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 them once get in touch with nature and a ha “Let them 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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Curriculum Reviews, Homeschool, Homeschool Organization, Motherhood, Popular, Preschool at Home • May 29, 2020

Our Homeschool Year in Review (2019-2020)

*This post contains affiliate links.

Over the past several months I’ve received several questions about how our first year of homeschool is going. I’m delighted to report that we are loving every second. I do, however, want to go into more detail about what I’ve decided to do for my 4-year-old and her preschool and sort of Kindergarten-ish year (as we are calling it). So if you are at all interested in hearing more about home education and seeing how it looks every day for us, then read on! I also included a 25 minute video at the end of this if you prefer that medium!

Our Homeschool Year in Review (2019-2020)

I suppose I should share my approach to education as a whole before I dive into what we are doing this year. My plan (after several months of extensive research) is to guide my children through their education using both Charlotte Mason’s methods and Classical methods. I wrote all about my homeschool research resources here, so you can read about that, but basically Charlotte Mason methods require a lot of reading living books together and a lot of time spent in nature, and a lot of playing. Classical methods are more traditional memorization of specific subjects and/or phrases as they relate to the material studied. You’d think that they’re complete opposites, but it is my experience, after our year thus far, that they can go hand-in-hand.

Therefore, the majority of our homeschool year is reading novels, picture books, and poetry! We’ve also done some Bible passage reading and memory work, but it’s very minimal and very bite-sized. Lastly, we’ve engaged in lots of project-based learning and time outside with friends (crucial when you homeschool). I broke down a little explanation of each program or resource we’re using. Overall, I’m keeping our year very relaxed, and PLAY-BASED! (This last part is very important to me!)

 

Morning Time (The Bulk of our Learning)

Our morning time is my favorite part of our day! But for us, morning time looks different each year. I wrote about what we did for early childhood morning time last year here, when my eldest child was three. Now it looks a little different! Click here to see what our current morning time looks like!

We are using Gentle + Classical Preschool (Level 2) for our main morning time resource. It honestly serves as a wonderful morning time companion because everything is pre-selected. GCP Level 2 is where we got the memory statement cards you see on the board below. They’re just little reminders on display of what we are doing for the week. We call the board our “memory statement board” (which I believe is a very classical-esque term).

Here is a brief overview of morning time below, but I talk more in depth about Gentle + Classical Preschool and our preschool morning time in this post. You definitely will want to READ THAT FIRST BEFORE READING THE REST OF THIS POST to see how Gentle + Classical Preschool really is the bulk of our homeschool day!

 

Did you read about our morning time? Good! Then you have an idea of what we do every morning. This only takes about an hour, and it’s honestly the bulk of what we do. If you’re wondering about our other resources, though, read on!

 

WEEKLY SCHEDULE

The easiest way to outline what we do is to share our weekly schedule. Here it is!

Monday: morning time, beauty loop – peaceful preschool project, go over new materials (poem, letter, sight words, etc.) for the week

Tuesday: morning time, beauty loop – picture study (art)/composer study (music) alternating weeks

Wednesday: morning time, beauty loop – nature study (science)

Thursday: morning time, beauty loop – poetry tea time (see photo below)

Friday: nature group with friends (we don’t do morning time on Friday’s)

Everything else is fluid. Meaning the time we do literacy and handwriting simply aren’t written in. I know it seems crazy, but since my daughter is not even five yet, I let her take the lead, and so far it’s been extremely successful. She will bring her Dash Into Reading book (they’re small early readers similar to BOB books) and ask me to read with her. She’s basically learned how to pre-read in 3-4 sessions and now we are working on fluency and comprehension. I’m amazed at how naturally she’s learning things because I let her decide at her own pace. Same goes for handwriting. I planned on waiting another year or two to start Handwriting Without Tears (you can see more about it below) in a year or two but she will have days where she wants to practice 4-5 letters (which means 4-5 lessons at once. Then we won’t pick it up for a week. Then she will grab it again, and say “I want to do some writing.” I leave these resources out in our homeschool room, and she really does show me when she’s ready to learn them.

I can’t say that this will always be how we do things. But for Preschool this year, and maybe Kindergarten next year, it’s worked so well for our family.

 

01. Our Main Curriculum:

Gentle + Classical Preschool Level TWO was my top choice for a core curriculum. It doesn’t have a comprehensive math/language arts component, but it’s WONDERFUL for a gentle, Charlotte Mason-inspired, morning time heavy program! I HIGHLY recommend it! I talk more about it in this video.

