Securing a Quiet Growing Time

A mother's chief responsibility for the first six years is to secure for her children "Quiet growing time--and free growing time--the freedom of real play (not lessons that look like play) and of ordering one's own life.”

 “The games mother and baby play together naturally, without any special training or effort, are exactly what a baby needs to develop properly- at least to age 2.”

"Tommy should be free to do what he likes with his limbs and his mind through all the hours of the day when he is not sitting up nicely at meals. He should run and jump, leap and tumble, lie on his face watching a worm, or on his back watching the bees.... nature will look after him and give him promptings of desire to know many things, and somebody must tell as he wants to know; and to do many things, and somebody should be handy just to put him in the way; and to be many things, naughty and good, and somebody should give direction."

"...Health, strength, and agility, bright eyes, and alert movements, come of a free life, out-of-doors, if it may be, and as for habits, there is no habit or power so useful to man or woman as that of personal initiative. The resourcefulness which will enable a family of children to invent their own games and occupations through the length of a summer's day is worth more in after life than a good deal of knowledge about cubes and hexagons, and this comes, not of continual intervention on the mother's part, but of much masterly inactivity."

All quotes can be found in Charlotte Mason's Home Education, Volume 1.

Bubbles and Funnels

What easy fun for the early years! When Lily found my funnel on the counter this morning and wanted to know what it was for, we ventured outside to practice our pouring skills! We had a big bowl of water, different size bottles, and two measuring cups. Fun around here comes cheap!

Homeschooling: Bible and Repetition

I’m not sure why I didn’t learn what I needed to know several months ago. The day when I decided I was going to teach Lily The Lord’s Prayer. We had already been using breakfast time to read God’s Word aloud and a time to open our day with prayer. But Mommy had the good idea of working on some scripture memorization. What better place to begin than the Lord’s Prayer? So, I sat her down on the couch, explained what we were going to do, and said, “Repeat after me…”

“Our Father which art in heaven…” Awaiting her answer back…and then she didn’t repeat after me, she said… “Hallowed be thy name.” We continued the rest of the prayer this way. I closed my Bible and thought that was easy enough. Lily had been hearing the Lord’s Prayer for almost a year each Sunday morning during church. Little did I know she was not only listening…but learning!

We continued on with our regular routine until about six weeks ago when Mommy again had a great idea! I will teach her a commandment a week during breakfast time. So off we went reading Exodus 20:1-17 each morning and eventually added a chapter from Leading Little One’s to God. Week 1, I would emphasize Commandment 1…and so on.

She was doing well learning the commandments until about week 5 or 6. She started “stubbing up” and not wanting to answer my questions when I would ask. I knew she knew who the commandments were given to and how many commandments there were and each commandment we had learned. Why was she refusing to answer? One afternoon we decided to address the issue with Daddy.

We started going through our basic questions and as we got to “You shall not murder.” She continued… “You shall not commit adultery.” I glanced at him with a look of amazement and a bit of confusion. We had not learned that yet! And then I decided to try something…we went through the entire scripture of Exodus 20:1-17 that we had read each morning for the past few weeks. I would leave out words and even phrases and she would fill in the blanks! My three year old nearly had the entire passage of the Ten Commandments memorized by hearing me read them!

All of this time I had been fretting that she wasn’t learning the way I wanted her to. She wasn’t answering the questions that I wanted her to answer. But behind the scenes, at least as far as I could see, God was doing His work. She was learning through her own eyes and experiencing His Word for herself the way He wanted her to. And while doing so, He was showing me my worries and anxieties of not being enough would be met by Him. Again, I needed to quite relying on myself and trust that He will equip me for what He has called me to do.

“What is required of us is, that we should implant a love of the Word; that the most delightful moments of the child’s day should be those in which his mother reads for him, with sweet sympathy and holy gladness in voice and eyes, the beautiful stories of the Bible” ~Charlotte Mason

Homeschooling: Catechizing Preschoolers

During these early years, something we really hope to instill in our children is a love for God and His Word. Both Nate and I hope that our children will not face the difficulties we did as adults when we realized we didn't really know why we believed what we believed. We want to train them in God's Word and along the way, teach them to be able to ask and answer biblical questions.

At breakfast each morning, the children and I pray, read scripture, and occasionally review the Catechism for Young Children. I really enjoy this time...there is something wonderful about watching them grow in His Word.

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. Deut. 6:7

Homeschooling: The Early Years Book List

 These first few years one of my goals is to introduce good reading to my little ones. I have put together a list of books that I have introduced or want to introduce to them during these preschool years. (Some of these are books for Mommy.) The books I have found so far are books recommended by Before Five in A Row, Simply Charlotte Mason, and some good friends that have been there, done that. I consider this a "rough draft" for the time being and hope to add more great books as we go along.

