Art and music appreciation; living books; 2002 CM workshops; reader tips.
A Charlotte Mason Education -
Vol. 3, No. 4 -- March 2002
Circulation: 6,300+
http://sites.silaspartners.com/cmason/Mailto: DSimple@aol.comCopyright 2002 Deborah Taylor-Hough
ISSN: 1527-1277 All Rights Reserved
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IN THIS ISSUE:-- "Dear Readers"
-- Charlotte Mason Quote-able
-- Art and Music Appreciation
-- Living Books for Children
-- Charlotte Mason Workshops 2002
-- Letters to the Editor / Reader Tips
-- Assorted Information (archives, retrieving back issues, etc.)
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Dear Readers,This issue contains an excerpt from Charlotte Mason's own writings dealing with appreciation for Art and Music. Adding her simple ideas to your curriculum, whether at home or in a school setting, can add much to the joy of life, as well as the joy of education. My children really look forward to their weekly Art Appreciation time.
Due to frequent requests from readers for an email version of the Living Books list on one of my webpages, I'm including the book list and text in this issue of the CM-Monthly. It's not, by any means, an exhaustive list of books dealing with every educational topic in-depth, but it gives a general idea of the types of books that might be considered "living" books. I've known several people who have even printed out the book list and given it to the grandparents as suggested gift-giving ideas for the children.
Simply Yours,
Debi
(Deborah Taylor-Hough)
Editor, Charlotte Mason Monthly Email Newsletter
Author, "Frozen Assets: How to cook for a day and eat for a month" and "A Simple Choice: A practical guide for saving your time, money, and sanity"
http://hometown.aol.com/dsimple/________________________________
CHARLOTTE MASON QUOTE-ABLE"... the habit of holding oneself well in hand, the being impervious to small annoyances, cheerful under small inconveniences, ready for action with what is called 'presence of mind' in all the little casaulties of the hour--this is a habit which should be trained in the nursery. ... 'If you are vexed, don't show it,' is usually a quite safe teaching, because every kind of fretfulness, impatience,
resentfulness, and nervous irritability passes away under self-control."
--Charlotte Mason, "School Education," (Vol. 3)
From:
The Original Homeschooling Series (six volume set)
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ART AND MUSIC APPRECIATIONby Charlotte Mason. Public domain.
From: A Philosophy of Education
There are few subjects regarded with more respect and less confidence in our schools than this of 'Art.' Of course, we say, children should have their artistic powers cultivated, especially those who have such powers, but how is the question.
... "Art" is of the spirit, and in ways of the spirit must we make our attempt. We recognise that the power of appreciating art and of producing to some extent an interpretation of what one sees is as universal as intelligence, imagination, nay, speech, the power of producing words.
But there must be knowledge and, in the first place, not the technical knowledge of how to produce, but some reverent knowledge of what has been produced; that is, children should learn pictures, line by line, group by group, by reading, not books, but pictures themselves.
A friendly picture-dealer supplies us with half a dozen beautiful little reproductions of the work of some single artist, term by term. After a short story of the artist's life and a few sympathetic words about his trees or his skies, his river-paths or his figures, the little pictures are studied one at a time; that is, children learn, not merely to see a picture but to look at it, taking in every detail.
Then the picture is turned over and the children tell what they have seen,-a dog driving a flock of sheep along a road but nobody with the dog. Ah, there is a boy lying down by the stream drinking. It is morning as you can see by the light so the sheep are being driven to pasture, and so on; nothing is left out, the discarded plough, the
crooked birch, the clouds beautiful in form and threatening rain, there is enough for half an hour's talk and memory in this little reproduction of a great picture and the children will know it wherever they see it, whether a signed proof, a copy in oils, or the original itself in one of our galleries.
In this way children become acquainted with a hundred, or hundreds, of great artists during their school-life and it is an intimacy which never forsakes them. A group of children are going up to London for a treat "Where would you like to go?" "Oh, Mummy, to the National Gallery to see the Rembrandts."
Young people go to tea in a room strange to them and are delighted to recognise two or three reproductions of De Hooch's pictures. In the course of school-life children get an Open Sesame to many art galleries, and to many a cultivated home; and life itself is illustrated for them at many points. For it is true as Browning told us,--
"For, don't you mark, we're made so that we love
First when we see them painted, things we have passed
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see."
