March 2017 - Books I Read

A Twaddle-Free Education by Deborah Taylor-Hugh 

As I've been working on getting up my homeschool blog/business up and running, I've been reading a lot about homeschooling and education. One thing that I've looked into a lot is Charlotte Mason education. It's been very interesting and this was a book recommended on one of the blogs I was reading.

The book was basically an overview of what a Charlotte Mason education entails. I was actually hoping (from the title) that it would be more focused on book choice, but it wasn't. "Twaddle" is the opposite of "living books" which are books that come alive for you, make you want to learn more, and are more than just facts or overviews. I love that idea. I love the idea of being intentional with what you are feeding your mind and the mind of your children, of choosing to spend your time reading the best material, full of ideas and life, rather than trying to memorize facts and learning for a test.

There are other things I want to incorporate into our homeschool. One thing is narration. Narration is simply telling back what you've read, talking through the plot or what you took away from it. This can be verbally (especially when young) or written as the student gets older, or it can even be creative, like rewriting the scene from another perspective or drawing a picture of the scene. I love this idea. I was noticing that for me, this blog serves that purpose. I read books differently knowing that I am going to be writing the post about it. I learn more.

Another idea is notebooking. This can be incorporated in nature. Each child keeps a nature journal and each week, you go on a nature walk. They find something interesting (like a rock or bug or leaf, etc.) and draw a picture of it. Underneath the picture, they write something about it, like a poem, where it was found, or what it is (using field guides to learn more about it). Notebooks can also be used for things like studying artists and their work or for going places like the zoo. Notebooks are a very informal way to teach writing and help the students pay attention and remember more for longer.

I loved this quote: "You don't have to over schedule yourself, or over plan your curriculum, or make sure everything's absolutely perfect, or spend hundreds of dollars on books, supplies, teachers, etc. .. We didn't do "school at home" per se--our home was our school."

Charlotte Mason Study Guide by Penny Gardner

This is the other book on Charlotte Mason that I read. It was in my mother-in-law's bookshelf and when I saw it, she let me borrow it. It was honestly not that great of a read for me. It was wordy and I couldn't follow the organization of it very well, which drove me crazy. However, I did get some gems from it.

One idea I really liked was the idea of doing school in a way so that teacher and student never ask, "do we have to do school?" You try to introduce ideas and concepts to the students in meaningful ways (through living books, nature, art, etc.) and learn together. As they grow, they learn how to learn and their love of learning grows so that they continue their education throughout their life. I love that idea.

A quote I love, "Mind appeals to mind and thought begets thought and that is how we become educated." And this one: "Education is a life. The life is sustained on ideas. We must sustain a child's inner life with ideas as we sustain his body with food." And this one: "Once we realize that the mind too works only as it is fed, education will appear to us in a new light." These are all quotes by Charlotte Mason.

Snapshot by Brandon Sanderson 

This was my purely for-fun book. It was a really short novella that Brandon Sanderson recently released and I was really excited to read it. It was good, but honestly not really up to his normal standard of writing. The ending was not as satisfying as I would have liked. It's about these two detectives who go into a replication of the day a crime played out and can watch events transpire, but their actions can affect the day and change things. It has some interesting plot twists and funny interactions, but again, I just didn't like the ending very much.

Balanced and Barefoot by Angela J. Hanscom 

Okay, I really loved this book. I would definitely recommend it to all parents. It was all about the benefits of letting kids play outside, and especially of letting kids have free play outside. It emphasized letting them play for hours and the need to let them take (smallish) risks and not have very much adult interference (this is obviously within reason). It was an especially good read for me because this isn't something that comes naturally for me. I am really good at things like reading to my kids everyday (because I already love reading) and having them on a good sleep schedule. Letting them take risks/make messes and taking them outside a ton is not naturally easy for me. This book brought it to my attention and helped me find some specific ways to do so.

Animal Farm by George Orwell 

This is a book that everyone always talks about, but I had never actually read it. It was a shorter read, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's really interesting to read it after reading Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.The most interesting part of the book to me was all the subtle changes the pigs made to the Animal Commandments as the book went on. I have to say, I will never look at pigs in quite the same light again.

Authority by Nathan Barry 

This was a book about writing and marketing eBooks. It's one that Ben bought but then I read when he finished it. It was an okay book. I felt like there was a lot of specifics in it (rather than simply principles), some of which didn't apply to me, so I found myself skimming some of it.

The author basically says you build an email list through teaching and then sell your books (or products) to the email list. Very sound advice. I honestly believe the best way to market pretty much anything is by teaching, because teaching offers a lot of value. There were a lot of good little ideas throughout the book:

"If you get in the habit of sharing everything you know, it will be much easier to position yourself as an expert later. Just be transparent about your skill level and people will be happy to follow along and will even be far more likely to offer to help when you get stuck."

"Artists are all waiting for someone to pick them, to say 'you're work is good enough.' But most people don't get picked. That's why the very idea of waiting can be so depressing. Everything is out of control ... You can take control, set a plan, and execute on that plan to bring you own ideas to life." I liked this idea, because it's something that Ben and I have talked about before. If you sing and you're waiting for a big hit or you write and you're waiting for a bestseller, you're going to be waiting a long time. It's not in your circle of influence and not very many artists or authors make it that way. But if you build your audience slowly and patiently, through giving them good quality content (like, teaching them), then you can sell them products or find other ways to let them support you and suddenly you're making money off of what you love without having to "make it big."

Love Your Life, Not Theirs by Rachel Cruze 

This was a reread for me and I actually listened to it this time. I was wanting to listen to a book while I was nursing Parker and I picked this one because I was needing a little extra motivation to stay tight on our budget. Listening to a book about succeeding with money always does the trick and I love Dave Ramsey and his team for that.

 I really love this book. A lot of the practical application part of it, I really don't need. I already know and am living that side of things. It's really fun for me to listen to Rachel's experiences as a spender, though, because I can really relate to her. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one that feels that way or has done those things.

I also really love the focus of this book on not comparing your life with other people's. That's what the entire first section is all about. I don't think it's possible to succeed with money or to live a full life without contentment. You have to learn to stop looking at what other people have and start being grateful for what you have. This is something that I can struggle with sometimes and it was great for me to be reminded of how much I truly have.