This week I’m writing + filming about a hallmark This week I’m writing + filming about a hallmark of the Charlotte Mason method: narration. Have you ever heard of it? What would you like to know? 

I’m focusing heavily on how we use narration in our homeschool, but if you have specific questions about it, I would love for you to 1. Take the poll in my stories, and 2. Ask any questions you may have about narration in the comments so that I can answer them in my video! ❤️
Happy Mother’s Day! I especially want to encoura Happy Mother’s Day! I especially want to encourage those who are intentionally making a better life for their children than what they may have experienced as kids. It is not easy to change the cycle, but it’s well worth the effort. 

In the words of Louisa May Alcott, “A woman's happiest kingdom is home, her highest honor is the art of ruling it not as a queen, but a wise wife and mother."
📚 We are moving right along with term three of 📚 We are moving right along with term three of our school year. Slow but steady, we will finish up mid June and I’ll begin prepping for next school year in July and August! 📚

Here’s some of my random old and new tips + what I’ve been doing to help keep organized with the CMEC. 

01. Keep a regular day for nature outings or field trips. We have two days a week where I intentionally plan a hike or museum visit, etc. One is usually at the middle of the week and the other is at the end. It offers great variety to our weeks.

02. Notebook! I have had the girls consistently notebook this year, and it’s been such a delight to go back and see my form 1b student’s progress! I have a video coming out about how we notebook and why you should try it very soon! 

03. To stay on track with our morning timetable I’ve been writing the time we end each lesson in my logbook. It’s really changed how productive I am in making sure we get everything on our timetable done for the day. (I have a video on my logbook if you’re interested in learning more about that!)

04. And 05. Popsicle sticks! Friends, if you’re already a CMEC family, use these to help you choose which activities you review! I have on these for old singing games, French songs, folk dances or Swedish drill routines. I’ll share more on what I have on ours, specifically, but it’s fun because the girls and I get to be surprised rather than me choosing what we review!

06. Art instruction. Originally I had us doing three art lessons per week in the afternoon, but it didn’t allow for enough free choice, so we’ve reduced it down to one formal lesson a week for six weeks, then we change the method. So right now we are in week two of our chalkdrawing lessons. After six weeks we will switch to brush drawing instruction for the remainder of the term! As Charlotte Mason recommends, we draw from memory, model, and from imagination. 🌞

I hope this was helpful to you! So many of you guys are using @the.cmec next year! I am SO excited to see all of you at the online form meetings this coming year! 👏🏻 #thecmec #thecmecform1 #charlottemason
Do you keep your spices in a cabinet, on a shelf o Do you keep your spices in a cabinet, on a shelf or in a drawer? This drawer is right next to my stove and it’s my favorite way to store my spices! I reuse these little jars and fill them every couple of weeks with my bulk @azurestandard spices. 🧂
Are you planting a garden this year? What are you Are you planting a garden this year? What are you growing? Containers and raised beds? Or in ground? What do you plan to grow? Veggies? Flowers? We are doing a little bit of everything. 😍

It’s my third year growing food. (And ironically, our third house 😅) We just got our @greenstalkgarden planter, several @smartpots, and six raised beds that are ready to be filled next weekend. Really looking forward to this gardening season! 🥕🥬🥦🌽🌶🫑🫐🍓🥔
“Let then once get in touch with nature and a ha “Let then once get in touch with nature and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life.” -Charlotte Mason 

My kiddo had a birthday this past weekend. We do one main gift and a couple of small gifts; typically they’re  things they can use outdoors. Bikes have been a popular birthday item around here! My eldest wanted an apple tree last year. ☺️ But this year we got N a mud kitchen! Some friends of ours had one they built, and it inspired us. My kiddos have been playing on the forest floor in the mud for years now, but it’s exciting for them to have a little space in our garden for mud play. 🌳 What are some fun outdoorsy gifts you’ve purchased for your kids?
📚 When should I teach my child to read? How sho 📚 When should I teach my child to read? How should I teach my child to read? What does Charlotte Mason say about reading lessons? How did she teach children how to read? What curriculum do you use to teach your child how to read? 📚
These are all questions I answered in my blog post and video, “teaching reading the Charlotte Mason way” 📚 you can also swipe over to see some of my favorite CM quotes on teaching reading! 📚

