Out-Of-Door Life – An Outline

Charlotte Mason’s first volume focuses on the child up to 9 years old, but we must remember the time period in which it was written. Children went off to school after this, so this was the time a mother had her child at home with her. Once the PNEU schools were formed, outdoor time was scheduled every day, starting between 11:30 and 1:00, (depending on the level of the student,) until about 3:45.

Shortly after the section on Out-of-door Life in volume one, Charlotte Mason says that, “The consideration of out-of-door life, in developing a method of education, comes second in order; because my object is to show that the chief function of the child––his business in the world during the first six or seven years of his life––is to find out all he can, about whatever comes under his notice, by means of his five senses; that he has an insatiable appetite for knowledge got in this way; and that, therefore, the endeavour of his parents should be to put him in the way of making acquaintance freely with Nature and natural objects; that, in fact, the intellectual education of the young child should lie in the free exercise of perceptive power, because the first stages of mental effort are marked by the extreme activity of this power; and the wisdom of the educator is to follow the lead of Nature in the evolution of the complete human being.” (pg 96-97)

Here Mason specifies that outdoor life is second in order in the means of a child’s education, but it becomes the FIRST thing that we parents can DO to facilitate their education. That is weighty.

However, in reading Out-Of-Door Life For The Children I found it frustrating that Mason jumps around so much. I understand the importance of embracing the philosophy and resisting making this a curriculum of check lists, but I still wanted the idea organized in my mind. Even she says, “Supposing we have got them, what is to be done with these golden hours, so that every one shall be delightful? They must be spent with some method, or the mother will be taxed and the children bored.” (pg 44) That is why I put together this outline of what a day outside should look like based on Mason’s ideas.

When

1. Never be indoors when you can be without (pg 42)
2. 4-6 hours on every tolerably find day, from April till October (pg 44)
3. 2-3 hours every day in the open air all through winter, say an hour and a half in the morning and as long in the afternoon. (pg 85)
4. All that has been said about ‘sight-seeing’ and ‘picture painting,’ the little French talk, and observations to be noted in the (pg 86) family diary, belongs just as much to winter weather as to summer.

How

1. A journey of twenty minutes by rail or omnibus, and a luncheon basket, will make a day in the country possible…and if one day, why not many, even every suitable day? (pg 44)
2. Children should be dressed [approprietly] for their little excursions (pg 84)

Method

1. First send the children to let off their spirits in a wild scamper (pg 45) → 1-2 hours (pg 45)
2. Sight-seeing: send them off on an exploring expedition (pg 45) → 15 minutes or so (pg 78) OR
3. Picture-Painting: taking mental photographs, exact images, of the beauties of Nature; landscapes (pg 48)→ should only be employed now and then (pg 49)
4. Nature Study/Object Lessons: (pg 51) → an occasional ‘Look!’ an attentive examination of the object on the mother’s own part, a name given, a remark––a dozen words long…and not more than one or two such presentations should occur in a single day (pg 78-79)
   • Field crops
   • Field flowers and the life history of plants (flower pressing, collection, classification)
   • The study of trees
   • Seasons should be followed
   • Calendars (book of firsts)
   • Nature Diaries/Journal (brush drawing) also recording observations in a family diary is noted (pg 85-86)
   • Living Creatures
5. Geography: → teach geography “by the way” (pg 72)
   • Physical geography
   • Position of sun
   • Weather
   • Distance
   • Direction, inc East and West
   • Compass
   • Boundaries
   • Draw plans
6. French Lesson (or other foreign language) → a little lesson, ten minutes long (pg 80)
7. Games → after lunch (pg 81) an hour or two (pg 80)
   • Rondes
   • Skipping-rope and Shuttlecock
   • Climbing
8. Babies can sleep in the sweet air (pg 81)

Do

1. Do not send them; if it is at all possible, take them; (pg 43)
2. They must be kept in a joyous temper all the time (pg 44)
3. They must be let alone [masterly inactivity] (pg 44)
4. Mother reads her book or knits her sock, checking all attempts to make talk (pg 79)
5. Once a week or once a month, with look and gesture of delight point out to the child some touch of especial loveliness in colouring or grouping in the landscape or the heavens (pg 79)
6. Very rarely, and with tender filial reverence point to some lovely flower or gracious tree, not only as a beautiful but a beautiful thought of God (pg 80)

Don’t

1. It is not mom’s business to entertain the little people (pg 45)
2. During the first six or eight years of life, I would not teach them any botany which should necessitate the pulling of flowers to bits (pg 62)
3. The Mother must refrain from too much talk (pg 78)

“It would be well if we all persons in authority, parents and all who act for parents, could make up our minds that there is no sort of knowledge to be got in these early years so valuable to children as that which they get for themselves of the world they live in. Let them once get touch with Nature, and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life. We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things.” (pg 61)