Excerpted and adapted with permission from The Outdoor Life of Children, Volume Two of the Charlotte Mason Topics series.
“OUT-OF-DOOR GEOGRAPHY”
Small Things May Teach Great
This pleasant earth of ours is not to be overlooked in the out-of-door education of the children. ‘How do you get time for so much?’ ‘Oh, I leave out subjects of no educational value; I do not teach geography, for instance,’ said an advanced young theorist with all sorts of certificates. Continue reading
Ideas and Books: The Means of Education
Author: Charlotte Mason
Series: Charlotte Mason Topics – Vol. 3
Paperback: 80 pages
Publisher: Simple Pleasures Press
Released: August 27th, 2015
ISBN-10: 1508964696
ISBN-13: 978-1508964698
Foreword: Deborah Taylor-Hough
List Price: $7.99
To order your copy of Ideas and Books: The Means of Education via Amazon.com, simply click on the book cover’s image or click here.
ABOUT THE BOOK Continue reading
The Child Should Be Made Familiar with Natural Objects
by Charlotte Mason
Excerpted from The Outdoor Life of Children
An Observant Child Should be Put in the Way of Things Worth Observing
But what is the use of being a ‘very observant child,’ if you are not put in the way of things worth observing? And here is the difference between the streets of a town and the sights and sounds of the country. There is plenty to be seen in a town and children accustomed to the ways of the streets become nimble-witted enough. But the scraps of information to be picked up in a town are isolated fragments; they do not hang on to anything else, nor come to anything more; the information may be convenient, but no one is the wiser for knowing which side of the street is Smith’s, and which turning leads to Thompson’s shop. Continue reading
Charlotte Mason was a British educator from the early part of the last century. Her methods and philosophies have recently experienced a resurgence—especially among American homeschooling families.
Simple Pleasures Press is pleased to be bringing Charlotte Mason’s six-volume set of poetry on the life of Christ back into print, as well as publishing the Charlotte Mason Topics series (excerpted and adapted from her original writings on the topic of education).
Mason’s emphasis on developing a lifetime love of learning was in stark contrast to the almost anti-child climate of her time.According to a World Wide Education Service (WES), pamphlet Charlotte Mason lived in an era when … Continue reading
The following is excerpted and adapted with permission from A Twaddle-Free Education: An Introduction to Charlotte Mason’s Timeless Educational Ideas (Simple Pleasures Press, 2015).
Over the years, I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve had newbie homeschooling moms cry on my shoulder about all the myriads of choices available for home education curriculum and supplies.
“We’re just a struggling single income family! We can’t afford all this awesome sounding stuff! But I want to give my children a rich and wonderful educational experience! What do I do?” Continue reading
The following excerpt is from the book, Habits: The Mother’s Secret to Success, by Charlotte Mason: a compilation of Mason’s writings on the topic of habit formation in children.
We Think as We are Accustomed to Think
How does this bear on the practical work of bringing up children? In this way. We think, as we are accustomed to think; ideas come and go and carry on a ceaseless traffic in the rut— let us call it—you have made for them in the very nerve substance of the brain. You do not deliberately intend to think these thoughts; you may, indeed, object strongly to the line they are taking (two ‘trains’ of thought going on at one and the same time!), and objecting, you may be able to barricade the way, to put up ‘No Road’ in big letters, and to compel the busy populace of the brain-world to take another route. Continue reading
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