The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins explores the application of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy to the atmosphere, discipline, and life of our homes and schools. We cover Charlotte’s timeless principles as they work themselves out in our real and modern lives. Interviewing seasoned moms who have cherished Charlotte’s works while raising real children in real families, we endeavor to lay a foundation of hope and possibility for our listeners. However imperfectly.

en78 Episodes

Episodes (78)

S6E77: Seeing the Big Picture with Heather Martin

Three Questions for the Mother…She must ask herself
Why must the children learn at all? What should they learn? And, How
should they learn it? If she takes the trouble to find a definite and
thoughtful answer to each of these three queries, she will be in a
position to direct her children’s studies; and will, at the same time, be
surprised to find that three-fourths of the time and labour ordinarily
spent by the child at his lessons is lost time and wasted energy.
Charlotte Mason, Home Education, p. 171

Show Summary:

On this week’s episode of The New Mason Jar, Cindy and Dawn sit down to chat with veteran homeschool mom, Heather Martin about a wide variety of topics
How and when Heather actually learned about Charlotte Mason after organically using many of her methods all along
How getting a teaching certificate actually ensured Heather would choose to home educate instead
Were there challenges specific to having only boys?
What were some of the intentional things you did in your home to build your family culture?
Some encouragement for moms regarding mathematics
How Heather started local recitation gatherings with other homeschoolers

Books and Links Mentioned:

Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins

Range by David Epstein

In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass

Find Cindy:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enFebruary 29, 2024

S6E76: “Beyond Mere Motherhood” with Cindy and Dawn

No one knoweth the things of a man but the spirit of a man which is in him; therefore, there is no education but self-education…
Charlotte Mason, Toward a Philosophy of Education, p. 26

Show Summary:

On The New Mason Jar this week, Cindy and Dawn sit down to chat about Cindy’s newest book, Beyond Mere Motherhood
How this book came to be
What Cindy hopes this book to be and who it is for
What you can expect from each chapter of the book
How this book is helping launch a new podcast series coming soon!

Books and Links Mentioned:

Toward a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason

Beyond Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins

The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer

“Why the KJV?” by Lynn Bruce

Blue Sky Daisies

Find Cindy and Dawn:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

Dawn’s Swedish Drill website

Dawn’s A Reasoned Patriotism website

Dawn’s Substack

We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and spiritual life of mothers, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirit and is their continue Helper in all the interests, duties, and joys of life.
paraphrase of Charlotte Mason’s 20th Principle

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enFebruary 15, 2024

S6E75: A Sacred Sacrifice with Hannah Paris and Amy Edwards

Like all music, the figured bass should have no other end and aim than the glory of God and the recreation of the soul; where this is not kept in mind there is no true music,
but only an infernal clamour and ranting.
Johann Sebastian Bach

Show Summary:

Today on The New Mason Jar, Cindy talks with Hannah Paris and Amy Edwards about the new Lenten companion book to Hallelujah, A Sacred Sacrifice
How this book came to be through the years
Some thoughts on why St. Matthew’s Passion is such an appropriate piece for Lent
How the book is laid out for families to use
Some thoughts on approaching Lent if it isn’t a normal part of your church tradition

Books and Links Mentioned:

A Sacred Sacrifice: Cultivating Lenten Traditions with Bach’s Great Passion by Hannah Paris

The Story of Charlotte Mason by Essex Cholmondeley

The Charlotte Mason Book of Quotes: Copywork to Inspire by Lanaya Gore

Blue Sky Daisies

Truly parents are happy people, to have God’s children lent to them…
Charlotte Mason, from a letter quoted in The Story of Charlotte Mason

Find Cindy:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enFebruary 01, 2024

S6E74: The Lives of Charlotte Mason Moms and Military Wives

As a matter of fact, we do not realise children, we under-estimate them; in the divine words, we “despise” them, with the best intentions in the world, because we confound the immaturity of their frames, and their absolute ignorance as to the relations of things, with spiritual impotence: whereas the fact probably is, that never is intellectual power so keen, the moral sense so strong, spiritual perception so piercing, as in those days of childhood which we regard with a supercilious, if kindly, smile.
Charlotte Mason, Parents and Children, p. 260

Show Summary:

Today on The New Mason Jar, Cindy and Dawn chat with guests Elizabeth and Stacy about the challenges (and benefits!) of homeschooling while serving in the military
How Elizabeth and Stacy each first learned about Charlotte Mason
What are some of the challenges of military life and frequent relocation?
How have you found homeschooling community and friends when changing duty stations?
What are some of the benefits your family has experienced because of military life?
Are there any homeschooling resources available to military families?
How do you adapt your homeschool schedule during the year to stay flexible to change?