I also shared what I do with my 3-year-old (which is very minimal) if you have younger children. You can view the post at the link in my profile! Are you up children school-aged? What do you use to teach reading?
I needed to accomplish a lot today. There was more I needed to accomplish a lot today. There was more unpacking and organizing to be done, pictures to be framed, meal planning to do, laundry that needed folding, bike rides to be had, meals to be prepared, sourdough to be prepped and lesson planning + pre-reading to do. Oh and dishes. So many dishes. 😅

I do essentially all of the inside housework aside from taking out the trash + recycle, but for a season my husband helped out while N was small by doing dinner dishes and sometimes even preparing dinner so I could nurse her after we ate. But as of late, I’m trying something new where I don’t ask my husband to clean up after dinner and instead I do it myself. I don’t mind it, and since my girls are old enough to get their own pj’s on now, I’ve been doing dinner clean-up (as well as lunch and breakfast clean-up and prep!) before I head upstairs to tuck them in, read them a story and sit with them while they fall asleep. Call me old fashioned, but I’m happy to do it, and I delight in my husband being able to enjoy some time with the girls after dinner instead of clean up a mess after a long day of working.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this post - I’ve felt pulled in so many directions today and it’s something I feel often, (and I’m sure so many of you can relate) but after five months without a home to care for and nurture I simply can’t feel frustrated or annoyed at my list of 10,000 things I need to do. Instead I pray my way through each task. I sip tea in between. I light a candle and wear my great-grandmother’s apron as I work. I read notes like the one my six-year-old left for me this morning and I weep tears of gratitude and joy. Happy Sunday, my friends. ❤️ 
.
(swipe to read her note 🥰 + a transcription in the comments!)
Remember that word we heard so often when we were Remember that word we heard so often when we were parenting infants? Attachment.  What comes to mind? Breastfeeding on demand. Co-sleeping. Babywearing. All of those things that come pretty natural to us when taking care of a baby. But did you know that attachment doesn’t just end when your child gets bigger? Attachment is actually necessary THROUGH adolescence. 😳

Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté is a brilliant book that stopped me in my tracks. The book addresses the severe lack of attachment to parents that is incidentally replaced by an attachment to peers. I wrote all about it on my blog, but if you swipe over you can see a few passages that I underlined, highlighted, and wrote down in my notebook. 

Peer culture is more prevalent than ever. Not only because our society now prefers it that way, but because of social media’s ability to unite our youth in an unprecedented way. What we need is a shift in how we pass down culture to our kids from a horizontal attachment (peer to peer) back to a vertical attachment (family to child). I’ve often felt this long before I read this book, but we prioritize our Children’s friendships and relationships with others before we prioritize their relationships with us. We don’t value the family unit the way we used to decades ago, and it’s to the detriment of our children. 

I will gift this book to every new parent I meet from now on because of the wisdom the authors share. I wish all parents would read it so we could be on the same page as a society and those of us who choose to hold on to our kids wouldn’t be going against the grain. So this is my plea to you. If anything I’ve said piqued your interest, or struck a chord, please read Hold On To Your Kids! ✨

(For those of you who have read it! Share your thoughts with us! Help me convince everyone to read it! 👏🏻)
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Mom Style, Style • October 23, 2017

Getting Fitted for the Right Bra Size + Tips for Trying on Bras

Thank you Le Mystere for sponsoring this post. I appreciate you supporting the brands that help support this community.

Shop these products: Infinite t-shirt bra | The perfect 10 bra | Transformative t-shirt bra

Did you know that 8 out of 10 women are wearing the wrong bra size? I am extremely embarrassed to admit, that I was one of those 8 women up until I had a fitting session at my local Dillard’s. However, I cannot describe how enlightening the experience was for me. I met with a fit check master, and she helped measure my current bra size (this number does change, you know) and we chose the right types of bras for my body type. Keep reading to learn about my amazing experience, and tips on what to remember when you go try on bras.

