Charlotte Mason with toddlers/preschoolers in the house

[Grace and Granola]

I am really intrigued by the Charlotte Mason method and I've been reading everything posted on MDC as well as links that are mentioned. But, I'm not seeing anything about how to bring up the younger kids or at least include them in the CM lifestyle. For example, I really understand what they're saying about "twaddle." I dislike having meaningless books especially when the kids love them because it's Dora or something! So, if you are living the CM lifestyle, do you discard ALL books in the house that are twaddle? I realize you can read the high quality literature with the toddlers in the room, but what do you read specifically FOR the toddlers? Are there high quality toddler books?

Also, what do you do about your children's special interests? Like dinosaurs, airplanes, construction? Do you include books that cater to those interests and is there a literary standard that has to be met?

TIA...I was not raised a reader and I will be learning just as much as my kids when it comes to the high quality literature!

[meetoo]

I have been looking into CM more and more. Some things really resonate with me. Last year we used FIAR and did a lot of project/unit study type learning. That is hard with a toddler! I'm thinking CM might actually be easier with a toddler. The ideas I plan to implement are, lots of time outside, nature study, reading quality literature, narration, slowing down some of our readings, and living books for history. I think that type of learning would be easier with a toddler myself vs tons of messy projects. I'm no expert on CM but I would go with book lists from FIAR, BFIAR, and Amblesideoline year 0. We really had a fun year with FIAR. I am still planning on incorporating FIAR into our year and some fun messy projects. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to organize it all though.

this is precofffee and pretty much no sleep so sorry if I'm making no sense.

[EmmysMama]

I actually did get rid of all the twaddle. We didn't have much, since that sort of thing doesn't appeal to me (I know I'm going to be reading it 20 times per day at some point!), but we did have some gifts that I donated to the thrift store.

I have a book list, things to have on the shelf for babies/toddlers and another for preschoolers, looking ahead since DD1 is 2 right now. It's on another computer so I can't access it at the moment, but I will copy it for you and post it later. It's compiled from lots of CM booklists found online, plus some I've chosen myself.

To answer your other question, I do plan on providing books based on interests, and I do plan on meeting a literary standard. Check for dumbed-down language, correct grammar and such, accuracy, and make sure it's something beyond labeling pictures (although that can be helpful, there are whole books with just pictures of a dinosaur and their name on each page ... that's not a book, that's a bound set of flashcards IMO). Just to clarify, I mean these are meant for elementary-age children. I would consider a book with labeled pictures appropriate for a baby or young toddler. The idea is to challenge, and for someone just learning about the world, learning the words is challenging. For an 8yo, no.

[CMmom4boys]

There are good books for toddlers! I would get rid of the junk (which would include pretty much anything that you can find on a cartoon). Honey for a Child's Heart is a great resource to bring to the library to help find good books. When you find one you love, look for others by the same author. Even Amazon has helped me find good books by recommending others when I find a great one. Not always reliable, but I have discovered many good books that way. I am going to post a question about favorite toddler books on www.charlottemasoneducation.ning.com and the community there will probably come up with some wonderful suggestions.
If you replace the meaningless dribble with some nicely illustrated books, they will forget about them. Even if there is too much text in some books to read to the littles, you can use the illustrations to just tell your own story and allow pages to be turned a bit faster than would happen if you were indeed reading.
Best wishes on your venture. We love using Charlotte Mason's methods at our home.
Warmly,
Kristine in CA

[Grace and Granola]

Thank you both so much! It is good to hear that this is possible. My youngest is 3yo, so I don't have to worry about it for too long, but he is the kid that doesn't like to pay attention to a book unless it is his favorite topic. So, I'm a bit worried that at the beginning he is just going to lose interest in our books. Which is fine, but I do want to have books around that are of good quality, but up his alley until he is school age.