Books and Links Mentioned:

For the Family’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

The Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola

Find Cindy and Dawn:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

Dawn’s Swedish Drill Book

Dawn’s Reasoned Patriotism Book

Dawn’s Discerning Home Educator Substack

Every look of gentleness and tone of reverence, every word of kindness and act of help, passes into the thought-environment, the very atmosphere which the child breathes; he does not think of these things, may never think of them, but all his life long they excite that ‘vague appetency towards something’ out of which most of his actions spring.

Charlotte Mason, Parents and Children, p. 36

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enJanuary 18, 2024

S6E73: Music and Group Singing with Bethany Stuard

Few things could be more disastrous (as, alas, few are more imminent) than a sudden break with the traditions of the past; wherefore, let us gently knit the bonds that bind us to the generation all too rapidly dying out. It is well that we gather up, with tender reverence, such fragments of their insight and experience as come in our way; for we would fain, each, be as an householder, bringing forth out of his treasures things new and old.
Charlotte Mason, Formation of Character, p. 156-157

Show Summary:

On The New Mason Jar this week, Cindy talks with Bethany Stuard, homeschooling mom of 3, about incorporating group singing into the homeschool day
How Bethany came to know about Charlotte Mason as a second-generation homeschooler
How choral music connected Bethany with poetry, the liturgy, other cultures and more
Practical tips for helping children sing confidently at home
How folk songs help connect us to other cultures and our own history
Tips for finding a choir for a child to join
Tips for making the most of composer study

Books and Links Mentioned:

Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne

For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

James Herriot

Peter Kreeft

Melody Sheet Music

Poetry Set to Choral Music on Spotify

Playlist of Folk and Children’s Songs on Spotify

AmblesideOnline Folk Song Selections

Feierabend Song Collection Books

Kodaly Collection

Find Cindy and Bethany:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

Bethany’s Website

First Colony Homeschool Ensembles

...a classical education does more, turns out men with intellects cultivated and trained, who are awake to every refinement of thought, and yet ready for action. But the press and hurry of our times and the clamour for useful knowledge are driving classical culture out of the field; and parents will have to make up their minds, not only that they must supplement the moral training of the school, but must supply the intellectual culture, without which knowledge may be power, but is not pleasure, nor the means of pleasure.
Charlotte Mason, Formation of Character, p. 213

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enJanuary 04, 2024

S5E72: “Six Voices, One Story” with Donna-Jean Breckenridge

It is not the friends of our election who have exclusive claims upon us; the friends brought to us here and there by the circumstances of life all claim our loyalty, and from these we get…kindness for kindness, service for service, loyalty for loyalty, full measure, heaped together and running over.
Charlotte Mason, Ourselves, Book 2, p. 32

Show Summary:

Today on The New Mason Jar, Cindy and Dawn welcome back Donna-Jean Breckenridge, veteran homeschool mom, grandmother and member of the AmblesideOnline Advisory
Donna-Jean shares a little about how the Advisory met and went on to work together to create AmblesideOnline and a grew to have deep friendships along the way
Donna-Jean talk about how this book came to be and some of the challenges along the way
What do you see as the future of the Advisory and AO?

Books and Links Mentioned:

Six Voices, One Story by the AmblesideOnline Advisory

Archipelago, The AO Advisory Blog

Find Cindy and Donna-Jean:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

Donna-Jean’s Facebook

Donna-Jean’s Instagram

Donna-Jean on MeWe

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enDecember 21, 2023

S5E71: Reprise of "Christmas Memories with Lynn and Donna-Jean", Ep. 47

Our flesh the Word became, and dwelt with us,
And we beheld His glory, as, of God,
The only-begotten Son: we who believed
Knew glory when we saw it, by the signs—
Not of the pomp and majesty of Kings—
But Grace, the touch of God, showed sweet in Him;
And Truth, discerning all things, made Him simple,
His glory saw we—full of grace and truth.

