Our Homeschool Journey part 2

In my first 'Homeschool Journey' posting I discussed how I created a schedule/system that has helped in me in balancing our home life with our schooling. I also mentioned which home school educators inspired me to further explore other academic options. In the next couple posts I would like to discuss some philosophies and resources that we have adopted over the years.

During those first years of homeschooling, there is such a learning curve. What I ended up doing was about every other year or so I would choose one philosophy to read and immerse myself in for a while. Then I would glean ideas, write them down and implement them a little at a time into our homeschool routine. Over these past years I have had to learn to be gentle and patient with myself as I've worked through each learning curve. These educational philosophies were developed for age segregated groups in institutional settings. After time and with experience I have learned how to take what worked for my family and leave the rest.

This is why I could never be a purist in any one method or philosophy. One of the first books that I ever read that really opened up my eyes to other approaches was called For the Children's Sake. It was here that I first learned about Charlotte Mason. Then I read my all time favorite homeschool book called Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home. It was here that I learned how easily Charlotte Mason's methods could be adapted to other educational styles. Miss Mason's methods are simple, natural and gentle on the surface but underneath they are so intellectually powerful. Some of my favorite Charlotte Mason books that I visit often for inspiration are:

  1. A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning

  2. A Charlotte Mason Education

  3. More Charlotte Mason Education

  4. Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series

  5. Pocketful of Pinecones: Nature Study With the Gentle Art of Learning

After being introduced to Charlotte Mason I became intrigued in seeing how other home educators had adapted her methods and philosophies into their educational systems and I became eager to develop my own style of education. Here are just a handful of those educators that utilize Charlotte Mason's methods in their educational system that I think are worthy of mentioning because they have all helped in paving the path to my own style of home education. Elizabeth Foss is one I mentioned in my first posting, but others were Karen Andreola, Valerie Bendt, Penny Gardner, Catherine Levision, Julie Bogart, Sally and Clay Clarkson and Marilyn Howshall.


One of CM's methods that I have adapted over the years that are a regular part of our studies are nature walks. From Spring through Fall we typically allow nature study to lead our 'science' studies but during the winter months we tend to do more hands on science experiments and gear our sciences to specific thematic studies. Some of my all time favorite nature study books are:


Another CM method we enjoy as a family is art and music appreciation. Resources we have used for our art appreciation studies have included:


For music appreciation there is a wide variation of resources we use from radio to library check outs but our favorite right now that we own are the Masters of Classical Music series.

In my next posting I will discuss other resources that I have implemented in our homeschool journey.
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