Welcome to our special 2-episode summer season of Scholé Sisters!! (Try saying that three times fast!) Today, we're chatting with Brittany Lindvall, leader of one of our Scholé Sisters Local Retreats last year. She'll tell you what worked, what didn't, and why she's doing it again this year. We hope this gets your creative juices flowing as you start to plan your own retreat for your own local Sisters.
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Click here to get the show notes for today's episode.
Click here to register for the Learning Well Online Local Retreat (with Cindy Rollins)
Click here for more information on planning your local retreat.
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In today’s episode, Mystie, Pam, and Brandy discuss the power of educational metaphors – are we using the right images to picture our homeschools? Metaphors aren't absolute -- it's what we mean by them and how we apply them that matters. Join the Scholé Sisters as they hash out metaphors and discuss what makes a good one worth using.
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Click here to get the show notes for today's episode.
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This episode is sponsored by In Memoriam. After Charlotte Mason died in 1923, the PNEU held a memorial service in her honor, though (quite appropriately) it more resembled an educational conference. Those who had spent years observing her life and work warmly described her impact on their own lives and careers. These sentiments -- some philosophical, some personal -- were recorded in the book In Memoriam. In Memoriam is biography, memoir and philosophical commentary all in one. It offers the most intimate look at Charlotte Mason from those who knew and loved her best. If you want to study Charlotte Mason, but don’t feel like reading philosophy straight up, In Memoriam is the perfect solution. Grab your copy on Amazon today!
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Brandy is talking at length about Latin today with Angela Reed. Angela is a homeschooling mother of 5 in the Sunshine State of Florida. A former classroom teacher, degreed in Classics and Latin and persuaded by Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy, she channels these enthusiasms onto Instagram: building community with friends @charlottemasonirl, researching how Latin fits within a CM paradigm @thecmlatinproject, and documenting family life, homeschooling, and the day-to-day @athena_amidstthereeds.
Brandy asks Angela some of the tough questions we all want answers to: Why Latin first is the New Testament is in Greek? Can I do a modern language instead of Latin? Why Latin at all?? Can I do Latin with my children when I don't know Latin myself? We tackle these, plus Angela helps us decide which pronunciation to you and shares about some of her favorite curricula.
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Click here to get the show notes for today's episode.
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This episode is sponsored by Plan Your Year. Plan Your Year is the homeschool planner that shows you how. It walks you step-by-step through creating a homeschool plan unique to your home, your kids, your family. There are over 40 printable planning pages plus an 80-page planning guide where Pam walks you through creating your plan. Nothing ever expires and you get free updates every year. It’s the only homeschool planner you will ever need. Click here to check out a free sample pack of planning pages.
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In today’s episode, Brandy, Pam, and Mystie raise the question of whether scholé is for everyone. Or is it just for the bookish and more academic? They had to begin by defining scholé, of course. This episode is about scholé in real life with our kids and FOR our kids. How do we help them "do scholé"? There are some big questions discussed this time!
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Click here to get the show notes for today's episode.
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This episode is sponsored by Teaching Reading with Bob Books. Teaching Reading with Bob Books is a line of printable phonics lessons that is 100% gimmick-free. The goal of the TRwBB method is to teach reading as simply as possible -- it aims at that little space in your day where reading muscles are grown -- the key ten to fifteen minutes of instruction that can change a child’s life. Click here and use the discount code sisters to get 15% off at checkout.
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On today's episode, Mystie, Pam, and Brandy have a rousing discussion on the subject of twaddle. What is it? What isn’t it? Is it ever acceptable? Some of us have unconventional opinions on this subject.
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Click here to get the show notes for today's episode.
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This episode is sponsored by Plan Your Year. Plan Your Year is the homeschool planner that shows you how. It walks you step-by-step through creating a homeschool plan unique to your home, your kids, your family. There are over 40 printable planning pages plus an 80-page planning guide where Pam walks you through creating your plan. Nothing ever expires and you get free updates every year. It’s the only homeschool planner you will ever need. Click here to check out a free sample pack of planning pages.
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Our guest today is Celeste Cruz. Celeste is the Catholic homeschooling mother of nine children ages 11 and under, blogger at Joyous Lessons, and one of the hostesses of CharlotteMasonIRL on Instagram.
In this episode, Pam, Brandy, and Celeste have an in-depth conversation about transforming the chore of pre-reading for our children’s lessons into a beautiful scholé experience for Mom. They cover the technical aspects of notebooking, letting go of perfectionism, and MORE!
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Click here to get the show notes for today's episode.
