There are three free MP3 downloads today if you are interested. One is a 1950 radio adaptation of The Long Winter (Little House), perhaps my favorite Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Another is The Blizzard of 1888. And the third is Sgt. Preston of the Yukon. Lots of good listening for a winter day!

I haven’t had time to listen to them myself yet, but have downloaded them and look forward to it.  I enjoyed some really good Thanksgiving and Christmas ones over the holidays. I like to just sit and close my eyes while listening. Much better for the imagination!

Enjoy!

I wanted to share this resource even though Christmas is upon us because the information is helpful beyond Christmas as well.

This is a link to a PDF of a Holiday Helper packet for Christmas put together by Living Books Curriculum.  They offer a variety of materials and curriculum related to the Charlotte Mason method.

They offer these free Holiday Helper packets to those on their mailing list.  I’ve received a number of them since joining their mailing list and every one is nicely done. I asked Shelia if I could share this link and she was happy to have me do so.

Living Books Curriculum also has a free Get Acquainted Sample Packet on their left sidebar if you want to learn more about their curriculum and join their mailing list.

Enjoy! 

Several days ago Kat left a comment asking if I would share how I organize Caroline’s day, what we are doing with her learning, etc.  So, for what it is worth, here is where we are right now.  And this is honesty at its finest.

I am motivated. Caroline is not ready.

I feel guilty for not doing more structured things with her.  Caroline is not ready.

I am tempted to feel angst over the “lost” months this summer when I was too sick to do much of anything with her except watch Pride and Prejudice (A&E) more times than I will ever publicly admit.  (She was obsessed with it for quite awhile and it worked for me.) Caroline hasn’t really suffered for it except in my overly conscientious mind.

The truth of the matter is that we are very unstructured right now. Part of it is that we are just getting somewhat back to normal after me being anything but normal physically since late February.  Part of it is simply that Caroline is not ready.

I read these blogs of women who do all these amazing, planned things with their children who are a similar age and am tempted to feel guilty.  But Caroline is just not ready.  She isn’t ready for structured learning.

This is one of those areas where I just have to trust my gut.  And I also have to trust my convictions.  I’ve believed for a long time that children are too over structured too early.  I believe strongly in the importance of open-ended play.  I really appreciate the teachings of Charlotte Mason because they reflect my own instincts about children.

We don’t read nearly as much as I would like to.  For some reason, she just doesn’t respond to the idea right now.  I’m not going to fight her on this so we don’t read as much as I thought we would.

So that is a little bit about what we aren’t doing.  There is no structured learning going on in our house.  That isn’t to say that there isn’t learning.  We learn all the time.  But it is much more situational and arises spur of the moment far more often than me planning that Caroline is going to work on “X” skill.

Truth be told, I am still trying to figure Caroline out.  She is a mystery to me in many ways and it has been a challenge.  In many ways I cannot figure out what makes her tick.  It is hard for me as her mother to feel that way, especially since I am a very insightful person.  But she has a complicated little personality and it has been one of the big challenges of parenting so far.

So what do we do?

We go places – Meijer Gardens, the zoo, Children’s Museum, stores, Starbucks, apple orchards, drives in the country… We have to literally drag her out of Starbucks.  How great is it that she loves hanging out in a coffee shop? 

We work together – loading laundry into dryer, putting things in shopping cart, cleaning the bathroom, putting laundry away, dusting, cleaning mirrors, working in the garden…

We read books and printed materials. She’s fascinated by catalogs.

We watch grown up DVDs – the exception is Baby Einstein and home DVDs.  She has learned so much from Baby Einstein videos. We started watching those right before her second birthday and they have been wonderful. I plan on doing a post on that.

We listen to a lot of classical and instrumental music.  When she hears something on the stereo that was in one of her Baby Einstein videos she will say, “That’s like Cow” or “That’s like on Horse!”  or “That’s on Instruments!”  (She identifies most of the BE videos by the animal on the cover.)

We dance.

We talk about things all the time.

A little bit of “school” stuff – When I find something online that I think she will like, we do it.  Totbooks, cutting and pasting activities, etc.  If a teachable moment arises related to letters or words, I use it.

We use Bing video searches – This started kind of by accident, but we look up videos on Bing and she loves it.  (I think she is a highly visual learner.)  Daddy actually does most of this with her and they’ve learned about windmills, waterfalls, trumpets, Celtic Women Christmas, Christmas trees, dogs… Lots of things.  Here are her two favorites that she has watched over and over and over again…

Here is the first favorite – Wynton Marsalis playing a Haydn Trumpet Concerto.  (No, I am not making this up.) She has probably watched it several dozen times over the recent months. That is saying something considering the picture quality is not all that great. But she loves the music on the trumpet.

This is the more recent favorite. She heard the Celtic Women Christmas CD at my parents’ house a few months ago and absolutely fell in love with their version of Ding Dong Merrily On High. We found the video online and she loves it. When she hears it on CD, whatever she is doing immediately stops and she starts dancing around the room.

I’m sure there are other things that will come to mind, but this is a bit about where we are right now. I am guessing maybe this winter we will get into a little more structure.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I know there is no way she would be ready for preschool right now.  We’ll just continue to do things here as they seem appropriate and have fun in the process.

The first time I read about Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy, I was absolutely enthralled.  It fit so much with how my own thinking about education was changing.  I continue to enjoy reading about this educational approach as I think about how to teach Caroline.

Here is a free e-book I came across (somehow!) that provides a look at some of Charlotte Mason’s views: Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life. The book is from the website Simply Charlotte Mason.

Enjoy!