Shop these products: Transformative t-shirt bra

Shop these products: The perfect 10 bra

THE FIT CHECK EXPERIENCE | WHY IT’S DIFFERENT:

The fit check experience was THE most thorough bra try-on experience of my life. In the past, I’d had my bra size measured at other stores, but all they did was take me in a dressing room and wrap a tape measure around my bosom and tell me a bra size and sent me on my way. I remember feeling so overwhelmed with all of the types of bras and choices that were available with no guidance.

I could not believe how thorough the specialist was when we did the check. The experience was so wonderful and informative from start to finish. She began by asking me what bra size I’d been wearing currently. I told her, then she continued the session by taking a measurement of my bosom. Her measurement was completely different from the size I’ve been wearing for the last four years. I’d been wearing the wrong size bra for so long, so my mind was blown from the very beginning. She told me that it’s very common for women to wear the wrong size bra and have no idea!

She then brought out several styles and colors of bras for me to try on. Only, I didn’t have to put them on or take them off; she did it all. I was puzzled at first, but then I realized that she was coaching me on how to put a bra on because I had been putting bras on the wrong way pretty much my whole life. (See my tips for trying on bras below for the right way to put on a bra.)

I literally could not believe how good it felt to try on a bra that fit me. The specialist gave me tons of tips while trying on; all of which I share below!

LeMystere and Dillard’s are hosting a Bra Fit event this November. This event will benefit the National Breast Cancer Foundation and Dillard’s will be donating a portion of what is purchased  in the intimate apparel department to the foundation. Check with your local Dillard’s on how you can schedule an appointment with a fit specialist so you can feel as enlightened as I do now and give back to a great cause.

Shop these products: Transformative t-shirt bra

TIPS FOR TRYING ON BRAS

Lean over when you put the bra on. The most important thing to remember when putting on a bra is that you need to lean over so that you can put all of your breast tissue into the cups. If you wear a cup size that’s too small, you will damage that tissue!

Snap the bra at the loosest clasp. This ensures that as the bra loosens naturally with wear, you can tighten it accordingly. (Coolest tip ever, and I had no clue was it a thing!)

The straps should NOT be what hold the bra in place. Here’s how to know whether a bra fits you well — take off the straps and just leave the middle part buckled. If it stays put, then the bra fits well. If the bra needs to be held up by the straps, then it’s too big! (Another tip that I was completely in awe of.)

Try every bra on before you buy – especially when it comes to different styles. With each bra, the fit check specialist explained the style of bra, and modified the size with sister sizes a bit depending on that. I had no idea that a 34D is a sister to 32DD. Each bra style is different, so it’s essential to try every one on!

Shop these products: Infinite t-shirt bra

I hope this post was helpful to you! Please let me know if you have any questions. I’d be happy to chat!

Thank you so much for reading!

Filed Under: Mom Style, Style

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I'm Larissa. A mama to daughters and wife to my college sweetheart. I am passionate about sustainable fashion, whole foods recipes, and Charlotte Mason home education. I also love being outdoors with my family. You can usually find me sporting a wide-brimmed hat, with a baby on my back.

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This week I’m writing + filming about a hallmark This week I’m writing + filming about a hallmark of the Charlotte Mason method: narration. Have you ever heard of it? What would you like to know? 

I’m focusing heavily on how we use narration in our homeschool, but if you have specific questions about it, I would love for you to 1. Take the poll in my stories, and 2. Ask any questions you may have about narration in the comments so that I can answer them in my video! ❤️
Happy Mother’s Day! I especially want to encoura Happy Mother’s Day! I especially want to encourage those who are intentionally making a better life for their children than what they may have experienced as kids. It is not easy to change the cycle, but it’s well worth the effort. 

In the words of Louisa May Alcott, “A woman's happiest kingdom is home, her highest honor is the art of ruling it not as a queen, but a wise wife and mother."
📚 We are moving right along with term three of 📚 We are moving right along with term three of our school year. Slow but steady, we will finish up mid June and I’ll begin prepping for next school year in July and August! 📚

Here’s some of my random old and new tips + what I’ve been doing to help keep organized with the CMEC. 

