Lesson Descriptions
ART & HANDICRAFT
Students will practice using various types of materials to create art projects and learn skills necessary for each medium.
Part of the Art lessons will be spent on Handicrafts and part on various forms of artistic expressions. Charlotte Mason emphasized again and again that education is the science of relations. That is, that people must form a relationship with ideas, people (past or present), things in creation, etc. in order to truly learn more about them. Miss Mason lists specific physical items (things from creation) as they relate to handicrafts:
“The children I am speaking of are much occupied with things as well as with books, because ‘Education is the Science of Relations,’ is the principle which regulates their curriculum; that is, a child goes to school with many aptitudes which he should put into effect. So, he learns a good deal of science, because children have no difficulty in understanding principles, though technical details baffle them. He practices various handicrafts that he may know the feel of wood, clay, leather, and the joy of handling tools, that is, that he may establish a due relation with materials.” Charlotte Mason, Vol 6 p31
In Miss Mason’s mind, handicrafts were not projects to be made and soon thrown into the trash. Instead, they ought to be something useful or beautiful, something that required the careful building of skills and kept at a level that the child could accomplish/complete with some semblance of success.
“The points to be borne in children's handicrafts are:(a) that they should not be employed in making futilities such a pea and stick work, paper mats, and the like; (b) that they should be taught slowly and carefully what they are to do; (c) that slipshod work should not be allowed; (d) and that, therefore, the children's work should be kept well within their compass.” Charlotte Mason, Vol 1, Home Education p 315- 316.
Our projects may take 4-12 weeks to complete, but they will provide training in dexterity and proficiency, a sense of accomplishment, as well as the ability to bless someone else with the newly acquired skill!
Other art skills such as brush drawing, pencil, charcoal or other types of medium may be learned and used.
BIBLE
The Bible is an integral part of the life of believing families. It is not something relegated to Sundays only, but should be taught and integrated all throughout the week. Charlotte Mason believed that children were capable of reading and understanding the actual words of Scripture, rather than hearing a watered-down summary with moralizations. The children will listen/read and let the words paint a mental picture of the scene and characters, and then narrate what they heard. Any crafts, drawings, or acting out will be enjoyable additions to the lessons, but not the bulk of it.
The fine roll of Bible English appeals to children with a compelling music, and they will probably retain through life their first conception of the Bible scenes, and, also, the very words in which these scenes are portrayed. But let the imaginations of children be stored with the pictures, their minds nourished upon the words, of the gradually unfolding story of the Scriptures…” ~ Charlotte Mason volume I
HISTORY
A Charlotte Mason history lesson weaves together stories of historical figures, events, and periods, presented through engaging and well-written living books.. The aim is to immerse students in the lives, culture, thoughts, and experiences of people from the past, allowing them to form personal connections and deep understanding.
"The question is not, -- how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education -- but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?" ~ Charlotte Mason, School Education: Developing A Curriculum
For our older students, these lessons often incorporate primary sources, maps, and visual aids. Discussions are also a key component, where students are prompted to ask questions, explore different perspectives, and draw parallels between history and their own lives. The ultimate goal is to cultivate a lifelong love of history and an appreciation for the rich tapestry of human experience.
NATURE & SCIENCE
Observing the changes and wonders in nature is the delight of many children. Miss Mason allowed generous time in her academic schedule for nature study. The consistent, regular habit of being outdoors over weeks, months and years through first-hand experience cannot be replicated in a textbook.
"He must live hours daily in the open air, and, as far as possible, in the country; must look and touch and listen; must be quick to note, consciously, every peculiarity of habit or structure, in beast, bird, or insect; the manner of growth and fructification of every plant. He must be accustomed to ask why--Why does the wind blow? Why does the river flow? Why is a leaf-bud sticky? And do not hurry to answer his questions for him; let him think his difficulties out so far as his small experience will carry him." ~ Charlotte Mason, Vol. 1, p.264-265
The many benefits of nature study include mental breaks from heavy tasks, appreciation of art and beauty in creation, gentle physical exercise, fresh air and sun exposure, learning to love and care for creation, awareness of dangerous creatures or plants in the natural surroundings, attentiveness to detail, observation skills, and foundations for the future study of formal science.
While our Apiary Collective setting/location isn’t an ideal venue for nature study, we still hope to give chances to read books about creatures written in an engaging and literary way, as well as observe items from nature. Students will then practice drawing/sketching/writing about this object in a nature notebook and gain confidence in making nature notebooking a regular practice. Seasonal changes will also be tracked and noted month-by-month. We also hope to facilitate group nature outings (optional) at another specified location.
Older students will begin studying science proper using living books and interacting with ideas through discussion, hands-on experiments and writing or diagramming information learned in a science notebook.
GAMES
In order to take a break from readings and narrations, some classes will enjoy board games and PE games.
GEOGRAPHY
For Miss Mason, Geography was not a boring add-on to the history lesson, nor was it a mere map with daunting country names to remember and spell. Instead, geography was an exciting way to travel in one’s own country, or around the world. This was particularly valuable in a day and age when world travel was not financially possible for most of the population. Using a book with language that conjured up mental images of the places and people described, paired with photos or objects (when possible), and maps, the geography lesson can be an enjoyable way to make a relationship with the people/animals/customs of a particular location. To then find the location on a map and recall it in the following weeks as review is not a chore, but a delight. Additional information such as names of land forms, oceans, cardinal directions, etc. are also included during mapwork time.
