The CMP Review — Week of September 16

September 16, 2024

“It is only as we rise higher we breathe more freely; it is only as years advance we find out that a mother’s power depends not on cleverness, ability, or gifts, but on love and faith. It matters much more to your children what you are than what you do. You fear to find your head under water, at the pace of higher education! The young ones learn so much you never learnt! It matters not. If you are in sympathy with them, if they know it, and see you to be single-minded, honest, painstaking, religious, you cannot lose your hold over them, you have all that is needed for success in your work. Only you must believe it. Believe in the power of your eye, your smile, your voice, your hand, and, above all, your heart. Let your children find in you a large haven of peace–the gates of the harbour always open–the waters within always at rest.” (“Child Nature”, PR3)

@tessakeath

September 17, 2024

I have sometimes thought that homeschooling is a bit like helping a child to pack for a journey. A very long journey, which requires lots of careful packing. But the day comes when the preparation is completed, and the child walks out the door. And then the parent wonders: did I do enough?

My homeschool graduate went on a long journey that took her very far from home. Although we saw her many times along the way, she was very much on her own. In the course of her journey, she grew as a person, she changed as a person, and she even changed her last name.

Recently Antonella Greco caught up with Anesley Johnson, née Middlekauff, for a discussion about how a Charlotte Mason education prepared her for college, college graduation, and life beyond. Listen in for some advice, some tips, but most of all for some encouragement. Find it here.

@artmiddlekauff

September 18, 2024

A few weeks into the new school year we might find our carefully devised schedule isn’t working. Sometimes it only needs a few tweaks or it may need a complete overhaul.

If this is the situation you’re in, we have free resources to help, such as:

• Parents’ Union School time tables. These are for each form, as well as a combined schedule to see what the various forms were doing at the same time.

• House of Education Students’ Schedule. This is a time block schedule Charlotte’s teaching students used that’s particularly handy for blocking out the week.

Audioblog/Articles:

• My Scheduling Journey by @artmiddlekauff. Art tells his own journey while exploring the principles that undergird the PUS time tables.

• I Tried Charlotte Mason’s Schedule for 30 Days. My discoveries from following Charlotte’s personal schedule, along with her schedule in table form.

Perhaps it’s a bit of wind beneath your wings you or your child is in need of:

• Idyll Schedule. Read all six of Miss Mason’s volumes in one year with this schedule.

• The Cloud of Witness. Reading schedule for the devotional Charlotte Mason gifted graduates of her teaching college.

• The Golden Key. Reading schedule for the children’s devotional written in the format of The Cloud of Witness.

@rbaburina

September 19, 2024

When Charlotte Mason explains what she means by “Education is the Science of Relations,” she says that “our business is not to teach [the child] all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of—‘Those first-born affinities That fit our new existence to existing things.’”

The image is that the child comes into the world with certain built-in affinities. These embryonic affinities have great potential. But they are also quite fragile. We want to help our child turn those affinities into life-long relationships and life-long loves.

The explanation includes a quotation. Mason does not tell us the source; she assumes we will know it. I was told that it was from William Wordsworth. It is a beautiful line, but little did I know “that this dear prize of mine was but a block hewn from a mighty quarry.”

Reading The Prelude and finding this line in context gave me a deeper appreciation for Mason’s twelfth principle. One of our first-born affinities is for poetry, and one way we make it valid is through recitation. It has been a joy for my son and me to store this passage our hearts. We cannot memorize the whole quarry. But we can hold on to this prize forever.

@artmiddlekauff

September 20, 2024

We were out doing school on our deck when our little neighbour friend called over to us “I know you’re doing school and I’m sorry to interrupt you, but you have to come see this very cool caterpillar!” Knowing an important reason to pause a lesson when we see one, we ran right over. Our two families observed him for probably half an hour, being careful to stay away from his spikey, prickly fur.

The bonus is that they have a glass patio table, so we got to see this little guy in all of his flashy glory. He certainly has a flair for the dramatic! Such attitude! (Swipe through to see it!)

We think it’s a Banded Tussock Moth caterpillar. Have you seen one of these before?

@antonella.f.greco

September 21, 2024

Many of you saw the devastation the flea beetles caused on my nasturtiums mid-August. Once there was nothing left but the skeletal remains of the plant, I threw those into my compost bin.

Well, look what I found, small but growing happily, stretching out of my compost bin!

@antonella.f.greco

In the introduction to her first poetry volume, Charlotte Mason explained her rationale. “Verse,” she explained, “offers a comparatively new medium in which to present the great theme. It is more impersonal, more condensed, and is capable of more reverent handling than is prose; and what Wordsworth calls ‘the authentic comment’ may be essayed in verse with more becoming diffidence.”

People often wonder what Charlotte Mason thought about prayer. There is a way to find out, and it is a way that is condensed and reverent. It is compact and beautiful. It is inspiring. It is a poem about the Lord’s Prayer. Read or hear it here.

@artmiddlekauff