Jessie - 10 months old

Jess, all dressed up in Mutti's beret. She looks so beautiful - how Mutti would have loved to have seen her wearing it!

Craig holding Jess up in a tree at the zoo, near the elephants. To get a better view, like Zaccheus, perhaps?


Jess munches on a stray piece of cucumber that dropped from the table while her esteemed older sisters were busily doing some chopping for me.

What is the Charlotte Mason approach?

"Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life." (Charlotte Mason's motto)

The more I read about homeschooling and all the various approaches, the more I'm drawn to Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy and practice. Here's a brief summary I got from the Simply Charlotte Mason website:

"Charlotte emphasized treating each child as a person, not as a container into which you dump information. She believed that all children should receive a broad education, which she likened to spreading a feast of great ideas before them. Charlotte encouraged parents to have an active role in teaching and training their children in academics, fine arts, faith, citizenship, and habits of character.

You can summarize Charlotte’s approach to education in three words. Charlotte believed that “Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life.” By “atmosphere,” Charlotte spoke of the environment our children grow up in. She knew that the ideas that rule our lives, as parents, will have a profound impact on our children. “The child breathes the atmosphere emanating from his parents; that of the ideas which rule their own lives” (Vol. 2, p. 247).

By “discipline,” Charlotte emphasized the importance of training our children in good habits — habits that will serve them well as they grow. In fact, she likened good habits to railroad tracks that parents lay down and upon which the child may travel with ease into his adult life. Good habits are a powerful influence on our children and must play an important part in their education. “It rests with [the parent] to consider well the tracks over which the child should travel with profit and pleasure” (Vol. 1, p. 109).

By “life,” Charlotte wanted to remind us that “all the thought we offer to our children shall be living thought; no mere dry summaries of facts will do” (Vol. 2, p. 277). And the methods that Charlotte used presented each subject’s material as living ideas. Here is where the reading, writing, and arithmetic come in, along with all the other school subjects. But notice two important points: first, they are presented as living thoughts; and second, those school subjects occupy only one-third of the big picture of education.

All three components of Charlotte’s three-pronged approach are vital in the education of our children. Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life. What a well-balanced, all-around approach!"

For more about Charlotte Mason and her approach to education, click here.

And if this grabs your interest, read her Educational Manifesto.

Working together

One of my favourite things is seeing my girls working together. I was so pleased this week when Emma decided to do a puzzle, got it off the shelf by herself, and started working on it without my help. Soon Amy finished the puzzle she was working on and climbed on the table to help Emma.


Yesterday we went to a bead shop and bought a few simple "bracelet kits". We worked on them just before lunch. Look how pleased the girls are with themselves:




Miss Amy wore hers proudly the whole day, but after we took this photo Emma insisted on keeping her bracelet in her pocket (I wonder if she's going to have the same indifference to jewelry that I have?!!)

Favourite websites

Ambleside Online
An online Charlotte Mason curriculum. The women who put this together are truly amazing!

The Educational Life
One mother's blog about homeschooling her four young children, using Charlottle Mason's approach.

Homeschool Curriculum for Life
The website of Wendy Young, an incredible South African woman. This is a really lovely website, and was my introduction to Charlotte Mason.

Montessori Mama
Wonderfully creative, clever ideas of things to do with children, the Montessori way.

What we're reading this month

I've just finished reading "A Charlotte Mason Companion" by Karen Andreola. Highly highly recommended for anyone interested in children and education.

My little helpers

Every day I see new opportunities in our home environment for the children to learn something or practice something, to gain new skills and with it, self-confidence and the sense that they are making a contribution to the family. And is there anything more wonderful than seeing a child grow in this way? It's a tremendous privilege to be at home with my girls and to nurture them - body, mind and spirit - during these years of incredible growth in every way.

This week for "practical life skills" we've been doing some cleaning activities (mopping and sponging), as well as more chopping and other food preparation in the kitchen. (One day Amy started out chopping tomatoes and next time I looked, she was squeezing the tomatoes to make tomato sauce - an extension of our "squeeze the sponge to get the water out" activities!)