Here is an example of how beautiful and familiar things give quite new delight when they are pictured. A lady writes,--
"I was invited to a small village to talk about the P.U. School. Twelve really interested women came in spite of heavy rain. I suggested introducing them to some of the friends their children had made and we had a delightful picture talk with Jean B. Corot, delightful to me because of the way one woman especially narrated. She did it as if she had been set free for the first time for months. It was the 'Evening' picture with a canal on the right and that splendid mass of quiet trees in the centre. The others gave bits of the picture but she gave the whole thing. It was a green pasture to her."
The noteworthy thing is that these women were familiar with all such details as Corot offers in their own beautiful neighbourhood, but Browning is right; we learn to see things when we see them painted.
It will be noticed that the work done on these pictures is done by the children themselves. There is no talk about schools of painting, little about style; consideration of these matters comes in later life, but the first and most important thing is to know the pictures themselves. As in a worthy book we leave the author to tell his own tale, so do we trust a picture to tell its tale through the medium the artist gave it. In the region of art as else- where we shut out the middleman.
MUSIC APPRECIATIONWith Musical Appreciation the case is different; and we cannot do better than quote from an address made by Mrs. Howard Glover at the Ambleside Conference of the Parents' Union, 1922 :-
"Musical Appreciation -- which is so much before the eye at the present moment -- originated in the P.N.E.U. about twenty-five years ago. At that time I was playing to my little child much of the best music in which I was interested, and Miss Mason happened to hear of what I was doing. She realised that music might give great joy and interest to the life of all, and she felt that just as children in the P.U.S. were given the greatest literature and art, so they should have the greatest music as well. She asked me to write an article In the Review on the result of my observations, and to make a programme of music each term which might be played to the children. From that day to this, at the beginning of every term a programme has appeared; thus began a movement which was to spread far and wide.
"Musical Appreciation, of course, has nothing to do with playing the piano. It used to be thought that 'learning music' must mean this, and it was supposed that children who had no talent for playing were unmusical and would not like concerts.
"But Musical Appreciation had no more to do with playing an instrument than acting had to do with an appreciation of Shakespeare, or painting with enjoyment of pictures.
I think that all children should take Musical Appreciation and not only the musical ones, for it has been proved that only three percent of children are what is called 'tone-deaf '; and if they are taken at an early age it is astonishing how children who appear to be without ear, develop it and are able to enjoy listening to music with understanding."
EXCERPTED FROM: A Philosophy of Education by C. Mason--From the sixth volume of Charlotte Mason's six-volume set of educational writings, often referred to as "The Original Home Schooling Series." Her entire work is in the public domain and can be reprinted and distributed freely, much to the benefit and delight of today's parents/educators.
To browse the books, click here:
The Original Homeschooling Series (six-volume set)________________________________
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LIVING BOOKS FOR CHILDREN Copyright 1997-2002 Deborah Taylor-Hough
Used with permission. All rights reserved.
http://hometown.aol.com/BeeME1/bookstore.html"Twaddle" and "living books" are terms from Charlotte Mason's educational philosophies. Charlotte Mason was an educator in England during the previous century, and her methods are currently experiencing a rebirth among American home schools.
Twaddle = dumbed down literature; absence of meaning
Living Books = books that are well-written and engaging--they absorb the reader -- the narrative and characters "come alive"; living books are the opposite of cold, dry textbooks.
The age designations for this list are only approximate. A child's listening level will often be several grades higher than their personal reading level--feel free to choose books from an older list if you're planning on reading aloud to your children.
We began reading aloud to our children from chapter books (such as Charlotte's Web) before their third birthdays. Don't under-estimate your child's ability to comprehend or listen to fairly advanced material.
(This reading list is my personal idea of twaddle-free reading--it does not necessarily represent the views of Catherine Levison, Karen Andreola, Penny Gardner or any other Charlotte Mason-related authors.)
