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Mater Dei Irish History
Mater Dei Education is a new Irish curriculum provider. Mater Dei was “founded in 2020 to support homeschoolers in Ireland and elsewhere discover the rich classical tradition of teaching and learning from Ireland”. In 2021 Mater Dei released their Discover the Past Irish history curriculum. As they were new I could not see them before I purchased them. I only bought one of their history book sets, but it has been working well for us and I wanted to share about it. We are using the Charlotte Mason curriculum Alveary, which we are really happy with. It has a slot for American or Canadian history, and we just substituted the…
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Raising Butterflies
Growing caterpillars is a common suggestion in home education curricula. I wanted to share information for beginners like me, who would enjoy giving their children (and themselves) this enjoyable learning experience: watching the miracle of metamorphosis up close as you see the caterpillars grow, change into chrysalides and then emerge as beautiful butterflies! Caterpillars can be purchased from Insect Lore in the UK. I recommend ordering directly from Insect Lore, where your package can include LIVE caterpillars, rather than from another company, such as Amazon. With other companies, you will receive a voucher in the box for the caterpillars and may need to pay extra postage. The first time you…
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Guest Post: Encouraging Reluctant Nature Students
Charlotte Mason wrote “We are all meant to be naturalists, each in his own degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things.” (Home Education, page 61) But what can we do if our children just aren’t interested in nature? Irish nature lover and home educator Maireen has written a lovely post describing encouraging reluctant nature students. She has included some of her beautiful photographs of her family. You can see more of her photos on her Instagram. The early years promised to be beautiful and idyllic. We would do as Charlotte…
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Beautifully Illustrated Irish Nature Books to Enjoy One Page a Day
Each day, during our book basket time, we read a double-page spread from a beautifully illustrated nature book. I leave the book open on a bookstand or shelf for the rest of the day to allow the images to blend into our day. We also follow this approach for both poetry and art. Coming up: Irish Page-a-day Nature Books ~ General Page-a-day Nature Books ~ Mother’s Education Currently, we are enjoying the stunning book Ireland’s Hidden Depths by Paul Kay. I bought it on sale for €10 directly from Sherkin Island Marine Station, who do a range of great Irish nature books. Their books work so well for Irish home educators, and…
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Guest Post: Nature Study – How Can I Teach What I Don’t Know?
Irish nature lover and home educator Maireen has written a lovely post answering the question “How can I teach what I don’t know?” when thinking about studying nature. I have been chatting recently to a friend about homeschooling and nature study. She said she and her husband had been looking at my Instagram feed and he spotted the post on silk button galls and wondered how I know so much stuff about so many topics. She turned to him and said, you know she uses an app for that? What?!? She said she could hear me tumble off the pedestal in his head. I laughed, I know very little – I…
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Irish Living Book list – Classic fiction set in Ireland
This is the first post in what will be a series of posts listing living books for Irish home educators with children in primary school. Reading quality books is an important part of a Charlotte Mason education, whether snuggled on the couch reading aloud together or reading to themselves. I had difficulty locating living books set in Ireland and could not find a comprehensive list, so I am slowly creating such a list on this website to share with you. Tom McCaughren wrote: “When my daughters were growing up I realised there were few books for young people written, set and published in Ireland so I decided to write some…
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What’s in our bag when we go out for a nature walk? Guest Post!
Irish nature lover and home educator Maireen has written a lovely post describing what she brings along for a nature walk. She has included some of her beautiful photographs of her family on a nature walk. You can see more of her photos on her Instagram. Maireen lives with her long-suffering husband, their two little girls and a motley collection of animals in the sunny southeast of Ireland where the family have been trying to carve out a little corner of heaven on their acre of land. Maireen spent her early years in the West Indies before the pull of home drew her dad to bring the family to Ireland.…
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Art Appreciation Charlotte Mason Style
Charlotte Mason believed a child’s “education should furnish him with whole galleries of mental pictures, pictures by great artists old and new;––…–– in fact, every child should leave school with at least a couple of hundred pictures by great masters hanging permanently in the halls of his imagination, to say nothing of great buildings, sculpture, beauty of form and colour in things he sees. Perhaps we might secure at least a hundred lovely landscapes too,––sunsets, cloudscapes, starlight nights. At any rate he should go forth well furnished because imagination has the property of magical expansion, the more it holds the more it will hold. (Vol 6: Towards a Philosophy of Education…
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Hugh Lane Gallery Dublin
I think the Hugh Lane Gallery is a great gallery to take children to in Dublin. I think it is especially good for your first visit to a gallery with children. It is much smaller than the National Gallery of Ireland, which makes it easier and less overwhelming. There are artworks by many famous international artists, ones that you will come across is you are using the Ambleside Online Art Schedule for example Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir. There are also lots of interesting sculptures. There are paintings by well known Irish artists such as Harry Clarke, Paul Henry, Grace Henry, John Lavery, William…
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Irish Artist Study – Harry Clarke
The first Irish artist that we studied using the Charlotte Mason method of Art Appreciation (more info on this method here) was Harry Clarke (1889 –1931) a stained-glass artist and book illustrator. This turned out to be a great first choice artist for us. The Eve of St Agnes at Hugh Lane Gallery I had seen his stained glass artwork The Eve of St Agnes at the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin. I would suggest this as one of the artworks to study by Harry Clarke: The Eve of St Agnes – Hugh Lane Gallery Unfortunately, the quality of the digital image is quite poor. This is a very detailed image, basically a…