Charlotte Mason, from “Savior of the World,”
Prologue to the Gospel according to St. John

Show Summary:

On this episode of The New Mason Jar, we bring you a replay of a special episode with Cindy’s friends Donna-Jean Breckenridge and Lynn Bruce, who has now gone to be with the Lord.
What did homeschooling look like around the Christmas holidays?
Why it is okay to take time off from your normal school work for Christmas celebrations
Why traditions are so important, possibly even more so as children grow older
What are some traditions that your family keeps from previous generations?
Handling changes and trauma as the years go by and still keep Christmas with courage
What are some Christmas “fails” that happened in your family?

Books and Links Mentioned:

Saviour of the World, Volume 1 by Charlotte Mason

This Country of Ours: Annotated, Expanded and Updated, Vol. 1 by Donna-Jean Breckenridge

Episode 40: Donna-Jean Breckenridge on Updating This Country of Ours

Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah by Cindy Rollins

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder

Find Cindyand Donna-Jean:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

Donna-Jean’s Facebook

Donna-Jean’s Instagram

Donna-Jean on MeWe

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enDecember 07, 2023

S5E70: A Casual Chat with Cindy and Dawn

Education is a life. That life is sustained on ideas. Ideas are of spiritual origin, and God has made us so that we get them chiefly as we convey them to one another, whether by word of mouth, written page, Scripture word, musical symphony; but we must sustain a child’s inner life with ideas as we sustain his body with food.
Charlotte Mason, Toward a Philosophy of Education

Show Summary:

Cindy and Dawn take some time for a more informal chat about some ideas that have been on their minds and hearts lately
The danger of “windows and mirrors” and trying to see ourselves instead of looking to God
Some thoughts on narration and attention
The value of listening to the experience of older homeschool moms

Books and Links Mentioned:

The Lord Bless You and Keep You by Michael J. Glodo

Six Voices, One Story by the Ambleside Education Foundation

Education, like faith, is “the evidence of things not seen.”
Charlotte Mason, from Toward a Philosophy of Education

Find Cindy and Dawn:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

Dawn’s Swedish Drill Website

Dawn’s Articles on Afterthoughtsblog.net

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enNovember 23, 2023

S5E69: A Question of Culture with Erin Kunkle

Mentally he must be developed so that as he grows older he may have the capacity to grasp the true meaning of social and political questions of the day. His mind should be so trained that he will be able to detect and reject fallacious statements, and quick to discover the claptrap of which our newspapers are so full.
E. A. Smith, “Citizenship: Our Responsibility as Teachers”, June 1911 L’Umile Pianta

Show Summary:

Today’s guest on The New Mason Jar is Erin Kunkle, a veteran homeschool mom, speaker and co-host of the MAVEN parent podcast
How Erin first heard about Charlotte Mason
What is Maven all about?
What do we mean when we say “culture” and why it is important to stay engaged with it?
Does teaching apologetics and Christian worldview align with a Charlotte Mason education?
How can we talk about cultural issues in a way that encourages kids to learn to think for themselves?
Erin’s advice for talking with kids about difficult topics

Books and Links Mentioned:

Affiliate links are included below.

For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch

More Than a Carpenter by Josh MacDowell with Sean MacDowell

A Practical Guide to Culture by Brett Kunkle and John Stonestreet

Questioning the Bible by Jonathan Morrow

The Story of Reality by Greg Koukl

[We] must listen and consider, being sure that one of the purposes we are in the world for is, to form right opinions about all matters that come in our way.
Charlotte Mason, Ourselves

Find Cindy and Erin:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enNovember 09, 2023

S5E68: The Beauty of Mathematics with Melissa Bair

We take strong ground when we appeal to the beauty and truth of Mathematics; that, as Ruskin points out, two and two make four and cannot conceivably make five, is an inevitable law. It is a great thing to be brought into the presence of a law, of a whole system of laws, that exist without our concurrence,––that two straight lines cannot enclose a space is a fact which we can perceive, state, and act upon but cannot in any wise alter, should give to children the sense of limitation which is wholesome for all of us, and inspire that sursum corda which we should hear in all natural law.
Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education, p. 230-231

