  Is the distinction between being free to choose the right at one’s own option, and not free to do the wrong, too subtle to be grasped, too elusive to be practical? It may be so, but it is precisely the distinction which we are aware of in our own lives so far as we keep ourselves consciously under the divine governance. We are free to go in the ways of right living, and have the happy sense of liberty of choice, but the ways of transgressors are hard. Charlotte Mason, School Education, Volume 3  Show Summary:  Today’s guest is Brittney McGann is a homeschooling mother of 3 who uses the curriculum A Gentle Feast How Brittney first came to hear about Charlotte Mason’s methods What is A Gentle Feast and what is unique about this curriculum? What support is offered for users of A Gentle Feast? What does a typical homeschool day look like for your family? Why Brittney started a scouting group and wrote a book about it Who do you think this curriculum would work for? How is A Gentle Feast set up?  Books and Links Mentioned: A Gentle Feast Scouting for Wild Ones by Brittney McGann School Education by Charlotte Mason A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola   Find Cindy and Brittney: Morning Time for Moms Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group Mere Motherhood Facebook Group The Literary Life Podcast Cindy’s Facebook Cindy’s Instagram Brittney’s Instagram

S2E32: A Gentle Feast Curriculum with Brittney McGann

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins explores the application of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy to the atmosphere, discipline, and life of our homes and schools. We cover Charlotte’s timeless principles as they work themselves out in our real and modern lives. Interviewing seasoned moms who have cherished Charlotte’s works while raising real children in real families, we endeavor to lay a foundation of hope and possibility for our listeners. However imperfectly.

Education

Training

Language Courses

Higher Education

K-12

Educational Technology

Kids & Family

Parenting

 On The New Mason Jar today, we bring you a conversation Cindy and Dawn had with the AmblesideOnline Advisory members Anne White, Donna-Jean Breckenridge, Karen Glass and Leslie Laurio. How the friendship of the AO Advisory developed and has been a gift for each member throughout the years Did the Advisory members use the whole AO curriculum as written? What about those fears about missing out on something if a family doesn’t do everything in the curriculum perfectly? The simplicity of the Charlotte Mason approach to language arts Do any of the Advisory doubt Charlotte Mason’s methods now that they have all graduated their children? Are there any things that aren’t common knowledge that the Advisory wants to share?  Books and Links Mentioned: AmblesideOnline Six Voices, One Story by Donna-Jean Breckenridge, et. al. In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay AO Advisory Bios: Anne White grew up and still lives in southern Ontario.  She anticipated David Epstein’s Range by changing her university major three times and stretching a four-year degree into seven, but she did complete a BA in creative writing, and later added a BEd in adult education. In the thirty years between those things, she (and her husband) raised three homeschooled daughters, who have each found their own Range. Anne has been associated with AmblesideOnline since its beginning, and is the author of several books about Charlotte Mason’s philosophy. Donna-Jean Breckenridge lives with her family in northern New Jersey. She is honored to be a founding member of the AmblesideOnline Advisory, and she continues to serve AO’s community while homeschooling her granddaughters. She is a public speaker, writer (This Country of Ours – Annotated, Edited, and Updated and Six Voices, One Story: The Heart of AmblesideOnline), and audiobook narrator. She counts her greatest roles as mom to her four children, grandmother to five, and grateful friend. Her heart’s desire is to encourage others that God is safe to trust, no matter what.  After living 25 years in Krakow, Poland, Karen Glass currently lives in Indiana with her husband and youngest daughter. She is a founding member of AmblesideOnline and home educated her four children through graduation. She is the author of several books related to Charlotte Mason and speaks and teaches on the philosophy and methods (especially narration). She reads, writes, tries to grow things, and has been known to crochet doilies and knit socks. Leslie Laurio is an art school dropout, a veteran, a homeschool mom, and one of the founders and original creators of AmblesideOnline. She and her husband live in Tennessee and have four children who were homeschooled all the way from kindergarten through high school, and are now married and scattered across the eastern US pursuing various careers and passions. She has paraphrased the Charlotte Mason series, Parables From Nature, and other works.   The person who can live upon his own intellectual resources and never know a dull hour (though anxious and sad hours will come) is indeed enviable in these days of intellectual inanition, when we depend upon spectacular entertainments pour passer le temps [to pass the time]. If knowledge means so much to us, “What is knowledge?” the reader asks. We can give only a negative answer. Knowledge is not instruction, information, scholarship, a well-stored memory. It is passed, like the light of a torch, from mind to mind, and the flame can be kindled at original minds only. Thought, we know, breeds thought; it is as vital thought touches our minds that our ideas are vitalized, and out of our ideas comes our conduct of life… The direct and immediate impact of great minds upon his own mind is necessary to the education of a child. Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, p. 303   Let us, out of reverence for the children, be modest; let us not stake their interests on the hope that this or that new way would lead to great results if people had only the courage to follow it. It is exciting to become a pioneer; but, for the children’s sake, it may be well to constrain ourselves to follow those roads only by which we know that persons have arrived, or those newer roads which offer evident and assured means of progress towards a desired end. Charlotte Mason, School Education, p. 245  

