Piney Woods Homeschool

Charlotte Mason has much to say about the power of developing constructive habits.  The science behind this idea was known somewhat even in her time and is confirmed now as we more fully understand the formation of neural pathways.  Sometimes, students of Mason make almost an idol out of habits, believing that if once they can form effective habits in their children the difficulties are over. Charlotte Mason made a point of insisting that habits are not our most important or sole focus. “The busy mother says she has no leisure to be that somebody [who takes time to gently guide a child exploring], and the child will run wild and get into bad habits; but we must not make a fetish of habit; education is a life as well as a discipline.” Charlotte Mason  Volume 1 p. 192 Discussing all of her thoughts on habit training would require more than this single post, so we will pass on to another area of focus after just this one more note.   Mason encourages us t...

Providing young children with ample opportunity for exploring the world and using their senses may be a key component of the preschool years, but along with that comes the  need for free play. Certainly, as mentioned in the previous post, children benefit from some guidance as they explore the world, some assistance in learning to use their senses, but just a little. “The notion of supplementing Nature from the cradle is a dangerous one. A little guiding, a little restraining, much reverent watching, Nature asks of us; but beyond that, it is the wisdom of parents to leave children as much as may be to Nature, and "to a higher Power than Nature itself."” CM Volume 1 p. 186 Charlotte Mason believed children must be fairly free to do as they choose during these years. “Nature will look after him and give him promptings of desire to know many things; and somebody must tell as he wants to know; and to do many things, and somebody should be handy just to put him in t...

If we choose to counter popular culture by delaying formal academics until first grade, then what do we do during all the years before then?  The next few posts will touch on a few key areas. Charlotte Mason says that “wider training of the senses” is a mother’s “primary duty.”  To begin with, this simply means allowing the child opportunities to use his senses, to explore his world. “But it is possible that the child's marvellous power of obtaining knowledge by means of his senses may be undervalued; that the field may be too circumscribed; and that, during the first six or seven years in which he might have become intimately acquainted with the properties and history of every natural object within his reach, he has obtained, exact ideas, it is true––can distinguish a rhomboid from a pentagon, a primary from a secondary colour, has learned to see so truly that he can copy what he sees in folded paper or woven straw,––but this at the expense of much of that rea...

Sending a child to first grade without having had several years of formal or semi-formal academic instruction almost, these days, amounts to parental neglect as far as most parents or schools see it.  Middle class parents routinely consider two or three day preschool for academic preparation even when a parent stays home to care for children, and barring that, the at-home parent expects to begin lessons of some sort by age two or three. Charlotte Mason discouraged formal lessons before the age of six, for developmental reasons.  Prior to that age, she believed, children's brains required freedom to choose their learning opportunities, within boundaries.  Young children have so much learning to do simply to satisfy the demands of their own brains and bodies that imposing additional learning burdens, even if they are fun, would be too much strain as well as limiting the opportunities for the learning they naturally need. “His nerve centres and brain power have been...

Lately, culture here in America has encouraged parents to send their young children to formal programs for preschool and kindergarten.  People assume that trained professionals need to prepare children for school. Charlotte Mason says parents must direct and instruct rather than defer to professional educators. “It seems to me that we live in an age of pedagogy; that we of the teaching profession are inclined to take too much upon ourselves, and that parents are ready to yield the responsibility of direction, as well as of actual instruction, more than is wholesome for the children.”  CM Volume 1 p. 169 She also suggests that parents must learn educational principles and decide how to apply them in their own home, rather than trying to replicate in the home what the schools are doing. “Though every mother should be a Kindergartnerin, in the sense in which Froebel would employ the term, it does not follow that every nursery should be a regularly organised Kinder...

Have you ever felt pressured to send a child to a preschool or Mother’s Day Out because if you didn’t, your child would somehow be less? Ever worried that if you didn’t make sure your child mastered identifying shapes and colors, letters and numbers, counting, reading, or some other subject before kindergarten that your child would start school at a disadvantage? Have you been concerned that keeping your child at home with you would warp the child’s personality, creating a clingy child afraid to venture out? Our culture today tells us that young children must have professional educators to shape and mold them, or at the least have formal instruction, before they can be ready for the rest of their school career. Even homeschoolers often find these arguments convincing.  But are they true?  What do young children need to prepare them for learning and life? Charlotte Mason lived during the Victorian era, when these same pressures came to bear on parents. ...

I use AmblesideOnline in our homeschool, and I appreciate the chart-format schedules that are provided for each year .  Before I use those schedules, though, I modify them to make them work for our family .  Here are some samples of a shortened version of my edited schedules for a few different years to give you an idea of what these look like.  (The samples show only a few weeks of each term so as not to violate AmblesideOnline's license by reproducing the schedules on another site.) Two terms of Year 1 Year 2 chart One term of Year 3 Another Year 3 chart Year 4 chart Another Year 4 chart, just Term 1 Two terms of Year 5 Another Year 5 chart Year 6 chart Another Year 6 chart Year 7 chart Year 8 chart Year 9 chart Another Year 9 Chart Yet Another Year 9 Chart One More Year 9 Chart Year 10 chart Year 11 chart   Briefly, I follow this basic process to prepare the schedules for the term ahead: I download the art prints from the link at t...