Welcome to this special Q&A episode recorded live with Cindy's 2024 Summer Discipleship group In this episode we hear questions from participants and answers from Cindy Rollins, Dawn Duran, and Jeannette Tulis Lisa asks, "What about summers? Should we work hard to give our kids a 'real' summer break?" Tanya asks, "What kinds of books are best for the very young and are not considered twaddle?" Ellie asks, "How do I know how high is too high of a reading level for reading aloud? What can we do when children seem not to be engaging with a book?" Arlene asks, "How can we approach art study with children when the subject in the painting is scantily clad or nude?" Gretchen asks, "What advice do you have for those trying to balance pursuing knowledge for ourselves with trying to help our students earn the credits they need to go on to higher education?" Books and Links Mentioned: It’s not too late to join the The 2024 Back to School Conference: Heart to Heart which is happening this week! Recordings of past sessions are all available after they have gone live. Sign up today at MorningTimeforMoms.com. It is not for nothing that the old painters, however diverse their ideas in other matters, all fixed upon one quality as proper to the pattern Mother. The Madonna, no matter out of whose canvas she looks at you, is always serene. This is a great truth, and we should do well to hang our walls with the Madonnas of all the early Masters if the lesson, taught through the eye, would reach with calming influence to the heart. Charlotte Mason, School Education, p. 33 …knowledge…is no longer sacred and secular, great and trivial, practical and theoretical. All knowledge, dealt out to us in such portions as we are ready for, is sacred; knowledge is, perhaps, a beautiful whole, a great unity, embracing God and man and the universe, but having many parts which are not comparable with one another in the sense of less or more, because all are necessary and each has its functions.        Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education, p. 324 Find Cindy and Dawn: Morning Time for Moms Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group Mere Motherhood Facebook Group The Literary Life Podcast Cindy’s Facebook Cindy’s Instagram Dawn’s Swedish Drill website Dawn’s A Reasoned Patriotism website Dawn’s Substack

On this week’s episode of The New Mason Jar, Cindy and Dawn talk with Charlotte Mason homeschooling mom of three boys, Jess Smith How Jess first heard about Charlotte Mason’s philosophy How did Jess and her friends come to start a co-op using Mason’s methods? Why a small co-op of just two families can still be a great fit How Jess kept their focus on the principles Some ways to cover many subjects without burdening families How to deal with conflict in a group setting One thesis, which is, perhaps, new, that Education is the Science of Relations, appears to me to solve the question of curricula, as showing that the object of education is to put a child in living touch as much as may be of the life of Nature and of thought. Add to this one or two keys to self knowledge, and the educated youth goes forth with some idea of self management, with some pursuits, and many vital interests. Charlotte Mason, Home Education, Preface Books and Links Mentioned: For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay Material World by Peter Menzel D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths by Igri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire The 2024 Back to School Conference: Heart to Heart Find Cindy and Dawn: Morning Time for Moms Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group Mere Motherhood Facebook Group The Literary Life Podcast Cindy’s Facebook Cindy’s Instagram Dawn’s Swedish Drill website Dawn’s A Reasoned Patriotism website Dawn’s Substack Almighty God, Heavenly Father, you have blessed us with the joy and care of children: Give us calm strength and patient wisdom as we bring them up, that we may teach them to love whatever is just and true and good, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Prayer for the Care of Children, The Book of Common Prayer, p. 829

We kick off this new season of The New Mason Jar with a conversation Cindy and Dawn had with homeschool friends April Weyland and Anna Whiteside How Anna and April first found out about Charlotte Mason How the transition to a Charlotte Mason curriculum worked for Anna Why April decided it was time for them to leave their old coop and start using CM principles How Anna started her own CM coop with a few more like-minded families How April tried to keep the curriculum challenging while balancing learning difficulties Anna’s tips on carrying over these ideas into a coop setting that isn’t strictly Charlotte Mason No doubt we do give intellectual food, but too little of it: let us have courage and we shall be surprised, as we are now and then, at the amount of intellectual strong meat almost any child will take at a meal and digest at his leisure. Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education Books and Links Mentioned: For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay Know and Tell by Karen Glass The 2024 Back to School Conference: Heart to Heart Find Cindy and Dawn: Morning Time for Moms Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group Mere Motherhood Facebook Group The Literary Life Podcast Cindy’s Facebook Cindy’s Instagram Dawn’s Swedish Drill website Dawn’s A Reasoned Patriotism website Dawn’s Substack But education should be a science of proportion, and any one subject that assumes undue importance does so at the expense of other subjects which a child’s mind should deal with. Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education

