Charlotte Mason Homeschool Cottage

I tried lapbooking with my two non-cutting, non-coloring boys (who don’t mind making things from scratch or writing notebooking and pages and adding their own artistic renderings of what they have written). It was not the success I had envisioned or hoped for. Something about the file folder and putting all of these little booklets on the file folder turned them off. I still don’t completely understand the emotional reaction they had to this, but we have found something that does work for us.

I’d like to share this idea with you. We use pieces of card stock, 3-hole punched and place these into our notebooks alongside our notebook pages. We do a couple of little booklets or whatever at a time and glue them onto the card stock as we study the topic throughout the semester. I think the variety of combining the written narration, their own drawings, and the booklets a few at a time breaks up what they might have felt either overwhelming or monotonous in putting together a big lapbook alone.

To give you some ideas of what we have done, I broke down ideas into subject areas and have included pictures, descriptions of what we have done, and links to resources you might find helpful:

• Science
  Botany Notebook – Using Jeannie Fullbright’s Exploring Creation with Botany
       My son used Jeannie’s free notebooking pages available here – Botany notebooking pages and whenever we went on a nature, Charlotte Mason style, we would look for a sample of the plant life he was studying in this book to take home. We dried it, glued it onto a piece of card stock, labeled it, slipped it into a plastic sheet protector, and placed it into the notebook with the rest of the pages.
  At the same time, I printed off little diagrams or booklets about parts of a flower, seed, or plant that he would label or fill out. After completing each one, he glued that onto a piece of card stock and placed it into the notebook in the appropriate section discussing that topic.
  Each piece of card stock would be labeled with the topic on that page, and would be close to full- so that it wasn’t just one or two small items on the page.
  Whenever, my son had a science experiment to perform, we had a science experiment procedure notebook page, that he would use to write out his hypothesis, materials, procedures, observations, data, results, and conclusion. This page would also go in the appropriate area of study.
  In the end, he had a nice botany notebook with a cover provided in the free notebooking pages filled with samples, notes, experiments, and little diagrams and booklets. All of these placed in topic areas, as opposed to notebook sections labeled “notes”, “labs”, “projects”. This was more fluid for him.
• Apologia General Science with my older son was a bit different.
  My older son likes a bit more structure and functions better when things are categorized. He labeled sections of his notebook “notes” (written narrations for him or handouts of notes), “labs”, “questions and answers” (lapbook parts from Live and Learn Press), “quizzes” (review study guides and tests provided by Apologia), and a pocket for index cards that he used to make flash cards for himself from the study guide questions.
  His notebook was organized according to function of the piece of paperwork. It was a combination of notebooking pages on which he wrote narrations of topics he read aside from the Apologia text and handouts where he read something and answered questions (this usually was a tie in to the historic period we were studying and how it related to his science), science experiment procedure notebooking pages (just like his brother) or printed from the Apologia text CD-Rom, and lapbook booklets glued onto pieces of card stock.
  The lapbook components we use are from Live and Learn Press – Live and Learn Press. They have booklets in which he can write the answers to questions from the Apologia text and write down definitions to vocabulary words as he proceeds through the text. My son glues these onto pieces of card stock as he works on them in order of the text.

• History
  For the past two years, we have studied ancient civilizations and the middle ages. We put together a notebook for each during each year. We used a variety of notebooking pages from different sources for our written narrations and map study. For a study of crests and family history, we had matchbooks and other little books to glue onto cardstock to explain heraldry.
  For the chain of causes for the black plague, we used the wheel from the Story of the World Activity book, glued onto cardstock also.
  This year, we will be studying the Renaissance; we’ll be using a lap book (glued onto card stock pages) for that as well from Live and Learn Press along with our notebooking pages.

Heraldry and our Ancestors

Learning about the Hagia Sophia.

