Piney Woods Homeschool

  Transition from Elementary to Secondary High school (Years 9-12) brings a whole new set of challenges.  Most of us will need to make a transcript at the end of high school, sometimes even before then.  We have to decide what courses, credits, and grades we will include.  We have to consider state graduation requirements (if any) and requirements for college or other programs our students will want to pursue.  We have to make time for drivers license preparation, jobs, dual credit, volunteer work, clubs, and whatever else our students take on.  We have to practice our masterly inactivity as we try to superintend without domineering, and we have to perform the delicate dance of gradually turning over control to our students who are preparing for independence. This is not a utilitarian education, preparing students for careers only; that, Charlotte Mason says, leads to moral rot.   Her aim is an “education [which] should make our boys and girls ri...

  Transition From Elementary to Secondary The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy helpfully has the words “Don’t Panic” printed on the cover.  Panic is what many of us feel when we get to the last few years of homeschool.  Why do we panic?  I think because we look at the years left to us with our student, and we think that we have so much we want to cover and not enough time.  Also, because our student doesn’t always cooperate with our efforts, and we worry that our efforts are in vain.  And probably we wonder if the way we are approaching each subject is really the right way.  I think often when we reach these last few years of homeschool we start to think that we aren’t capable of adequately preparing our students for the world after homeschool and we need to bring in outside help. Once we enter middle school or junior high or whatever they call that space between elementary school and high school where you come from, school seems serious and deadly and...

Personalizing AmblesideOnline (Read Part I.)   How much time should school take?  That depends!  The PUS schools spread the material over six days plus Sunday afternoons, so that’s always an option.  I have never tried to use the PUS time tables as a guide.  They are time tables for classrooms, not homes, and they changed regularly.  They were based on more days per week than I want to use.  The Scheduling page on the AO website does give you a lot of information about how the PUS schools scheduled work and how much time was allotted, if that would be helpful for you. Remember that the PUS teachers didn’t find that the schedules always worked out even in their school setting.  In a 1915 issue of the magazine for teachers , you can read a note, “For many simple and obvious reasons with which I scarcely like to burden you it is quite impossible in a school to take all the lessons at the set time and for the set period.”  So please don’t feel b...

  Personalizing AmblesideOnline In the book In Memoriam, E. A. Parish remembers frustration that sometimes Charlotte Mason seemed inconsistent in her feedback to the teachers.  Parish says, "And when we asked for the precise recipe we were told to 'mix it with brains.' Every lesson needs a special giving, and the method is based upon broad principles which leave the teacher all the exercise of her own ingenuity." We also have to exercise our own ingenuity when planning.  I can’t tell you exactly how to plan your weeks and your days, but I can show you a little of what I do and why I do it that way, and I can show you some principles from Charlotte Mason. AmblesideOnline provides book lists and schedules for every year in Years 1-12, plus for the Groups Forms I, II, and III which each have three years.  The book list is on one page and the schedule is on another, for each year.  The schedule gives you assignments for one week, not for each day.  That weekly...

  I am, I can, I ought, I will. The motto of Charlotte Mason’s PNEU schools helped students and teachers focus on their own capabilities and responsibilities.  This is not a self-help motto though.  Behind these words lies an understanding of God at work in me and through me to make this possible.   Because of God, I am.  With God’s help, I can.  For God’s glory, I ought. By God’s grace, I will. As homeschool parents, we often feel the weight of responsibility and inadequacy.  How can we possibly nurture, and teach, and civilize these tiny humans so that they reach all the potential God gave them?  Where do we find the courage to keep trying, day after day?  With God’s help, I can. Homeschooling is a ministry to our families.  For some of us, it will be a lifelong ministry.  For others, it will be a season of ministry.  We can’t know in advance which it will be, either.  God has His own plans for us and for our famili...

I'm reading The Tao of Pooh , in which Benjamin Hoff uses the Winnie the Pooh stories to exemplify philosophical principles.  And I'm reading Charlotte Mason's second volume, Parents and Children , which is a collection of articles she wrote for the parents' magazine her organization published.  Tonight my Tao of Pooh reading came from chapter 4, "Cottleston Pie."  One of the points of this chapter is that dealing with things As They Are is better than pretending things are Something They Are Not.  Tigger comes up a lot.  Hoff reminds us of Rabbit's plan to Unbounce Tigger.  The plan failed, and one of Tigger's positive traits became obvious: he doesn't get lost.  Tigger's bounciness distracted everyone, maybe even himself, from noticing his talents.  And when Rabbit finally wins and forces Tigger to promise not to bounce, Tigger's whole character changes, and not for the better.  Everyone misses the old cheery, bouncy Tigger, even if the...

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...