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This episode is sponsored by The Simplified Organization Brain Dump Guide. How much crazy do you have rolling around in your head? Before you declutter your closets, you should declutter your head! By writing down all the obligations, responsibilities, reminders, random facts, and expections that keep your mind churning, you'll free up your mental energy so you can use it where you need it. The free Brain Dump Guide at Simply Convivial will walk you through the process with prompts and tips so you can declutter your head and move ahead with clarity and peace. Visit Simply Conivial and download it today!
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Brandy is pleased to have Karen Glass back on the show today. Karen is the author of Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition, she’s the brain behind Mind to Mind, an abridgment of Charlotte Mason’s sixth volume, and her third book, Know and Tell: The Art of Narration just debuted last month. Karen Glass is part of the Advisory of AmblesideOnline. She has four children, mostly grown and married, who were homeschooled using Charlotte Mason’s methods from beginning to end. She has been studying and writing about Charlotte Mason and Classical Education for over twenty years.
In today’s episode, Brandy and Karen dig deeply into the connection between narration and knowledge. Unfortunately, because Karen is in Poland, the sound is below our normal quality. We guarantee, however, it is still worth listening!
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Click here to get the show notes for today's episode.
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This episode is sponsored by A Month of Morning Time. Morning Time is a wonderful addition to your homeschool, but sometimes planning it takes way more time and energy than you have to spare. You get overwhelmed trying to choose the best books to read. You have no idea which poems and artwork are the “good ones.” Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are wonderful ideals but the people in your house need clean laundry and three meals a day. Ready-made Morning Time plans can help reduce your decision fatigue, spend less time planning, and still add delight to your homeschool day. Click here to download a free sample.
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In today’s episode, Mystie Winckler and Brandy Vencel discuss Werner Jaeger’s introduction to his three-volume series, what Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, Jaeger's definition of education, what culture is, why Christians are resistant to honoring the Greeks, and much more. Download to listen, subscribe and be a Sister!
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Click here to get the show notes for today's episode.
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This episode is sponsored by The Afterthinker’s Guide to Charlotte Mason’s Home Education. That's right! Brandy has a NEW Charlotte Mason study guide out for 2018! Home Education, Charlotte Mason’s seminal work on educational philosophy and character development, is a must-read for every homeschooling parent seeking to nurture her children with the rich nutrients of life and literature. The Afterthinker’s Guide to Charlotte Mason’s Home Education is your key to unlocking these nourishing educational truths in your home! Tested and refined through her own research and group leadership, Brandy Vencel has developed a pair of guides for this valuable endeavor: one for group leaders and one for group members. Don't let the different versions fool: these guides can be used for group or individual study. Click here to get your copy!
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Welcome to SEASON FIVE of Scholé Sisters! Mystie and Brandy are kicking this season off right with the one and only Cindy Rollins. Today's discussion centers on the idea of being impervious. We discuss not allowing "things" to get to us, absorbing emotion, self-control, menopause (gulp), and more! This is a conversation you don't want to miss.
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Click here to get the show notes for today's episode.
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This episode is sponsored by Personality Pages. Want to figure out and understand your personality better? Mystie has a free one-page cheat sheet to help you understand each personality type's cognitive functions. Click here to go deeper into personality and apply it to your home and homeschool with this easy-to-understand chart!
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Today, the Scholé Sisters get real about Christmas. Mystie says we can be classical not just in our approach to education, but also in our approach to happiness. Does the classical tradition have something to offer us at Christmas as well? We talk about depression and grief, yes, but also bad attitudes and dangerous expectations, all in an attempt to encourage all of us toward a better Christmas. Christmas is important, because the incarnation is important. Let's never forget what it's all about.
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Click here to get the show notes for today's episode.
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This episode is sponsored by Christmas Morning Time Plans. These plans are FREE from Pam Barnhill! Three weeks of Morning Time plans, loosely organized around Tchaikovsky’s magical Nutcracker music. This set has it all: poetry, fine arts, nature study, good books, and so much more, prepared for you with your choice of a grid or loop schedule to follow. Advent has already started, but if you’re behind and need some plans, these are perfect. Click here to download your free copy.
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This episode is a something of a bonus for those of you who attended our Leading Well retreat this past summer. If you DIDN’T attend the retreat, we think you’ll still enjoy the episode. But more importantly, a lot of you have asked if we offer replays of the retreat for those who missed it, or didn’t know about it at the time. Starting TODAY, the answer to that question is a resounding YES!
So – enjoy this question and answer session. We are all over the place – logical consequences, book recommendations on Socrates and Hannibal, dealing with meltdowns, all of it. And then at the end we’ll tell you how to go get your own retreat replay for those of you who have been waiting.
(Or if you don't want to wait till the end, just click here.)
