One of my passions in life is studying geography and working with people from other countries. Because of this passion geography has always been a thread in our homeschooling. Some of it has been done formally via our history studies but much of it has also been done in co-op style classes or as family entertainment.

I have always meant to write about how my family has studied geography over the years but now I don't have to! Check out this ebook http://harmonyartmom.blogspot.com/2009/08/world-geography-for-high-schoolers.html . I nearly fell out of my chair when I read through this. It is *almost* exactly like how my family learned geography only we did it without a formal plan over several years. We even used many of the same books and most of the same videos. We never tried the Trail Guides though. When studying a country we would read about it, map it, watch a video on it, discuss the main aspects of the culture and religion of that country, eat foods that originated in that country, and listen to music from that country. Sometimes we'd toss in some handicrafting or art appreciation and a field trip or two. 

Now that I officially have no more children in the elementary grades I have been selling, donating and bartering curriculum and books like mad. The very last three sets I have left are for sale over on the Secular Charlotte Mason Facebook page. Go check it out!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Secular-Charlotte-Mason/355973785133?ref=ts" target="_blank">http://https://www.facebook.com/pages/Secular-Charlotte-Mason/355973785133?ref=ts

Today I am most grateful for my youngest's Charlotte Mason education. Here is a little example of why. Yesterday she was reading The Wanderings of Odyssseus in preparation for her literature class at a fellow CMer's house. She got to page 40, stopped reading and asked me to join her. She then asked if she could (verbally) narrate the story back to me...so that she wouldn't forget it by the time she got to class. I hear she did excellent in the class discussion and provided some valuable insights about the story. 

It just made my little heart all warm and fuzzy knowing that she is taking what she has learned via her at-home CM education and applying it to other settings and purposes. I think Ms. Mason would be quite pleased by this. I know that I am quite happy that my daughter has found a way of addressing her memory/recall issues that makes sense and works for her. Yay Kody Girl! I must admit that I never once thought of using narration to help her with this aspect of dyslexia. The more I see how CM style narration has impacted my kids the more I think it should be the core of any education, regardless of philosophy or style. 

I saw this article this morning and just had to share it. The girl featured in the article attended the same homeschool center as my kids and I have fond memories of having interesting conversations in the halls with her over the years. It just amazes me, and warms my heart, to see my kids' peers growing up and heading on to their life after homeschooling.

I've had the pleasure of watching Denna perform over the years and she truly is as wonderful as this article says. 

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2018321283_denna31.html

I saw this article this morning and just had to share it. The girl featured in the article attended the same homeschool center as my kids and I have fond memories of having interesting conversations in the halls with her over the years. It just amazes me, and warms my heart, to see my kids' peers growing up and heading on to their life after homeschooling.

I've had the pleasure of watching Denna perform over the years and she truly is as wonderful as this article says. 

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2018321283_denna31.html

As you will have noticed I have been very absent from this blog and the website in general. I think I have now recovered from the transition of having my "kids" turn into "teens" before my very eyes. Amazing how much they change during this stage of life! It really has made me think outside my usual homeschooling and parenting boxes! With that said I am hoping to have time to ease back into blogging. Since I am currently busy helping pull the 2012 OHEN Convention together I will start small with "What I am Grateful For" posts. I find that these posts help me the most in keeping a positive attitude about homeschooling, parenting and life in general. 

Today I am grateful for my middlest child. She is super spunky yet super shy, super smart but not academic, and she totally keeps me on my toes every single day of her life. Thanks to her I have learned to think WAY outside the box and to appreciate a broader flavor of life. Her compassion and connection with animals is remarkable and reminds me to slow down and really think about my own connection with the animal world. She truly is a "critter whisperer" that both wild and domestic animals are drawn to. She taught me that it is possible to see and taste music...something I would never have dreamed possible. She inspires me regularly and when I'm not busy being the worried mom I know that she will go on to have a wonderful adulthood because she is a wonderful person. 

So very grateful that life brought this unique, smart, quirky and fun girl into my life! She has taught me much. 

You can find her and her band over at https://www.facebook.com/sassfest" target="_blank">www.facebook.com/sassfest . 

Gina inspired me to learn more about learned helplessness and I found this great article about it.

http://wonderinthewoods.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/learned-helplessness/

Cori

Sorry for the spam in the forums. Looks like someone slipped past when requesting to be a member. I have deleted the people I suspect of this activity. If I have accidently deleted a real-live CM person just email me a paragraph about your homeschooling so I can tell you are real and I'll gladly reinstate your membership. Use the site email. 

Living an Educational Life, as opposed to schooling or unschooling, has been at the forethought of my thoughts lately. I've come to realize *this* is really how my kids learn so much. Even when we aren't "schooling" we are doing things that enrich our lives and therefore teach us things. This weekend was a prime example. 