Show Summary:

Today’s guest on The New Mason Jar is Melissa Bair, a homeschooling mother of 4 who loves math and has degrees in mathematics and computer sciences
How Melissa first discovered Charlotte Mason’s philosophy
How Melissa came to love mathematics and what impact her teachers had on her
What kinds of activities and materials Melissa uses to teach math in a more beautiful way
The building blocks of math: notice, wonder, and discover
Is math a language or an art?
Does seeking to find the beauty in math put too much pressure on homeschool parents?

Books and Links Mentioned:

Affiliate links are included below.

John Holt

Poetic Knowledge by James Taylor

Leisure: the Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper

For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

Real Learning by Elizabeth Voss

A Mathematician’s Lament by Paul Lockhart

Caleb Gattegno

Chasing Rabbits by Sunil Singh

Mater Amabilis

The Mandelbrot Set

In a word our point is that Mathematics are to be studied for their own sake and not as they make for general intelligence and grasp of mind.
Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education

Find Cindy:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enOctober 19, 2023

S5E67: Science in the Charlotte Mason Homeschool with Jeanne Webb

Again, we have made a rather strange discovery, that the mind refuses to know anything except what reaches it in more or less literary form.
Persons can ‘get up’ the driest of pulverised text-books and enough mathematics for some public examination; but these attainments do not appear to touch the region of mind.
Of Natural Science, too, we have to learn that the way into the secrets of nature is not through the barbed wire entanglements of science as she is taught but through field work or other immediate channel, illustrated and illuminated by books of literary value.
Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education

Show Summary:

Today’s guest on The New Mason Jar is Jeanne Webb, veteran homeschool of one daughter and former member of the AmblesideOnline Auxilliary, and her whole family are involved in the sciences
How Jeanne first heard about the Charlotte Mason philosophy
What make Charlotte Mason’s approach to science different from that of typical American science education?
What is the relationship of nature study to other areas of scientific study?
How do nature study and nature lore prepare children for the more formal study of science?
What Jeanne and her family did for nature study
Does a Charlotte Mason approach to science do enough to prepare students for higher education?

Books and Links Mentioned:

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

The Burgess Bird Book by Thornton W. Burgess

Napoleon’s Buttons by Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

Gulp by Mary Roach

It Couldn’t Just Happen by Lawrence O. Richards

The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson

Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe

A Meaningful World by Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt

Who Made the Moon? by Sigmund Brouwer

The Language of God by Francis Collins

But the object of the Parents’ Review School is not merely to raise the standard of work in the home schoolroom. Our chief wish is that the pupils of the School should find knowledge delightful in itself and for its own sake, without thought of marks, place, prize or other reward; that they should develop an intelligent curiosity about whatever is on the earth or in the heavens, about the past and the present. The children respond and take to their lessons with keen pleasure, if they get even tolerably good teaching, and the want of marks, companionship, or other stimulus is not felt in those home schoolrooms where the interest of knowledge is allowed free play.
attributed to Charlotte Mason, from “Parents’ Review School”, The Parents’ Review, Vol. 12, No. 9 (1901)

Find Cindy:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enOctober 05, 2023

S5E66: Q&A No. 7, On the Building Blocks of Story

“There can be no great art without great fable. Great art can only exist where great men brood intensely on something upon which all men brood a little. Without a popular body of fable there can be no unselfish art in any country. Shakespeare’s art was selfish till he turned to the great tales in the four most popular books of his time…”
James Masefield, as Quoted by Charlotte Mason, Vol. 6, Toward a Philosophy of Education

Show Summary:

Today on the New Mason Jar, Cindy and Dawn welcome back previous guests Angelina Stanford and Timilyn Downey to cover some questions listeners had about Episode 60: The Building Blocks of Story
Is there an objective answer to the question “What is art?”
What do we mean when we say literature is art?
Why do we say fairy tales are the building blocks of story?
What is the danger of not giving children a foundation in myths, fairy tales and the Bible?
Is it ever too late to develop a taste for these stories?
What is the difference between historical fiction and literature?
How does a wide and varied literary education add to our understanding of story?

