"Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life"

Charlotte Mason was a 19th century educator. Much of what she has to say on education seems to fit well with our family life. Her motto 'education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life' is something I aspire to for our own home education. 'Atmosphere' refers to the setting in which the child is brought up. 'Discipline' is the formation of character habits. 'Life' refers to the provision of living ideas to teach the academics, rather than dry facts. 

Charlotte wrote 7 volumes outlining her education philosophy. So far I've only read volume 1, but in the meantime have been doing lots of reading and research into implementing a Charlotte Mason education. For example, Charlotte encourages a lot of outdoor time, particularly in the early years - I love this idea and we're trying to get outdoors as much as possible. Children learn so much from being outside and in nature, not least they learn early observation skills needed to form the basis on which later science learning can be applied. Charlotte also encourages 'living books' to teach ideas, leaving the 'twaddle' behind. I might write more on that another time. 

Here we are earlier this week enjoying our outdoor time