LITERATURE
Folk tales, Fables, Legends and Parables formed the curriculum of the early years in Charlotte Mason’s schools. Even long or unfamiliar names or words can be handled by young children if read to them. As children enter the middle school years, the difficulty level of the books chosen will rise. Students will begin to learn some technical terms like “setting”, “plot”, “story arc”, “rising action”, “character development”, etc. and comparative/contrasting aspects will be drawn out. Some readings will be done independently at home and both historical as well as modern tales can be enjoyed. Much of what was written above under the heading “Living Books”, as well as below under “Moral Imagination” applies to Literature as well.
MORAL IMAGINATION
A significant part of the education of children involves helping them form and shape their ideas of what is good and virtuous; to learn that “it seems good to me” does not automatically equal “it is truly good”. Children have an uncanny ability to take moral directives “do this, don’t do that…” and reject them outright. Some good-intentioned authors have tried, unsuccessfully, to cloak morals in sappy tales which do not ring true to reality. Instead, great stories offer vivid depictions of struggles between good and evil, and show, rather than tell, how right and wrong play out in the world.
“Mere instruction in morality is not sufficient to nurture the virtues. It might even backfire, especially when the presentation is heavily exhortative and the pupil's will is coerced. Instead, a compelling vision of the goodness of goodness itself needs to be presented in a way that is attractive and stirs the imagination. A good moral education addresses both the cognitive and affective dimensions of human nature. Stories are an irreplaceable medium of this kind of moral education. This is the education of character.”
“The great fairy tales and children's fantasy stories attractively depict character and virtue. In these stories the virtues glimmer as if in a looking glass, and wickedness and deception are unmasked of their pretensions to goodness and truth. These stories make us face the unvarnished truth about ourselves while compelling us to consider what kind of people we want to be.”
“The moral imagination is not a thing, not so much a faculty even, as the very process by which the self makes metaphors out of images given by experience and then employs these metaphors to find and suppose moral correspondences in experience. The moral imagination is active, for well or ill, strongly or weakly, every moment of our lives, in our sleep as well as when we are awake. But it needs nurture and proper exercise. Otherwise it will atrophy like a muscle that is not used. The richness or the poverty of the moral imagination depends upon the richness or the poverty of experience. When human beings are young and dependent upon parents and others who assume custodial care for them, they are especially open to formation through experiences provided by these persons. When we argue or discuss what kind of education or recreation our children should have we are acknowledging these realities.”
~ Vigen Guroian from: Awakening the Moral Imagination: Teaching Virtues Through Fairy Tales Essay
Fairy Tales, Mythology, and select Shakespeare plays will form the backbone of the lessons for this subject area, and the Teacher will bring out discussion and further questions about characters, good & evil, tie-ins to Scripture stories and teaching, etc. (or better yet, teach the students to ask good questions!), and by example, show how to continue to be formed by stories.
PRESENTATIONS
While some children are naturally good at speaking and aren’t afraid of standing in front of a crowd, others usually need some help in overcoming fears and hesitations. This is probably especially true of homeschoolers! Each week several students will have the opportunity to stand in front of their own class (not the whole Apiary Collective group) and give a short presentation. The age and comfort level of each child will determine how long he/she speaks at first, but the Teacher will, by degrees, encourage longer, more thorough and well-planned presentations, followed by a short question and answer time by the other students in the class. Students will also be encouraged to expand the scope of their curiosity to ask more appropriate interesting and thoughtful questions.
SOL-FA
Sol-Fa (also known as solfège, solfeggio, solfeo, and solfa) is a type of musical instruction that assigns syllables to each note of the musical scale. Variations on this system of notation have been around since the 11th century. Typical music notation in English is given with the alphabetical letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G. These are definite pitches that do not change (middle C on the piano is always the pitch of middle C). In sol-fa, however, each of the 7 notes on a scale has a name (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti). If transferred into another key, the sol-fa note names remain the same. One of the aims of teaching sol-fa is to teach inner hearing, reading and singing music in your mind. Just as one learns (step-by-step) how to read letters, form words, sound them out, read fluently aloud, and then read silently, one can learn the steps to read music so that it can be played out in the mind silently. This is called inner hearing. Hand signs accompany the sol-fa notes as an added kinesthetic aspect to this musical education. Charlotte Mason advocated for using this method of musical education as a firm foundation for further musical pursuits later in adolescence and adulthood. This method aligns with her idea of “things before signs” — meaning that to understand things such as pitch and harmony, and to be able to listen and hear something in music should happen before being introduced to the corresponding musical notation.
"I should like, in connection with singing, to mention the admirable educational effects of the Tonic Sol-fa method. [See Appendix A] Children learn by it in a magical way to produce sign for sound and sound for sign, that is, they can not only read music, but can write the notes for, or make the proper hand signs for, the notes of a passage sung to them. Ear and Voice are simultaneously and equally cultivated. Mrs. Curwen's Child Pianist [See Appendix A] method is worked out, with minute care, upon the same lines; that is, the child's knowledge of the theory of music and his ear training keep pace with his power of execution, and seem to do away with the deadly dreariness of 'practising." (CM Vol 1, p 314-315)
SYMPOSIUM
We begin each gathering with all families and students together to enjoy beautiful music, beautiful words and beautiful art.
- Hymn: A song with rich theology and vocabulary set to a musical arrangement; practice singing for worship together.
- Folk Song: A song with cultural heritage sung in the past “by the people, for the people”. Lyrics may be humorous, romantic, or melancholy, but these songs have been a part of American/another culture for decades if not centuries. Sung together.
- Composer Study: A composition written by a composer with musical value to be enjoyed. Musical palettes will be expanded as we listen to and appreciate the complexity of the arrangements and styles of each composer.
- Artist Study: A painting by an artist, studied silently for 5 mins as a group, and then put away. The children will recall from memory the details of the painting. This encourages the habit of attention, a major theme in a Charlotte Mason education.