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Best of Afterthoughts

Best of Afterthoughts, Educational Philosophy, Home Education
Are You Sabotaging Your Charlotte Mason Homeschool?

Let’s cut right to the chase: sometimes, we Charlotte Mason mamas confuse the ends with the means. We mix up our priorities. We start to act as if one thing is the point, when it’s actually just a tool to get us somewhere far more thrilling. It’s like confusing the journey — or, even worse, the map — with the destination. Listen to this post as a podcast: Let me give a few examples. Teaching foreign language a certain way is Continue Reading…
February 16, 2017
Best of Afterthoughts, Home Education
The Low-Energy Mom’s Guide to Homeschooling

I should write a book about this,” I told him. His response was to tell me that I didn’t really have the time and energy for such a thing, and he was (mostly) right about that. While my health is much, much better than it was three years ago, I still have to watch myself and be careful not to over-commit, which is really hard to do when almost everything is interesting in this life. My solution was to do a Continue Reading…
April 11, 2016
Best of Afterthoughts, Home Education, Mother's Education
I Am, I Can, I Ought, I Will, OR: Do the Work of Homeschooling

Is this your first week of homeschooling for the year? It is for me. I always start our new homeschool year the week of my youngest child’s birthday because <cough> I really enjoy adding that kind of stress to the first week of school. Whether the stress in your homeschool week is normal life stuff, like birthdays or long to-do lists, or abnormal life stuff, like surprises and emergencies, the fact remains that homeschooling isn’t always easy. It just isn’t. This is because Continue Reading…
August 19, 2015
Best of Afterthoughts, Educational Philosophy, Mother's Education
The Liberal Arts Tradition: Classically Charlotte Mason

When I first started saying that this blog is for the classical, Charlotte Mason mama, I got a bit of pushback from a couple corners of the blogosphere. And, honestly, it is hard to convince people that Charlotte Mason’s philosophy is part of the classical tradition when they assume that the essence of classicism is viewing the Trivium — three of the seven liberal arts — as developmental stages. (This is why Karen Glass’ book on the subject was so Continue Reading…
June 22, 2015