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It’s spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and many people are starting to venture outside more often. Miss Mason’s book are full of suggestions of what sorts of activities outside would be beneficial. If you’re just starting out with Nature Study, feel free to keep it simple. But if you want a few ideas for digging […]

Because so many of us grew up largely apart from nature, and certainly without any consistent exposure to or instruction as to what we’re seeing in nature, the idea of studying nature can be terribly intimidating.

It does not need to be.

Near the end of his life, Alma sat down with his son Helaman and gave him some final instructions. As he entrusted his son with the sacred records, Alma explained that the job was pretty straightforward: the Brass Plates and other Nephite records needed to stay bright. Well-cared for brass is shiny; I’ve got a […]

This post is part of a series. Part One: Listen, Listen, Listen Part Two: What To Read Part Three: A Web of Language Part Four: {this post}   Gouin talked about the importance of making our first and primary instruction in the foreign language we have chosen aural instruction: the ear, he said, is the […]

This hymn was written by a tired mother—on a good day, of course! Here’s an excerpt of the story from Mormon Channel’s History of the Hymns podcast, quoted here: Annie Hawks [born in 1835] was the mother of three children when the hymn for which she is best known was written. Annie later wrote, “I […]

Image credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images In the waning days of the 19th century, the United Kingdom was the most powerful country on earth. The British Empire was at its imperial zenith. More than a quarter of the world’s population—and a portion of every continent—was under its dominion, and ruling over it all was Queen Victoria, the […]

When we set about designing a hymn rotation, we hoped every once in a while we could introduce you to some of the more meaningful Christian hymns that aren’t in our hymnbook. (Don’t worry. We have a free PDF and recording of the piano accompaniment for you here.) This is one of my favorites: Be Thou […]

In one of President Boyd K. Packer’s last General Conference talks, he said, “There is in our hymnbook a very old and seldom-sung hymn that has very special meaning to me.” He goes on to quote the entire text of “Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy”. It’s in our hymnbook arranged for men, but it is […]

  This post is part of a series. Part One: Listen, Listen, Listen Part Two: What To Read Part Three {this post} Part Four: Ears Before Eyes   Alongside the material railway needed to enable our bodies to communicate, it is absolutely necessary to construct a “mental railway” for the intercourse of minds. This mental […]

This post is part of a series. Part One: Listen, Listen, Listen Part Two: What To Read {this post} Part Three: A Web of Language Part Four: Ears Before Eyes   Not only to satisfy the necessities of travelers in far countries has the study of language ever been desirable, but to penetrate the spirit […]

George Manwaring and his family converted to the Church when he was 17 years old; then they immigrated from Cheshire, England to Utah. At only 24 years old, he had the opportunity to see C. C. A. Christiansen’s newly finished painting of the First Vision, entitled “The Vision”. This painting seems to be the first […]

Education is the Science of Relations’; that is, a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to […]

I confess that I’m going to cheat on this hymn post, for two reasons. Someone else has already done a better job with this hymn’s history than I would have, and we are busy designing a 12-year hymn rotation and it’s a lot of work. So, without further ado, I’m going to redirect you to Mormon […]

We’ve had a lot of success using The Story of Christ in our home this year. I have a 4.5 year old and a baby. Charlotte Mason (CM) has a lot to say about how to conduct Bible (or scripture) study in our homes, but some of this doesn’t apply to children under six years old. […]

This is the fourth post in a series explaining Charlotte Mason’s 20 principles in the context of the Restored Gospel. 4. These principles (i.e., authority and docility) are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestion or influence, or by undue […]

I live in Utah. We don’t hear much about Lent around here. I had to google why people put ashes on their foreheads when I first saw it on a TV show. Since joining the homeschool community, I’ve started to hear much more about it thanks to those I interact with online and in my […]

Tucked away in the hymnbook, accompanied by an unassuming tune, is a poem on temples which I’d like to share with you this month. In particular, I love the last verse, so I hope you’ll try to read that one with new eyes, even if you’ve sung it before. Holy temples on Mount Zion in […]

Learning to play the hymns is one of the main goals for many LDS pianists-in-training (or their parents, at least). As a piano teacher for over 15 years, I have learned a thing or two about how students can learn the hymns with the least amount of frustration. Your children’s piano teacher may have their […]

This is the third post in a series explaining Charlotte Mason’s 20 principles in the context of the Restored Gospel. 3. The principles of authority on the one hand and of obedience on the other, are natural, necessary, and fundamental… “For it is indeed true that none of us has a right to exercise authority, […]