S6E83: A Heart to Heart with the AmblesideOnline Advisory

  Every plant bears fruit, ‘fruit and seed after his kind.’ All this is stale knowledge to older people, but one of the secrets of the educator is to present nothing as stale knowledge, but to put himself in the position of the child, and wonder and admire with him; for every common miracle which the child sees with his own eyes makes of him for the moment another Newton. Charlotte Mason, Home Education, p. 54  Show Summary:  On The New Mason Jar this week, Cindy and Dawn continue their Morning Time for Moms series with guests Summer and Mike Smith How Summer and Mike first learned about Charlotte Mason and her philosophy Mike’s early love for books and Summer’s own life of reading How Mike and Summer continued to enjoy reading and self-education after formal schooling Some thoughts on the college experience How Summer keeps up her own education while homeschooling How Mike and Summer help their children see ministry opportunities in their community  Books and Links Mentioned: In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan Number the Stars by Lois Lowry Ice Magic by Matt Christopher The Kid Who Only Hit Homers by Matt Christopher Brighty of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry Pickle Chiffon Pie by Jolly Roger Bradfield Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene The Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank Calico Palace by Gwen Bristow Jubilee Trail by Gwen Bristow Celia Garth by Gwen Bristow American Regional Books by Lois Lenski Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene Kent Family Chronicles series by John Jakes Range by David Epstein Holling C. Holling The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon Beyond Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins Paradise Lost by John Milton The Iliad by Homer The Aeneid by Virgil Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher C. S. Lewis T. S. Eliot Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger The Major and the Missionary by Diana Pavlac Glyer The Odyssey by Homer A Curious Life for a Lady by Pat Barr Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley The Latin Letters of C. S. Lewis ed. and trans. by Martin Moynihan Find Cindy and Dawn: Morning Time for Moms Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group Mere Motherhood Facebook Group The Literary Life Podcast Cindy’s Facebook Cindy’s Instagram Dawn’s Swedish Drill website Dawn’s A Reasoned Patriotism website Dawn’s Substack   We should allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and the ‘spiritual’ life of children; but should teach them that the divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their continual helper in all the interests, duties, and joys of life. Charlotte Mason, Principle 18 