Momma's Book List

• The Mother at Home by John Abbott
• Before Five in A Row Parent Book
• Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons 
• Honey for a Child's Heart Gladys Hunt
• Leading Little Ones to God by Marian Schoolland
• Mommy Teach Me by Barbara Curtis
• Mommy Teach Me to Read by Barbara Curtis

Preschool Book List

• The ABC Bunny by Wanda Gag
• If Jesus Came to My House by Joan Gale Thomas
• Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
• Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
• Poems and Prayers for the Very Young by Martha Alexander
• A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Lewis Stevenson
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

• The Big Red Barn
• We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen
• Ten Little Lady Bugs
• Runaway Bunny
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear
• Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton (other books by Sandra Boynton)
• The Mitten by Jan Brett (other books by Jan Brett)
• Guess How Much I Love You
• Jamberry
• So Many Bunnies
• The Snowy Day
• Goodnight Moon
• The Shy Little Kitten
• The Pokey Little Puppy

I was so lucky to have been able to preserve almost all of my books from my childhood. Several of these books are on my book list for the later years but even now...Lily enjoys Amelia Bedelia! I pray that each of my children will have the same love for reading that I had when I was a child.

some of my treasures

Do you have any books I should add?

Homeschooling: The Early Years

"In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mothers first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet and growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it for the most part spent out in the fresh air." Charlotte Mason

Several years ago, no one could have told me I would have the mindset I currently have on home education. Before Lily was born, I had the strong desire to home school. I even read articles and books well before it was time. My aspirations were to get started early in preschool and teach her to count and her ABC’s and how to read and write well before she needed to. God has made me much wiser since that time. I have come to see this time is precious and I have many years to come for “education.” Our focus now is building a firm foundation of godly character and having fun.

This is how we home school in the early years…

We play with Play-Doh…

We finger paint…

 We paint birdhouses…

We play in the kitchen…

 

We write on chalkboards…We fly kites…

    We play outside…

and we help Daddy in the yard.

So, it is really quite simple. We educate with life and nothing forced…all with in the security of own home. We talk about God and we talk about character. We show them they are loved and do all we can to make sure they never feel they are burdens to us.

Our First School Lesson

****Our family has a vision to home educate our children. I want to share our journey, thoughts, ideas, trials, errors, and successes. I will be adding a new side bar with links to homeschooling posts. I don’t believe this is the time to start a new blog so I will utilize Finding Michelle to share with you on this expedition. And like all things on Finding Michelle…this may last, it may not. My blogging life revolves around my faithfulness to my husband and children first and foremost.****

Lily really wants to ride a bus. And she also really wants to go to school with her 5-year-old cousins. Sometimes the bus thing pulls at my heartstrings a little bit since I know she will probably never go to a public school unless God has other plans. It pulls at my heartstrings, but not enough to become a Halloween Hypocrite all over. We’re just hoping Daddy can hook us up with a field trip ride on a bus.

This morning while in town Lily saw a bus and once again we spoke about her desire to go to school with her cousins. I explained that Daddy and Mommy felt that God’s desire was for them to teach her instead of sending her to school. She wanted to know what her cousins did in school and I explained that they learn about numbers, letters, shapes, and colors in school. I told her if she wanted we could go ahead and start school with her. Later in the car ride she spoke up and said she wanted to “do school” and when asked what she wanted to learn about, her answer was… “God.” (Reason #1 to homeschool, we can learn about God anytime!)

So, today when J.J. went down for a morning nap, Lily and I spent time “schooling.” Of course, the only difference between this and any other day of our life, I told her it was school. I have adopted the philosophy you homeschool your children from the time they are born. They learn simply though living. Some parents choose to do preschool curriculum. We believe we can teach them everything they need to know in preschool and probably through kindergarten virtually free.

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Our first lesson today was on colors. I was aware she basically knew her colors, but this was really a great illustration for me to see just how much she knew. I equipped myself with a role of pennies and Lily with a small purse we got out of a kids meal. We decided to venture off in search of colors. The first few questions consisted of me asking Lily to find something a specific color. As we went on, she pointed to things and told me what color they were. She did a great job and earned 26 coins for her bag! After all the color finding, we counted the coins and she put them in her piggy bank to add to the money she is saving to buy a horse. And finally, we took time to pray and thank God for all the wonderful colors He has blessed us with.

What a great day of school and it only costs me 26 cents!