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HONEY OF THE HIVE
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shift.

New to Charlotte Mason?

​​Charlotte Mason devoted her life to children, their education, and the training of educators. She believed children were born persons with the ability to think intelligently about living ideas, not empty vessels to be filled with dry facts. She stressed the importance of laying out a feast of ideas for the children to think through as they were able. The main source of this feast were “living” books written with great literary power and which captured the imagination with ideas that inspire children to keep wondering and pondering. While she exposed her students to a large quantity of subjects with short, focused, lessons, within each subject she emphasized the quality of books rather than the quantity of books. She believed education was an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life and should primarily focus on finding out who we are in relation to God, man, and the universe.

As a British educator in the late 1800’s and early 1900's, her ideas were well ahead of her time and were overrun by the 20th century competitive drive to work harder and faster and to assess everything with assembly line precision. However, in 1987, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay reintroduced the world to Mason’s philosophy and methods in her book For the Children’s Sake. Homeschooling in general is on the rise and Mason’s approach has been gaining momentum as more and more homes reject the notion that education is a means to an end and rather embrace the goal of instilling a lifelong love for learning. Mason’s approach is not exclusively used by homeschoolers; many small Christian schools also use her approach to education.
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A Good Place to Start

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Purchase
​For the Children's Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School
by Susan Shaeffer Macaulay

This book contemplates simple themes of what education could be like. It's a wonderful introduction to help you fall in love with the underlying principles of a Charlotte Mason Education. It will leave you thirsting for more and a desire to dive into Mason's original writings.

Mason's 20 Principles

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PURCHASE
​Start Here: A Journey Through Charlotte Mason's 20 Principles
by Brandy Vencel
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If you want to explore Charlotte Mason's 20 Principles in greater detail at the same time as reading For the Children's Sake, check out Brandy Vencel's study guide called Start Here. (PDF or Kindle). It guides you through reading chapters in Macaulay's book alongside chapters and selections from Mason's writings. It also links to many blogs and articles to further study each of the 20 Principles, which are summed up at Ambleside Online and in the preface of the pink set of Mason's original homeschooling series.

Mason's Home Schooling Series

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Mason's Original Works
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PURCHASE
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Home Schooling Series
by Charlotte Mason

Vol. 1 Home Education
Vol. 2 Parents and Children
Vol. 3 School Education
Vol. 4 Ourselves
Vol. 5 Formation of Character
Vol. 6 A Philosophy of Education

​Mason spent her life teaching children and training teachers. Read unabridged editions of her writings about education, child training and parenting to hear her passion and be inspired. We cannot stress enough the importance of reading these primary source documents. The text is meaty, so grab a friend and enjoy pondering these great works.

​Honey of the 
Hive Book Clubs work through these volumes together.

The pink set is the reprinting of Mason's original works by the Andreola family, who brought the works to America. They were photographs of the original texts and the text is quite tiny with very little room in the margins. They are no longer in print production, but still available second-hand online for those who like compact books.

The Simply Charlotte Mason (blue and white) and the Living Book Press (floral) sets are new reprints of the pink set. Both sets increased the font size of the originals while keeping the original pagination. That way, members in study groups or those researching PNEU articles can still refer to page numbers without confusion.

Simply Charlotte Mason used scans of the pink set with the Andreolas' blessing and cleaned them up. This set is 8 1/2 x 11 inches large with wide margins for lots of note-taking space. It is very sturdy and lies flat on the table for highlighting and note-taking.

Living Book Press personally transcribed the whole series to allow for an easier to read font. This set is regular book size (5 x 8 inches) with decent margins for note-taking. The link on the side is to Amazon, but they also have softcover and hardcover singles or sets available on their website.


Ambleside Online also has electronic versions of the CM Series that you can read electronically for free.

Note: Other printed copies you may see on Amazon appear to be pirated copies from these free resources from amblesideonline.org. They have typos and other issues, so please do not buy them.

Companions and Interpretations

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A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning
by Karen Andreola

Karen Andreola brought Charlotte Mason to the U.S. Her pink set copies of Mason's original works are responsible fore revitalizing Mason's timelines educational philosophy. Andreola wrote this companion after 10 years of studying and implementing the principles she learned in the original works. This is her interpretation of what a CM education looks like in a contemporary setting.

​Most libraries cary this book.
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A Charlotte Mason Education and More Charlotte Mason Education
by Catherine Levison

These are a quick read for getting the gist of the practical side of CM education. There has been a lot more research and understanding of Mason's practices since the production of this book, but this is a fast overview, which can help with the initial decision to study further. 

​Local libraries usually have these to borrow.

PARADIGM SHIFT

ARTICLES
Becoming a Charlotte Mason Teacher: Paradigm Shift Required
by Jennifer Spencer
READ


An Invitation to Purposeful Change

by Dr. Cindy Swicegood 
READ



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