[EmmysMama]

Here's our toddler booklist. Use your own judgement of course, add and subtract as you wish. Some are baby/toddler-ish, some are older toddler/almost preschool. We have them all on the shelf though, and if DD wants to read one, I do. I pick the simpler ones (marked *)to read to the baby.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (and other similar titles) *
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
Doctor De Soto
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Gingerbread Man
Goodnight Moon *
The Gruffalo
Guess How Much I Love You *
Harold and the Purple Crayon
The Little Red Hen
Little Toot
Meet Peter Rabbit (and others along these lines)
Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel
My World *
The Runaway Bunny *
Scuffy the Tugboat
The Three Little Pigs
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod *

Also a good book of nursery rhymes. Find one with lots of poems and good illustrations. I read these one at a time.

We also have some "label-a-picture" books by Roger Priddy. I love all of these. The pictures are real and colorful. The text is bold and easy to see. The baby likes to look at them and DD1 likes to tell me what the pictures are as I point at each object/word.

There are two Usborne books we got recently, and I'd also recommend them. They're the Touchy Feely ABC and Touchy Feely 123. They work on many levels. Looking and feeling for baby, learning letters and numbers for toddler, initial sounds and counting for preschool.

HTH!

ETA:

Oh, he's 3! Let me share a few "older" ones then. Most of these would probably hold a boy's interest. They might be too old yet, but maybe worth getting or reading from the library. They'll be useful soon!

Nate the Great
Walter's Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World
the Little Bear books
Paul Revere's Ride (illustrated by Ted Rand)
Sam, Bangs and Moonshine
Up Goes the Skyscraper! by Gail Gibbons

[Juvysen]

[Grace and Granola]

Originally Posted by EmmysMama

Here's our toddler booklist. Use your own judgement of course, add and subtract as you wish. Some are baby/toddler-ish, some are older toddler/almost preschool. We have them all on the shelf though, and if DD wants to read one, I do. I pick the simpler ones (marked *)to read to the baby.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (and other similar titles) *
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
Doctor De Soto
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Gingerbread Man
Goodnight Moon *
The Gruffalo
Guess How Much I Love You *
Harold and the Purple Crayon
The Little Red Hen
Little Toot
Meet Peter Rabbit (and others along these lines)
Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel
My World *
The Runaway Bunny *
Scuffy the Tugboat
The Three Little Pigs
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod *

Also a good book of nursery rhymes. Find one with lots of poems and good illustrations. I read these one at a time.

We also have some "label-a-picture" books by Roger Priddy. I love all of these. The pictures are real and colorful. The text is bold and easy to see. The baby likes to look at them and DD1 likes to tell me what the pictures are as I point at each object/word.

There are two Usborne books we got recently, and I'd also recommend them. They're the Touchy Feely ABC and Touchy Feely 123. They work on many levels. Looking and feeling for baby, learning letters and numbers for toddler, initial sounds and counting for preschool.

HTH!

ETA:

Oh, he's 3! Let me share a few "older" ones then. Most of these would probably hold a boy's interest. They might be too old yet, but maybe worth getting or reading from the library. They'll be useful soon!

Nate the Great
Walter's Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World
the Little Bear books
Paul Revere's Ride (illustrated by Ted Rand)
Sam, Bangs and Moonshine
Up Goes the Skyscraper! by Gail Gibbons

Thank you!! Yes, he's 3, but I also babysit kids so that's why I phrased it as toddlers...just more of the younger crowd, not babies but too young for school. I will be checking out all of these books!

[EmmysMama]

I also wanted to say, about integrating little ones into the CM life (aside from books!), I found a lot of useful stuff by Googling "Charlotte Mason preschool" and "Charlotte Mason toddler".

http://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/eyguide/

http://wbbeachbum.blogspot.com/2008/...preschool.html

http://www.globalmama.com/2009/04/20...ling-approach/

http://www.amblesideonline.org/00.shtml

E again TA:

I have one more recommendation for the littlest babies, an Usborne cloth book called Baby Monster. It's a cloth book with lots of touchy-feelies (crinkly, embroidery, rough, etc) and a simple story about a little monster looking for her friend.

