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Here in the UK, we haven’t sprung our clocks forward yet, but the signs of spring are definitely upon us. As the followers of the Charlotte Mason method, nature study is supposed to be a big part of our homeschool curriculum. We’re not always very good at it, but this time of year, it seems that we can’t help but notice the changes all around us. This week, we’ve been particularly revelling in the annual sightings of frogs in our pond, a frenzy of their little slimy bodies in piles, usually sitting atop a grapefruit-sized lump of spotted clear jelly. It’s during this mating period that I am strict with what my kids can do with the garden pond, ie, absolutely nothing! Don’t touch! Don’t poke! Don’t ferry buckets of its water to your paddling pool! Frogs have always been a fascination of mine, ever since I was 4 years old. One of my earliest memories is the day I kissed over thirty toads. The endangered Houston toad - just look at those kissable lips!! I lived in Houston, Texas, at the t...

Back in December, Rocky discovered a bright green caterpillar on the floor of our kitchen. We scoured the internet and our butterfly identification books, but couldn't pinpoint the species of caterpillar we had suddenly decided to adopt.  It was an important detail to pin down: different species require different plants for food. At first, wee hedged our bets with some bramble, grass, and nettles, but fortunately, we soon found out what it was through a very helpful website run by Steve Ogden, called Wildlife Insight. Angle Shades Moth Caterpillar So apparently, we were on the right track with our brambles and nettles, and before long, we had a cocoon! According to Steve's site, it would be about 20 days until we got a moth. The jar sat on a shelf in my kitchen, in front of my cookbooks. I looked in on the cocoon every day, in between our full-on attention with our new puppy. This is a bit more exciting than a cocoon! But lo and behold, on the 18th of January, the one-inch long...

Today, I met one of my homeschooling heroes: Sally Clarkson Sally is the author of numerous books, some about homeschooling and some about mothering and child-rearing with spiritual vision. My favourite of all was Educating the Wholehearted Child, which she co-authored with her husband, Clay, but that's a really hard decision to make because I also love Seasons of a Mother's Heart, Mission of Motherhood, and their devotional guide called Our 24 Family Ways. Sally's Homeschooling Books, through the Years She has a new book coming out in January called Own Your Own Way, and I can't wait to get my hands on it. So, what does one do when one meets a hero? First, you meet them at the train station and make them walk a mile up a steep hill. It's in the bright sunshine on a crisp and glorious autumn day, so that's all right! Then, you place in her hands a steaming mug of Yorkshire Gold tea, served in a Blenheim Palace mug. Next, you chat about her children's endeavo...

I was recently interviewed on FB for a home-edder's blog about homeschooling, especially to encourage newbies. I thought it might be worth reproducing here. Who am I?  I was born in Texas, but now live near Oxfordshire. I have a PhD in literature, a PGCE in secondary education (English), and formerly taught in private girls' schools in Oxford. Now, I homeschool my four kids who range from 7 to 14, examine for Cambridge International at iGCSE and A-level, and run my own online tutorial business for homeschooled students throughout the world (called Dreaming Spires Home Learning: links below). Blown away in the Orkneys Why did I start homeschooling? My interest in homeschooling started when my eldest was about 3 1/2 -- she was a late-summer baby, and Oxfordshire changed its entry policy to start children in the YEAR they turned 5 instead of the TERM they turned 5, so she was due to start when she had just turned 4. Being American, where children start in the September AFTER they ...

I'm now a veteran of homeschooling of more than 12 years. I once taught in secondary schools in England, but decided I was in a ludicrous position of being paid to teach other's children, and paying others to teach my own -- so, I decided to cut out the middleman and start to teach my kids. Equally, I became more and more aware that eight hours of school a day merely results in four hours of homework at night -- at least, it did in the private girls' school where I was a teacher. What an empty life for a child of 11 -- just school, school, and then when they got home, more school. Again, I saw the value in cutting out the middle bit -- that is, the eight hours at school -- and just doing the homework bit, leaving my children an extra eight hours to bond together, to connect with me, to meet up with friends, and sometimes, to be quite alone and do nothing, if that's what they wanted. BUT, people new to homeschooling, or thinking about homeschooling, or criticizing homesc...

Whether you're a follower of the Charlotte Mason method or not, I think having a working timeline for your family is a very important addition to your history studies. Children can cope with our tendency to hop around historical studies -- even schools, notorious for having children dress up like Cleopatra one day and an Evacuee from World War II the next, are able to help their pupils form some kind of mental timeline in their heads. Yes, the Egyptian pyramids were built before Hadrian's Wall. But did you know the Egyptian pyramids were being built the same time that Stonehenge was being built? In the Charlotte Mason method, the usual suggestion is to keep a Book of the Centuries. This is nothing more than a loose-leaf notebook where you insert pages in chronological order, perhaps even jotting down a list of things that happened roughly in the same era. We have tried a "BOC" in the past, but it just wasn't visual enough for me -- just not enough   for my liking....