Piney Woods Homeschool

Our reading assignments came from Volume 5 and the Parents Review , but in contrarian fashion I'm drawing inspiration from the end of Volume 2 : "The old, old story has all its first freshness as we tell it to the eager listeners; as we listen to it ourselves with their vivid interest it becomes as real and fresh to us as it is to them. Hard thoughts drop away like scales from our eyes; we are young once more with the children's young life, which, we are mysteriously made aware, is the life eternal. What a mystery it is! Does not every mother, made wise unto salvation, who holds a babe in her arms, feel with tremulous awe that, that deep saying is true for her also, 'The same is my mother'?"    Volume 2, p. 281 Our piney woods, in a rare snowy moment. Holidays provide an opportunity to rethink our treasured values and beliefs as we help our children experience them through family and community observances.  We also have the opportunity to encourage true h...

 This is from Wordsworth's "Prelude", quoted in Charlotte Mason's Volume 3, Chapter 19 : <<     "That common sense           May try this common system by its fruits,           Leave let me take to place before her sight           A specimen pourtrayed with faithful band.           Full early trained to worship seemliness,           This model of a child is never known           To mix in quarrels; that were far beneath           Its dignity; with gifts he bubbles o'er           As generous as a fountain; selfishness       ...

I just wanted to share a birdsong CD we purchased in preparation for starting Year 1.  We love it!  Instead of being simply a list of bird names followed by the song, this one groups the birds by similar sounds, then a narrator explains how to tell the birds in the group apart.  This is critical for us, because once the leaves appear on the trees (and we have leaves for the vast majority of the year) we see very few birds, although we can hear a great variety.  Once we go through this CD thoroughly, I think we’ll be ready for one that follows the list format, but for beginners like us, this seems perfect. Birding by Ear: Eastern and Central North America (Peterson Field Guides(R))

Educating the Charlotte Mason way means spending lots of time outside.  I’m 5-1/2 months pregnant, so I’m anticipating a hot summer.  My last baby, two years ago, was born in early September so we did the whole pregnant-all-summer thing then too.  Having a tiny baby in the summer is harder than being pregnant all summer, imo, because although I’m uncomfortable I’m not in danger in a reasonable amount of heat, but with a baby, particularly keeping it protected from mosquitoes, you do have to be careful. We go out early, and then again late.  There is one local park that has some shade for the play equipment, so we can play there.  There’s another park that has a water feature the kids can run through, and I think the last two summers (since we’ve lived here) we spent time almost every week at that park.  There’s a local walking trail that feels like we’re in the woods, and last time around we spent many mornings walking there, slowly, th...

Here are some thoughts I had while reading Chapter 18 of Volume 2. This part really reminded me of one important reason why we go outside, and why we make the effort to go to beautiful places: "We have in these few lines a volume of reasons why we should fill for children the storehouse of memory with many open-air images, capable of giving them reflected sensations of extreme delight. Our constant care must be to secure that they do look, and listen, touch, and smell; and the way to this is by sympathetic action on our part: what we look at they will look at; the odours we perceive, they, too, will get." CM spends quite awhile talking about Wordsworth’s poem "Tintern Abbey" and what that has to say to us about how important memories of beautiful places can be, and how those memories can evoke later feelings that have a positive effect on us even if we don’t realize it.  (You know, when *I* read "Tintern Abbey" in college, I just thought it ...