Volume 1 Study - pages 135-168
As I am rereading this section I am finding more and more truth and encouragement in my parenting and home education! On my instagram I can't help but snap photos of pages that have jumped out at me like this one:
I am glad you are reading along with me and hope that passages like this give you encouragement as well! The training of habits is so important! Along with advice from CM I also pray daily for wisdom and discernment from God on how to raise and train up my kids. It's hard work! I'm reading the book "How to Raise a Wild Child" right now and there are so many places that I see a relation between what CM wrote in Vol. 1 and Dr. Sampson writes in his book. Two examples that pop up right away are the role of a parent as a "trickster coyote" in learning more how to guide a child to think of cause and effect (pg 150-151, 154) and encouraging imaginative play with "loose parts" instead of just taking them to a playground with swings and slides (pg 152-153). I encourage you to get the book and find a friend to create opportunities for the kids to get outside and cultivate a habit of attention while "in the wild!"
The other book I suggest downloading and reading is the free ebook
"Smooth and Easy Days" on Simply Charlotte Mason!
and
"Way of the Will"
As you study this section on your own, here are some questions to ask yourself:
page 135-137
What habits have you trained that have helped your life become easier?
Are there habits that have hindered your child?
Think of examples where your child has shown good character! Character education is also a form of habit training.
page 137-149
Why is the habit of attention so important?
Can you think of an example where a child has shown a stream of associations or wandering attention?
How can we cultivate the habit of attention in infants?
As a teacher, how can you make lessons attractive or cultivate attention?
Do you use timetables in your home school?
We hear a lot about "right sized lessons" in CM forums. What do you do when the child has grown "stupid" over a lesson?!
What reward systems work and what kind of consequences or discipline should be used in lessons?
How many times as mothers do we feel the strain of fatigue on page 146 of not what we "do" but what we "fail to do!" What is the danger in making students sit and finish every single check mark?
Can you give an instance where your kids were "mooning" over their work? How do you make it cheerful?
What is the difference between natural and educative consequences? (If you want to read the story illustration click here)
page 149-154
How do you stimulate zeal?
Describe how the lion story shows the effort of thinking - tracing of effect from cause, or cause from effect.
Describe books that are incongruous. Although she doesn't say "twaddle" in this section, why should we be careful in the books we select for children?
What lessons feed imagination?
What examples can you think of when your child has asked "why?"
154-159
What is the difference between remembering and recollecting?
Compare the section of "spurious" memory to our current American public school system.
What conditions allow our brain to store information into memory?
When choosing your lessons, are you "scaffolding" or allowing your child to "forge links" to allow the law of association build knowledge in a subject? This section also supports the CM idea of "science of relations!" I also like that she approves of techniques like mnemonics. (To read more about this, read page 173-185 of the Westminster Review here) Also called "Roman Room" or "Mind Palace."
159-164
What dangers do we face if we do not expect perfection from our students? I find this section interesting because of how much CM has previously talked about keeping lessons "bright and cheery" and yet demanding perfection in this section seems to contradict a CM atmosphere. Do you have thoughts on how you can achieve both?
What is the true motive for obedience?
I love the section "she must never give a command which she does not intend to see carried out to the full." Discuss how a child's obedience is also directly related to how well we exercise "great self-restraint."
What manner of obedience is of lasting value the child?
164-168
What are the causes of lying?
How would you train a child in accuracy of statement, exaggeration or embellishments?
Discuss how not temper, but tendency is born in a child.
How have you helped your child to change their thoughts?
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