Let us take it to ourselves that great character comes out of great thoughts, and that great thought must be initiated by great thinkers; then we shall have a definite aim in education. Thinking and not doing is the source of character.
Charlotte Mason, Toward a Philosophy of Education

Books Mentioned:

Northrop Frye

C. S. Lewis

J. R. R. Tolkien

The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green

The Three Little Pigs by Paul Galdone

Beowulf trans. by Burton Raffel

English Literature for Boys and Girls by H. E. Marshall

Find Cindy, Angelina, and Timilyn:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

House of Humane Letters

Angelina’s Facebook

Angelina’s Instagram

The Literary Life Online Conference 2023

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enSeptember 21, 2023

S5E65: Building a Home Library with Jeannette Tulis and Sherry Early

As for Literature–to introduce children to literature is to install them in a very rich and glorious kingdom, to bring a continual holiday to their doors, to lay before them a feast exquisitely served. But they must learn to know literature by being familiar with it from the very first. A child’s intercourse must always be with good books, the best that we can find.
Charlotte Mason, Vol. 6, Philosophy of Education, p. 51

Show Summary:

Our guests on The New Mason Jar podcast today are Jeannette Tulis and Sherry Early
How Sherry first heard about Charlotte Mason
How Jeannette started her own home library that then turned into a lending library
How did Sherry and Jeannette learn what books to collect and what not to bring home?
Where are the best, budget-friendly places to look for good books to buy?
How Sherry and Jeannette run their lending libraries
What are a few of our guests’ favorite books?

Books and Links Mentioned:

Episode 12: Charlotte Mason Study Groups with Jeannette Tulis

Picture Book Preschool

Thrift Store Shopping Without Leaving Your House – Bibioguides

Private Lending Libraries List – Biblioguides

The Card Catalogue – Plumfield and Paideia

Jeannette’s Books About Books List

Jeannette’s Favorite Books by Category List

Jeannette’s Favorite Picture Book Authors List

For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

Let the Authors Speak by Carolyn Hatcher

All Through the Ages by Christine Miller

Who Should We Then Read, Vols. 1 & 2 by Jan Bloom

Anatole Series by Eve Titus

Henry the Explorer from Purple House Press

The Biggest Bear by Lynd Ward

David McPhail

Don Freeman

Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban

Obadiah Trio by Brinton Turkle

Deep in the Forest by Brinton Turkle

Charlotte Zolotow

Jan Wahl

Little Bear Books by Else Holmelund Minarik

Frog and Toad Books by Arnold Lobel

Millicent Selsam

Animals Do the Strangest Things by Arthur and Leonora Hornblow

Carolyn Haywood

The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook by Joyce Brisley

Sugar Creek Gang Original Series by Paul Hutchens

Clementine Books by Sarah Pennypacker

The Cobble Street Cousins by Cynthia Rylant

Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers

Mothering by the Book by Jennifer Pepito

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

You Are Not Your Own by Alan Noble

Find Cindy and Sherry:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

Sherry Early’s Blog, Semicolon

When I get a little money, I buy books, and if any is left, I buy food. My luggage is my library. My home is where my books are.
Erasmus

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enSeptember 07, 2023

S5E64: A Charlotte Mason Sunday School with Emily Raible and Tracy Fast

All our teaching of children should be given reverently, with the humble sense that we are invited in this matter to co-operate with the Holy Spirit; but it should be given dutifully and diligently.
Charlotte Mason, Vol. 2, Parents and Children

Show Summary:

Our guests on The New Mason Jar podcast this week are Emily Raible and Tracy Fast
How Tracy was homeschooled and came to learn about Charlotte Mason
How Emily first heard about Charlotte Mason
How Tracy got started using Charlotte Mason’s principles in teaching Sunday school
How Emily began creating a Sunday school curriculum using Miss Mason’s principles
What differences have been noticeable since implementing the new methods?
What a typical Sunday school class looks like in Tracy’s church
What Emily’s Sunday school class typically looks like
Some more benefits of a Charlotte Mason Sunday school