 

Art-Picture Study/Music-Composer Study (Tuesdays, during morning time beauty loop)

So Gentle + Classical Preschool Level 2 comes with a stellar art/music pack. It truly is a gem. Composer study has been one of our favorite aspects of morning time, and the same goes for picture study! For music we are generally using the Story of the Orchestra text (which tells all about different composers and musical instruments) so we will read about the composer, listen to the chosen song, and learn about our new instrument. G + C Preschool 2 also has these wonderful Montessori learning cards that we love. We studied three composers, and three artists this year (per the Charlotte Mason recommendation!)

For picture study, we follow the Charlotte Mason method. I show my daughter the picture and without saying anything, I let her talk about it freely. She talks about what she sees, what time of day it is, what colors are in it. Then we turn it over and she discusses what she remembers from the picture. After, we take out the Montessori cards we have for those, and she sorts them and we talk about how our new painting is different/alike compared to the other paintings by that artist.

For music I just play the song for that week by our composer for that term (the Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach, for example) so that my girls recognize it and are exposed to it! That’s it! It’s simple and fun, and allows them to share in the beauty of art and music. It’s been so wonderful to watch G enjoy fine art and classical music at such a young age. She thoroughly enjoys it!

02. Our Secondary Curriculums:

-The Peaceful Preschool Project-Based Learning

We are using The Peaceful Press’s The Peaceful Preschool as a supplementation to the Gentle Classical Preschool program. I really like that The Peaceful Preschool is project-based, Montessori-inspired, and gentle for young toddlers. The program as a whole is also easy to follow with minimal prep. I follow it loosely but find the book recommendations and projects to be very relevant. My girls both love the stories every week. I also really like that they offer both gross and fine motor activities and there are life-skills written into the curriculum. It’s a great curriculum for younger kids too. N (1.5) honestly relates more to the content that G (4). I’m glad I bought it though because I can use it with both girls, and we love doing the projects together. Their book recommendations are also amazing!

 

-Literacy

So, we actually aren’t doing a literacy program this year. We’ve dipped our toes into the Dash Into Reading phonics program, but I’m not really interested in starting formal reading lessons until G is 5 or 6. I’m going to let her take the reins and decide when she shows a major interest in learning how to read. We did however learn all of her letter names and letter sounds through two main games we play. The first is just a flashcard game we played at morning time, consistently. The second is a song I made up for learning letter sounds. Through these two very informal avenues, she’s learned all of her letter names and sounds. This is good enough for me for both preschool and kindergarten!

-Preschool Math at Home

 I feel the same way about formal math that I do formal literacy lessons. I think both subjects are essential as a child gets older, but in the early years, I focus more on play. We have, however, covered several different math concepts from the kindergarten math standards for our state simply by talking to each other. She counts to 100. She knows all of her 2D and 3D shapes, and she’s mastered 1:1 correspondence. She can also subitize numbers. Honestly, we’ve loved learning all of these concepts in very natural ways.

Note: I purchased the book, Preschool Math at Home, in the beginning of this year, as a guide to help me in my natural integration of math concepts but quickly found out that my 4.5 year old already learned the concepts just by being home with me. I was pleasantly surprised, and do plan to keep it and use it in a couple of years with my 20 month old. It does have some wonderful games for teaching necessary math skills to young kids!

 

-Handwriting

Handwriting Without Tears came highly recommended by a few friends and I’m so glad we decided to get it. We are using the Kindergarten Level “Letters and Numbers For Me” book, and Gracie loves it. I wish I’d purchased a second workbook for her to practice in. The language they use to help children learn letter formation is incredible. It’s very easy to understand and remember. I also love the wooden pieces that you can purchase to help reinforce the letter formations. My 4.5 year old knows her letters but some of them she would write from the bottom up, etc, so I wanted to do a good program with her to help her practice forming them. This was an excellent choice, and as I mentioned above, we do this completely self-paced, so I don’t have it worked into our week. I leave the workbook out and she brings it over and asks to do it. When she asks, we work until she asks to stop. It’s been really good!