S6E82: Morning Time for Moms (and Dads!), Part 2, with Summer and Mike Smith

  If mankind had not been organized into families, it would never have had the organic power to be organized into commonwealths. Human culture is handed down in the customs of countless households. It is the only way in which human culture can remain human. G. K. Chesterton, Marriage and the Modern Mind  Show Summary:  For this week’s episode of The New Mason Jar, Cindy and Dawn share about this year’s summer discipleship course, “Joy in the Morning” Gretchen Neisler tells about her own experience with past summer discipleship and why she keeps coming back for more What you can expect from this year’s Morning Time for Moms content and schedule Other ways you can benefit from Cindy’s wisdom and interact with other moms (Scroll down to the “Find Cindy” section for all the links)  Books Mentioned: A White Bird Flying by Bess Streeter Aldrich A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass Ideas Freely Sown by Anne White Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins Live Not By Lies by Rod Dreher Charlotte Mason’s Great Recognition by Deani Van Pelt and Camille Malucci Joy in the Morning (Jeeves in the Morning) by P. G. Wodehouse Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare Norms and Nobility by David Hicks Find Cindy: Morning Time for Moms Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group Mere Motherhood Facebook Group The Literary Life Podcast Cindy’s Facebook Cindy’s Instagram Subscribe: Audible  Apple Podcasts  Google Podcasts Podcast Addict  Spotify   Those who believe in the dignity of the domestic tradition, who happen to be the overwhelming majority of mankind, regard the home as a sphere of vast social importance and supreme spiritual significance, and to talk of being “confined” to it is like talking of being chained to a throne or set in the seat of judgment as if it were the stocks. G. K. Chesterton, “The Dignity of Domesticity,” The Illustrated London News, 1929 

S6E81: “Joy in the Morning” Summer Discipleship

  They notice for themselves, and the teacher gives a name and other information as it is asked for… In this way they lay up that store of “common information”… and what is more important, they learn to know and delight in natural objects as in the familiar faces of friends. Charlotte Mason, School Education, p. 237  Show Summary:  On The New Mason Jar this week, we bring you a conversation all about spring nature study with Cindy, Dawn and Cindy’s friend Jeannette Tulis, who has been a previous guest on the podcast How can moms begin nature study when they have never done it before? How to find spring ephemeral wildflowers, and other things to look for at this time of year Ideas for stepping up your nature study game What are some tips for nature journaling?  Books and Links Mentioned: Episode 12: Charlotte Mason Study Groups Episode 56: Building a Home Library  Who’s Afraid of a Little Paint? by Jeannette Tulis The Tree Identification Book by George Symonds Wild Green Things in the City by Anne Ophelia Dowden The First Book of Weeds by Barbara Beck   Find Cindy: Morning Time for Moms Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group Mere Motherhood Facebook Group The Literary Life Podcast Cindy’s Facebook Cindy’s Instagram     Let them once get in touch with Nature, and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life. We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things. Charlotte Mason, Home Education, p. 61 

S6E80: Spring Nature Study with Jeannette Tulis

  Ourselves, our Souls and Bodies is much used in the P.U.S., as I know of no other attempt to present such a ground plan of human nature as should enable the young student to know where he is in his efforts to ‘be good’ as the children say. The point of view taken in this volume is, that all beautiful and noble possibilities are present in every one; but that each person is subject to assaults and hindrances in various ways of which he should be aware in order that he may watch and pray. Hortatory teaching is apt to bore both young people and their elders; but an ordered presentation of the possibilities and powers that lie in human nature and of the risks that attend these, can hardly fail to have an enlightening and stimulating effect. Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education  Show Summary:  On the New Mason Jar today we welcome back Anne White, veteran homeschool mom, author, and member of the AmblesideOnline Advisory How Anne first discovered Charlotte Mason About Anne’s new book title and how she came to write this work Is this book for homeschoolers? How can we understand and apply “justice” in the way that Charlotte meant here? Why children need time and space to think and let ideas work in them What do you mean by the statement that “there is is only sacred, sanctified education, or desecrated education”? How Anne tied the magic of narration into the ideas in this book  Books and Links Mentioned: For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay A Bit of the World’s Work by Anne White Offering Ourselves: A Lenten Journey with Charlotte Mason by Anne White Honest, Simple Souls by Anne White Ourselves by Charlotte Mason   Find Cindy and Anne: Morning Time for Moms Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group Mere Motherhood Facebook Group The Literary Life Podcast Cindy’s Facebook Cindy’s Instagram Anne Writes Anne’s Author Page on Amazon Anne’s Blog: Dewey’s Treehouse     The worth of any calling depends upon its being of use; and no day need go by without giving us practice in usefulness. Each one is wanted for the special bit of work he is fit for; and, of each, it is true that– “Thou cam’st not to thy place by accident: It is the very place God meant for thee.” Charlotte Mason, Ourselves, Bk. 1, pp. 209-210 

S2E32: A Gentle Feast Curriculum with Brittney McGann

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