Books and Links Mentioned:

For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

The Bible Story Handbook by John and Kim Walton

The Burgess Bird Book by Thornton W. Burgess

House of Humane Letters

Simply Charlotte Mason

AmblesideOnline

Blue Sky Daisies publishing

Example of nature coloring pages Emily mentioned

Find Cindy:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

Above all, do not read the Bible at the child: do not let any words of the Scriptures be occasions for gibbeting his faults. It is the office of the Holy Ghost to convince of sin; and He is able to use the Word for this purpose, without risk of that hardening of the heart in which our clumsy dealings too often result.
Charlotte Mason, Home Education

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enAugust 17, 2023

S5E63: Singing in the Homeschool with Heather Bunting

In teaching music, again, let him once perceive the beautiful laws of harmony, the personality, so to speak, of Music, looking out upon him from among the queer little black notes…
Charlotte Mason, Vol. 2, Parents and Children, p. 278-279

Show Summary:

On the New Mason Jar today, Cindy is joined by Heather Bunting, homeschooling mother of 4 and former public school music teacher
How Heather first came to learn about Charlotte Mason and her philosophy
What is solfege or solfa, and why it is helpful to learn?
Why Heather started making videos teaching solfege on her channel Children of the Open Air
Is there a benefit to singing a cappella as opposed to singing with accompaniment?
Are there resources for implementing singing in the homeschool?
How singing connects with a Charlotte Mason education

Books and Links Mentioned:

For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

The 5th Annual Back to School Conference

Children of the Open Air on Youtube

AmblesideOnline Folk Song Lists

Find Cindy:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

They are the earth and the wind and the home and the heather and all the gracious commonplaces of human life and circumstance. They are children of the open air.
from The Joyous Book Singing games by John Hornby

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enAugust 03, 2023

S5E62: The Role of a Homeschool Dad with Dan Bunting

Without knowledge, Reason carries a man into the wilderness and Rebellion joins company. The man is not to be blamed: it is a glorious thing to perceive your mind, your reasoning power, acting of its own accord as it were and producing argument after argument in support of any initial notion; how is a man to be persuaded, when he wakes up to this tremendous power he has of involuntary reasoning, that his conclusions are not necessarily right, but rather that he who reasons without knowledge is like a child playing with edged tools?
Charlotte Mason, Vol. 6, Philosophy of Education, p. 315

Show Summary:

On the New Mason Jar today, Cindy chats with Dan Bunting, a pastor and father of 4 homeschooled children
How Dan first learned about Charlotte Mason’s philosophy
Did you have any concerns about using a Charlotte Mason curriculum initially?
What Dan saw about this educational philosophy that impressed him
What Dan’s role is in his family’s homeschool journey
How Dan is continuing his own education as a father
Do you think that a Charlotte Mason education is strong enough in STEM subjects?
Dan’s best advice for fathers to support their homeschooling families

Books and Links Mentioned:

Range by David Epstein

Mind to Mind by Karen Glass

H. P. Lovecraft

Terry Pratchett

The 5th Annual Back to School Conference

Dan’s Episode on The Literary Life podcast

Dan’s Reading the Psalms podcast

Find Cindy:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

…habit is inevitable. If we fail to ease life by laying down habits of right thinking and right acting, habits of wrong thinking and wrong acting fix themselves of their own accord.
Charlotte Mason, Vol. 6, Philosophy of Education, p. 101

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enJuly 20, 2023

S5E61: The Great Recognition with Camille Malucci

In the things of science, in the things of art, in the things of practical everyday life, his God doth instruct him and doth teach him, her God doth instruct her and doth teach her. Let this be the mother’s key to the whole of the education of each boy and each girl; not of her children; the Divine Spirit does not work with nouns of multitude, but with each single child. Because He is infinite, the whole world is not too great a school for this indefatigable Teacher, and because He is infinite, He is able to give the whole of his infinite attention for the whole time to each one of his multitudinous pupils. We do not sufficiently rejoice in the wealth that the infinite nature of our God brings to each of us.
Charlotte Mason, Vol. 2, Parents and Children

Show Summary:

Today on the New Mason Jar, Camille Malucci is back on the podcast to talk with Cindy about a painting that had a great effect on Charlotte Mason
How did Charlotte Mason come to view these frescoes?
What are some of the scenes depicted in the frescoes in the Spanish Chapel, Santa Maria Novella?
What was it about this painting that so impacted Miss Mason?
Why is it so hard for us to grasp the concept of “the Great Recognition” that Mason talks about?
How did Charlotte Mason see this recognition as helpful to resolving some of the discord in modernity?

