I appreciate your grace in accepting the sporadic nature of
the posts that I have added here lately.
I feel pretty disconnected from my little place here Under the Maple
Tree but am thankful that you still check in on me occasionally.
It hasn’t been because of disinterest that I have only been
posting once a month but actually quite the opposite. My husband always calls it “drinking out of a
fire hose”. I feel like the proverbial
worker who is asked to move a mountain but just given a little spoon with which
to do it. For a while I was getting so
overwhelmed by how much needs to be done that I got very little done at all.
In actual fact though, we have started to settle into a nice
routine for the school year. The kids
get older every year and I’m starting to find it harder to convince them all
that I can sign them all up for the same program and that they will all be
happy in it; there’s a big span between preschool and grade eight! So we run to piano and Awana, youth group and
cake decorating class. At least everyone
is taking swimming lessons together. I
am usually an advocate of signing up for less and now am happy for it when I
can’t get the kids into their outside lessons in a neat and tidy way anymore.
As for this dusty little place, I am hoping to perk it up a
bit in the next little while. I have so
much that I want to share with you that I am about bursting to add it all on this
posting but I will try to be brief (not one of my greatest skills).
So for now, I will give you a bit of a sneak peak of some of the
things that I hope to post for you here during this school year….
Date and Events: As Maple Tree grows, so do the events that
we host and participate in increase in number.
I will shortly be posting upcoming dates, including those of our little
Charlotte Mason group that meets here in my home. I will also post a reading list for our group
and anyone else that wants to join along in reading and discussing the book
even if you can’t physically attend. I
am so excited that Jacki Young, who has faithfully assisted me in the past year
to lead the discussions in my living room, has offered to type up minutes so
that notes will be more readily available for those of you who miss a meeting
or who participate from afar.
Mother Culture: I did crash and burn at this last year but I
guess that there is only one place to go from here then, isn’t there? Under the banner of “Mother Culture”, I will
share the notes and thoughts from our Charlotte Mason Support Group meetings
here in my home so that the discussion can continue after the meeting and so
that those of you who can’t attend can still participate from afar. With Jacki's help I am looking forward to being more faithful about this.
Day to Day: Glimpses into some of the nitty gritty in our
little world. We don’t necessarily “do”
school the best way but it is the best that we can do for our little clan and I
am happy to share our experiences if they might encourage you or be a spring
board for you in your school and family.
Charlotte Mason:
Obviously, her educational philosophy really resonates in our home and
so I love to chat about her ideas and methods.
We will chat about some of these over the year, for sure.
Excerpts: Many of you
ask me for information or samples from the books that Maple Tree publishes. I want to do a better job at sharing some of
the yummy tidbits which make our resources so popular across Canada
Maple Tree Publications: Did you know that four years ago I
took over Maple Tree Publications and that this little business has since grown
beyond being simply a little publishing house?
I now attend and speak at many homeschool conferences and small groups
throughout the year and other conferences and groups besides. We have expanded our product line to carry
nearly a hundred other titles that we don’t publish and are able to help you
with even more homeschooling resources than that thanks to a distribution
agreement that we made about a year ago.
I’d love to show you through my little store (a bookshelf in my home)
and let you peruse the resources that we carry.
Subject by Subject: One of the wonderful advantages that we
have as a small group meeting in my home is that we are able to glean tips,
ideas and resource suggestions from one another on various subjects. From time to time I will try to share some of
these ideas and resources with you.
Workshop Notes: I have had the opportunity to share many
workshops at homeschool meetings and conferences and elsewhere and am often
asked to share my notes online or to elaborate on parts of a workshop. Look for some helps here on various workshops
that I present, including “Homeschooling for Newbies” which I have had the
privilege to share many times during our summer breaks as well as during
conferences.
So much more… Just the ideas above are jumbling around in my
head and promise to keep me typing and chattering for a few years and yet I
have many other ideas too. Let me know
if there is something that you’d like me to tackle sooner than later. I like to keep things rather informal here
and the schedule is rather flexible (as you may have guessed).
So for now, blessings, as you enjoy the crisp fall weather
and as you enjoy your crazy days of homeschooling! I look forward to chattering more with you here
Under the Maple Tree.
Take care, Friends!
Cori
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