Now I need YOUR help!!

For many of you the Australasian School Year is about to begin. My email 'inbox' is full of lovely emails from appreciative mums organising their schedules. Stationery is being bought; book orders are arriving in the mail; timetables are being finalised.

The beginning of the school year is exciting, isn't it?

I hope that for many of you my little blog has been useful in your planning. That's what I write it to be, an inspiration, a little encourager that you can do this with your family. Homeschooling the Charlotte Mason way works for us...it can work for you too.

In two weeks on February 3rd, A Peaceful Day will be hosting The Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival. That's where you come in, you see!

If you have a blog, I'd really love it if you would submit an article for this edition of the carnival...really love it...

I've met some wonderful cyberfriends in the past 4 1/2 months. I've even met one family in the flesh as it were!! (Hi guys!) We had fish and chips on the beach and just talked and talked and talked. Wow! What an experience - to meet a family with the same values that we have using the same curriculum as we do was just awe inspiring. I'd never met a real AO family before...come to think about it, I'd never met a real CM family before either...

But that's just it you see. I'd never met a CM family in real life before, but I know lots and lots of you in the blogosphere. You inspire me every day. Some of you live in Australia or New Zealand; others of you live in the UK, USA, Canada or South Africa; others in (to me) more exotic locations. I'd love to meet the blogger who has visited my blog from her (?) home in Iran - or the ones in Ghana or Bulgaria. Now that would be something.

You know what? We'd even have plenty to talk about, because we would all be educating our kids using the same CM philosophy. We would all be on the same page about lots of the things that really matter in life.

That's why The Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival is so useful to me. Here's how it describes itself:

A carnival of Charlotte Mason homeschooling blogs. Carnival topics center around CM educational philosophy and the practical application of Miss Mason's works. Please limit your submissions to topics that are relevant to a CM homeschooling experience. Topics might include narration, nature study, dictation, living books, CM schedules, poetry, Shakespeare, Mother Culture, CM quotes, reviews of living books, slow reading of books, habit training as outlined in the CM volumes, character training, or other various topics that would help a homeschooling CM method using family.

So anyway, if you have a blog, you've probably also got a relevent article, I reckon!!

Perhaps you might be able to write about what a Charlotte Mason education looks like in your home. I'd like that. I'd also like to know what adaptations you've had to make because you live in Chile or Hong Kong, Turkey or Estonia...or Sydney or Auckland or Lancashire.

If you've still got writers block, here are some ideas to get you started. I'd love to read about:

• How you adapt nature study for where you live


• How you find living books for your country, state or region and what they are


• What worked wonderfully last year in your home and what you're going to try in 2009


• Your secret Living books - those that are not on every list


• Education is an Atmosphere. How do you implement this in your home?

All your submissions need to be submitted by Monday February 2nd - at the latest (preferably much earlier!) You can do that here.

One more thing if it's not s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g the friendship too far: Could you encourage others to submit when you see a good blog post on their sites as well?

Thank you all.