Books and Links Mentioned:

The 5th Annual Back to School Conference

Parents and Children by Charlotte Mason

Common Place Quarterly Magazine

The CMEC

Camille’s episode on the CMEC curriculum

Mornings in Florence by John Ruskin

The Story of Charlotte Mason by Essex Cholmondeley

The Charlotte Mason Collection at the Armitt Museum

Print of The Great Recognition from Riverbend Press

Find Cindy:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

We must think, we must know, we must rejoice in and create the beautiful. And if all the burning thoughts that stir in the minds of men, all the beautiful conceptions they give birth to, are things apart from God, then we too must have a separate life, a life apart from God, a division of ourselves into secular and religious––discord and unrest. We believe that this is the fertile source of the unfaith of the day, especially in young and ardent minds…and the young man or woman, full of promise and power, becomes a free-thinker, an agnostic, what you will. But once the intimate relation, the relation of Teacher and taught in all things of the mind and spirit, be fully recognised, our feet are set in a large room; there is space for free development in all directions, and this free and joyous development, whether of intellect or heart, is recognised as a Godward movement.
Charlotte Mason, Parents and Children

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enJuly 06, 2023

S4E60: The Building Blocks of Story with Angelina Stanford and Timilyn Downey

Commonplace Tales: Tales of Imagination––Stories, again, of the Christmas holidays, of George and Lucy, of the amusements, foibles, and virtues of children in their own condition of life, leave nothing to the imagination. The children know all about everything so well that it never occurs to them to play at the situations in any one of these tales, or even to read it twice over. But let them have tales of the imagination, scenes laid in other lands and other times, heroic adventures, hairbreadth escapes, delicious fairy tales in which they are never roughly pulled up by the impossible––even where all is impossible, and they know it, and yet believe.
Charlotte Mason, Vol. 1, Home Education

Show Summary:

Today on the New Mason Jar, Cindy and Dawn chat with friends Angelina Stanford and Timilyn Downey about the building blocks of stories in relation to a Charlotte Mason education
How Angelina came to learn about Charlotte Mason
Why Timilyn values the building blocks of story so much
What are stories versus literature?
What is the difference between how modernity sees art and stories and how the medievals saw them?
What is wrong with the idea of literature as a mirror or a window?
Some metaphors for approaching story
Why are unit studies problematic in approaching a Charlotte Mason education?
How can you learn the language of literature so that you can teach your children?

Last but not least, the fact that the story does not turn on children, and does not foster that self-consciousness, the dawn of which in the child is, perhaps, the individual “Fall of Man.”
Charlotte Mason, Formation of Character

Books Mentioned:

“Meditation on a Toolshed” by C. S. Lewis

Aesop’s Fables illus. by Jerry Pinkney

He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands illus. by Kadir Nelson

Find Cindy, Angelina, and Timilyn:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

House of Humane Letters

Angelina’s Facebook

Angelina’s Instagram

The Literary Life Online Conference 2023

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enJune 22, 2023

S4E59: A Reasoned Patriotism with Dawn Duran

The honor due to our country…is not to be confounded with the ignorant and impertinent attitude of the Englishman or the Chinese who believes that to be born an Englishman or a Chinese puts him on a higher level than the people of all other countries; that his own country and his own government are right in all circumstances, and other countries and other governments always wrong. But, on the other hand, still more to be guarded against, is the caitiff spirit of him who holds his own country and his own government always in the wrong and always the worse, and exalts other nations unduly for the sake of depreciating his own.
Charlotte Mason, Vol. 4, Ourselves, Book 1

Show Summary:

Today on the New Mason Jar, Dawn Duran is here to share about her new book A Reasoned Patriotism
How did this book come about?
What did Charlotte Mason have to say about patriotism and the teaching of a country’s history?
What is the difference between patriotism and nationalism?
What does this book include?
How can mothers help develop this reasoned patriotism in the home?
What does Dawn mean when she talks about critical thinking?

