you for sharing this book.
Simona
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Mackfam
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italianalaskan wrote:
| I am LOVING Laying Down the Rails. |
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Me too, Simona, but I got de-railed  while planning. I've got to get back on track.
Couldn't resist all the puns. Forgive me.
Back to the regularly scheduled discussion.
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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Adele Anirudhan
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Laying Down the Rails is one meaty book chocful of information. I find reading this book very worthwhile but in doing so I find it difficult to take in the content while simultaneously preparing a plan for the family.
My question - how do you ladies read this book? Do you take notes after each section, do you read a section at a time, do you read only those sections that are relevant to the specific habits you'd like to develop in your family? In short, may I ask what is your strategy when approaching this book? Thanks for the help.
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Adele Anirudhan
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By golly, I think I've got it! Thanks!
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Rachel May
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I've finally gotten to the end of this book and I have a question. Does Charlotte Mason recognize stages of learning like a classical education does?
For example, watching my little ones learn math has shown me that a certain groundwork needs to be laid before we can discuss the "why", and I'm beginning to think that it would best be accomplished through memorization like so many other things are at the grammatical age.
With living books for language arts, well my kids have a firm foundation of language as they speak it already. But for some other subjects, even spelling, I wonder if a little memorization would be better at first, as a sort of "learning the language". Am I making sense?
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Rachel
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Willa
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Rachel May wrote:
| I've finally gotten to the end of this book and I have a question. Does Charlotte Mason recognize stages of learning like a classical education does? |
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Here's an article about CM and classical by Karen Glass
I have just been rereading Home Education and CM's view is that young children learned by "things", not by "signs". Like MOntessori, she observed that words don't mean a whole lot to younger children because they are not at the level of abstraction where they can easily manipulate words to form ideas.
But unlike Montessori, CM believed that the world of Nature, and a good family life, were the best ways for children to learn the "signs" of things.
For math, she recommended counting and adding with beans and similar manipulatives. Not memorizing so much, as learning how things actually work.
She did advocate memorizing poems and similar things for the sake of the beautiful language which doesn't have to be understood in order to be relished.
For spelling -- she had a system where the child was taught to study a word and then shut eyes and "visualize" it. Since English is a language where there are several phonetic options for many sounds, she thought good spelling had to be taught by visualization. I don't think she called it memorization, exactly -- because to her it involved the same kind of observation and attention that is involved in telling apart two kinds of butterflies, etc.
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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Rachel May
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Thank you, Willa. I printed the article and am working my way through it with pencil in hand. I was inspired to pick up the Lost Tools of Learning too. Sayers advocates memorizing multiplication table first. Interesting.
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Rachel
Thomas and Anthony (10), Maria (8), Charles (6), Cecilia (5), James (3), and Joseph (1)
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4Real Forums : Book Club
Topic: Charlotte Mason Book Study
