• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

CMER

  • CMER
  • Home
  • CMER 2022
  • Past Retreats
    • CMER 2016
      • 2016 Speakers
      • 2016 Workshops
      • 2016 Schedule
      • 2016 Location
    • CMER 2017
      • 2017 Speakers
      • 2017 Sessions
      • 2017 Schedule
      • 2017 Location
    • CMER 2018
      • 2018 Speakers
      • 2018 Sessions
        • 2018 Plenaries
        • 2018 Break Outs
      • 2018 Schedule
      • 2018 Location
    • CMER 2019
      • 2019 Speakers
      • 2019 Sessions
        • 2019 Plenaries
        • 2019 Break Outs
      • 2019 Schedule
      • 2019 Location
    • CMER 2020
      • 2020 Speakers
      • 2020 Sessions
        • 2020 Plenaries
        • 2020 Break Outs
      • 2020 Schedule
      • 2020 Location
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • About
  • Team Sites
    • Here to Glory (Dawn)
    • A Sacred Education (Jennifer)
    • Charlotte Mason Education (Karen)
    • a humble place (Rebecca)
You are here: Home / Blog

Blog

January 19, 2020 by Dawn Rhymer 1 Comment

Picture Study

This post is part of our series on our favorite homeschool resources.

Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat

After having been a member of the Aspen Grover Educational Community co-op for the past five years, my family is going it alone this year. This has been quite a transition.

While there have been many blessings of the co-op, at the heart of it was that we were families who 1) had chosen the Charlotte Mason method of education and 2) were willing to help each other in the education of our children.

I have held close to my heart what Nancy Kelly has shared about her Truth, Beauty, Goodness Community.

The point of our group is learning in community and allowing the mother to spread the feast to her children without having to plan every single subject and lesson, which can lead to burnout.

What was I going to do now that I no longer had this help? Were my children going to get a subpar education? Was I going to burn out?

[Read more…] about Picture Study

December 12, 2019 by Dawn Rhymer Leave a Comment

A Journey with Monet

Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat
Coming into Giverny in Winter, 1885

It was very fitting that I was standing in “In Winter,” the fifth section of the Money exhibition at the Denver Art Museum. I let the audio device I had been dutifully holding near my ear drop to my side. I tried to remember anything I had heard which had captured my imagination. I couldn’t. I tried to remember in detail any of the paintings I had seen. I couldn’t. I felt cold and empty. Would I make it through the Monet exhibition with nothing to show for it? Would my spirit and my soul not grow in beauty and knowledge? Would I simply have checked a box?

The din of the crowd, each with his own audio device, and the visual cacophony of the exhibition overwhelmed me. There were so many people, so many paintings, and so much to hear from those who had carefully made the audio I had been listening to. But at that moment, none of it was living. My eyes darted frantically and desperately around “In Winter,” and I prayed for wisdom on how the amazing privilege of standing before Monet’s paintings would leave an indelible mark upon me. [Read more…] about A Journey with Monet

December 5, 2019 by Karen Canon Leave a Comment

Plutarch, with Glee

Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat

What do you do when a book is hard? Plutarch’s Lives is hard. The temptation of the parent is to ask questions, to prompt, to remind. To basically do the mind work so that they ‘get it.’ This little nugget below is in my commonplace book and, at least once a year, I find myself returning to it.

T.H. White wrote his version of the Arthurian legend in the years before and after World War II. The young Arthur, known as Wart, receives his education at the hands of a wizard, Merlyn.

The Wart did not know what Merlyn was talking about, but he liked him to talk. He did not like the grown-ups who talked down to him, but the ones who went on talking in their usual way, leaving him to leap along in their wake, jumping at meanings, guessings, clutching at known words, and chuckling at complicated jokes as they suddenly dawned. He had the glee of the porpoise then, pouring and leaping through strange seas. The Once and Future King, chapter V

[Read more…] about Plutarch, with Glee

December 1, 2019 by Dawn Rhymer 5 Comments

Advent

Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat

Advent is here.

I have been greatly anticipating this day, and I am a little caught off guard by the excitement I feel about my family’s advent tradition.

Handel’s Messiah

Tonight we begin to listen to Handel’s Messiah. For several years, we have been using Cindy Rollins’s 25 Days to Handel’s Messiah: An Advent Devotional Guide. [Read more…] about Advent

November 30, 2019 by Dawn Rhymer Leave a Comment

Hymns for a Time of Need

Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat
Sinking of the Lusitania
Engraving by Norman Wilkinson, The Illustrated London News, May 15, 1915. P. 631
Public Domain

Karen’s post, Folksongs are like Teapots, brought hymns to my heart and mind. Here is a piece I wrote in 2015 on the AmblesideOnline Forum. At the time, I had just finished reading Erik Larson’s Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania.


“Mommy, why are you crying?”

The tears were streaming down my face. I could barely choke out the words to Abide With Me (AO Sept. 2014). We were in the middle of singing the hymn; it was not the time to answer the question. I brushed it aside with a whisper. “My eyes are burning.” [Read more…] about Hymns for a Time of Need

November 21, 2019 by Karen Canon 1 Comment

Folksongs are like Teapots

Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat
By Frederic Remington Public Domain

On a shelf in my kitchen is a collection of teapots. I have been a modest collector for twenty years. There is no purpose to the collection; I choose what pleases me. Many are gifts and each of these special ones has a note tucked inside that tells who gave them to me and on what occasion.

One of these dear teapots belonged to my Great-Great-Great-Great Grandmother. My mother was given it the year that I was born. When I hold it in my hands, I imagine their hands as they held it and poured a cup of tea for their families in places far, far from me. As I do the same, they draw near to me.

Folksongs are like heirlooms or keepsakes…or teapots. They are treasures that are passed down, sometimes a little worse for the wear. When you sing them, you draw near to those who walked before you and through life experiences that you can only wonder at. [Read more…] about Folksongs are like Teapots

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to page 5
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 7
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat

At the CME Retreat Blog, we hope to share with you more information about a Charlotte Mason Education, the retreat, the speakers, the workshops and so much more!

Join us on Facebook

  • Facebook

Categories

  • Art
  • Clay Modeling
  • CMER News
  • Composer
  • Composition
  • Exams
  • Favorite Homeschool Resources
  • Folksong
  • Foreign Language
  • Geography
  • Hymn
  • Miscellaneous
  • Narration
  • Planning for the New School Year
  • Plutarch
  • Scheduling
  • Shakespeare

Authors

  • CMER Team
  • Dawn Rhymer
  • Karen Canon
  • Rebecca Zipp

Archives

  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • March 2019
  • December 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • June 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018

Subscribe

Enter your email address below to have new blog posts delivered to your inbox!

Copyright © 2018-2020 · Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat