Little House Learning Co. — Reading

Before I started homeschooling, the idea of teaching my children to read was the most daunting. It is such an important piece of education that I didn't want to mess it up. The anxiety around teaching a child to read can keep parents from home educating or can shake our confidence in our choice to homeschool. With there being so many programs and methods out there, I wanted to share what the pathway has been for two of my children to learn to read. It can be so helpful to see how someone else has done it when we're trying...

Our Children's Book Club has been one of the sweetest additions to our homeschool, and I want to share what we do together so that you might consider adding this activity to your homeschool too! How We Organize Our Children's Book Club When the book club moms got together this summer, we planned which two or three books we will read next. We all brought books to look at and suggestions of things we've heard about or have read ourselves. We used children's book lists from places like Ambleside Online, Read Aloud Revival, Honey for a Child's Heart, Give Your...

If you have been around the homeschooling community in the recent years, especially in the Charlotte Mason homeschool community,  you've probably heard someone refer to a book as a "living book". The first time I ever heard this phrase it really captured my attention. It resonated somewhere deep within me and I wanted to know more about what makes a book "living". Maybe you've also heard the opposite term--calling a book "twaddle". There is a lot wrapped up in each of these terms, so I wanted to share what they mean, how you can identify them and other factors you can...

“To form in his child right habits of thinking and behaving is a parent’s chief duty… To nourish a child daily with loving, right, and noble ideas we believe to be the parent’s next duty.” Charlotte Mason, Vol. 2, p. 228 "In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mother’s first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it spent for the most part out in the fresh air." Charlotte Mason, Vol. 1, p. 4 Our Charlotte Mason Preschool Experience...

Finding value in poetry enriches learning for a lifetime, and for us, we want that to start as early as possible! It displays the beauty in language and words and sets the stage for a love of literature and good writing. Even from when our kids are tiny, we weave poetry into our routine by picking picture books that rhyme and have intricate rhythms to the flow of story.  Here are a few of our favorites that helped us dip our toes in the world of poetry! Our Favorite Poetry for Small Children Little Blue Truck series Bear Snores On The...