We had the opportunity to spend four days at the coast in our friend's beach house. As a family we all agreed that, for once, this would be a nonworking, noneducational, do only what we feel like, stricktly relaxing trip. Something we rarely do. Most of our trips are planned around activities. We had a fabulous time and all of us can't wait to do it again.  We feel so recharged and that feeling is what most of us focused on. Funny thing is, now that I have high schoolers I have to do a lot more documenting so as we do things I tend to catalog them in my head for later retrival. I have to say as I look back on this weekend, without even trying, we added hours of several transcriptable subjects. The ability to do this is because of our living an educational life. Our kids are able to transfer what they learn in our relaxed CM schooling to all their avtivities without even trying. They automatically see the relationships and act upon them. 

This weekend we truly were focused on just having an enjoyable time as a family. Yet, here is what we can document from the weekend. (This is great for those who do live in states requiring documentation.)

PE: We walked miles and miles and miles. Much of it along beaches. The rest uphill, or so it seemed. Probably totalled 3 hrs. of really working out.

Astronomy: Since there was no broadcast tv we watched 2 Nova videos on space. The kids asked a lot of really good questions and there were some lively debates. Definitely at the same level as my high school astronomy class discussions. Tide is studying astronomy right now so this was actually her request. 

Nature Studies: We seemed most drawn to watching the birds this trip. They were everywhere! All kinds. We spent hours watching them and commenting on their behaviors. We have a few things to look up now that we are home since some of the brids acted differently than we expected. I never realized birds play so much! I was also impressed with how many plants the kids could identify from our previous trips and research. Drakon noticed a field that nearly everything in it could be used to make a soup. Too bad we did miss out on the Wild Gourmet's workshop Saturday. That would have been interesting and counted toward a health credit. 

Chemistry: We watched a glass blowing session that included a full description of everything they were doing and how the glass was changing throughout the process and why. We've seen these demos before but this one was superior in the detail of explanation. We learned so much and some of us now want to try it ourselves. It's nice that this happened the year the girls are studying chemistry. We also have more research to do since some of the explanations went over our heads it was so indepth. 

All without trying! We just did what we felt at the moment while living the educational life.

You may be wondering, how is this different from unschooling. It is quite different really. Living the educational life marries the idea of schoolwork (to lay down a foundation of knowledge that the kids can later act upon) and enriching our lives in multiple ways. It's a lovely cycle that feeds upon itself. Doing nature studies for years has trained my kids to observe the natural world around them and observing the natural world fosters their interest in doing planned nature studies. Seeing the glass blowing demo got everyone thinking about chemistry again and has motivated Tide to, finally, do our basic chemistry course. Just thinking about chemistry has now gotten her thinking about the chemistry of our handicrafts and hairstyling (yes, she's a teen girl so the chemistry of hair dye is of interest) which means she now has to do that chemistry course so that she can understand the chemical formulas in the dyeing books we just ordered. She will then use what she learned about dyes to dye her own fabrics and to host a tie-dye party using indigo and natural dyes in addition to the traditional vat dyes.

Living the educational life....it is a beautiful thing!

As many of you know, Cori, helps out with this blog and we often toss ideas back and forth about how to secularize Charlotte Mason. I am now happy to announce that Cori's excellent blog has gone secular!  I absolutely love how she approaches educating and raising her children. So, esp. if you have preschoolers or primary grades, be sure to head on over to her blog and see what she and her family are up to. It's one of my favorites, and as far as we know, the only secularized CM blog. 

http://wonderinthewoods.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/bike-ride-and-giveaway/

Gina

Thanks to Christina for posting this one on Facebook. This is *exactly* what I need for my girls who are studying history via art history!!!  I'm posting it here so I don't lose it but also in case it is just the ticket for anyone else. 

http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/educators.php?subPage=edu_guide&lang=english

As much as I love CM, I am also a fan of John Taylor Gotto as is my husband. JTG's theories on life and education match up much better with my rightbrainer child than CM and better reflects the entrepreneural spirit I grew up around. One of my personal goals for my girls is to figure out a way of combining the two philosopies. 

This talk is long and somewhat rambly but there are such gems of thought it's well worth listening to all the way to the end. I do think Ms. Mason would agree with JTG about some things like having a relationship with your community and nature, relationships within what you are learning and experiencing and that well educated people are never bored.

I've noticed that whenever I listen to JTG within my kids' hearing my RB child usually starts looking through books or working on some project. I suspect that something he says strikes a subconcious cord within her. 

http://www.altruists.org/static/files/Mudsill%20Theory%20-%20Jamie%20Escalante%20and%20the%20Lancaster%20Amish%20(John%20Taylor%20Gatto).mp3

One of the fun things KodyGirl and I have tried is making our own worm bins and self watering bins. The self-watering bins work great. Unfortunately the worm bins were not nearly as successful and ended up in unhappy worms with very little compost. Very sad since we have a lot of kitchen waste that needs composting. Now for the good news. The multilayer Worm Facotry  that I really really want is currently being offered in a giveaway. You can read all about it here http://creativecarissa.blogspot.com/2011/04/worm-factory-review-and-giveaway.html?showComment=1302886268000#c8329098488075869592 .  

