Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival

It's my privilege to be hosting the latest Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival. Many thanks to all those who sent in contributions. I enjoyed reading them all and hope you all will too.

The topic for this particular round of the Carnival was Born Persons / Nature of a Child, reading from Chapters 2 and 3 in Volume 6 of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series, and many of the posts submitted were based around this theme.




First up we have Mama Squirrel at Dewey's Treehouse. Taking a comprehensive look at Charlotte's comments about Intellect, Imagination, Reason, Beauty and our children's natural intellectual desires, Mama Squirrel asks the question: "How do our children's schools, home schools, Sunday Schools, or other learning situations provide for a healthy balance of these mental servants and desires?"




Then we have Brandy at Afterthoughts
Brandy applies Charlotte Mason's emphasis on Atmosphere, Habit and Life to problems she is encountering in their daily Circle Time. This admission made me laugh: "Recently, my seven-year-old daughter kindly taught my four-year-old son how to fake burp. He has decided that Circle Time is the best time to practice his new talent. No matter how funny you do or do not think this is, I'm sure you can understand that it is emphatically not funny the five thousandth time, and during prayer at that!"



Nebby, over at Letters From Nebby, comments on two differing views of children prevalent in Charlotte Mason's day and takes it a step further, asking if our generation is guilty of 'micromanaging' our children's learning. She astutely observes:

It is as if we have said, “Children are naturally programmed to learn so much before age 3! Let’s maximize that by giving them this and that!” And we have forgotten that children are naturally programmed to learn and that they do the work; we need only provide the most basic food for their minds. 

Silvia writes a beautiful post about falling short of your ideal of the perfect homeschool. I love this quote from Silvia in her post: " there can be too much of focusing on the grass less greener in my side of the fence, at the risk of missing the beautiful flowers that are blooming in a shady corner."




Barb has lots of wisdom to offer us over at Harmony Fine Arts.  
She quotes Charlotte Mason:  "It has been proved that the joy of knowledge itself is enough to carry a child successfully and happily through all twelve years of school.”

Barb testifies to the wisdom of this saying of Charlotte's and invites us to look at three of her posts which expand on this theme of feeding children's minds with living books.



Nancy, writing over at Sage Parnassus, has offered us two posts. In the first, she gives eight lovely suggestions of books to read for the Lent and Easter season - which will soon be upon us as Easter is early this year.

In her second post, Nancy reflects on Charlotte Mason's comments that the authority we have as parents should be 'present but not in evidence', like the foundations of a house, and that it is both a gift and a grace





Lanaya over at Delightful Education completes her three-part series on her family's experience with pottery. If you're looking for some inspiration for what to do in handicrafts then head on over here - it's really interesting to read about the whole process from start to finish.

Still on the theme of handicrafts, Patti, writing at School Days Scrapbook, believes that drawing and painting are learnable skills, a bit like learning to ride a bike, and that it's worth persevering, even if you think you're 'artistically challenged'.


   Another Patti shares some thoughts on Mary Cassatt, Chopin and William Wordsworth at All Things Bright and Beautiful, as she is thinking about spending more time on Artist, Composer and Poetry study in their homeschool.





Amy, writing at Crossing the Brandywine, makes her debut at the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival with a very thoughtful and insightful post about 'Why "Focusing on the 3 R's" is Not the Best Approach'. She talks about what to do when you have a struggling reader, and I love what she says here:

You can't stay in emergency mode for long: it ignores the beauty of life.

Christine from Zing Day has an amazing opportunity to visit her State Capitol building with her kids and stand up and speak for the rights of homeschoolers. Read about her experience and see her photos here.


Amy, our honourable carnival hostess, puts forward some of her reflections on Chapter 2, asking "How can you test the mind?" You can read her full post here at Fisher Academy International.



Tammy, from Aut-2B-Home in Carolina, addresses a feeling that we all have: being pressed for time! Her solution? Restore your sense of awe. Read more about what she suggests here.


And last but by no means least, Carol from journey-and-destination reviews two of her favourite read-aloud books with her boys that were not only exciting adventure stories but also encouraged the family to delve further into the geography and history depicted in the books.


Well, I hope you all enjoyed this week's carnival! The next Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival will be held on February 19th over at Delightful Education and the theme will be 'Proper Use of Authority', continuing with our reading in Charlotte's Volume 6, this time looking at Chapter 4, which you can read here. For more information in general about the Blog Carnival go here.

Abide in Him!