Notebooking Links

Here are a variety of resources that you may find helpful in assisting you in your notebooking endeavors:

Notebooking Pages (Great pages to purchase – big sale right now)

http://www.homeschoolnotebooking.com/All_About_Notebooking.htm

 Cindy Rushton – Notebooking Queen

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Notebooking/

http://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/teacherslounge/notebooking.php

http://highland.hitcho.com.au/notebooking.htm

http://www.jeanniefulbright.com/productspage.html (Click on the Exploring Creation product and then the journal pages you want)

http://www.holdthatthought.com/ (Great notebook pages to purchase)

http://www.squidoo.com/notebookingexhibit (Great notebooking lens by Jimmie)

http://www.knowledgeboxcentral.com/notebooking.html

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NotebookingNook/

http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/notebooking.htm

http://donnayoung.org/forms/planners/notebook.htm

http://www.historyscribe.com/

http://www.squidoo.com/lapbooking-vs-notebooking

Notebooking training resources (ebooks, audio seminars in mp3 format)

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/Notebook_Pages.php

Lapbooking

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/lapbooking_resources.php

http://www.squidoo.com/lapbooking

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Lapbooking/

http://www.homeschoolingonashoestring.com/lapbooks.html

http://lapbooklessons.ning.com/

http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/lapbooks.htm

http://www.knowledgeboxcentral.com/stkitforla.html

http://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/teacherslounge/lapbooks.php

http://www.liveandlearnpress.com/

http://www.handsofachild.com/shop/

http://lapbookladies.com/

Cindy Rushton lapbooking ebook and audio seminar

It’s time to gear up for another school year! And Debra at Notebooking Pages is having a wonderful sale here at NotebookingPages.com Back-to-School Sale Event – 50% Off. Here is the scoop you need to know:

Now is a great time to try some of NotebookingPages.com’s products during their 3rd Annual Back-to-School Sale Event! Every product and specially priced combo set is 50% off! You can get ALL of their products for $50 (click here for full details) – save almost $90! PLUS, all customers purchasing their full set of products (for $50) will receive a free BONUS gift package from the following homeschool publishers:

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It’s my 21st anniversary today! And to celebrate and remind myself – yes, it really is summer somewhere  (just not where I am), I am having a Special Summer Sale on my Insects – A Unit Study using Charlotte Mason Methods and More ebook! I am doing my best to finish my next one – Nature Study, Nature Journaling, and Poetry – but life has gotten in the way these past two months. (So for all those who signed up for my newsletter and have entered for the drawing of a free copy, I apologize for the delay – I haven’t forgotten. It’s coming soon!)

Anyone, who hasn’t entered yet for the chance to win a free copy of Nature Study, Nature Journaling, and Poetry, you still have time due to my overscheduled life these past two months! Just sign up for Katie’s Homeschool Cottage Newsletter !

Now, for the Sale! For a limited time, maybe until I start seeing signs of summer in the Northeast, you can purchase Insects: A Unit Study using the Charlotte Mason Method and More for $6.50. (I think you have at least a week or two, maybe more. We have had nothing but rain and have been barely into the 70’s most days.)

Here is what you get in this 82 page unit with suggestions for preschool through high school:

