Homeschooling
What are your goals for educating your children? Some of ours are protecting their sense of wonder, strengthening their power of imagination, disciplining their minds through academic rigor, giving them a solid foundation of good habits - particularly the habit of paying close attention, exposing them to beauty through the arts and developing in them the ability to listen to nature. When you put this together with a love of books, you arrive very enthusiastically at the door of the Charlotte Mason approach of (home) education. Below are some of our most used links.
A Charlotte Mason Approach to Home Education
Ambleside Online - Ambleside offers a high quality, very well thought out Charlotte Mason curriculum free of charge. Each level has a list of books and resources along with an optional 36 week schedule. In addition you can find Picture Study, Composer Study, a Plutarch study guide and other additions that bring richness to any curriculum. Ambleside also offers many articles as well as a wealth of Yahoo support lists which provide advice, insight, direction and support from moms/teachers with a tremendous amount of experience, knowledge and commitment. We just love using this curriculum here and have found great enjoyment and benefit from it.
Charlotte Mason 101 - This is a very informed collection of articles and links ranging from "beginner" to "advanced" Charlotte Mason ideas, methods and training.
The Original Homeschooling Series by Charlotte Mason - Apparently Charlotte Mason's books are not easy to find yet it is so important to read her own words when learning about her methods and philosophy. Here you may read summaries of each of the six books, read each of the six books themselves as well as listings of various mottos and principles. What is especially unique - and I am sure critically helpful for many today - are intelligent and informed renderings of Charlotte's books into modern English.
Penny Gardner's Charlotte Mason web site - Penny describes herself as "an enthusiastic fan of Charlotte Mason's innovative concepts" and has many articles on the Charlotte Mason approach on her site. She is also the author of Charlotte Mason Study Guide: A Simplified Approach to a Living Education, Italics: Beautiful Handwriting for Children as well as a series of music books for the Nine-Note Recorder. I appreciate the Study Guide because it gives a nice overview of Charlotte Mason's philosophy as well as quotes from her six volume work by topic. It is a great quick reference. We have also used the handwriting book very effectively and plan to try the recorder books as soon as time permits.
Resources for Homeschoolers: Charlotte Mason Links
Simply Charlotte Mason - This site is run by two homeschooling moms with eight children and over 20 years Charlotte Mason experience between them. Karen and Sonya offer ideas, tools, books, organizers, curricula guides, an email list as well as workshops to families employing the Charlotte Mason approach to education. A useful and inspiring web site. Perhaps you might start by reading their free e-book entitled Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life.
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A Dash of the Classical Approach to Education
Trivium Pursuits - All the Bluedorn family members are passionate advocates for Christian Classical Home Education. Whether or not you are Christian, they have much to offer in terms of scholarship, experience and materials. Their book Teaching the Trivuim is well regarded and has a special permanent place on my bookshelf. It does include a section on combining classical and Charlotte Mason approaches, by the way. The web site is well stocked with informative articles, including The Trivium and Charlotte Mason. Their email list fairly bristles with intelligence and I have gleaned many a point of view and resources through it.
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Critical Thinking Skills
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Discover the Vitality of Math
Climbing Around on the Tree of Mathematics - This is an engaging essay by mathematician Dan Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy is on the faculty of Baylor College and worked with the AP Calculus Committee. Here he ruminates about the nature of the mathematical field and how that relates to teaching math to modern students. He notes an important trade off situation at the end of his essay that, while it may be have to be true for public school students these days, I don't think has to be true for carefully taught homeschool students.
For
Homeschool Teachers:
What Do You Need to Know to Teach Your Child Elementary Mathematics?
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This is an in-depth
review of Liping Ma's book Knowing and Teaching Elementary
Mathematics. Author and homeschool teacher Jennifer Dees
effectively summarizes this important book as well as places its
conclusions within a homeschooling context. Both this review and then
Liping Ma's book are required reading for anyone teaching children
math. Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics has
revolutionized the education of math teachers in America. Let it
revolutionize you too!
Living Math! - Julie Brennan comments on her home page that she, "believe[s] that the way we isolate mathematics learning with the contrived, unrealistically applied arithmetic our children are taught without the human drama that created it has caused much of the math illiteracy ... ." Read articles on the topic of learning math. Learn about math games. Read reviews of materials. Take advantage of extensive math reading lists by age and by topic. Look into Julie's Living Math through History lesson plans and book lists. Sign up for the Living Math Forum e-list and be amazed at the knowledge and experience represented there. This site is a treasure trove in an unexpected area.
Math Cats - Winner of dozens of awards and honors, this web site offers fun ways for children to interactively play with math. There are games, crafts, questions and answers and even art all based in math. Our children do not ordinarily spend time on the computer but this site can give them insights into math that only a computer can provide.
Research on the Teaching of Math - Harvey Bluedorn of Trivium Pursuits presents a scholarly review of both the history and the research on teaching math. Both indicate without a doubt that the current approach of starting young and using drills and workbooks is out of step and may actually cause harm. His article ends with a list of important recommendations regarding young children and math. A must read.
The Teaching of Arithmetic I: The Story of an Experiment -
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Interesting Extras
Living Books for the Ears - Have history come to life for your children through these weekly half hour "old time radio" adaptations of worthwhile books and people and events from history. FREE! This fine family also sells CD collections of stories and study guides. We have their Shakespeare complete program, for instance.
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Reading Lists
1000 Good Books List - From the site: "The criteria we used to judge inclusion are: Does the book have literary value? Does the book re-emphasize a Biblical worldview or the Judeo-Christian heritage in some way? Does the book teach, through whatever means, what is moral or just or true? Does the book encourage to love and good works? Does the book exemplify warmth, tenderness, courage, humor, and other values and characteristics that we desire our children to be exposed to? Does the book nourish the intellect and fire the imagination? Does the book cross age barriers to be enjoyed by all?" This list is often referred to by homeschoolers.
Calvert School Good Book List - This is a decent list of books in a really nice format by grade.
Links and Living Books - A nice list on Penny Gardner's site of books to read by subject and age all linked to Amazon. Also a list of books of reading lists. Additional reading lists can be found throughout the site grouped under Science, Math, History, Languages, Geography and Nature.
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Library Management
AddALL - This is a book search and price comparison web site.
Better World Books - A used book seller with free shipping in the US. Used books are sold in order to fund literacy.
FetchBook - Finds the lowest price on books by searching through 127 bookstores and 60,000 sellers. Also provides related titles to the title you search for which I have found useful.
Gaylord - Library supplies, furniture & archival solutions - Every supply you can think of for managing your home library: laminate covers, tapes, labels, shelf files, furniture, book repair items and more.
Library Thing - This is one of those Internet creations that seems like it has always been there like Amazon or EBay. Catalog your library online easily and for free. Library quality cataloging only you can supply the tags that have the most meaning for you. As of 8/07 over 17 million books cataloged. Library Thing also generates terrific book recommendations based on your library. In addition, book lovers connect with each other through groups, forums, chats and clubs.
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