[Momma Aimee]

Originally Posted by Grace and Granola

I am really intrigued by the Charlotte Mason method and I've been reading everything posted on MDC as well as links that are mentioned. But, I'm not seeing anything about how to bring up the younger kids or at least include them in the CM lifestyle. For example, I really understand what they're saying about "twaddle." I dislike having meaningless books especially when the kids love them because it's Dora or something! So, if you are living the CM lifestyle, do you discard ALL books in the house that are twaddle? I realize you can read the high quality literature with the toddlers in the room, but what do you read specifically FOR the toddlers? Are there high quality toddler books?

Also, what do you do about your children's special interests? Like dinosaurs, airplanes, construction? Do you include books that cater to those interests and is there a literary standard that has to be met?

TIA...I was not raised a reader and I will be learning just as much as my kids when it comes to the high quality literature!

here i seek a more Classical environment. Boys are too young to "do" much -- and CM is cool but too "soft" and naturey for me, personally -- so i set my personal goal on Classical ...

and YES I do "not allo" or remove all Junk books (silly readers of Dora and so on). Donate to Charity as i can't harm a book.

There are a TON of excellent picutre books and board books an toddler / preschool "classic":

check out these lists:

http://kids.nypl.org/reading/recommended2.cfm?ListID=61

http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Sect...ontentID=28598
(some of these are not as good, IMO, just popular)

http://materamabilis.org/ -- look for the book list by grade level

http://www.amblesideonline.org/ -- again look for the book list by grade

This: http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html is a really asome list.

Personall I took

Ambleside Online
www.angelicum.net
simplycharlottemason.com
materamabilis.org
ambleside year Zero Yahoo group

and combines their lists, put it in alph order, deleted the duplicates -- and made myself a master list. I printed it out and i have marked the ones i hav e, the ones i have read to the boys and the ones i really deisre ..(I posted that list . i'll go find the old post and link it here for you).

Often the older ones are on amazon.com in teh 4 for the price of 3 group.

I just keep a house full of good books, some from my childhood, some current .. and read all the time. I don't have to refuse to read a book -- dora -- as it is not here. I don't have to try to eengage them in the good ones -- they are all good.

[Grace and Granola]

Originally Posted by Momma Aimee

here i seek a more Classical environment. Boys are too young to "do" much -- and CM is cool but too "soft" and naturey for me, personally -- so i set my personal goal on Classical ...

and YES I do "not allo" or remove all Junk books (silly readers of Dora and so on). Donate to Charity as i can't harm a book.

There are a TON of excellent picutre books and board books an toddler / preschool "classic":

check out these lists:

http://kids.nypl.org/reading/recommended2.cfm?ListID=61

http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Sect...ontentID=28598
(some of these are not as good, IMO, just popular)

http://materamabilis.org/ -- look for the book list by grade level

http://www.amblesideonline.org/ -- again look for the book list by grade

This: http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html is a really asome list.

Personall I took

Ambleside Online
www.angelicum.net
simplycharlottemason.com
materamabilis.org
ambleside year Zero Yahoo group

and combines their lists, put it in alph order, deleted the duplicates -- and made myself a master list. I printed it out and i have marked the ones i hav e, the ones i have read to the boys and the ones i really deisre ..(I posted that list . i'll go find the old post and link it here for you).

Often the older ones are on amazon.com in teh 4 for the price of 3 group.

I just keep a house full of good books, some from my childhood, some current .. and read all the time. I don't have to refuse to read a book -- dora -- as it is not here. I don't have to try to eengage them in the good ones -- they are all good.

Thank you I am also creating a master list. I usually check tons of books out of the library based on other's recommendations, but I never remember which ones we really liked!