PRESCHOOL BOOKSAesop's Fables
A Child's Garden of Verses ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
The Little House ~ Virginia Lee Burton
The Snowy Day ~ Ezra Jack Keats
The Story About Ping ~ Marjorie Flack
The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant ~ Jean De Brunhoff
Beatrix Potter : The Complete Tales ~ Beatrix Potter (Peter Rabbit)
The Velveteen Rabbit ~ Margery Williams
Winnie-the-Pooh Series ~ A.A. Milne
EARLY ELEMENTARYA Little Princess ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass ~ Lewis Carroll
Caddie Woodlawn ~ Carol Ryrie Brink
Charlotte's Web ~ E.B. White
Children's Book of Virtues ~ William J. Bennett
The Chronicles of Narnia ~ C.S. Lewis
Complete Book of the Flower Fairies ~ by Cicely Mary Barker
(The) Courage of Sarah Noble ~ Alice Dahgliesh
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Heidi ~ Johanna Spry
How to be Your Own Selfish Pig ~ Susan Schaeffer MaCaulay
Johnny Appleseed ~ Eva Moore
Johnny Tremain ~ Esther Forbes
Just So Stories ~ Rudyard Kipling
Little House on the Prairie Series ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder
Little Lord Fauntleroy ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett
Misty of Chincoteague ~ Marguerite Henry
Pollyanna ~ Eleanor H. Porter
(The) Princess and the Goblin ~ George MacDonald
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm ~ Kate Douglas Wiggin
Sarah, Plain and Tall ~ Patricia Mac Lachlan
(The) Secret Garden ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett
Stuart Little ~ E.B. White
Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims ~ Clyde Robert Bulla
(The) Story of Dr. Doolittle ~ Hugh Lofting
Tales from Hans Christian Andersen ~ Hans Christian Andersen
Tales from Shakespeare ~ Charles and Mary Lamb
Tanglewoods' Secret ~ Patricia St. John
Treasures of the Snow ~ Patricia St. John
Trumpet of the Swan ~ E.B. White
Witch of Blackbird Pond ~ Elizabeth George Speare
MID - LATE ELEMENTARYA Gathering of Days ~ Joan W. Bloss
A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
A Wrinkle in Time ~ Madeleine L'Engle
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ~ Mark Twain
(The) Adventures of Pinocchio ~ Carlo Colladi
(The) Adventures of Tom Sawyer ~ Mark Twain
Amos Fortune, Free Man ~ Elizabeth Yates
Anne of Avonlea ~ L. M. Montgomery
Anne of Green Gables ~ L. M. Montgomery
The Arabian Nights
Around the World in 80 Days ~ Jules Verne
Black Beauty ~ Anna Sewell
(The) Book of Virtues ~ William J. Bennett
Bronze Bow ~ Elizabeth George Speare
Cheaper by the Dozen ~ Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr.
Diary of a Young Girl ~ Anne Frank
Early Thunder ~ Jean Fritz
Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates ~ Mary Mapes Dodge
(The) Hobbit ~ J.R.R. Tolkien
(The) Incredible Journey ~ Sheila Bumford
Island of the Blue Dolphins ~ Scott O'Dell
(The) Jungle Book ~ Rudyard Kipling
Kidnapped ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
Little Men ~ Louisa May Alcott
Little Women ~ Louisa May Alcott
Peter Pan ~ J.M. Barrie
(The) Prince and the Pauper ~ Mark Twain
(The) Swiss Family Robinson ~ J.D. Wyss
Treasure Island ~ Robert Louis Sevenson
Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea ~ Jules Verne
Old Yeller ~ Fred Gipson
Oliver Twist ~ Charles Dickens
Red Badge of Courage ~ Stephen Crane
Sounder ~ William H. Armstrong
(The )Water-Babies ~ Charles Kingsley
(The) Wind in the Willows ~ Kenneth Grahame
(The) Yearling ~ Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
JUNIOR HIGHCall of the Wild ~ Jack London
Christy ~ Catherine Marshall
David Copperfield ~ Charles Dickens
Emma ~ Jane Austen
Jane Eyre ~ Charlotte Bronte
(The) Hobbit ~ J.R.R. Tolkien
(The) Lord of the Rings ~ J.R.R. Tolkien
(The) Merry Adventures of Robin Hood ~ Howard Pyle
Pilgrim's Progress ~ John Bunyan
Pride and Prejudice ~ Jane Austen
Robinson Crusoe ~ William Defoe