Winning or making your own worm bin is a great way to get your gardening season off to a good start!

I've been doing some personal research on the similarities and differences between he secular and Christian CM worlds. I'm starting to think that there are even more differences than I initially thought but need much more info to determine if I'm onto something or just seeing something that isn't really there.

***Answering the following questions would help me grately as there is precious little information on how and why people choose a secular CM education.***

1. What was your path to CM? Was it a friend, a particular book, website, etc.?

2. What, specifically, do you love about a CM education?

3. Do you consider your homeschooling purely CM or eclectically CM? If eclectic, what do you combine it with?

4. Do you consider your family purely secular, religious/spiritual but use only secular materials, secular but use a mix of secular and religious resources, religious/spiritual and use a mix of secular and religious resources? If none of these fit you, feel free to just state your personal preference. 

My husband recently started having our entire family use Google Calendar. I was highly resistant because it is online, but today I became a convert. 

I absolutely *love* how easy it is to move items around on the schedule and the format that it prints out in is great for my list oriented visual kids. I also like that I can list chores, schoolwork and outside activities all in one place and for repeating items I just enter it once and set it up to repeat. So easy for the kids to see what they are suppose to be doing when. My husband pointed out that I could use the calendar lists to keep a record of how many hours the kids are doing schoolwork for the few classes that we are counting Carnegie hours for. All I need to do is tuck the daily lists into each child's high school organizer and count up the hours at the end of the year. Think this, combined with One Note may be just the ticket for my middlest's high school years. Wonder if I should have my son switch completely over to this rather than use his paperbased planner for spring term. 

What methods do you use to communicate daily tasks/coursework to your kids; esp. your teens?

Interesting.  ~Cori

http://childlightusa.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/changing-the-paradigm-by-jennifer-spencer/

I've been thinking about this for quite a while now and even started a discussion on the topic over on the SecularCM yahoo group. At the time the general consensus was that it is best to not have secular CM yahoo groups for each of the three stages since that would divide an already small population of homeschoolers.

After doing high school for the last 2 years I am rethinking this because I do think there is a need for a specifically secular CM high school group. The issues we run into are so very different than the issues we ran into with our younger kids.  I am on CM high school groups like House of Education but their approach is based on Ambleside Online and it just isn't providing me with the resources, ideas and support that I need as a secular CMer. I tried starting conversations on my forum specifically for HS but we just don't have enough activity on the forum to make it worthwhile. I know there are bloggers who write about this topic, but honestly, I tend to follow blogs only of people I know in person or are online "penpals" with so that isn't the best option for me.

Even though I know this is not true, I sometimes feel like I am the only one trying to incorporate more secular CM into the high school years. Even researching Ms. Mason herself is not providing me with the support I need since she tended to write more for the younger years and what she did write about HS seems geared more for her schools than for her governesses which is harder to translate into a homeschool setting.

So, my question for you all is:

Do you see a need for a high school specific yahoo group for secular CMers? I would love to hear your comments here, on the Secular Charlotte Mason page or via email. 

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You can use WorldCat to look up books, CDs, DVDs, curriculum, etc.  and see which of your local libraries carry  the title you are looking for. Perfect for those who have access to multiple library systems. 

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I have been getting a lot of questions about timelines lately so I thought it quite timely to learn that the Classical Home Education online store has updated one of their timelines. I have the original version and I use it quite a bit when planning out our history units. They help me quickly see where civilizations overlap when trying to determine what historical sequencing I want to use with the kids. 

Looks like this new update is intended to line up with History Odyssey for those who use that history program. As far as I can tell CHE is no longer carrying any other timelines. 

I came across the following article via Facebook. javascript:mox(); . I found it to be quite interesting. The title is somewhat misleading as they aren't actually talking about multiple choice testing as done via No Child Left Behind. Nope, instead they are talking about the old fashioned essay tests of my youth which are really just narrations that are graded. So, when you read this article and they are talking about the essay test just substitute the word narration in your head. 

I find it particularly interesting that the researchers compared essay tests to concept mapping. Concept mapping is a technique that was taught in EVERY single one of my teaching methods classes and was used extensively by my children's public school teachers. I confess to using it extensively my first two years homeschooling---until I realized it wasn't really helping my kids learn. I will say that concept mapping was effective for my son since writing was such a struggle for him but it wasn't nearly as useful for my girls who love to write. 

Like Howard Gardner, I had to do some serious rethinking of my methods and their outcomes. I'll have to look around and see what else he has to say about this study but it has definitely motivated me to do narrations with my kids.