 

03. Nature Study

I am actually really loving our Nature study so much. We have one topic we focus on per week. For example, bumble bees or birds. We will usually try to read a living book about that topic and I occasionally read to her from our Nature Anatomy encyclopedia about whatever we are studying. Children find nature naturally fascinating, so we talk about it together a lot. After reading together, we go outside and go for a nature walk with that particular thing as our focus. I know this isn’t attainable for everyone. Sometimes we spend several hours outside with friends, and other days we barely make it to an hour (since it’s January, this is the norm, but we still make it out every day!) Either way, find a way to make nature study work! I promise it’s worth it! We then come inside and journal what we saw. The picture below is something my 4-year-old painted after we watched bees pollinating on a lavender bush in our neighborhood! The one below that is a simple sketch of a bird we saw on our nature walk!

Note: I wanted to use Gentle + Classical Nature exclusively, but we ended up not getting everything ready in time and I wanted to start simple. We use the memory statement cards and nature French cards from the Gentle + Classical Nature pack!

 

 

04. Piano Lessons

We are using the Keyndergarten Montessori Piano Lessons program! I highly recommend this for kiddos ages 3-4 and up! We love the engaging, hands-on Montessori-inspired lessons! G (4) has already learned so many key components of piano, and knows how to read the notes on the Treble clef! We will take this curriculum with us into our next year! Check them out if you’re interested in having your kiddo learn piano at home!

For anyone interested, this was the inexpensive keyboard that the creator of Keyndergarten recommended to us! I play piano, and don’t mind the semi-weighted keys 😉 It’s a great affordable option for a beginner!

 

05. Final Thoughts After Our First Year

Overall, I have to admit, I’ve fallen hard for homeschooling. I expected I would love the slow mornings, the read-alouds, and the spending every waking moment with my children. (Yes, I craved that.) But I what I didn’t expect was to grow so much as an individual. I’m soaking up so much as I learn alongside them, and it’s a total bonus to relearn what I never learned in public school or learn new and interesting things for the first time! I am also reading way more than I ever have, and it is so enjoyable! I also didn’t expect to see my daughter blossom the way she has simply by letting her be a child. She’s so much more comfortable outdoors than she was a year ago. We didn’t spend a lot of time outside before this past year, and it’s completely changed our family dynamic! She’s also in love with reading books and listening to us read. It’s helped expand her vocabulary in ways unimaginable. All we’ve done this year is simply lay out the feast for our two children to devour, and goodness they are delivering. It’s quite romantic to watch it all unfold!

Charlotte Mason says, “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life…” and I truly feel we are able to carry that out in our home school. I’m ever so grateful.

 

 

 

WATCH THE VIDEO WHERE I EXPLAIN ALL THESE RESOURCES HERE:

 

 

 

 

QUICK LINKS:

LINKS I MENTIONED: (affiliate links)

Gentle Classical Preschool Level 2: https://shopgentleclassical.com/?ref=yooojfm87z_

Gentle Classical Nature: https://shopgentleclassical.com/?ref=yooojfm87z_

Meaningful Menu: https://shopmeaningfulmenus.com/

The Peaceful Preschool: https://www.thepeacefulpreschool.com/the-peaceful-preschool

Preschool Math at Home: https://amzn.to/2ZUzK0y

Handwriting Without Tears: https://amzn.to/3gBlUGn

Dash into Reading: https://dashintolearning.com/

Keyndergarten Montessori Piano Lessons: https://keyndergarten.com/

BOOKS: (affiliate links)

A Charlotte Mason Companion: https://amzn.to/3doOr00

For the Children’s Sake: https://amzn.to/3gBzE3S

Read Aloud Book of Bible Stories: https://amzn.to/2XKfXhJ

The Ology: https://amzn.to/3dumYcY

Nursery Rhymes Book: https://amzn.to/2Mbe74b

Poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Classic Storybook Fables: https://amzn.to/2BczEqJ

Story of the Orchestra: https://amzn.to/2TUD5c7

The Artful Parent: https://amzn.to/2XO9tP3

Julia Rothman Nature Encyclopedias: https://amzn.to/2zKOswv

 

 

I hope this book about our homeschool preschool year was helpful to you! Thank you so much for reading!

Interested in homeschool? Read more about homeschool research resources in this post here.

Read about our simple morning time routine for young children here.

Read about our preschool morning time routine for 2020 here.

 

Are you new to homeschool? I run a membership for new homeschool families! It’s called Thriving at Home. You can learn more here.

JOIN THRIVING AT HOME

Filed Under: Curriculum Reviews, Homeschool, Homeschool Organization, Motherhood, Popular, Preschool at Home

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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 them once get in touch with nature and a ha “Let them 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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