Mason-Inspired Methods for Teaching Writing

Classes, Classroom Help, Informative

Published with Permission
Written by Jessica Boling
jessicaboling.wordpress.com
www.TOSMagazine.com

“Time for writing!” My announcement silences the chatter of several young voices at the Charlotte Mason-inspired co-op where I teach. The students take their seats and pull out black-and-white speckled composition books. They listen as I read a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, our selection for copywork and dictation.

The Charlotte Mason approach enriches a student’s English education in many ways. Families who incorporate Mason’s ideas in their home school introduce their children to quality literature (what Mason terms “living books”) at a young age. Students thrive when they are encouraged to read interesting stories, firsthand accounts, and beautiful poems. On this rich foundation, parents can build their children’s writing skills by using several Mason-inspired methods: copywork and dictation, written narration, and literary analysis. (more…)

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The Power of Enjoyment

Classroom Help, Informative

Published with Permission
Written by Diana Waring
www.TOSMagazine.Com

When it comes to education in our culture, there is a deep trench between the unpleasant, dentist-filling-cavity experience of school, which one endures by necessity, and the passion-driven endeavor of hobbies, which one anticipates with delight. For many of us who began homeschooling in the 1980s, this was a chasm we sought to cross. Our learners, no longer dreading school, could actually thrive in their studies since they were in the nurturing environment of our homes.

Rather than conformity to the standard model of education—a lecturing teacher, subservient students and rigid class periods—we tried new approaches: a tuned-in observer, interactive students, and freedom to conduct experiments or write stories or fashion clay figures, heedless of the clock. In this laboratory of learning, many of us discovered that our unique children could each find something that motivated them deeply. Amazingly, we saw that when our children are motivated they have a self-imposed zest for ferreting out information, a zest that extends beyond Legos and bikes to academic subjects such as science, history, and literature.

This discovery of the power of self-motivation, or “hunger to learn,” was like a new invention or a magic wand. Eventually, we discovered that as homeschoolers we were actually on the cutting edge of education—traveling a path of learning that educational researchers and scientists were also studying. What we had stumbled upon in searching for the best approaches for our children was being legitimized through academic studies on how the brain works and how people learn best.

Here are six general points from the researchers on increasing learning through environment and relationship. Read the list and consider how your home is the best place for this to happen: (more…)

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Updated: We Are Not Alone

Biography, Informative, Just For Fun

Published with Permission
Written by Katharine Trauger
katharinetrauger.wordpress.com

What would it be like to be the mother of one of the world’s greatest thinkers?

First, you live an uneventful life in pre-Nazi Germany, married to Herman, a mattress salesman. You, Pauline, stay busy setting up household repeatedly, as your husband’s businesses often change. He settles into electrochemical manufacturing and you move again, after your son is born.

Nothing about this birth or your heritage foreshadows your son’s greatness. In fact, your family worries that he might be slow-witted. When his sister, born two years later, passes him in speech skills, you join the others’ alarm.

Eventually he talks, hesitantly, and you learn to accept life with an odd child who has his own timetable. During the “why” stage of development, one of his favorite questions is, “Why do we hurry?” He does everything slowly and people notice. (more…)

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