• Lists of Living Book suggestions that can be found free online,(these are the ones I have used in my lesson plans I have done for you), the library, or purchased through an online store like Amazon.   In these economically challenging times, I have tried to make this a complete unit study where you do not have to purchase anything else unless you want to -  all of the materials can be found for free.
• These Living Book titles include Charlotte Mason style literature, quality non-fiction resources, poetry selections and anthologies, and activity books. A brief description is also included for each title with a suggested age range.
• 4 Weeks of daily lesson plans for you to follow (does not include math and history and is not a complete English course)
• Each day contains A Reading Selection from Charlotte Mason style literature from which your child can orally narrate and write down on the provided notebooking pages. There are even sections in the unit that give you direction and suggestions on how to use Ms. Mason’s methods with the lesson plan for your younger, middle, and upper children.
• Each daily lesson plan is divided into two separate plans, one for elementary and one for middle and high school that overlap in places for group activities. You can pick and choose what you want each of your children to do individually or as a whole family. I have just given you options to choose from to allow older children to explore and learn independently at times when it is most suitable. This gives you the time to sit and read with the younger children, while the older children are going into the subject matter in a greater depth, but still allowing everyone to work and learn together at times.
• 22 Copywork selections are provided, consisting of  more simple ones for the younger children and longer and more complex ones for the older children – paragraphs from suggested living book titles and poetry.
• 16 different notebooking pages – all different, some labeled and decorated, some unlabeled, some specifically for taking on a nature walk to document your day.
• Lists of online resources and links to online activities, movie clips, activity ideas, manipulatives, insect flash cards from simple to entomological classification, cute preschool crafts and more hands-on crafts for the older children, quality on-line resource information in a fun format and also technical information for the older children including how insects affect their daily lives and our agriculture, science, and medicine.
• Lists of Hands-on activity suggestions for you to do with simple materials with your children in a science experiment format, just have fun applying what we know format, full lapbooks, or get outdoors and explore. You’ll be amazed at what you can find yourself doing and enjoying bugs!
• Each piece of copywork for that week’s lesson comes with a daily focus skill on either a grammar application for them to take notice while doing their copywork, vocabulary or spelling word review, or a literary element discussion, or a combination of these. You will be so happy to see your child recognizing these skills in good writing as they copy these pieces everyday in preparation for dictation at the end of the week.
• There is a suggested activity to do after the reading, narrating, and copywork is completed. You can choose to do the activity or skip it if you don’t have time, save it for another day for another activity you wish to skip, or replace it with a whole new one from our Activity Suggestions list.
• At the end of the week there is a nature study type activity, most outside, some inside in case the weather does not want to cooperate. You’ll find yourself virtually dissecting an insect or skimming a pond and examining insects before they morph into something that looks like a totally different bug. Nature Journal pages are provided to take with you on some of your outings for a more relaxed and exploratory experience.
• We have provided the opportunity to include a short poetry study in this unit. From reading some aloud or examining some literary elements in poetry to learning how to write a specific form of poetry and combining it with an art project.
• There are a few writing suggestions included in the lesson plans to practice writing a fable based on the insect theme, and modeling and writing a personal narrative.

This unit study is designed to allow you to use the daily lesson plans as they are, use some parts and not others, move parts around if you want, or exchange pieces that are in the plan with other ideas you like from the lists provided for you. It’s that EASY. You get to customize your plans to fit your child’s needs.

AND, there is so much here, you can keep going after 4 weeks or you can use this unit year after year and still not use everything in this unit. I have given you two different kinds of blank lesson planning forms to use so you can make your own plans in the way feel most comfortable.

There are suggestions and directions to guide you in using Charlotte Mason’s methods in your homeschool and how to use those methods when studying Insects with this unit study.

I hope you will enjoy the time spent together with these quality readings and activities with your family and really digging into homeschooling the Charlotte Mason Way without the worries and stress of pulling materials together!

If you have any questions, please email me at katieshomeschoolcottage@yahoo.com and I will be glad to answer them. If you have any topics you would like to see developed, email that to me too! I’m always looking for ideas!

Order your Insects: A Unit Study using the Charlotte Mason Method and More now before the Insect season is over!

We are offering this unit at a special introductory price of $9.95, normally offered at $14.95! Now on Sale for $6.50 as a Summer Special!

Click on the Buy Now link below the ebook picture and you will be taken to paypal to complete your purchase. Then you will have directions to automatically download your item.

 Now on Sale for Limited Time – $6.50!

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Remember, we have links to the Free Online Libraries on our website under Free Online Books and we have our own Unit Study Resource Store where you can browse the titles suggested in the unit’s Living Books list to look at their descriptions or to purchase. Just look for them under the heading Insect Unit Study and click to open that store. Thank you! We really appreciate your business! Please let us know what you think! We want to know! 

If you have read my previous articles, you know that  I use some Charlotte Mason’s methods in a variety of ways. Some methods I follow exactly as Ms. Mason would have used them with her students; others, I have customized to suit my teaching style and my and my children’s needs.

Some Charlotte Mason followers advocate that copywork should be used only as handwriting practice and nothing more, while others state it can be used as copywork and a source of spelling practice. Ms. Mason wrote that copywork can be used as a careful “transcription” for handwriting practice using only the best handwriting, attention to detail, and short passages. She also states that the child should note a few spelling words to observe closely, close the eyes to see the word, and then write the word from memory. Allowing the child to pick his own favorite passages from assorted sources makes it a more meaningful exercise; and, when written in a personal journal, the child has a book of favorite selections as a keepsake.

