Spring is in the Air- Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival- March 18, 2008

Welcome to the March 18, 2008 edition

of the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival.

I had a lot of fun reading though all these posts and putting them together for the carnival. Be sure to read though them all as you find time. I have tried to arrange the submitted posts by subject. We had a lot of nature study related posts entered for this edition. Spring is in the air! (All photos were taken in my yard.)

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Nature Study and Art:

First off, MomToCherubs shares with us two posts. In her first, Nature Study Using Bird Feeders, she shares with us the joys of having bird feeders outside her school room windows and how many "new friends" she has identified. She also shares about combining technology and nature study in Signs Of Spring. She and her children have put together a photo nature journal sharing with us all what they found when they went looking for signs of spring.

Nature Mama presents Planting Our Space Tomatoes saying, "We recently received tomato seeds from project Tomatosphere and this post shows us planting them. Our space tomatoes are sprouting very vigorously and so far both the regular tomato seeds and the space tomato seeds are performing the same." To check out Nature Mama's original post about what a Tomatoshphere is and how to get one, see her post Our Tomatoshphere Seeds Are Here!!. This looks like a really interesting experiment!

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Barb from The Heart of Harmony and Handbook of Nature Study also submitted two posts. In her first post, Handbook of Nature Study: Picking a Focus, she shares how to pick a focus and use the book Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Comstock to get the most out of your nature study time. In her second post, All that Outdoor Time, At the Expense of Art?, she discusses Charlotte Mason's view of how art and nature study complement one another.

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Amanda has put together a free download: a Spring Nature Walk Worksheet.Designed as a senses scavenger hunt to encourage you to use all your senses on your next spring nature walk. Be sure to check it out!

Tea Party Girl presents Spring Flowers and the Tea Party Table, saying, "Is gardening a part of your homeschooling? Here is some practical inspiration for using the spring flowers that are around the corner."

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Candace submitted her post: This is My Father's World. Here Candace talks about reading the book A Pocketful of Pinecones by Karen Andreola and shares an easy and inexpensive bird feeder idea.

Be sure to check out Andrea's post The Perpetual Cackle where she discusses her efforts to let her children explore nature on their own terms and cut down on her "cackling."

Tina in WA shares with us a Free Mini Lesson on Cattails. In her post Tina discusses her nature study time focusing on cattails and has even put together a free mini lesson that includes a notebooking page for us to download!

Melissa shares In the Sparrow's Nest - Precious Moments in God's Creation a post about her realizations about the importance of studying creation.

Finally, Makita shares her plan for nature study using Green Hour Challenges and the Ambleside Online plan in her post: Planning Our Nature Study ~ CM Carnival.

Narration:

Jimmie submitted a wonderful post entitled Lapbooking and Charlotte Mason. She asks "Can lapbooking fit into a CM homeschool?" and answers "Yes!" In her post Jimmie discusses lapbooking as a form of narration. This is one you don't want to miss!

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On the subject of narration, Kristy presents Come Narrate With Us inviting us all to join the Yahoo forum which has been set up for parents to discuss narration techniques.

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History and Citizenship:

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Elisabeth presents Studying History Using the Ideas of Charlotte Mason. In her post she discusses the value of studying history as outlined by Charlotte Mason.

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Lindafay presents In Praise of Plutarch saying, "Miss Mason highly recommends studying Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans as a source of citizenship and character training. I couldn't agree more with her."

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Science:

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Kris Correira presents Science notebooks where she discusses how notebooking for science does not need to be complicated and even links to a free reproducible.

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Other:

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Susie presents How to Make a FABULOUS Homeschool Planner posted at Hearth and Home, saying, "A Charlotte Mason friendly planner for busy homeschooling moms."

And last but not least, Belinda Letchford presents Tell Him your Reasoning saying, "By bringing our children into our world we give them the opportunity to learn from real things in the real world."

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That concludes this edition of the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival. I hope you enjoyed it!

You can submit your blog article for the next edition of the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival using our carnival submission form. You can also view past posts as well as future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.