We begin a new year with Charlotte Mason’s birthday by celebrating her life. This podcast episode reviews the timeline of Charlotte Mason’s life, her accomplishments and the progression of her career, and reveals in part the beautiful influence her generous life offers us today.

Listen Now:

“I do not wish my life to be written, it is the work that matters, it will live.” (Charlotte Mason to Elsie Kitching)

“It would seem a far cry from Undine to a ‘liberal education’ but there is a point of contact between the two; a soul awoke within a water-sprite at the touch of love; so, I have to tell of the awakening of a ‘general soul’ at the touch of knowledge. Eight years ago the ‘soul’ of a class of children in a mining village school awoke simultaneously at this magic touch and has remained awake. We know that religion can awaken souls, that love makes a new man, that the call of a vocation may do it, and in the age of the Renaissance, men’s souls, the general soul, awoke to knowledge: but this appeal rarely reaches the modern soul; and, notwithstanding the pleasantness attending lessons and marks in all our schools, I believe the ardour for knowledge in the child of this mining village is a phenomenon that indicates new possibilities. Already, many thousands of the children of the Empire had experienced this intellectual conversion, but they were the children of educated person. To find that the children of a mining population were equally responsive seemed to open a new hope for the world. It may be that the souls of all children are waiting for the call of knowledge to awaken them to delightful living.” (6/xxv)

In Memoriam: Charlotte Mason

Story of Charlotte Mason, Essex Chomondeley

Ambleside Geography Book I, Charlotte Mason (in print here)

Ambleside Geography Book 2, Charlotte Mason

Ambleside Geography Book 3, Charlotte Mason

Ambleside Geography Book 4, Charlotte Mason

Ambleside Geography Book 5, Charlotte Mason

The British Museum for Children, Frances Epps

The Forty Shires, Charlotte Mason

Home Education (Volume 1), Charlotte Mason

Story of the World (Volumes 1, 2, 3, in print and here all volumes online)

The Gospel History, C.C. James (online here)

(Contains Affiliate Links)

Charlotte Mason Poetry’s Saviour of the World resources

Episode 13: The Saviour of the World

Episode 105: Saviour of the World Immersion

Episode 89: Mother’s Education Course

The Great Recognition

What would Charlotte Mason say about children coming into the feast late or mid-year, when children refuse to cooperate, or how to get them to be more independent in their school lessons? This month’s Q&A addresses these questions from listeners.

Listen Now:

“They are careful to form habits upon which the routine of life runs easily, and, when the exceptional event requires a new regulation, they may make casual mention of their reasons for having so and so done; or, if this is not convenient and the case is a trying one, they give the children the reason for all obedience––”for this is right.” In a word, authority avoids, so far as may be, giving cause of offence.” (3/22)

“Expect Obedience.––The mother has no more sacred duty than that of training her infant to instant obedience.” (1/162)

“The work not done in its own time should be left undone. Children should not be embarrassed
with arrears, and they should have due sense of the importance of time, and that there is no other time for work not done in its own time.” (From “Suggestions” accompanying Programme 42)

In Memoriam: Charlotte Mason

Our Island Story, H.E. Marshall

(Contains Affiliate Links)

Charlotte Mason Soiree Conference

Episode 121: Growing Up with CM and Dyslexia–Mitchell Williams

Episode 83: Form IB Recap

Episode 84: Form IA Recap

Episode 85: Form IIB Recap

Episode 86: Form IIA Recap

Episode 87: Form III Recap

Episode 88: Forms IV-VI Recap

Episode 30: The Way of the Will and The Way of Reason

Episode 115: Authority and Docility, Part I

Episode 116: Authority and Docility, Part II

Table of Contents for Q&A Episodes (and Topical Index too!)

Listen Now:

{Cheryl and her beautiful family}

For the Children’s Sake, Macaulay

Charlotte Mason’s Home Education Series

(Contains Affiliate Links)

ADE’s Consulting Services

Charlotte Mason Digital Collection

Charlotte Mason thought geography a vital subject in the feast, but where do maps fit into the lessons and what are the most effective ways to use them? Emily unpacks her most recent research and dispels some popular myths about map work.

