Charlotte Mason Institute

10/13/2026

So excited about this giveaway! 😍

10/09/2026

Charlotte Mason on Fox News 👀

We’re glad to see more people asking an important question: What happens when we give children rich ideas instead of watered-down material?

Take a read and tell us what stood out to you.

Charlotte Mason's "living books" philosophy offers a powerful alternative to bland textbooks, transforming how children learn through great literature.

09/28/2026

A little behind the scenes at CMI. 📦

We’re packing up some CMI and Alveary goodies to send along to The Hedgerow Conference, including Alveary lesson plans, publications, and a little swag.

We’d love to know where the Charlotte Mason community is gathering this year. What Charlotte Mason conference or event is on your list?

And speaking of conferences, we’re getting very close to announcing dates for the 2027 CMI Summer Conference. Stay tuned! 👀

09/26/2026

There are quite a few new faces around here after we shared the 1925 nature notebook, so we wanted to say hello! 👋
We’re glad you’re here, and there’s more from Ambleside and the archives coming soon.

Want to stay connected beyond Facebook? Subscribe to the CMI newsletter: https://cminst.myflodesk.com/charlotte-mason-institute-news

09/23/2026

“This is the first thing I have painted in my life.”

That sentence appears in the nature notebook of a six-year-old girl from 1925.

During a visit to the Armitt in Ambleside, CMI Executive Director Kerri Forney had the opportunity to look through this rare example of a child’s nature notebook from Charlotte Mason’s time.

There are paintings: horse chestnut and beech twigs, sycamore, lime, and hawthorn. But much of the notebook is words, dictated by this young student and recorded for her. She noticed flowers. High tide. Snow on the hills. The things she encountered as she went about her days.

That might be one of the most encouraging things about seeing an actual child’s notebook.

A nature notebook does not need to be a collection of accomplished paintings. Mason described children keeping “a dated record of what they see” in notebooks that were “left to their own management and are not corrected”(School Education, p. 236).

The painting matters because the child is looking closely. The words matter because the child is noticing and recording. If your student’s notebook has more words than pictures, that’s okay. If it has more pictures than words, that’s okay too. It is their record of what they have seen.

We’d love to see the nature notebooks being filled by students today. Share a page in your Stories and tag so we can see what your students are noticing.

09/21/2026

More than a century ago, Charlotte Mason wrote that our “crying need” was not a better method of education, but “an adequate conception of children.”

What does it look like to build an education on the personhood of the child?

Just a few days before our Faithfully Present conference this summer, Dr. Jen Spencer and Lisa Cadora presented “Charlotte Mason’s Vision for Educating Persons” at the Personalist Conference in Madrid.

Their presentation introduces Mason’s educational philosophy to an audience interested in Personalism and considers her as an early “practitioner of personalism,” someone who developed not only ideas about personhood, but a practical educational model grounded in them.

This presentation grew out of Jen and Lisa’s larger research into the connections between Mason’s work and Personalism, including their time as University of Cumbria’s Scholar-in-Residence program in 2025.

The recording also includes “Personalism & Neurodiversity in Education,” another presentation well worth watching.

Watch the full talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb7BpIT1UaA
𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮 & 𝘕𝘦𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘌𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯: 12:16–28:57
𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯’𝘴 𝘝𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘌𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘴: 29:54–55:00

09/19/2026

There’s still time to join us for a fall CMI Course.

You may already narrate, use living books, spend time outdoors, or practice picture study. But how well do you understand the ideas behind those practices?

Charlotte Mason wrote that a mother should have “something more than a hearsay acquaintance with the theory of education.”

CMI Courses give you the opportunity to study those ideas with others and consider what they mean for the way you educate.

This fall’s courses include CORE, Mason’s Principles Parts 1 and 2, and graduate-level study.

Courses begin next week, and registration is closing soon.

Comment COURSES and we’ll send you the registration link, or head to the link in our bio.

09/16/2026

Is this narration?

We often think of narration as a student telling back what they have read. But narration can take many forms. A student might dramatize a scene, draw what they have learned, or respond in another way that asks them to make the knowledge their own.

Understanding the principles behind a Charlotte Mason practice gives us greater freedom in how we use it. Rather than feeling bound to one way of doing things, we can consider the book, the subject, and the child in front of us.

This is one of the ideas we explore in CMC 4 as we study Principles 14 and 15. And it’s the kind of study that happens throughout CMC 3 and CMC 4: looking more closely at Mason’s principles so they can inform and expand our practice.

CMC 3 explores Principles 1–10.
CMC 4 explores Principles 11–20.

You do not need to take them in order. You can begin with either course.

Fall courses begin next week, and registration is closing soon. Comment COURSES and we’ll send you the link, or register through the link in our bio.

09/11/2026

“History is the remembered past.”
Robert Tracy McKenzie, A Little Book for New Historians

Today we remember September 11, 2001.

Twenty-five years later, we remember the lives lost, the families whose lives were forever changed, and the courage and sacrifice shown by so many.

History asks us to remember.

Today, we do.

*Our Alveary high school students read A Little Book for New Historians as they learn what it means to study the past well.