The girls can't get enough of these types of activities - and of course, the more water that's involved, the better. Let them play with water a lot - they have such fun, they learn so much, and it's really easy to clean up (unless of course something expensively digital gets in the way)!

Baseball!

A few weeks ago we joined the McClarty family at the local sports field to play some baseball. With lots of kids and only a few adults who knew the rules of the game, a lot of fun was had by all!

Thanks for the pics, Cassey!

Church family camp

We had a wonderful time a few weeks ago at the church family camp. It took place at the CYARA campsite in the Magaliesberg and there was lots for everyone to see and do and experience. It's the first time that Amy and Emma have gone off for long periods of time to play without us being present all the time. It was a really nice break! It was also really lovely to see them, particularly Amy, connecting with slightly older friends - she followed them around the whole weekend. Puppy love and hero worship are the words that come to mind!

A camp, or any get away, is a great opportunity to connect with friends and acquaintances on a deeper level than just the "hi" and "bye" that all too often make up our interactions at church. Sharing three meals a day together really brings people closer!

Montessori environment at home

I'm working on bringing in a number of Montessori elements in our play/school room at home, e.g.: all activities have a home, a place where they are returned to after being worked with (I'm trying to teach the girls to only work/play with one activity at a time - what a challenge!!!), materials are neatly presented on a tray or in a basket, accessible to the children so that they can work independently.

The first picture shows my developing "Practical Life" section - with spooning, pouring, pegging, sponging and beading activities. There's also a basket (on the far left) with boxes of different shapes - the idea is to take all the lids off, shuffle them around a bit, and then have the child put the correct lid on each box. A great matching activity.







We recently added a shelf below the windowsill - on it are:
knobbed cylinder activity (only one, I still need to get the other three!)
and a few different wooden puzzles.


Then there's "Care of the environment" (not the planet - just our environment at home - do not despise the day of small beginnings!! We'll get to recycling etc later). At the moment I just have child-sized brooms, feather duster and mop, and a dustpan and broom. The idea is for the kids to be at least partly responsible for keeping their environment clean. This teaches not only responsibility, but is also great for gross and fine motor skills and best of all, the kids love it.


Emma struts around with a broom most of the time we're in the playroom these days - I guess that's what she needs to learn right now! My philosophy is: It's okay to make a mess, but the person who made the mess must be responsible for cleaning it up (with a little help from mom, of course).









Another key component of both the Montessori and Charlotte Mason (CM) approach is exposing children to really great art and music during their early years. And instead of teaching kids about great art, one should simply have these works form part of the child''s everyday environment. So, have the works of the great artists stuck on the wall at the children's level, and classical music (and other great music - does Cedarmont Kids: Toddler Action Songs count??!! That's our current favourite...sorry Mr Bach, we'll get to you soon...) playing in the background at mealtimes or in the car or whenever. I've done this with Vivaldi - for about six weeks we listened to a Vivaldi CD every morning when eating breakfast... next up is, you guessed it, Bach!


Here's my attempt: I took out a book about Van Gogh from the library, and had copies of four well-known pictures made and laminated. I've stuck three of these in the playroom , and one in the kitchen (on the cupboard next to where the "snack table" is).

Alphabet trays

I've been thinking alot about how to introduce the alphabet in a fun way, and the other morning came up with the idea of "the alphabet tray." Every morning I place a sandpaper letter on the tray together with at least two items starting with that letter. This way the girls can see the letter, trace around it with their fingers, hear and say the sound, and hear the letter in the context of a few words. The first day we (naturally!) did "a", and I placed an apple and a picture of Amy on the tray. The apple didn't last long!


The second day I put a ball and a bowl on the tray with the letter "b", and the today a picture of a cat, and a carrot, with "c". I think I'll repeat these three letters a few times until they've got the idea. We're only spending a few minutes on this a day, just to introduce the concepts.

Autumn craft

Here are Amy and Emma proudly showing off their Autumn crafts (made with toilet rolls, hand tracings, and leaves and flowers from the garden)...


"Look, Mom, I've got binoculars just like Grandpa Rob!"