I allow my children to select passages I’ve printed out and put into a folder, or select a book they are reading or have read, or choose a book that corresponds to the topics we are discussing from a few choices on our reading list. They can then choose a notebooking page they can copy on from another folder, where I have placed copies of notebooking pages with various theme borders or pictures.

When they have selected their passage, I point out to them any words I think might be challenging to spell, any capitalization and punctuation details, and a grammar concept, literary device, or special sentence structure used in the sentence. This piece of copywork will be used for the first four days of that week, so I will divide the items I want to discuss over those days of the week, and then use the copywork piece for dictation on the fifth day.  I look over the copywork and have my child read it to me aloud word by word so he will be editing his own work. He will usually catch his own mistakes and correct them this way. This forces my children to gain attention to detail and the corrections they make will remain in their memories so that next time they write the passage, that correction is still set in their minds.

I like to use examples of good writing and point out what makes the piece good writing, so that my child understands what he sees as he writes. That way later, when we are writing our narrations and we discuss what makes their writing good or better, we can refer to what he has learned in our discussions of copywork.

I know some homeschoolers using Charlotte Mason might be jumping up and down right now with their arms waving and saying “but you don’t have to point all of this out to the child, he will pick it up as he continues to copy down good literature.” And others maybe  saying, “I’ve never heard of copying the same piece everyday or using it for the dictation piece at the end of the week.” This procedure is what my family follows because it is what has worked best with my teaching style and my children’s learning styles. They continue making connections between what writing elements have been used in their copywork with other pieces of literature they are reading or later copywork that comes along. I guess I must feel the need for a little bit more structure to the copywork than letting my child pick this up more intrinsically.

Whatever way you use copywork, it is well worth the time spent for a number of reasons: developing handwriting skills, spelling skills, and copying good writing, which could be a precursor to emulating good writing as you use good literature as your model to follow when writing your own piece.

Find the best way copywork works for your family and have fun with it. Use a variety of pieces your children find interesting; write on fun notebooking pages and decorate them; and put together a neat looking notebook at the end of the year.

Here are some resources to use for copywork pieces:

http://www.amblesideonline.org/Copywork.shtml

http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/manucopywork/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AOCopywork/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/christianhscopywork/

http://www.notebookingpages.com/index.php?page=What-Is-Copywork

http://www.guesthollow.com/homeschool/printables/printablescopywork_bible.html

Have fun with your copywork and creating books of your own!

I love using  Charlotte Mason’s methods. I don’t profess to be an expert or even a “pure CM’er.” I am, though, a homeschool mom of two boys with very different learning styles, personalities, and talents. I have tried many different materials (my shelves and closets will back me up on this) and different teaching and learning methods. Now, after a number of years, I feel like we have found something that works for us. I enjoy using alot of Charlotte Mason’s ideas, techniques, and philosophies – but unless I make them my own and tweak them so they are my comfortable way of doing things or my boys’ way of learning, these methods would not work as effectively for us as they do.

So, with fair warning to all those looking for “pure Charlotte Mason”, I would like to share with you some ways that we use narration in our homeschool that may be a little different than what Charlotte Mason might have had in mind.

Last week, I wrote about oral and written narration. I also included links that suggested creative ways to use narration other than completing notebooking pages.

This week, I would like to introduce the use of timelines and end of semester (or quarter) exams and high school essays through narration.

We do not avoid all forms of tests; it just hasn’t been a goal. We learn for the enjoyment with another goal of mastery, not a letter grade on a test. We do have however, oral quizzes periodically on vocabulary words, Spanish and Latin words, and science ( for my older son using Apologia) ( he makes flash cards for himself – he and I orally quiz from those in preparation for written tests for this program.)

You are probably beginning to see we use oral narration as a major technique in our assessment and evaluation. There are times it does not apply, as in math beyond simple computation skills and math facts. But alot of the time, oral narration is such a great means to evaluate your child’s knowledge and thinking skills, while giving him the practice in organizing and expressing his thoughts in a logical and coherent manner.