01. Keep a regular day for nature outings or field trips. We have two days a week where I intentionally plan a hike or museum visit, etc. One is usually at the middle of the week and the other is at the end. It offers great variety to our weeks.

02. Notebook! I have had the girls consistently notebook this year, and it’s been such a delight to go back and see my form 1b student’s progress! I have a video coming out about how we notebook and why you should try it very soon! 

03. To stay on track with our morning timetable I’ve been writing the time we end each lesson in my logbook. It’s really changed how productive I am in making sure we get everything on our timetable done for the day. (I have a video on my logbook if you’re interested in learning more about that!)

04. And 05. Popsicle sticks! Friends, if you’re already a CMEC family, use these to help you choose which activities you review! I have on these for old singing games, French songs, folk dances or Swedish drill routines. I’ll share more on what I have on ours, specifically, but it’s fun because the girls and I get to be surprised rather than me choosing what we review!

06. Art instruction. Originally I had us doing three art lessons per week in the afternoon, but it didn’t allow for enough free choice, so we’ve reduced it down to one formal lesson a week for six weeks, then we change the method. So right now we are in week two of our chalkdrawing lessons. After six weeks we will switch to brush drawing instruction for the remainder of the term! As Charlotte Mason recommends, we draw from memory, model, and from imagination. 🌞

I hope this was helpful to you! So many of you guys are using @the.cmec next year! I am SO excited to see all of you at the online form meetings this coming year! 👏🏻 #thecmec #thecmecform1 #charlottemason
Do you keep your spices in a cabinet, on a shelf o Do you keep your spices in a cabinet, on a shelf or in a drawer? This drawer is right next to my stove and it’s my favorite way to store my spices! I reuse these little jars and fill them every couple of weeks with my bulk @azurestandard spices. 🧂
Are you planting a garden this year? What are you Are you planting a garden this year? What are you growing? Containers and raised beds? Or in ground? What do you plan to grow? Veggies? Flowers? We are doing a little bit of everything. 😍

It’s my third year growing food. (And ironically, our third house 😅) We just got our @greenstalkgarden planter, several @smartpots, and six raised beds that are ready to be filled next weekend. Really looking forward to this gardening season! 🥕🥬🥦🌽🌶🫑🫐🍓🥔
“Let then once get in touch with nature and a ha “Let then once get in touch with nature and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life.” -Charlotte Mason 

My kiddo had a birthday this past weekend. We do one main gift and a couple of small gifts; typically they’re  things they can use outdoors. Bikes have been a popular birthday item around here! My eldest wanted an apple tree last year. ☺️ But this year we got N a mud kitchen! Some friends of ours had one they built, and it inspired us. My kiddos have been playing on the forest floor in the mud for years now, but it’s exciting for them to have a little space in our garden for mud play. 🌳 What are some fun outdoorsy gifts you’ve purchased for your kids?
📚 When should I teach my child to read? How sho 📚 When should I teach my child to read? How should I teach my child to read? What does Charlotte Mason say about reading lessons? How did she teach children how to read? What curriculum do you use to teach your child how to read? 📚
These are all questions I answered in my blog post and video, “teaching reading the Charlotte Mason way” 📚 you can also swipe over to see some of my favorite CM quotes on teaching reading! 📚

I also shared what I do with my 3-year-old (which is very minimal) if you have younger children. You can view the post at the link in my profile! Are you up children school-aged? What do you use to teach reading?
I needed to accomplish a lot today. There was more I needed to accomplish a lot today. There was more unpacking and organizing to be done, pictures to be framed, meal planning to do, laundry that needed folding, bike rides to be had, meals to be prepared, sourdough to be prepped and lesson planning + pre-reading to do. Oh and dishes. So many dishes. 😅

