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National Geographic Mapmaker 1-Page Maps

Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat

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

National Geographic Mapmaker 1-Page Maps is my favorite map resource. I predominantly use it for geography and history, but I occasionally print out maps for other subjects as geography plays a natural role in almost all areas.

Mapmaker allows you to create customized world, continent, and country maps. For the US, Mexico, and Canada, you can also make state and province maps. [Read more…] about National Geographic Mapmaker 1-Page Maps

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Freegal

Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat

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

Do you know about Freegal?

Freegal® is a free music service from your library. All you need is your library card number and possibly a PIN if your library utilizes them. Freegal offers access to about 15 million songs, including Sony Music’s catalog of legendary artists, and over 40,000 music videos. In total the collection is comprised of music from over 40,000 labels with music that originates in over 100 countries. There is no software to download, and there are no digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. Access to Freegal is limited to patrons of subscribing libraries. (FAQ)

Our library allows us to download 5 songs per library card per week, and the downloads are ours to keep. What do we use Freegal for in our homeschooling? [Read more…] about Freegal

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CMER 2020 and Website Updates

Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat

We are thankful for all the questions we have been receiving in regards to the 2020 Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat. We are excited to let you know that work is underway for opening registration for the CMER with Art Middlekauff!

This year, we will be opening registration on Monday, September 16th.

In order to support the work we are doing to prepare, we will be closing the website until then.

Please, come back and see us on September 16th! Also, you may still contact us with any questions.

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Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat, 2020

We invite you to take part in COMMUNITY, MOTIVATION, self-EDUCATION, and REFLECTION and join us at the Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat, 2020.

WHO?

The CMER Team and the Aspen Grove Educational Community

with

Art Middlekauff

We are excited to announce the 2020 CMER Plenary speaker. Art has been a speaker at both the Living Education Retreat, the Charlotte Mason Institute Summer Conference, and many other Charlotte Mason retreats throughout the country. He leads the team at Charlotte Mason Poetry and founded the Idyll Challenge, on-line book discussion groups which encourage men and women to read Miss Mason’s Volumes in two years.

Art Middlekauff

Art and his wife Barbara have been home educating their three children for more than a decade. Over this time, he has been studying Charlotte Mason’s writings and applying her living ideas to his family’s homeschool. He tells the story of how his discovery of Charlotte Mason led to a personal transformation and a dangerous adventure.

Art has written several essays about Charlotte Mason’s theology and philosophy which have been published in the two volumes of Essays on the Life and Work of Charlotte Mason, published by Riverbend Press. He has also produced a video about Charlotte Mason’s twenty principles which may be obtained from A Delectable Education. Art walks in Mason’s theological tradition as a member of an Anglican church near Detroit, Michigan. You can reach Art by email.

WHEN?

Friday, February 7, 2020, to Sunday, February 9, 2020

WHERE?

Colorado Spring, CO
The Hideaway

The Hideaway - Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat
Photo courtesy of The Hideaway

INFORMATION

Registration for CMER 2020 will open in August.  At that time, cost, a schedule, session descriptions, and policies will also be available.

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2019 Reading Goal: A Gentle Challenge

A Gentle Challenge

I have never before set a broad reading goal. For the past five years my goal has simply been to read. For the past two, I have actually kept lists of the books I have read. While I enjoy looking back on the lists and am thankful for all I have read, I think I’m ready for a gentle challenge.

I unintentionally stumbled upon the desire to set a reading goal for the year; it was not a well-thought-out New Year’s resolution. At Christmas my brother left a section of his Financial Times lying around. An enticing picture of a stack of books loomed before me on the front page of the Life & Arts section. How could I resist? Before I knew it, I had read Alice Fishburn’s article, “What I learnt from reading a year of books by only women.” Setting a literary challenge was not new to Fishburn, and the idea appealed to me. With less than a week left of 2018, I was furiously brainstorming and rejecting ideas for my own reading challenge.

At the same time, my mom was eager to share a treasure she had bought for $.50 at a library book sale. “Something I would never have picked up if I hadn’t been going to these Charlotte Mason retreats with you,” she said. It was The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, Fourth Edition. Her anthology lured me in. A quick search revealed there are now eight editions, and the book comes in both a standard edition (with over 152 stories from 130 authors) and a shorter edition (with 73 stories from 69 authors). I settled on the shorter sixth edition, as it was available in like-new condition from Better World Books for less than $4.

Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat

The Goal

My goal is twofold. First, I will read the anthology in a year, my plan being to read roughly six short stories a month. Then, I will choose a novel from one of the authors featured that month. Six short stories and a novel a month–a gentle challenge. I’m looking forward to the reading adventure of this year and meeting many new authors I would otherwise never have known.