This week on The New Mason Jar, Cindy and Dawn talk with homeschooling mom of 2 about using Morning Time in a local retirement home How Tiffany first came to know the Lord and also how she found out about Charlotte Mason How Tiffany started taking her children with her to do Morning Time at a local nursing home What are some of the fruits Tiffany has seen from this experience? What Tiffany includes in her morning time with the residents How can other homeschool families start this as a ministry in their own communities? What are some other areas in which families could minister to people through morning time? Shall every man have all the bliss That is, by right of fitness, his? Is Vision for all sons of men? Shall peoples walk with God again? But, oh, the head is sick, the heart Too faint to choose the righteous part! Shall the Messiah purge the whole, And animate each sinking soul? And shall He in His power go forth? From east and west, from south and north, Shall men flock round Him with desire, Soliciting His purging fire? How wonderful Thy counsels, Lord Thy ways past finding out, Thy word, Quick and compelling, searcheth out Just means to bring high ends about! from “Savior of the World” Book 1, by Charlotte Mason Books and Links Mentioned: The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox Find Cindy and Tiffany: Morning Time for Moms Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group Mere Motherhood Facebook Group The Literary Life Podcast Cindy’s Facebook Cindy’s Instagram Tiffany’s YouTube Tiffany’s Instagram The Chief Thing we have to do––To bring the human race, family by family, child by child, out of the savage and inhuman desolation where He is not, into the light and warmth and comfort of the presence of God, is, no doubt, the chief thing we have to do in the world. And this individual work with each child, being the most momentous work in the world, is put into the hands of the wisest, most loving, disciplined, and divinely instructed of human beings. Be ye perfect as your Father is perfect, is the perfection of parenthood, perhaps to be attained in its fulness only through parenthood. There are mistaken parents, ignorant parents, a few indifferent parents; even, as one in a thousand, callous parents; but the good that is done upon the earth is done, under God, by parents, whether directly or indirectly. Charlotte Mason, Parents and Children, p. 51-52

Show Summary: In today’s episode of The New Mason Jar, Cindy shares a chat she had with Christina Baehr, a second generation homeschooling mom in Tasmania, Australia A little about Christina’s background and various creative pursuits, including music and writing What is Pilgrim Hill, and why did Christina and her husband start it? How Christina’s own self-education was deeply influenced by her mother How Christina home educates her own children Why Christina never really stopped self-educating How Christina gets through difficult seasons Evaluating expectations as a homeschool mom How Christina got back into writing What Christina is reading right now That each thing is a word Requiring us to speak it; From the ant to the quasar, From clouds to ocean floor- The meaning not ours, but found In the mind deeply submissive To the grammar of existence, The syntax of the real; So that alien is changed To human, thing into thinking: For the world’s bare tokens We pay golden coin, Stamped with the king’s image; And poems are prophecy Of a new heaven and earth, A rumour of resurrection “Credo” by James Phillip McAuley Books and Links Mentioned: Elizabeth Goudge Edith Nesbit Elizabeth Von Arnim Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey The Secrets of Ormdale Series by Christina Baehr Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey Beyond Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins Anthony Trollope P. G. Wodehouse The Mabinogion by Anonymous How We Might Live by Suzanne Fagence Cooper Find Cindy and Christina: Morning Time for Moms Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group Mere Motherhood Facebook Group The Literary Life Podcast Cindy’s Facebook Cindy’s Instagram Christina’s Website Christina’s Instagram Christina’s Facebook Page Pilgrim Hill “It is no small part of education to have seen much beauty, to recognize it when we see it, and to keep ourselves humble in its presence.” Charlotte Mason, Toward a Philosophy of Education

On The New Mason Jar this week, Cindy and Dawn sit down to talk with veteran homeschool mom Elissa Kroeger about her own journey of self-education How Elissa first heard about Charlotte Mason Elissa’s own history with reading and self-education through her school years How Elissa’s early homeschooling community grew organically How was a Charlotte Mason lifestyle a catalyst for wholeness in Elissa’s life? How has life changed since most of Elissa’s children have grown and are no longer in her homeschool? What Elissa does now for self-education Who were the women who made the biggest impression on Elissa’s life? If we know one person who grows pale at a lofty thought, whose tears come at the telling of a heroic action, let us learn, from that, that these are thoughts and actions that have the power to move us all; therefore, we must give freely of our best, without the supercilious notion that So-and so would not understand. If music, poetry, art, give us joy, let us not hesitate to present these joys to others; for indeed, those others are made in all points like as we are, though with a different experience. The orator whose Sympathy is awake appeals to the generosity, delicacy, courage, loyalty of a mixed mob of people; and he never appeals in vain. His Sympathy, his comprehension, has discerned all these riches of the heart in the unpromising crowd before him and; like Ariel, released from his tree prison leaps out of many a human prison, a beautiful human being at the touch of this key. Charlotte Mason, Ourselves Books and Links Mentioned: Better Late Than Early by Raymond Moore Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander The Tripods Series by John Christopher Byzantium by Stephen Lawhead The City of God by St. Augustine Genevieve Foster H. E. Marshall Spiritual Sight by Joyce McPherson AmblesideOnline Set Your Feet Retreat It is by way of an effort towards this adjustment of power that I wish to bring before parents and teachers the subject of ‘masterly inactivity’. We ought to do so much for our children, and are able to do so much for them, that we begin to think everything rests with us and that we should never intermit for a moment our conscious action on the young minds and hearts about us. Our endeavours become fussy and restless. We are too much with our children ‘late and soon’. We try to dominate them too much, even when we fail to govern, and we are unable to perceive that wise and purposeful letting alone is the best part of Education. But this form of error arises from a defect of our qualities. We may take heart. We have the qualities and all that is wanted is an adjustment; to this we must give our time and attention. Charlotte Mason, School Education Find Cindy and Dawn: Morning Time for Moms Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group Mere Motherhood Facebook Group The Literary Life Podcast Cindy’s Facebook Cindy’s Instagram Dawn’s Swedish Drill website Dawn’s A Reasoned Patriotism website Dawn’s Substack

On The New Mason Jar today, we bring you a conversation Cindy and Dawn had with the AmblesideOnline Advisory members Anne White, Donna-Jean Breckenridge, Karen Glass and Leslie Laurio. How the friendship of the AO Advisory developed and has been a gift for each member throughout the years Did the Advisory members use the whole AO curriculum as written? What about those fears about missing out on something if a family doesn’t do everything in the curriculum perfectly? The simplicity of the Charlotte Mason approach to language arts Do any of the Advisory doubt Charlotte Mason’s methods now that they have all graduated their children? Are there any things that aren’t common knowledge that the Advisory wants to share? Books and Links Mentioned: AmblesideOnline Six Voices, One Story by Donna-Jean Breckenridge, et. al. In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay AO Advisory Bios: Anne White grew up and still lives in southern Ontario.  She anticipated David Epstein’s Range by changing her university major three times and stretching a four-year degree into seven, but she did complete a BA in creative writing, and later added a BEd in adult education. In the thirty years between those things, she (and her husband) raised three homeschooled daughters, who have each found their own Range. Anne has been associated with AmblesideOnline since its beginning, and is the author of several books about Charlotte Mason’s philosophy. Donna-Jean Breckenridge lives with her family in northern New Jersey. She is honored to be a founding member of the AmblesideOnline Advisory, and she continues to serve AO’s community while homeschooling her granddaughters. She is a public speaker, writer (This Country of Ours – Annotated, Edited, and Updated and Six Voices, One Story: The Heart of AmblesideOnline), and audiobook narrator. She counts her greatest roles as mom to her four children, grandmother to five, and grateful friend. Her heart’s desire is to encourage others that God is safe to trust, no matter what.  After living 25 years in Krakow, Poland, Karen Glass currently lives in Indiana with her husband and youngest daughter. She is a founding member of AmblesideOnline and home educated her four children through graduation. She is the author of several books related to Charlotte Mason and speaks and teaches on the philosophy and methods (especially narration). She reads, writes, tries to grow things, and has been known to crochet doilies and knit socks. Leslie Laurio is an art school dropout, a veteran, a homeschool mom, and one of the founders and original creators of AmblesideOnline. She and her husband live in Tennessee and have four children who were homeschooled all the way from kindergarten through high school, and are now married and scattered across the eastern US pursuing various careers and passions. She has paraphrased the Charlotte Mason series, Parables From Nature, and other works. The person who can live upon his own intellectual resources and never know a dull hour (though anxious and sad hours will come) is indeed enviable in these days of intellectual inanition, when we depend upon spectacular entertainments pour passer le temps [to pass the time]. If knowledge means so much to us, “What is knowledge?” the reader asks. We can give only a negative answer. Knowledge is not instruction, information, scholarship, a well-stored memory. It is passed, like the light of a torch, from mind to mind, and the flame can be kindled at original minds only. Thought, we know, breeds thought; it is as vital thought touches our minds that our ideas are vitalized, and out of our ideas comes our conduct of life… The direct and immediate impact of great minds upon his own mind is necessary to the education of a child. Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, p. 303 Let us, out of reverence for the children, be modest; let us not stake their interests on the hope that this or that new way would lead to great results if people had only the courage to follow it. It is exciting to become a pioneer; but, for the children’s sake, it may be well to constrain ourselves to follow those roads only by which we know that persons have arrived, or those newer roads which offer evident and assured means of progress towards a desired end. Charlotte Mason, School Education, p. 245