Our big evaluations or assessments are usually in our history study. We include literature, history, science, math, art, and music in our history study, so our periodic assessments include alot of subjects.

Our assessment takes the form of an oral narration as we place timeline figures onto our chronological timeline. We have long rolls of butcher paper with a line drawn through the middle. The top portion focuses on the western hemisphere and the lower half focuses on the eastern hemisphere.

Around what would be quarterly, we place timeline figures for what we have studied that quarter. As we place them chronologically, we take turns orally narrating what we have learned about that person or event. When a person is done, another does his own narration and adds new information or puts the information in his own words. By the end of the year, we have had about four oral exams covering most of what we have read in almost all subject areas.

We add to this timeline every year. When we are done homeschooling, each child will have a timeline from the creation of the world to the present day. We also will have revisited each time period at least twice and added to it with more timeline figures and narrations. You can use this idea for our timeline, or you can do the same kind of review and oral narration with a Book of Centuries.

The other use of narration is for high school essay preparation. As my older son gets closer to high school, while he does his oral narration, I will ask him a question or two that requires him to use higher order thinking skills to develop his answer. The question pertains to what we have read aloud or what he has read alone, but he needs to interpret or analyze the reading to develop his answer. Sometimes the question addresses the reading and makes a comparison or contrasting statement, or asks for a cause and effect analysis of two events we have read about or two time periods we have studied.

This practice prepares my son to think about what he has read and then organize his thoughts, so he can coherently explain them. Then he can write them down after giving me his answer and we have discussed it from different angles.

This also gives us the opportunity to practice different kinds of essay formats, depending on his answer. For example, to write an answer that includes a comparison and a contrast of an event requires a different format than a paper where he describes a cause and effect.

To give you some ideas of questions to ask to get your older children orally narrating and writing more complex narrations, I’ve included some links where you can find some.

HippoCampus has different subject areas, some AP. If you click in the chapter sections and look at their discussion questions, you might get ideas for questions when reading about the same subject.

studentsfriend.com discusses use of thinking skills in the study of history and geography and looking at causal relationships among other types of questions.

constitution challenge - this site focuses on the constitution and is for grades 5-8, and poses questions in a game show format, but includes the idea of orally narrating your answers while using some higher order thinking skills.

Enjoy experimenting with the Charlotte Mason method and try out different ways to use her philosophies and ideas in your home school; you might be surprised by the results. I know I was! And, I like to think she would be pleased. My kids are and that’s what makes learning so enjoyable for us.

(And remember to sign up for Katie’s Homeschool Cottage newsletter for our drawing for a copy of our new ebook coming soon called Nature Study, Nature Journals, and Poetry!)

We are beginning a new series so that each week there will be a different topic in using the Charlotte Mason method. Based on the Charlotte Mason series, we will explore the various materials, topic areas, and methods used by Charlotte Mason with her students and a practical application in homeschooling using those methods. We will share resource ideas, homeschool uses, and websites that illustrate examples of using Ms. Mason’s methods.

I hope this new series will be helpful to everyone who visits our site. The first topic area of our series will explore “Living Books.”

Living Books – the first topic in our weekly series in using Charlotte Mason methods

My family and I use the Charlotte Mason method in our own way and what best serves us. I use recommendations from various Charlotte Mason books and websites, including Ambleside Online. However, we don’t strictly follow the scope and sequence recommended by Ambleside, but we do use some of the living books and methods advocated. I believe parents need to modify educational methods that work best for the members of their family.  This applies to selecting the books you will use in your homeschool as well.

