Educating Myself

Between my birthday and Christmas I've been blessed to add the "Homeschool Trifecta" to my personal library.  These are the books that any Charlotte Mason or Classical homeschooler either has read, owns, or wants to read or own.  I am now happily in the owner category!

Last year I borrowed A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learningfrom a friend and really gained an understanding for what the Charlotte Mason was all about.  I restrained myself from underlining meaningful passages and reluctantly (after several months) returned it.  Reading it as well as some other online research was enough to make me officially switch from unit studies to CM.  (I still love unit studies for kindergarten, though!)

The Original Home Schooling Series is not an easy read, and I've been slowly working my way through it.  Thank goodness for ballet classes during which I can sit and read uninterupted!  I'm still on the first volume, and am loving reading about Mason's thoughts on "Out-of-Door Life for the Children."  Such good stuff.  Sometimes a little off scientifically, but pretty much always hits the nail on the head in a practical sense

I still have a lot to learn about the classical method, but I know I like its scope and sequence.  I first read The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home (Third Editition) when I checked it out from the library.  Three weeks was enough to know that it was a book I wanted to own so I could refer to it for it's resources and read it more deeply and slowly. 

At the rate I'm going it may well be a year before I get through all of these, but I'm loving soaking them in at a leisurely pace without worrying about due dates! 

What books are in your homeschooling trifecta?