Over the last several weeks, inspired by an 1892 Parents’ Review article, I’ve been diving deeper into the idea of mother culture. In the first post, I gave an overview of what it is. Then, I talked about how to get started with it, followed by what it looks like. This week’s post will give you other ideas for including mother culture in your life! Book Groups In the last post, I wrote about the habit of reading and three different types of books you can be reading at a given time. If you need a bit of motivation or encouragement on the reading front, I can’t recommen ..read more

Last week, I continued the series of blog posts I started last month talking about the idea of mother culture. I wrote about what mother culture is, why to practice it, and then how to get started with it (to summarize: make it a priority, even if only for a small amount of time each day!). This week, I’m sharing how you can practice it, with ideas from the original Parents’ Review article that inspired this series. Now that we know what it is, why it’s important, and how to get started, we can explore how we can go about practicing it. It can look very diff ..read more

Last month, I began a series of posts that I plan to revisit through the summer all about the idea of Mother Culture. To summarize, I’ll use this quote from the Parents’ Review article which inspired this series: What we need is a habit of taking our minds out of what one is tempted to call ‘the domestic rag-bag’ of perplexities, and giving it a good airing in something which keeps it ‘growing.’ A brisk walk will help. But, if we would do our best for our children, grow we must; and on our power of growth surely depends, not only our future happiness, but o ..read more

What we need is a habit of taking our minds out of what one is tempted to call “the domestic rag-bag” of perplexities, and giving it a good airing in something which keeps it “growing”… Is there, then, not need for more “Mother Culture”?  “MOTHER CULTURE” PARENTS’ REVIEW – VOLUME 3  Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;  Or surely you’ll grow double:  Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;  Why all this toil and trouble?  The sun above the mountain’s head,  A freshening lustre mellow  Through all the long green fields has spread,  His first sw ..read more

(Please note that I have linked to the book lists on the AO website to respect their licensing terms and the hard work they’ve put into such a fantastic curriculum that they offer for free. Books that use affiliate links here are not listed on the AO website.) It is much to be wished that thoughtful mothers would more often keep account of the methods they employ with their children, with some definite note of the success of this or that plan. CHARLOTTE MASON (HOME EDUCATION) See our plans for this year here. C’s first year of ..read more

“I believe that a child’s interest in outdoor life is a kind of hunger, as natural as his interest in bread and butter. He cannot live on bread and butter alone but he ought not to try to live without them. He cannot be educated on nature study alone, but he ought not to be educated without it. To learn to obey and reason and feel — these are the triple ends of education, and the greatest of these is to learn to feel. The teacher’s word for obedience; the arithmetic for reasoning  and for feeling, for the cultivation of the imagination, for the power to respond quickly and deeply, give ..read more

Mother Culture, which is the idea that mothers continue their own education and further “culture” themselves even while homeschooling their children and managing busy families, is a topic I’m very passionate about. My husband and I have been married for 19 years, and for the last eight years, we have been homeschooling our kids and running our own businesses out of our home, so our schedule is always very full, and we don’t have much free time. However, even within that busyness, I have found during the last few years that I am healthier mentally and spiritually when I make time to grow mysel ..read more

Keeping a record of readings and recitations you’ve chosen for your homeschooling journey is a good habit to adopt as your students get older. It not only serves as a comprehensive archive of your recitation choices but also prevents you from repeating selections in the future. In this post, I’m excited to share my method of keeping track of all the passages, verses, and poems we’ve learned for Recitation, as well as other readings I don’t want to duplicate in the future. Recitations and Readings Log Recitation has been a highlight of our homeschooling journey. Admittedly, in the beginning, I ..read more

Monthly meal planning is a great way to simplify your meal planning process, stick to your food budget, eliminate food waste, and reduce how much time you have to spend on meal planning overall. It allows you to come up with a plan to serve your whole family healthy, home-cooked meals without a lot of extra work. In this post, I’m sharing my simple process for making an easy family meal plan once per month! The Process Gather Supplies I time my monthly meal planning with my Azure Standard order, which is due every four weeks on a Thu ..read more

One of my hopes for this website and all of the things I do online is to encourage others in their homeschool journey, especially in finding ways to help families include picture study in their homeschool lesson time. I love being able to use my art history degree in this way by providing free printable picture study art, Picture Study Aids, and high-quality, professional art prints. I want to make art appreciation through Picture Study as easy as possible for everyone! YouTube Picture Study Art Videos Recently, I started working on two projects that I hope will make it even easier ..read more