Some homeschoolers believe books that might be more modern light reading  to be twaddle and should be discouraged. Other parents with reluctant readers might use these books to interest these readers into reading books recreationally on their own. You do, however, want to read aloud and encourage your children to read quality literature in its theme, content, and writing. Barring learning disabilities, children’s vocabulary and reading and writing abilities develop with exposure to more sophisticated literature rich in imagery and descriptive language. Their taste for good stories is encouraged with a steady diet of well developed plots and characters, including non-fiction events and famous people. If we read a title that was recommended by Charlotte Mason websites or programs that we found uninteresting, even though others had raved about it, we simply stopped reading it after giving it a good try. Some titles are going to appeal to some and not to others. If I were to force my children to listen to the book and myself to read it, we would not be using our time wisely and would be killing our joy in learning. As I tell my children repeatedly, life and use of your time is a matter of choices, and you want to choose the “best”, not just “good.”

Charlotte Mason discouraged twaddle in her students’ reading. She encouraged “living books.” These books are whole books with entire stories or are written on one topic, not written like a textbook covering a wide variety of topics with summaries of facts. Living books can be used in all subject areas including math. For a more detailed explanation of using living books in math or with the topic of Pi, read our articles about using Charlotte Mason methods in math.

For history, science (including nature study), literature, and even geography there are a number of books out there written on one topic or time period written by people with a knowledge and passion for that topic. This passion and attention to detail is what makes the children enjoy reading these books, interested in the topic, and remember what they read.

History and historical figures come to life through detailed stories of events and lives of people in different time eras.  More in the fashion of a classical education, we study our history in a chronological fashion starting with ancient and biblical times. We also study the time period horizontally across the hemispheres and different continents. We read a couple of books as our spine that cover the time period, while reading other books that are about specific topics pertaining to that time period. For example, while studying ancient Egypt and using Story of the World and A Child’s History of the World as spines, we also read books about pyramids, King Tut, and scientific discoveries. We also read fictional books that centered around characters and their daily lives during the ancient Egyptian times to get a feel for the time period and what common daily life was like. We had a framework with details to fill in that framework. Some places to look for history titles that might interest you would be homeschoolchristian.com, Yesterday’s Classics, the Baldwin Children’s Online Project. Also you will want to study primary sources that tie into your history study.

For science, you might want to read living books that include biographies of scientists or books about specific topics. We tie our science study in with what area of science was being developed or the scientists that lived during the specific time period we are studying. For example, if you are studying the renaissance, you can read about Galileo or Leonardo da Vinci. For your nature study, there are numerous sources from which to choose as well. Some places to look for titles are Noeo Science, homeschoolChristian.com, Nature Study, Nature Stories. We also use the Apologia series for the elementary and the middle/high school levels. We read books aloud that go along with our studies in these books.

When studying geography, we read general geography books and others that go along with our studies of a specific time period or geographical area in history. We’ve read Holling C. Holling books and mapped the area as we read. Charlotte Mason also wrote her own geography books – Geographical readers. Two other geographic living books are A Child’s Geography series.

Good literature to read has a good plot, detailed and vivid character descriptions, and various literary elements with extensive vocabulary. A good example of clever use of words is found in The Phantom Tollbooth with all of its puns, idioms, and plays on words. For adventure and satirical comedy, we have read Tales of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle and The Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain while we studied the middle ages. My sons laughed out loud with the comedic situations in these stories. My son has also enjoyed The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn with Mark Twain’s style of tongue in cheek sense of humor. He was very tickled reading about their big plans they would make in their club that actually turned out to be nothing in reality, but in their imaginations they had great adventures they would retell to one another. These books tie in the historical period of the time, but are also thoroughly enjoyable, and develop your child’s creativity, vocabulary, and use of words. Some places to look for lists of good books are Charlotte Mason education book list recommendations, homeschoolchristian.com reading lists, Baldwin Online Children’s Project.

Remember to look in our Unit Study Resource Store for other titles of living books as well. You know your children, what interests them, what their individual abilities are, and what you are studying. You make the decisions about what you feel is good literature for your children. These are suggested titles that have worked for us. Don’t feel you have to start or finish a book just because you see that it has been recommended by other Charlotte Mason homeschoolers. Use what you feel will work best for your family and enjoy your time reading aloud with one another. My children and I take turns reading and creating the voices of the characters in the stories and how we think they would sound based on their personalities in the story or the time period they are in!

Hope you can use these ideas and have found this information helpful! Check back here for another Charlotte Mason topic next week – Narration for all age levels.