What is 'Charlotte Mason' and Why are we chosing this?

So I'm spending my afternoon researching how on earth I plan to homeschool next year, and what on earth I plan to use! Knowledge is certainly power, and without knowledge man shall surely fade away. My eldest child (A) has been sick today, my youngest child (Z) is thrilled that his sister is home. We've played, rested, napped and are playing again. I so enjoy being with my Mini-Alphabet.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy & z...


What is 'Charlotte Mason' and Why are we chosing this?
"First and foremost, Charlotte Mason is a 12-year Christian Character Building curriculum. Books are chosen not for cultural literacy so much as the literary quality with which they were written, and even more, their ability to develop the whole person and inspire his character. For all those years that children are getting a CM education, what's really being trained more than anything else is their character. Students receiving a CM education don't need any character building program because the entire curriculum is geared towards building character with the use of personal habits, quality books, teacher guidance, the work of the Holy Spirit and personal reflection."
(http://www.amblesideonline.org/FAQ.shtml)

More later...

...Now Later: Two Types of HS Approaches:
"The Unit Study Approach

A Unit Study takes a theme or topic (a unit of study) and delves into it deeply over a period of time, integrating language arts, science, social studies, math, and fine arts as they apply. Instead of studying eight or ten separate, unrelated subjects, all subjects are blended together and studied around a common theme or project.

For example, a unit study on birds could include reading and writing about birds and about famous ornithologists (language arts), studying the parts, functions, and life cycles of birds and perhaps even the aerodynamics of flight (science and math), determining the migration paths, habitats, and ecological/sociological impact of birds (social studies), sketching familiar birds (art), building bird houses or feeders ("hands on" activities) and so forth.

Several fine prepared unit study curricula are available, but it is easy to prepare your own unit studies around areas of interest. History is the logical core curriculum to build ongoing unit studies around. History provides a framework for all the other subjects because it follows a progression and covers every other subject (except possibly math), like art, music, science, literature, etc.

Here are some questions to ask yourself before trying unit studies with your children:

1. Am I a creative person?
2. Do I like trying to make everything interesting and fun?
3. Do my children have a variety of interests and learning styles?
4. Can I live with the fact that there may be “gaps” in my children’s education?
5. Do I have the time and energy to be the driving, creative force behind the development of units?

Strengths of the Unit Study Approach:
 All ages can learn together
 Children can delve as deeply or as lightly into a subject as they like
 The family’s interests can be pursued
 Students get the whole picture
 Curiosity and independent thinking are generated
 Intense study of one topic is the more natural way to learn
 Knowledge is interrelated so is learned easily and remembered longer
 Unit studies are fairly easy to create

Weaknesses of the Unit Study Approach:
 It is easy to leave educational “gaps”
 Hard to assess the level of learning occurring
 Record keeping may be difficult
 Prepared unit study curricula are expensive
 Do-it-yourself unit studies require planning
 Too many activity-oriented unit studies may cause burn-out of teacher and student
 Subjects that are hard to integrate into the unit may be neglected

The Living Books Approach

The Living Books Approach is based on the writings of Charlotte Mason, a turn-of-the-century British educator. Miss Mason was appalled by several tendencies she noticed in modern education: (1) the tendency to treat children as containers to be filled with predigested information instead of as human beings; (2) the tendency to break down knowledge into thousands of isolated bits of information to be fed into “container” children; and (3) the tendency to engineer artificial learning experiences.

Mason believed in respecting children as persons, in involving them in real-life situations, and in allowing them to read really good books instead of what she called “twaddle”—worthless, inferior teaching material. She considered education a failure when it produced children able to “do harder sums and read harder books” who lacked “moral and intellectual power.” Children were to be taught good habits, to be involved in a broad spectrum of real-life situations, and given ample time to play, reflect, and create.

Mason's approach to academics was to teach basic reading, writing, and math skills, then expose children to the best sources of knowledge for all other subjects. This meant giving children experiences like nature walks, observing and collecting wildlife; visiting art museums; and reading real books with “living ideas.” She called such books “living books” because they made the subject "come alive" unlike textbooks that tend to be dry and dull and assume the reader cannot think for him/herself.

Here are some questions to ask yourself before trying the Charlotte Mason method:

1. Does our family love to read, both alone and together through reading aloud?
2. Do we love to go to the library?
3. Am I comfortable with more of a “free-form” approach to learning?
4. Will I follow through with teaching my children good habits and character qualities?
5. Do I trust my children to learn on their own?
6. Will I follow through with exposing my children firsthand to nature and to great art?

Strengths of the Living Books Approach:
 Treats children as active participants in the learning process
 Exposes children to real objects and books instead of interactions with distilled information
 Encourages curiosity, creative thinking, and a love of learning
 Eliminates meaningless tasks, busywork
 Developmentally appropriate
 Stresses formation of good character and habits

Weaknesses of the Living Books Approach:
 Tends to be very child centered
 Very little prepared curriculum
 May neglect higher level studies because of its emphasis on art, literature, and nature study
 May become too eclectic "
(http://www.homeschoolmarketplace.com/e-zines/ejournalapr2706.htm)