Six of my Favourite Books Related to a Charlotte Mason Education. 📚

Oldies but goodies!

I’ll be posting my thoughts on Chapter 3 of For the Children’s Sake read along soon, but in the meantime here is a list of books that helped me before I ever got my hands on Charlotte Mason’s Original Homeschooling Series:

*For the Children’s Sake was my first introduction to Charlotte Mason and home education in general. Her Original Homeschooling series wasn’t available to me in 1988 and it was more than a decade later that I found a secondhand set with the pink covers. In the meantime I read and re-read this book.

If you would like to join in with the read along you are most welcome. I’m purposely going slowly (about a chapter per month) to give Mums with young children more opportunity as time allows for them to work through the chapters at their own pace. I’ve made a PDF with each post for you to print out so you don’t have to come online to read.

Introduction & Chapter 1 - What is Education? with some background on the author

Chapter 2 - Children are born persons.

🥀

*Charlotte Mason Study Guide by Penny Gardner (1997) - a ‘nuts & bolts’ guide/condensation of Mason’s most important ideas with some information on her life. For someone short on time this is a good introduction to the Mason method. It’s not as in-depth as Macaulay’s book but is a good reference if you don’t have access to Charlotte Mason’s own writing, although now there are many Charlotte Mason resources free online - e.g. AmblesideOnline.

🥀

*A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola - practical advice and insight on implementing Mason’s ideas in real life. Karen and her husband Dean were responsible for re-printing Charlotte Mason’s six volumes as a set (my ‘pink’ volumes) in 1989. They had not been published in a complete set for over eighty years!

This is a conversational book that is, as its subtitle says, a companion rather than an explicit outline of the Charlotte Mason method. I think it’s important to understand the ‘why’ (e.g. For the Children’s Sake) before going on to the ‘how.’ The Charlotte Mason Companion is more of a ‘how’ book. It’s a book you can dip into and doesn’t require you to read the sections in order.

‘We can’t teach them everything. What can we do? We can expand their horizons with a wide range of interests and then practice the fine art of education - that art is standing aside to let a child develop the relations proper to him. It is needless to worry about the “holes” if we believe that “education consists in the establishment of relations.”

🥀

*Books Children Love by Elizabeth Wilson (1987) - I bought this in 1995 and even though there were many books I couldn’t source the suggestions helped me know which authors to look for and what ‘living books’ might look like.

🥀

*When Children Love to Learn - Elaine Cooper, General Editor (2004). A good reference book & a practical follow-up to 'For the Children’s Sake.' A helpful topic is that of alternating subjects so that there is a balance between ‘Inspirational’ (e.g., Bible, Composer Study, Poetry) and 'Disciplinary’ subjects (e.g., Composition, Mathematics, Geography).

A book for both Christian educators and parents to help them create a positive learning atmosphere using the Charlotte Mason Method. Contributors to the book include Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, Maryellen St. Cyr, Bobby Scott and Jack Beckman. It has a balanced mix of practice and philosophy and is a great book for anyone experienced or otherwise.

*The Living Page: Keeping Notebooks with Charlotte Mason by Laurie Bestvater (2013) Another book to dip into and reference. This is a comprehensive book on the different types of notebooks used in a Charlotte Mason education. My first impression was that it was heavy on educational jargon, which might turn some people off, but it is a useful reference for those who are implementing a Charlotte Mason Education but not a book for I’d recommend for those with young children just starting out.

“One cannot faddishly add a nature notebook to an already full and disjointed school day and expect the outcomes the P.N.E.U. saw.”

What are some of your favourite books that have helped you put the Charlotte Mason method into practice?

🥀 Some books have affiliate links 🥀