HOW I GOT STARTED & CHARLOTTE MASON

As I said in my last post back in April, it seems a lot of people are interested in homeschooling but, like I was, are petrified to take the leap. It's almost 5 years now since I started homeschooling and I have never looked back. This blog is to help people to understand why I made the decision to homeschool (something that is impossible to sum up in a few sentences) and what it is that we actually do eg; how do you get your children to learn when you don't have a teacher's degree and what is we do on a day to day basis.

I was influenced by the homeschool blog sites (Cherished hearts at home and Elizabeth Foss) I accidentally stumbled across while my children were still attending school. I was desperate for a change of lifestyle and listening to their stories, I started to see that maybe they were onto something that I didn't know about. I was very fortunate in that the one contact person whose number I was given at that time was a Charlotte Mason nut (I use that term affectionately); I'll never forget her words - "you have to buy the Charlotte Mason books and you have to "read-aloud" to your children every single day and don't let the housework or the ringing phone interrupt you." Being a complete novice I took her words as gospel. Of course, later on when I did venture out to homeschool groups I realised that that was only one point of view but clearly it was what I was supposed to be hearing at that time and it suited us completely. I see now that the CM method is probably almost completely responsible for the fact that I have a 10 year old daughter who is more obssessed with writing books than I am.

The central theme of the Charlotte Mason philosophy is that the mother is the reader of the books; all kinds of books but only good, well written books (not twaddle). When the children are young they are the big, picture book but as they grow older this transforms into books with more complex plots, characters, morals etc. and eventually you have the child reading books that they have written to you. Another aspect of CM is her Nature Study which is something I always wanted to invest time into but never quite got around to doing (being homebodies). Boys, especially, seem to benefit from this as they are lovers of the great outdoors and seem to have an infinite amount of energy that needs to be burnt off every day.

Last week we went to the Napolean Exhibition with our homeschool group at the NGV Melbourne. It was a wonderful, cultural experience.