Every plant bears fruit, ‘fruit and seed after his kind.’ All this is stale knowledge to older people, but one of the secrets of the educator is to present nothing as stale knowledge, but to put himself in the position of the child, and wonder and admire with him; for every common miracle which the child sees with his own eyes makes of him for the moment another Newton. Charlotte Mason, Home Education, p. 54 Show Summary: On The New Mason Jar this week, Cindy and Dawn continue their Morning Time for Moms series with guests Summer and Mike Smith How Summer and Mike first learned about Charlotte Mason and her philosophy Mike’s early love for books and Summer’s own life of reading How Mike and Summer continued to enjoy reading and self-education after formal schooling Some thoughts on the college experience How Summer keeps up her own education while homeschooling How Mike and Summer help their children see ministry opportunities in their community Books and Links Mentioned: In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan Number the Stars by Lois Lowry Ice Magic by Matt Christopher The Kid Who Only Hit Homers by Matt Christopher Brighty of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry Pickle Chiffon Pie by Jolly Roger Bradfield Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene The Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank Calico Palace by Gwen Bristow Jubilee Trail by Gwen Bristow Celia Garth by Gwen Bristow American Regional Books by Lois Lenski Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene Kent Family Chronicles series by John Jakes Range by David Epstein Holling C. Holling The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon Beyond Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins Paradise Lost by John Milton The Iliad by Homer The Aeneid by Virgil Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher C. S. Lewis T. S. Eliot Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger The Major and the Missionary by Diana Pavlac Glyer The Odyssey by Homer A Curious Life for a Lady by Pat Barr Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley The Latin Letters of C. S. Lewis ed. and trans. by Martin Moynihan Find Cindy and Dawn: Morning Time for Moms Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group Mere Motherhood Facebook Group The Literary Life Podcast Cindy’s Facebook Cindy’s Instagram Dawn’s Swedish Drill website Dawn’s A Reasoned Patriotism website Dawn’s Substack We should allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and the ‘spiritual’ life of children; but should teach them that the divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their continual helper in all the interests, duties, and joys of life. Charlotte Mason, Principle 18

If mankind had not been organized into families, it would never have had the organic power to be organized into commonwealths. Human culture is handed down in the customs of countless households. It is the only way in which human culture can remain human. G. K. Chesterton, Marriage and the Modern Mind Show Summary: For this week’s episode of The New Mason Jar, Cindy and Dawn share about this year’s summer discipleship course, “Joy in the Morning” Gretchen Neisler tells about her own experience with past summer discipleship and why she keeps coming back for more What you can expect from this year’s Morning Time for Moms content and schedule Other ways you can benefit from Cindy’s wisdom and interact with other moms (Scroll down to the “Find Cindy” section for all the links) Books Mentioned: A White Bird Flying by Bess Streeter Aldrich A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass Ideas Freely Sown by Anne White Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins Live Not By Lies by Rod Dreher Charlotte Mason’s Great Recognition by Deani Van Pelt and Camille Malucci Joy in the Morning (Jeeves in the Morning) by P. G. Wodehouse Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare Norms and Nobility by David Hicks Find Cindy: Morning Time for Moms Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group Mere Motherhood Facebook Group The Literary Life Podcast Cindy’s Facebook Cindy’s Instagram Subscribe: Audible Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Podcast Addict Spotify Those who believe in the dignity of the domestic tradition, who happen to be the overwhelming majority of mankind, regard the home as a sphere of vast social importance and supreme spiritual significance, and to talk of being “confined” to it is like talking of being chained to a throne or set in the seat of judgment as if it were the stocks. G. K. Chesterton, “The Dignity of Domesticity,” The Illustrated London News, 1929

They notice for themselves, and the teacher gives a name and other information as it is asked for… In this way they lay up that store of “common information”… and what is more important, they learn to know and delight in natural objects as in the familiar faces of friends. Charlotte Mason, School Education, p. 237 Show Summary: On The New Mason Jar this week, we bring you a conversation all about spring nature study with Cindy, Dawn and Cindy’s friend Jeannette Tulis, who has been a previous guest on the podcast How can moms begin nature study when they have never done it before? How to find spring ephemeral wildflowers, and other things to look for at this time of year Ideas for stepping up your nature study game What are some tips for nature journaling? Books and Links Mentioned: Episode 12: Charlotte Mason Study Groups Episode 56: Building a Home Library Who’s Afraid of a Little Paint? by Jeannette Tulis The Tree Identification Book by George Symonds Wild Green Things in the City by Anne Ophelia Dowden The First Book of Weeds by Barbara Beck   Find Cindy: Morning Time for Moms Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group Mere Motherhood Facebook Group The Literary Life Podcast Cindy’s Facebook Cindy’s Instagram   Let them once get in touch with Nature, and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life. We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things. Charlotte Mason, Home Education, p. 61