I do essentially all of the inside housework aside from taking out the trash + recycle, but for a season my husband helped out while N was small by doing dinner dishes and sometimes even preparing dinner so I could nurse her after we ate. But as of late, I’m trying something new where I don’t ask my husband to clean up after dinner and instead I do it myself. I don’t mind it, and since my girls are old enough to get their own pj’s on now, I’ve been doing dinner clean-up (as well as lunch and breakfast clean-up and prep!) before I head upstairs to tuck them in, read them a story and sit with them while they fall asleep. Call me old fashioned, but I’m happy to do it, and I delight in my husband being able to enjoy some time with the girls after dinner instead of clean up a mess after a long day of working.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this post - I’ve felt pulled in so many directions today and it’s something I feel often, (and I’m sure so many of you can relate) but after five months without a home to care for and nurture I simply can’t feel frustrated or annoyed at my list of 10,000 things I need to do. Instead I pray my way through each task. I sip tea in between. I light a candle and wear my great-grandmother’s apron as I work. I read notes like the one my six-year-old left for me this morning and I weep tears of gratitude and joy. Happy Sunday, my friends. ❤️ 
.
(swipe to read her note 🥰 + a transcription in the comments!)
Remember that word we heard so often when we were Remember that word we heard so often when we were parenting infants? Attachment.  What comes to mind? Breastfeeding on demand. Co-sleeping. Babywearing. All of those things that come pretty natural to us when taking care of a baby. But did you know that attachment doesn’t just end when your child gets bigger? Attachment is actually necessary THROUGH adolescence. 😳

Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté is a brilliant book that stopped me in my tracks. The book addresses the severe lack of attachment to parents that is incidentally replaced by an attachment to peers. I wrote all about it on my blog, but if you swipe over you can see a few passages that I underlined, highlighted, and wrote down in my notebook. 

Peer culture is more prevalent than ever. Not only because our society now prefers it that way, but because of social media’s ability to unite our youth in an unprecedented way. What we need is a shift in how we pass down culture to our kids from a horizontal attachment (peer to peer) back to a vertical attachment (family to child). I’ve often felt this long before I read this book, but we prioritize our Children’s friendships and relationships with others before we prioritize their relationships with us. We don’t value the family unit the way we used to decades ago, and it’s to the detriment of our children. 

I will gift this book to every new parent I meet from now on because of the wisdom the authors share. I wish all parents would read it so we could be on the same page as a society and those of us who choose to hold on to our kids wouldn’t be going against the grain. So this is my plea to you. If anything I’ve said piqued your interest, or struck a chord, please read Hold On To Your Kids! ✨

(For those of you who have read it! Share your thoughts with us! Help me convince everyone to read it! 👏🏻)
I promised I would share how I teach foreign langu I promised I would share how I teach foreign language the Mason way✨

When my oldest (now 6) was younger we loved and used @theculturedkid but since beginning formal lessons we’ve switched to this wonderful book by @cherrydalepress. 

Mason recommends that students learn 5-6 new French words a day and that they use them frequently. She writes in Home Education, “…children should learn French orally, by listening to and repeating French words and phrases; that they should begin so early that the difference of the accent does not strike them, but they repeat the French word all the same as if it were English, and use it freely…” (p. 80) she then writes about how important it is to employ the use of French vocabulary words during time out-of-doors. My kids and I have taken this to heart, because it isn’t uncommon for us all to be walking along the hiking trail, singing our French folk songs together. It’s something I’ll remember that we do together for many years. 

The Cherrydale Press program allows the child to learn common phrases, orally, a bit at a time. Along the way, they learn common verbs and vocabulary. 

Each “series” lasts about 2 weeks.
So here is the process we go through in that time:

01. We practice and memorize the English phrases. 
Here’s an example: 
I take the book.
I open the book.
I close the book.
So we say the phrases as we ACT THEM OUT, which is crucial to this method of learning French and retaining it! It’s helped me tremendously as a non-native speaker.

02. We then learn the French verbs from those phrases in French: je prends, j’ouvre, and je ferme. We memorize how to say them and act them out!

03. We learn the whole thing in French as we act it out. 
Je prends le livre.
j’ouvre le livre.
je ferme le livre.

After my daughter can say/act them without error, on her own, we move on to the next series!

Thanks to The Living Page, I keep a French notebook where I record the phrases or words we learn! (That’s what I shared in my stories the other day!)

In addition to this program, we have two French folk songs, one French vocabulary song per term (we sing daily) and a story we listen to in French, thanks to @the.cmec and their support!

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