Browsing Category

Books & Reading

Books & Reading, Home Education
The Official 2020 Afterthoughts Read Aloud List

Most of us were at home more than usual in 2020, right? Our children lost choir and karate, for example. We went from being out of the house almost every single weekday to being home most of the time, and my husband with us. We have a long-standing habit of reading aloud, so we kicked it into full gear. We filled much of the evening karate/choir gap with chapters and chapters of beautiful books. Needless to say, this year we Continue Reading…
January 5, 2021
Books & Reading, Home Education
An Antifragile Reading List for Children and Their Parents

In my final post on principles of antifragility for motherhood, I said that learning to bear small losses prepares us for bearing big losses and that one place this can be practiced is through reading. Most of us don’t live devastating lives, I said. But literature allows us to enter in to the devastation of others. While this isn’t its primary purpose, it’s true that literature can help build so much of what we talked about regarding robustness, resiliency, and Continue Reading…
December 16, 2020
Books & Reading, Mother's Education
Mother’s Education Course: Summer 2020

I posted the Mother Culture Reading List last week. That list is meant for a more casual sort of reading. Yes, it’s organized and, yes, it’s structured by habit — but at the end of the day there is something more ordinary about it. The Mother’s Education Course list (the list below) is meant for you more serious readers. To try and undertake anything like the MEC, even for a summer, requires more discipline than habit because it’s meant for Continue Reading…
June 8, 2020
Books & Reading, Mother's Education
The Summer 2020 Mother Culture Reading List! (Plus a Summer Reading Habit Tracker!)

Every year at this time, I put out a couple reading lists. This year, I’m doing the Mother Culture Reading List first. If you aren’t familiar with the term “mother culture,” I’m actually referring to an article that appeared in Charlotte Mason’s Parents’ Review Magazine way back in 1892. The Mother Culture article does a couple important things. First, it reminds us that books are a way to wisdom — that a solid reading life is imperative if Mom is Continue Reading…
June 1, 2020