But before we teach children to criticise the institutions of their country, before we teach them to be critical of what is bad, let us teach them to recognize and admire what is good.
Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education, pg. 126

Books and Links Mentioned:

Ourselves by Charlotte Mason

A Reasoned Patriotism by Dawn Duran

Find Cindy and Dawn:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

Dawn’s Swedish Drill Website

Dawn’s Articles on Afterthoughtsblog.net

It is good, doubtless, to be cosmopolitan in our tastes, liberal and unprejudiced in our judgments; but he who would love all the world must begin with the brother whom he has seen, and enlightened sympathy with other nations can coexist only with profound and instructed patriotism.
Charlotte mason, Formation of Character

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enJune 08, 2023

Bonus Episode: The Uphill Road – Summer Discipleship with Cindy and Friends

After all, what is the chief sign of growing old? Is it not the feeling that we know all there is to be known? It is not years which make people old; it is ruts, and a limitation of interests. When we no longer care about anything except our own interests, we are then old, it matters not whether our years be twenty of eighty.
Anna Botsford Comstock, The Handbook of Nature Study

Show Summary:

Cindy and Dawn share a little about the upcoming 2023 discipleship course at Morning Time for Moms, The Uphill Road
Dawn asks Cindy how the summer discipleship course started several years ago
They share a few highlights of what moms can expect and some of their favorite features of this time together

Books and Links Mentioned:

The Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock

Bandersnatch by Diana Pavlac Glyer

The Convivial Homeschool by Mystie Winckler

Find Cindy and Dawn:

Morning Time for Moms

Cindy’s Patreon Discipleship Group

Mere Motherhood Facebook Group

The Literary Life Podcast

Cindy’s Facebook

Cindy’s Instagram

Dawn’s Swedish Drill Website

Dawn’s Articles on Afterthoughtsblog.net

…what if the devitalization we notice in so many of our young people, keen about games but dead to things of the mind, is due to the processes carried on in our schools, to our plausible and pleasant ways of picturing, eliciting, demonstrating, illustrating, summarising, doing all those things for children which they are born with the potency to do for themselves? No doubt we do give intellectual food, but too little of it; let us have courage and we shall be surprised, as we are now and then, at the amount of intellectual strong meat almost and child [or mother] will take at a meal and digest at his leisure.
Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

enMay 19, 2023

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The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

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Episodes (78)

S6E77: Seeing the Big Picture with Heather Martin

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S6E76: “Beyond Mere Motherhood” with Cindy and Dawn

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S6E75: A Sacred Sacrifice with Hannah Paris and Amy Edwards

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Find Cindy:

S6E74: The Lives of Charlotte Mason Moms and Military Wives

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S6E73: Music and Group Singing with Bethany Stuard

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S5E72: “Six Voices, One Story” with Donna-Jean Breckenridge

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S5E71: Reprise of "Christmas Memories with Lynn and Donna-Jean", Ep. 47

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S5E70: A Casual Chat with Cindy and Dawn

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S5E69: A Question of Culture with Erin Kunkle

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S5E68: The Beauty of Mathematics with Melissa Bair

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S5E67: Science in the Charlotte Mason Homeschool with Jeanne Webb

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S5E66: Q&A No. 7, On the Building Blocks of Story

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S5E65: Building a Home Library with Jeannette Tulis and Sherry Early

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Find Cindy and Sherry:

S5E64: A Charlotte Mason Sunday School with Emily Raible and Tracy Fast

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S5E63: Singing in the Homeschool with Heather Bunting

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S5E62: The Role of a Homeschool Dad with Dan Bunting

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S5E61: The Great Recognition with Camille Malucci

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S4E60: The Building Blocks of Story with Angelina Stanford and Timilyn Downey

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Find Cindy, Angelina, and Timilyn:

S4E59: A Reasoned Patriotism with Dawn Duran

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Find Cindy and Dawn:

Bonus Episode: The Uphill Road – Summer Discipleship with Cindy and Friends