I guess I just don't know what good literature for children is. Obviously, I know the Dora stories aren't good quality, because I hate reading them! But we own books like Brown Bear and Bark, George....and I wouldn't have considered those to be fabulous literature. Nothing wrong with them, but to me they are just very simple and boring (to me) stories. But I know kids like them, so I will keep them and get rid of the more obvious twaddle!


Keep them coming, we do alot of reading around here!

[Momma Aimee]

Originally Posted by Grace and Granola

Thank you I am also creating a master list. I usually check tons of books out of the library based on other's recommendations, but I never remember which ones we really liked!

I guess I just don't know what good literature for children is. Obviously, I know the Dora stories aren't good quality, because I hate reading them! But we own books like Brown Bear and Bark, George....and I wouldn't have considered those to be fabulous literature. Nothing wrong with them, but to me they are just very simple and boring (to me) stories. But I know kids like them, so I will keep them and get rid of the more obvious twaddle!


Keep them coming, we do alot of reading around here!

I think George and lbooks lIke The Hungery catilpiller and so on ARE good Chilresn't lit. You'll find them on many of the lists.

Good lit for a child is anything that has value in reading. Dora readers have no vaule -- they do not offer to the child -- they do not inspire, or create joy, or plant seeds of wonder.

think about this -- is the writting forced and the plot poor?

Many "simple" books -- George, the grumpy ladybug and so on -- all offer something to us and our children -- and thus are of value. Books like the Richard Scaery books are on many of the lists -- they are fun, they stand the test of time, they are created for children to enjoy NOT just to force phonic into them. I am all for phonices, but phonice readers do not make good family read-a-louds. LOL.

[EmmysMama]

I evaluate library books and sudden finds by asking myself "Why would X like to read this?", X of course being whichever child you think it might be appropriate for.

If the first answer that comes to you is "It's about Dora!" or "It has a truck on the cover!", it's probably not a good book.

If you think "She loves fairy stories!" or "The illustrations are fantastic!", give it a quick read and see.

Past that, I ask myself "Does it have at least one interesting word?" If I flip the first few pages and I only see five-letter words and shorter, I'm probably not going to get it. If it uses well-known but uncommon words, like maybe "puzzled" or "gigantic", it might be worth a read. That's the sort of thing I look for with DD1 in mind.

[newcastlemama]

Something that helps me is that in our library all the children's lit classics/nursery rhymes are all in one area so I head there first. I have an almost 6yo and 2 yo and they are really enjoying all the fairytales I have been reading to them lately. We read Curious George as well I think there have been many good books written since CM's time so I like to hunt around for those.

Next I would like to checkout some of the (older) Winnie the Pooh books and The Child's Garden of Verses from the library. My 2yo likes the stories and I purposefully pick ones with really good illustrations and ask her questions and point things out to her while we read to make the books adaptable to her (if that makes sense).

Dh and I got so sick of reading the "twaddle" books outloud so I am hoping to get them out of the house (they were given to us). Some of them are so bad they are painful to the ears. I would like to build up our home library of children's books as well, but I like to try them out from the library first if I can.

Two recent library finds we loved that I will probably buy:

My toddler LOVED this children's book about babywearing: A Ride on Mother's Back
http://www.amazon.com/Ride-Mothers-B.../dp/0152008705

My 5yo loved this: St George and the Dragon
http://www.amazon.com/Saint-George-D...6057846&sr=1-1

[meetoo]

Noooooooooooooooo, "Bark George" is not twaddle!!!!!!! My kids love that book and crack up any time anyone reads it. There is something to be said for encouraging a love of books in addition to introducing high quality literature. If your child ends up on the floor in a heap laughing while reading something don't get rid of it!!!

[Grace and Granola]

Originally Posted by meetoo

Noooooooooooooooo, "Bark George" is not twaddle!!!!!!! My kids love that book and crack up any time anyone reads it. There is something to be said for encouraging a love of books in addition to introducing high quality literature. If your child ends up on the floor in a heap laughing while reading something don't get rid of it!!!

