Storytelling

As I spend more time reading about the Charlotte Mason approach to homeschooling, I get a little giddy. As a young adult, I chose to become a teacher. I spent most of my childhood forcing my poor siblings into "playing" school. I loved every moment of school, well except for those junior high years, but even then the school part was good. I love the smell of new crayons and the sound of chalk on a board. I especially love little desks with ugly plastic chairs that are just the right height for little children just learning to write. Brown paper with little dotted lines just makes me smile. The process of children learning is fascinating to me. I loved to read about all of the theories of education then and still do. What I am finding about Charlotte Mason is that her philosophy utilizes those elements that I liked about various trends that have been seen in education over the years. She really did understand children. She understood how they learned and she understood how to peak their natural curiosity and desire to learn.

I'm implementing a Charlotte Mason approach in my home school. Every so often I am adding in elements that I think will benefit my children in their learning. Two weeks ago I was reading about storytelling. Somehow I had not read about this before or at least I don't remember much if I did read it. I decided it would be an easy addition to our school day. Children are natural born storytellers. I think that is part of why they love to hear stories so much. The children have loved this single addition so much that they remind me if I happen to forget about storytelling. They especially love to retell their stories at the dinner table to their father. So if you are thinking about starting to implement a Charlotte Mason education, this is a good place to start. The children will naturally love it and with that success you will be spurred on to try other Charlotte Mason ideas.