Imagine this scene:
It is a golden autumn day. The children have finished their morning lessons and you have decided to take them to the park for the rest of the afternoon. Though the neon blue sky is cloudless, there's a slight chill in the air. Bundled into sweatshirts, the happy quartet sets out, feeling that delicious and unspoken sense of freedom and adventure that home educated children and parents often share on a particularly beautiful school day.
As it is still early in the afternoon, the park seems unusually peaceful. Spreading an old quilt on a grassy spot where the sunlight filters softly through the colorful foliage overhead, you settle down comfortably. You watch the baby in caucus with a beetle in the grass while the older siblings scamper up and down the slide. Inhaling deeply, you notice the children's rosy faces, energy, and their playful delight. They would only be allowed a few precious moments of recess if they were at a public school today. And you can only feel profound gratitude for the gift of home education.
There is nowhere you’d rather be today than right here in this beautiful park, and the afternoon is yours to enjoy. Besides the well-stocked picnic basket, you’ve brought along a good field guide, sketch books and colored pencils, that scarf you’ve been knitting, and of course, a little chocolate.
A leisurely afternoon is such a luxury! Or is it?
This is no special outing. It’s just an ordinary day-- one of many long, lovely afternoons in the fresh air.
For those who are educating children at home with a Charlotte Mason-inspired perspective, entire afternoons spent outside are not a frivolous luxury. They are absolutely essential.
The centerpiece of a Charlotte Mason education is time spent outdoors enjoying nature. In fact, Charlotte wrote, “Never be within doors when you can rightly be without.” She aspired to spend four to six hours a day outside on “every suitably fine day from April to October.”
How is this possible? Should we simply open the back door and say, “Go outside and play!” like so many of our own mothers did when we were little? No, Charlotte Mason believed that parents should not merely send children outside; we should go with them.
Afternoons outside are best shared by children and parents together. We allow the children to lead, and the adults, for the most part, follow quietly along-- gently guiding only as much as necessary.
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