“The home is the cradle of virtue, the place where character is formed and habits are established.” {President Gordon B. Hinkley} My Homeschooling Background I’ve been homeschooling since 1998, and for most of our homeschooling years (11 of those years, to be exact), I tried to follow the ideas found in the book A Thomas […]

This is the second post in a series explaining Charlotte Mason’s 20 principles in the context of the Restored Gospel. 2. [Children] are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good or evil. “If the development of character rather than of faculty is the main work of education, and if people are born, so […]

Many Charlotte Mason homeschoolers use the resources available at AmblesideOnline. This curriculum was created by a group of wonderful, faithful Christian women and they have offered it free of charge to everyone. The curriculum is designed from a Protestant worldview and the recommended books reflect that. Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula is a book about […]

This is the first post in a series explaining Charlotte Mason’s 20 principles in the context of the Restored Gospel. 1. Children are born persons. “In the first place, we take children seriously as persons like ourselves, only more so.” CM 3:63 “[… M]an is homogeneous, a spiritual being invested with a body…” CM 3:68 […]

When I think of this hymn, I can imagine the opening sequences of general conference with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing this in the background, welcoming in a happy new day of conference. Or maybe it’s in the middle of a conference session, like so: But did you know that this beautiful, cheerful hymn was […]

Poetry tea time is an activity that gets a lot of social media attention in Charlotte Mason circles. It comes in bursts, with flurries of posts during the coldest, dreariest months. Tea time is not an essential part of a Charlotte Mason education, but for some families, it does provide a nice way to focus […]

From Baby Steps: Between the time I’ve been spending working on Scripture Memory Work ideas for By Study and Faith, and listening to various podcasts dealing with memory work and recitation, and also doing our first effort at having end of term exams, I’ve been thinking a lot about memory and memory work lately. In […]

Artist Jan Blencowe is offering a free course called Winter Sketching with Pen and Pencil. It has over an hour of video tutorials that teach you how to sketch bare branches, pine branches, holly, and oranges and cranberries. You can register for the course here. While I am still waiting for the snow to fall […]

William Studwell wrote a bit about the history of this hymn in his book The Christmas Carol Reader: In spite of the mentions of bells and Christmas in the title, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is as much an antiwar song as it is a pro-Christmas song. The poetry of this renowned carol […]

Chances are, this is going to be an unfamiliar hymn for you. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it sung at a church meeting; my only prior exposure to it was when I plowed through the hymn book, determined to play each hymn therein. And, besides the recordings available on lds.org, there is a grand […]

  Miss Mason recommends teaching children parables. We collected several of her quotes about how and why to teach parables, as well as a list of parables to choose from, but it’s so often helpful to see what it looks like in a real family, with real children! Our first {very cute} example shows how […]

“The life of the mind,” Miss Mason said, “is sustained upon ideas.” Ideas are more than just facts, in the same way that homemade lasagna is more than mac-n-cheese from a box. We work to find our children books that are so full of these ideas that they can be called living books -the best […]

As a recent convert and young missionary in 1840s Stratford-upon-Avon (the birthplace of Shakespeare!), John Jaques pondered a scene from the life of Christ: Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, “Art thou the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered him, “Sayest thou this thing of thyself, […]

The following is an excerpt from a post on the Zion Art Society website.   This [month] is the 50th anniversary of the address “A Gospel Vision of the Arts.” Given in 1967 by Spencer W. Kimball, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, it has become both loved and loathed by […]

I hope you’ve had a fantastic September! If you’ve joined us in our hymn rotation, you’ve been singing one of my favorite hymns, Lead, Kindly Light, and I’d like to tell you more about it. This was the last hymn sung on the RMS Titanic before it hit the famed iceberg, and was sung again in […]

We are pleased to announce that the hymn selections for the 2017-2018 school year are now available! We have done our best to include hymns of the Restoration, lesser-known hymns, Christmas & Easter hymns, and hymns from the greater Christian world. Selecting these hymns turned out to be more difficult than we anticipated! We found some […]

The online Charlotte Mason homeschooling community is vibrant and generous. Many wonderful Christian parents have produced resources and entire curricula based on Miss Mason’s methods. LDS families can use these resources successfully, but we think that there is a better way. By Study and Faith was created to help meet the needs of Latter-day Saint […]