Listen Now:

“Geography should be learnt chiefly from maps. Pictorial readings and talks introduce him to the subject, but so soon as his geography lessons become definite they are to be learnt, in the first place, from the map. This is an important principle to bear in mind. The child who gets no ideas from considering the map, say of Italy or of Russia, has no knowledge of geography, however many facts about places he may be able to produce. Therefore, he should begin this study by learning the meaning of a map and how to use it. he must learn to draw a plan of his schoolroom, etc., according to scale, go on to the plan of a field, consider how to make the plan of his town, and be carried gradually from the idea of a plan to that of a map; always beginning with the notion of an explorer who finds the land and measures it, and by means of the sun and stars, is able to record just where it is on the earth’s surface, east or west, north or south.” (1/278)

Ambleside Geography Book 2, Charlotte Mason

Ambleside Geography Book 3, Charlotte Mason

Ambleside Geography Book 4, Charlotte Mason

Ambleside Geography Book 5, Charlotte Mason

Map Making with Children, Sobol

Rand McNally Atlas of World History, R. R. Palmer

Student Atlases: These are the most inexpensive option but have severe limitations. Their price makes them useful in purchasing the most up-to-date information.

• National Geographic Student Atlas

Middle-Level Atlases: These are a step up from student atlases and these in particular are good because they include more details of non-US countries rather than simply continents

• The Children’s World Atlas, Colin Arrowsmith. Sandy Creek, 2011. 
• National Geographic World Atlas for Young Explorers, Third Edition, National Geographic, 2007.

Comprehensive Atlases: These are beautiful, and large, and robust. 

• National Geographic Atlas of the World, Eighth Edition, National Geographic, 2007. (This is not the latest edition, but very reasonably priced copies can be found used. The Tenth Edition was published in 2014, and can also be found used less expensively than a new edition.)
• Oxford Atlas of the World, Twenty-Fifth Edition, Oxford, 2018. (This is updated annually, and is more reasonably priced than the one above, but again, recent editions are even more reasonable used)
• National Geographic Family Reference Atlas of the World, Fourth Edition, National Geographic, 2016.

(Contains Affiliate Links)

Episode 146: Physical Geography

Physical Geography in the Early Years through Form I

Episode 18: Geography 2.0

Geography Overview PDF

The Book of Centuries and How to Keep One, Mrs. Bernau (Parents’ Review, Vol. 39, pp. 224-235)

The scope of the subject of geography matches the size of the world it covers and Charlotte Mason’s approach to this subject is likewise vast and multifaceted. This podcast episode discusses the purpose of geography study, the variety of resources used for learning, and gives a broad overview of the progression throughout forms I to VI.

Listen Now:

“Geography is, to my mind, a subject of high educational value; though not because it affords the means of scientific training. Geography does present its problems, and these of the most interesting, and does afford materials for classification; but it is physical geography only which falls within the definition of a science, and even that is rather a compendium of the results of several sciences than a science itself. But the peculiar value of geography lies in its fitness to nourish the mind with ideas, and to furnish the imagination with pictures. Herein lies the educational value of geography.” (1/271-72)

“[G]ive him…intimate knowledge, with the fullest details, of any country or region of the world, any county or district of his own country. It is not necessary that he should learn at this stage what is called the ‘geography’ of the countries of Europe, the continents of the world–mere strings of names for the most part: he may learn these, but it is tolerably certain that he will not remember them. But let him be at home in any single region; let him see, with the mind’s eye, the people at their work and at their play, the flowers and fruits in their seasons, the beasts each in its habitat; and let him see all sympathetically, that is let him follow the adventures of a traveler; and he knows more, is better furnished with ideas, than if he had learnt all the names on all the maps.” (1/274-75)

Ambleside Geography Book I, Charlotte Mason (in print here)

Ambleside Geography Book 2, Charlotte Mason

Ambleside Geography Book 3, Charlotte Mason

Ambleside Geography Book 4, Charlotte Mason

Ambleside Geography Book 5, Charlotte Mason

The World at Home, Kirby

Our Country and Its People, Monroe & Buckbee (online here)

Geikie’s Physical Geography (online here)

Physiography, Huxley

(Contains Affiliate Links)

Charlotte Mason Soiree Conference

Episode 146: Physical Geography

Geography Overview PDF

The Uses of Books in Geography, C.N. Heath (Parents’ Review 14, no. 12, pp. 930-36)

Philips Pocket Surveyor

Episode 151: Mapping