Are you in the Early Years Stage?
If you have a 0-6-year-old, you are living in what Charlotte Mason referred to as “the early years.” In her first volume, Home Education, Miss Mason urged mothers 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.” If you think that’s a challenge in our hectic postmodern world, you’re right. But it’s not impossible.
Today I chat with Leah Martin from “My Little Robins” on how to make Charlotte Mason’s ideas a reality. We also discuss why the early years should be preserved as a “quiet growing time” instead of relinquishing them to academics as the culture continually calls us to do and some consequences we’re seeing as a society because of this unnatural shift.
In this episode you’ll hear:
- the story of a former public school teacher turned Ambleside teacher turned CM homeschool mama
- why academics in the early years is usually not developmentally appropriate
- why the Great Outdoors is the best classroom for the early years
- mental, emotional and physical benefits to holding off on academics
- how the segregation mindset of home and school is disrupting the early years
Show Notes
- My Little Robins Blog
- Home Education by Charlotte M. Mason (affiliate
link ) - Balanced and Barefoot by Angela J. Hanscom (affiliate link)
- Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv (affiliate link)
- List of Attainments
- Maestro Classics
- The quote I fumbled through about children learning naturally at home (under Natural, Everyday Situations heading)
- A Thomas Locker picture book (affiliate link)
- What is Twaddle?
- Leah’s Podcast: Thinking Love
- Leah’s Facebook group
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