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Have you ever tried to sort out the tension between God's grace and our pursuit of virtue? Is virtue ultimately a free gift of grace? And, if so, how can we say it is the goal of Christian education?
If virtue IS our goal, how do we impart it? How do we test it? And is there a danger in homeschooling when it comes to virtue tests?
And what if we fail? What if everything we've done isn't enough?
Today on the show, Mystie and I are please to welcome Eric Hall. Eric is a classical scholar and teacher who is local to Brandy. That’s right! She gets to know him in real life! Eric has studied at The Master’s College, the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and Clemson University. When he's not reading Thomas Aquinas, Eric enjoys mountaineering and rock climbing.
Most importantly, Eric was kind enough to help us sort these tensions out.
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This episode is sponsored by The Simplified Email Course. Email is a modern day necessity, but it is so easy for it to get out of hand. Need to get your email inbox under control? Mystie's got you covered. From now through December 2017, you can get The 5-Day Simplified Email Course (usually an exclusive for Work the Plan Premium members) for free!
This course provides real-life, practical, down-to-earth help for stressed out and worn out women ready to get organized and take control of their responsibilities. Moms can’t leave the email hacks and management advice to productivity gurus. Even we need to manage our email inboxes. This 5-day email-delivered course will take you from inbox insanity to inbox incredible, step by step. Click here to join for free through December 2017. (After that, it will return to being a component of Work the Plan Premium.)
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The third and final episode in our series on education as an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life, today's discussion is all about LIFE. What is meant by "education is a life?" How do we procure this life for ourselves and our children? We manage to dip into Vittorino da Feltre, Plato, Quintillian, Cicero and MORE -- don't miss it!
BONUS: Scroll down to the bottom of the show notes to get a downloadable Life Audit to help you put these ideas into action in your homeschool.
Don't forget to find us on Facebook!
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This episode is sponsored by A Month of Morning Time. Morning Time is a wonderful addition to your homeschool, but sometimes planning it takes way more time and energy than you have to spare. You get overwhelmed trying to choose the best books to read. You have no idea which poems and artwork are the "good ones." Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are wonderful ideals but the people in your house need clean laundry and three meals a day. Ready-made Morning Time plans can help reduce your decision fatigue, spend less time planning, and still add delight to your homeschool day. Click here to download a free sample.
"Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life." Today, in the second of our three-part series, we're discussing education as a discipline. What do we mean by discipline? How do we use it as a tool of education? The Scholé Sisters get real about this topic.
BONUS: Scroll down to the bottom of the show notes to get a downloadable Atmosphere Audit to help you put these ideas into action in your homeschool.
Don't forget to find us on Facebook!
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This episode is sponsored by Start Here. When Charlotte Mason was trying to distill her educational philosophy into its simplest form, she ended up with 20 core principles, the distinctives of her philosophy. Offering a variety of reading assignments on these subjects, and discussion questions meant to help you dig deeply, Start Here is a comprehensive guide to the big ideas governing Charlotte Mason’s philosophy. Just head on over to the Afterthoughts Shop and use the discount code sisters to get 15% off at checkout.
Today, we kick off a series of three episodes that were recorded live online with some of our Forum members. This series is organized around Charlotte Mason’s motto that education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life. Today’s episode is all about atmosphere.
BONUS: Scroll down to the bottom of the show notes to get a downloadable Atmosphere Audit to help you put these ideas into action in your homeschool.
Don't forget to find us on Facebook!
Today's episode was recorded when we had the joy of all being together in the same room (along with our friend, Dawn Garrett) for the Scholé Sisters Leadership Retreat in Portland. We had so much fun! We hope you enjoy this episde, even though there are a couple places where the sound is sub-par. (What can we say? We were all sharing one mic!)
Today's topic is pre-reading. We talked about why to do it, how to let your personal goals lead the process, when to do it, and more!
Want the show notes? Go here: http://www.scholesisters.com/ss25/
Don't forget to find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scholesisterspodcast
Want to join the forum? Go here: http://www.scholesisters.com/join
This summer, we shared an article from The Atlantic on memorization, and WOW did the discussion explode on Facebook! We couldn’t help chatting about it ourselves, and that conversation eventually became this podcast episode.
We don’t pretend to have the last word on memory work, but we do think this is a great beginning place to start thinking about this issue.
Want the show notes? Go here: http://www.scholesisters.com/ss24/
Don't forget to find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scholesisterspodcast
Today, Mystie, Pam, and Brandy are chatting about summer. Instead of letting summer slowly slip through our fingers, we can leverage summer and set ourselves up for greater success in our upcoming homeschool years. And you don’t have to do it alone! You'll want to listen all the way to the end because Scholé Sisters is announcing something super special for summer ... we're hoping it'll encourage you to find (and bond with) your sisters!
