Who We Are

Well, here goes, the first post on our Mae Day blog. Let me first start off by giving a brief description of what MAE stands for.

• M -- Mason, Charlotte Mason that is.
• A -- Activities
• E -- Enrichment
  

All together now, Mason Activities and Enrichment. Simple and sweet and devised by one of our very own Mae Day moms, who is also very simple and sweet and you will meet her a bit later. (I mean "simple" in a good way, like free from guile or vanity, humble, and presenting no difficulty.) :)Anyway....

I should introduce myself. My name is Tamara and I am one of the three moms in our Mae Day group. Ever since learning about Charlotte Mason I have had a desire to incorporate her methods in educating my children. I won't get into her methods or philosophy here, but you can find some great information about her on the web and in her six volume set titled, Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series.

I am one of two moms in our Mae Day group who use Charlotte Mason's methods in educating my children by utilizing the free and volunteer based curriculum found on Ambleside Online.   I would love to spend time here sharing what an amazing curriculum this is, however this site is for Mae Day, so I will stick with that. 

We started this group because as homeschoolers we tend to leave out all of the fun, enriching stuff that children should have in their education.  We get the math done, the phonics done, the copywork done, the weeks selected readings done and then it's time to do laundry, feed the baby, make dinner or what have you and the fun stuff gets pushed under the rug for another day that never comes. 

The activities we include currently in our Mae Day are:

Art
Nature Study/Notebooks
Handicrafts
Poetry
Artist Study
Composer Study
Folksongs
Show and Tell
Drill (organized energetic play)
Field Trips
Four monthly activities:
     Character Qualities
     Etiquette/Manners
     Current Affairs
     Culture Studies

Our group consists of three moms, a sweet volunteer art teacher, one 3rd grader, four 2nd graders, one 1st grader, one kindergartner, one pre-k, one toddler and one baby.

We meet every Thursday from 10:45 to 3:30. 

We started this blog because we wanted to share with our family and friends part of our homeschool journey.  We also hope to be an encouragement to those desiring to incorporate Charlotte Mason's enrichment activities in their homeschool environment.

I will sign off and let the other moms fill in.  Since my husband and I lived and met in Italy and I am slowly teaching myself and children Italian you'll always know it's me when I begin or end my posts with,

Ciao!