Tanglewood Tales ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
White Fang ~ Jack London
HIGH SCHOOL AND UPA Tale of Two Cities ~ Charles Dickens
Ben Hur: A Tale of Christ ~ Lew Wallace
(The) Count of Monte Cristo ~ Alexander Dumas
Cry, the Beloved Country ~ Alan Paton
Don Quixote de la Mancha ~ Miguel De Cervantes
Foxe's Book of Martyrs ~ John Foxe
(The) Hiding Place ~ Corrie Ten Boom
Hinds' Feet on High Places ~ Hannah Hurnard
The Last of the Mohicans ~ James Fenimore Cooper
L'Abri ~ Edith Schaeffer
The Light and the Glory ~ Peter Marshall
Mere Christianity ~ C.S. Lewis
(The) Odyssey ~ Homer
(The) Pilgrim's Regress ~ C.S. Lewis
(The) Rime of the Ancient Mariner ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(The) Scarlet Pimpernel ~ Baroness Emmuska Orczy
Silas Marner ~ George Eliot
(The) Screwtape Letters ~ C.S. Lewis
The Space Trilogy ~ C.S. Lewis:
Uncle Tom's Cabin ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe
NATURE STUDYBeatrix Potter 1866-1943: The Artist and Her World
Beatrix Potter's Art ~ Anne Stevenson Hobbs
The Bird Book and the Bird Feeder
The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, 1906 ~ Edith Holden
Drawing from Nature ~ Jim Arnosky
Earthways ~ Carol Petrash
Handbook of Nature Study ~ Anna Comstock
Linnea in Monet's Garden ~ Bjork and Anderson
Linnea's Almanac ~ Bjork and Anderson
Linnea's Windowsill Garden ~ Bjork and Anderson
Nature for the Very Young ~ Marcia Bowden
Nature Journaling ~ Clare Leslie Walker and Charles E. Roth
Nature Watching ~ Paul Sterry
The Outdoor Adventure Handbook ~ Hugh McManners
Wild Days: Creating Discovery Journals ~ Karen Skidmore Rackliffe
(List compiled by Deborah Taylor-Hough, CM-Monthly Editor)
The complete list can also be located online (including books for home educators and links to browse through each book's cover, reviews, etc. at Amazon.com). Go to:
http://hometown.aol.com/BeeME1/bookstore.html________________________________
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR / READERS' TIPS(Share your helpful tips, homeschooling ideas, or personal thoughts about Charlotte Mason's methods with other readers.)
Mailto: DSimple@aol.comRe: Online CM-style curriculumThank you so much for the CM monthly newsletter that I have been receiving for some time. I have read several books about the CM method and only recently stumbled across a web page for Ambleside Online. This web site has a curriculum mapped out for 6+ years in the CM style. I am wondering if you know of this site and what you think of it. Thank you! Here is the website address: http://amblesideonline.homestead.com/index.html
--Carmen T.
Editor's Response:
Hi, Carmen ...
Thanks for writing! I think the Ambleside Online website is a wonderful Charlotte Mason resource. Although I'm not personally using their curriculum, I know several mothers who've used it with their children and found it to be quite helpful. The women who put the Ambleside Curriculum together very diligently attempted to reproduce as closely as possible the educational program in Charlotte Mason's original day schools (the Parents Union Schools) in England. And if money's tight, a free, well-thought out, online curriculum can't be beat for the value it provides! :-) Hope that helps, Carmen.
~Debi, Editor, The Charlotte Mason Monthly
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FAMILY "TWADDLE-FREE" READING LISTRecommended books for children and families
Go to:
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Feel free to forward this newsletter to your family and friends. :-)
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THE EDITOR'S ONLINE RESOURCESA Frugal, Simple Life
http://hometown.aol.com/dsimple/Bright-Kids E-zine -- fun and easy educational ideas for families
Mail to: subscribe-bright-kids@ds.xc.orgFrozen Assets Discussion Group and Archives
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