Want the show notes? Find them here: scholesisters.com/sp-1
Our summer book club studying Anne White's book Minds More Awake on the Scholé Sisters Forum has just begun! If you aren't a member already, go to http://www.scholesisters.com/join/ to sign up. There is also a login on that page if you're a member who needs to drop in and say hello.
And don't forget to grab your spot for the big event: scholesisters.com/lead
This is the end of Season 3, but we hope to "see" you in July! And of course we plan to be back for Season 4 in the fall.
In her book Mere Motherhood, Cindy Rollins made the passing comment that she was not as big of a fan of homeschooling high school boys as she had been in the past. This turned into a rumor: Cindy Rollins doesn't think boys should be homeschooled in high school. Um. NOT TRUE. Today, Mystie and Brandy chat with Cindy about homeschooling high school boys (as well as using AmblesideOnline for high school), the pros, the cons, and how to know if it's time to let it go.
Want the show notes? Find them here: scholesisters.com/ss23
If you haven't heard, there will be a summer book club studying Anne White's Book Minds More Awake on the Scholé Sisters Forum. If you aren't a member already, go to http://www.scholesisters.com/join/ to sign up. There is also a login on that page if you're a member who needs to drop in and say hello.
For today's episode, Pam, Mystie, and Brandy had quite the discussion surrounding the idea of interest and being interested – what does it mean, are we born interested, how do we lose interest over time, how do we gain it, what do we do when our children aren’t interested? We talked about a lot!
Want the show notes? Find them here: scholesisters.com/ss21
If you haven't heard, there will be a summer book club studying Anne White's Book Minds More Awake on the Scholé Sisters Forum. If you aren't a member already, go to http://www.scholesisters.com/join/ to sign up. There is also a login on that page if you're a member who needs to drop in and say hello.
In today’s episode, Mystie and Brandy discuss amusement and entertainment. Does our commitment to scholé mean that there’s no room in life for things that are completely frivolous and entertaining? Believe it or not, Aristotle had something to say on this subject!
Want the show notes? Find them here: scholesisters.com/ss21
Come find us on Facebook! We'd love to have you join the conversation there.
We are thrilled to have our friend Karen Glass on the show today. Karen is the author of Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition, and also the brain behind Mind to Mind, an abridgment of Charlotte Mason’s sixth volume. Karen Glass is part of the Advisory of AmblesideOnline. She has four children, ages 12 to 26, who have been homeschooled using Charlotte Mason’s methods from beginning to end. She has been studying and writing about Charlotte Mason and Classical Education for over twenty years.
In today’s episode, Karen, Mystie, and Brandy discuss the difference between methods and systems as well as the relationship between principles and practices.
Want the show notes? Find them here: scholesisters.com/ss20
Come find us on Facebook! We'd love to have you join the conversation there.
Our guest on today’s show is none other than Dr. Christopher Perrin from Classical Academic Press! Dr. Perrin is an author, consultant and speaker, who specializes in classical education. He is committed to the national renewal of the liberal arts tradition. Dr. Perrin serves as a consultant to charter, public, private, and Christian schools across the country and he has published numerous articles and lectures that are widely used throughout the United States and the English-speaking world.
In today’s episode, Mystie and Brandy ask Dr. Perrin to help us balance a tension that we all feel in our homeschools. If we expect scholé to be restful -- even effortless -- how do we develop virtues like diligence and perseverance? If you want to go deep with the concept of scholé, this conversation is for you!
Want the show notes? Find them here: scholesisters.com/ss19
Come find us on Facebook! We'd love to have you join the conversation there.
In today’s episode, Brandy, Mystie, and Pam have a conversation that gives you the low-down on narration. It’s not so much about the how as it is about the why.
With that said, we ask for your patience with the sound. We had some trouble with Mystie’s microphone, and we couldn’t get rid of all the static in the editing process. We hope the fun and good ideas in this episode will help you forgive us for the momentary decline in quality!
Want the show notes? Find them here: scholesisters.com/ss18
Come find us on Facebook! We'd love to have you join the conversation there.
We're back!!!! That's right! Today we're kicking off Season 3. Make sure you go to the show notes at scholesisters.com/ss17 and download the 1-page reference on MBTI cognitive functions -- because cognitive functions are exactly what we’re talking about today. Print it out and use it to follow along as we go.
What if knowing your child’s cognitive functions could help you foster an atmosphere that allows your child exactly what he needs in order for what he’s learning to connect up in his brain? That’s the theory that we’re batting around today, and we think you’ll find it helpful.
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