17 Comments

  1. What a magnificent episode – all the more inspirational because it was a spur of the moment conversation!

    Here’s a link to WiIlliam Bradford’s first Thanksgiving Proclamation:
    http://www.appleseeds.org/thankgv6.htm

    I want to agree wholeheartedly with the praise given by you wise women regarding Karen Glass and Cindy Rollins. It has been brilliantly articulated, so I will not try to advance that further.

    I’ll consider your prompts and come back when inspiration strikes. Finally, I’m thankful for – the Schole Sisters! Thanks for inspiring us all!

  2. Thank you! William Bradford’s was the one I had trouble finding for some reason, and then I forgot to come back to it later. ♥

    I look forward to reading your answers to the prompts. 🙂

  3. Weird – I’m still not getting notifications to replies from scholesisters. I just popped over to share my answers to the prompts and saw your response. Glad to help with the Bradford Proclamation. That’s what Pretend Research Assistants are for:).

    I will try not to be too repetitive with my responses, although some are unavoidable:). Another person who provides classical inspiration for me is the inimitable Andrew Kern. Book that changed my life was Towards a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason (or maybe For the Children’s Sake since that is what led me to CM’s 6th Volume?). Life-changing principle is Charlotte Mason’s Great Recognition – that all knowledge is inspired by God. I’ll name AmblesideOnline as both the curriculum I love and organization I am forever indebted to for its influence on my life – AO itself but more particularly the amazing women (and their families!) behind it.

  4. This was fabulous!! So encouraging! I’m so thankful for you all and really as I was thinking back, Sarah Mackenzie is the one who changed my mind about classical education. The people I knew in real life made it look so hard and elitist that I wanted nothing to do with it. So we called ourselves “Charlotte Mason unschoolers.”. Lol. Sarah’s RAR and introducing me to Andrew Kern, Cindy Rollins and then Brandy has indeed changed my life!

  5. I almost forgot, Brandy, thank you for sharing about your negative child!!! I have one of those who honestly makes me wonder how long I can homeschool her. We do these thankfulness exercises occasionally, but not consistently, Lord willing, that is going to change starting today!!

  6. I have so enjoyed this episode. “Because that’s how electricity works.” Ha! Beyond loving your sparkling, shining, soulful conversation, the wisdom and resources are inspiring—so immediately useful.

    I’d love it if sometime you talked a bit in the nitty-gritty portion about hymn resources. A friend and I have tried to incorporate hymns into our home lives because our churches just use modern praise and worship music, and we want our kids to grow up with that rich musical history. But most of the hymns I find for sale on iTunes are either too stiff and formal (heavy-handed organ, incomprehensible lyrics) or else dumbed-down beyond belief—cloying, all-unison kids choirs (sorry, kids, you’re great!), all the beauty and soul sucked right out. I found a few songs that I thought had a good union of being understandable and beautifully done, but not nearly enough. Do you use recordings? Just sing a cappella? Suggestions? I’ll list a few hymn versions that I thought fit the bill, even though one doesn’t have lyrics at all. Again, thank you for Schole Sisters!

    [Hymn; Artist; Album]
    This Is My Father’s World; Alli Rogers; Why We Sing
    Come Thou Fount; Chelsea Moon & Uncle Daddy; Hymn Project, Vol. 1
    All Creatures of Our God and King; Fernando Ortega; This Bright Hour
    For the Beauty of the Earth; Chris Rice; The Living Room Sessions (so gorgeous but not so useful for teaching hymns to my four-year-old)

    This album comes close: Rivertree Live; This Is Our Story: Hymns of Our Faith
    Folksy and a little silly but still fun and continuing some more home-baked tradition: I’ve Got a River of Life; Hark UP Down Home Horns; Down Home With the Horns

  7. A show on singing would be really fun! I will have to put that in our Idea Bank. 🙂

    To give you a brief answer, though, I use piano or YouTube recordings in the very beginning, when we’re trying to pick up the tunes, but after that, we do acapella all the time. I think children learn to sing more in tune when there are only other voices in the room. Not that there is never a place for accompaniment, but in terms of daily singing acapella is something I think should be done at least part of the time.

    Have you checked out the Children of the Open Air YouTube channel? It’s not exactly what you’re describing, but you might like it!

  8. The website Hymns at Home (https://hymnsathome.com/) is relatively new and put together by an AO mom and dad to provide quality hymn resources for other AO families. It has quickly become one of my very favorite hymn resources and I am so thankful for the hard work they’ve put into their site!

  9. I am just going to do some of the prompts. #1 Person: Sonya Shafer has greatly impacted me with her gentle spirit and her generous ways. The way she shares the CM homeschooling life is clear and practical, but she also understands what homeschool moms need to remember. “Make sure you leave margin. Don’t stretch yourself too thin. ” #2: Books that changed my homeschool were Catherine Levinson’s little books, A Charlotte Mason Education and More Charlotte Mason Education. I found these two little books at a yard sale the summer after a difficult homeschooling year, and I knew that CM was what I was looking for. #3: A principle that changed and saved my homeschool was the one I found at Mystie’s blog: Education is for virtue. God used that idea to show me how I had been missing the mark in my homeschool, and I have not been the same since. Thank the Lord! #4: A group or organization that has greatly impacted my school that I am extremely thankful for is A Delectable Education. I know it is not a big organization like Circe or CAP, but those ladies have done SO much to encourage me with their practical application of CM principles.

  10. Oh, yay! Thank you for participating! Loved your answers. ♥ And also: back when CiRCE first influenced and encouraged me, they were tiny, too. An organization doesn’t have to be big to make a difference. 🙂

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