Good point thank you!

[ohiomommy1122]

subbing!

[Dillpicklechip]

Originally Posted by Grace and Granola

I am really intrigued by the Charlotte Mason method and I've been reading everything posted on MDC as well as links that are mentioned. But, I'm not seeing anything about how to bring up the younger kids or at least include them in the CM lifestyle. For example, I really understand what they're saying about "twaddle." I dislike having meaningless books especially when the kids love them because it's Dora or something! So, if you are living the CM lifestyle, do you discard ALL books in the house that are twaddle? I realize you can read the high quality literature with the toddlers in the room, but what do you read specifically FOR the toddlers? Are there high quality toddler books?

Also, what do you do about your children's special interests? Like dinosaurs, airplanes, construction? Do you include books that cater to those interests and is there a literary standard that has to be met?

TIA...I was not raised a reader and I will be learning just as much as my kids when it comes to the high quality literature!

Hi,
I haven't read all the responses but I'll chime in here.

Charlotte Mason's main idea for young children is that they should be free to explore their world, and spend most of their time outside. She didn't advocate any formal schooling whatsoever until the child was 6. So if your kids are still quite young, you don't have to worry about anything at this stage, but getting them outside.

That said, this page has a great list of books for young children, and if you scroll down you can read more about CM's ideas regarding young children:

http://amblesideonline.org/00.shtml

When I started doing CM, I did not get rid of all twaddly books...okay, I got rid of a few, but I didn't want to antagonize my children by getting rid of books they were already attached to. So mostly what I have done is just stop buying all twaddle. I will no longer buy a book that has a tv character on it, etc. I only buy quality books now, fairy tales, classics, and such. So I'm hoping that over time our book collection will gradually become better quality.

As for special interests--I tend to get out library books for things my children are interested in. If they want to learn about something, I go get out the books, but I check them beforehand to make sure they're of a decent literary quality. For example the DK Eyewitness series of books is fairly well written and great fun for learning about different topics. But sometimes I do see books at the library that have weird looking illustrations, and are written with a lot of slang, and I don't bring those ones home.

Hope that helps!

[ohiomommy1122]

Originally Posted by Momma Aimee

here i seek a more Classical environment. Boys are too young to "do" much -- and CM is cool but too "soft" and naturey for me, personally -- so i set my personal goal on Classical ...

and YES I do "not allo" or remove all Junk books (silly readers of Dora and so on). Donate to Charity as i can't harm a book.

There are a TON of excellent picutre books and board books an toddler / preschool "classic":

check out these lists:

http://kids.nypl.org/reading/recommended2.cfm?ListID=61

http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Sect...ontentID=28598
(some of these are not as good, IMO, just popular)

http://materamabilis.org/ -- look for the book list by grade level

http://www.amblesideonline.org/ -- again look for the book list by grade

This: http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html is a really asome list.

Personall I took

Ambleside Online
www.angelicum.net
simplycharlottemason.com
materamabilis.org
ambleside year Zero Yahoo group

and combines their lists, put it in alph order, deleted the duplicates -- and made myself a master list. I printed it out and i have marked the ones i hav e, the ones i have read to the boys and the ones i really deisre ..(I posted that list . i'll go find the old post and link it here for you).

Often the older ones are on amazon.com in teh 4 for the price of 3 group.

I just keep a house full of good books, some from my childhood, some current .. and read all the time. I don't have to refuse to read a book -- dora -- as it is not here. I don't have to try to eengage them in the good ones -- they are all good.

THAT is an awesome idea any chance to you still have your reading list doc that you worked so hard on? I would LOVE a copy I started a list myself when I read this but at the slow pace I am moving with my needy toddler and baby I think it will be done when she is onto the next stage LOL Well then I would have it for the 2yr old and baby when they gety older

Great idea though Mama!

[ohiomommy1122]

What makes a good childrens book good?