CPQ August Newsletter
It’s the end of August, and the CPQ feed is full of back-to-school planning posts. It is always so fun to see what everyone is doing. But, for me, these posts are hitting differently this year because we started in July and are, therefore, almost mid-term—at the place where we are making adjustments and taking stock rather than gearing up and getting started. Reading the planning posts after you don’t need them is interesting. What once felt urgent suddenly becomes “so four weeks ago.” It makes you realize how doing the thing versus planning the thing is not the same thing. Both are necessary but different.
To help you navigate this important part of homeschooling, we are giving away a neat reflection guide in this newsletter that I hope you’ll take a second to download. It will help you identify where things are going well or if the books and things might need an update.
Modifying and pivoting for the children’s sake is a true gift of homeschooling. When students struggle, we slow down. When students are not challenged, we change the book, page count, or topic at hand. But, whereas an ideal muse usually leads the planning, reflection comes from a more realistic place. It feels daunting because reality likes to disguise itself as failed ideals. Never fear, however, for reflection questions always return to those same ideals that helped us begin.
Looking back to why we started helps us remember that we do not pursue change in our process because we have failed. We pursue change because we’ve realized a better path toward the same end. As Charlotte Mason said, “Young people are capable of carrying on a great many more studies contemporaneously with delight and profit than we exact of them: and this larger scheme of studies may be covered in a very much shorter schoolday than is usually allowed, if the habit of perfect attention is required from the first, a habit which is to be acquired easily by children who are accustomed to use the best books for themselves and have not to listen to what Rousseau calls “the verbiage” of the teacher.” (1928 Parent’s Review Article, pp 1-19)
Perhaps the habit of attention needs some extra work, perhaps the length of lessons or the books themselves. Maybe the teacher is simply talking too much. No matter what, quality reflection each term will have you heading toward the same endpoint but with a clearer vision of how to get there well. And we are here to help you get started…after you get started.
-Cara
On The CPQ Blog
New things coming to the CPQ Blog
Does the feast ever give you indigestion? We’re here to help. We have over three decades of experience in our editors; if we don’t know, we know someone who knows something, and we would like to use that for good within the Charlotte Mason community. Are you new to Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy? Are you not quite sure how to keep a notebook? Are you curious how this philosophy looks in a classroom? with special needs? in a co-op? Are you having trouble with dictation or don’t quite understand how to enjoy nature study in the desert?
We’d love to come alongside you in your journeys and help you troubleshoot those spicy areas.
How this will work: We will put a form in our monthly newsletters. If you’d like some help, just fill it out with your information and questions, and we will answer them in a blog post here on Substack. Sound good? Let’s get this dinner party started!
Did you snag our freebie from last month? If you didn’t, you’ll want to return to our July Newsletter to grab it! Cara is recording each section on the bookmark for a CPQ read-a-long.
Come follow along with us and find us in the comments. : )
Behind the Scenes
Personhood is heading to print - it’s a bit late getting to print as our layout editor has been derailed by some sickness and the start of lessons, but it is heading that way! Thank you for your patience!
Goodness is ready for layout
Book articles are in copyedit
Things articles are being written
The preorder window for our next issue, “Goodness,” is closing soon! If you subscribe after the window closes, your first issue will be “Books”—the first quarterly of 2025.
A Freebie For You!
Planning lessons for our children over the summer can be a lot of fun. Sometimes, however, there is a great space between what’s on the spreadsheet and our realities. As we get started with our lessons this year, these questions will help us bend where we need to and not let “the endless succession of small things crowd great ideals out of sight and out of mind.”
Much Ado About Everything Giveaway
Starting tomorrow, we are kicking off our big giveaway on Instagram! We have put these items into five bundles to give away, one a week for the next five weeks, with a few other things thrown in to win, like digital subscriptions plus a back issue sale in the final week.
Make sure you’re following along!
Blast from the Past
Bells tolling, incense rising, hymns resounding, brass gleaming, stained glass radiant, vestments shimmering, pews waxy, tile chilly, hymnals rustling, kneelers thumping, and a ceiling veined with ribbed vaults and adorned with golden stars in a sea of deep blue. Long before I heard of Mason, when I was a child attending school, I was being formed by what she would so succinctly call the Discipline of Habit, the Atmosphere of the Environment, and Living Ideas. Later, when other mothers were trying to sort out what they “really needed” and generally found it was just phonics, science, and math, I was fascinated by a woman who claimed children needed architecture, art study, nature, poetry, handicrafts, music, whittling, and exercise just as much as those “basics.” My heart swelled with a sense of the truth that we need not only skills, but beauty; not only facts, but stories; not only diagrams of cells, but fields of wildflowers. Here was a woman that knew from her own formation in beauty that our souls need more than what the secular world would call “the basics” - we yearn for more because we were made for more.
-Written by Camille Malucci
Get To Know The Editors
What’s Cara…
Reading: Where Darkness Dwells by Andrea Renae, In Praise of the Bees by Kristin Gleeson, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God by Piper
Buying: replacement headphones on repeat for all the peoples. Why do all the things break at once? And gymnastic uniforms. ‘Tis the season.
Listening to: Lord of the Rings dramatized version. Am I shamelessly cheating my way through the storyline to avoid the 14-hour (each) audio version of a famous and best-beloved book series I have never been able to make it through? Yes, yes, I am.
Eating: Ramen and Ibuprofen
Watching: Magnum P.I.
Making: not a thing, not even dinner
Fixing: our whole house
Writing: Letters from the Editor
Thinking about: The goodness of being alive.
What’s Mariah…
Reading: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, The Count of Monte Cristo alongside my son, and The Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoeffer.
Refinishing: the stair treads in our home. They were honey oak, and I’m staining them dark walnut—how it should be.
Listening to: this Spotify playlist
Eating: Hambone’s Pizza. It’s a local pizza place. They put chunks of cream cheese and tater tots on their pizzas. Come on now.
Watching: Storm clouds roll in. I *heart-eyes* the color palette of dark skies and the sepia-colored, dried grass landscape.
Drinking: Just water and coffee—per usual.
Thinking about: Composition topics for my Year 9 student. We just studied Tintoretto’s St. George and the Dragon, and I think I’ll have him compare/contrast that with Raphael’s rendition for his next composition.
Writing: reflection questions for this month’s giveaway and this newsletter
Learning: patience—still—for-ev-er *in my head that echos as it does in The Sandlot.
What’s Sarah…
Reading: Andy Catlett by Wendell Berry
Listening to: a great sermon about Law, Licentiousness, and Love
Buying: a new Ikea Kallax bookshelf. One gets added every school year. I’m not complaining.
Thinking about: Whether or not my school year plans were too ambitious, or we just need to stick to it for a while. We had an emotional start to the school year, and it felt like we were gasping for air by the end of each day. It can be difficult to balance beauty and peace with the rigor required of high school years sometimes. Adding to that, an overstimulated mama, and we were all on edge.
Eating: leftovers. Not my favorite, but I’m thankful for them in these early weeks of a new school year.
Watching: The Chosen…my kids are obsessed
Drinking: lots of water…fall allergies are kicking in.
Creating: a new timetable with a couple of subjects removed and a little extra time added for singing and prayer (see above).