If you're a Charlotte Mason family who loves living books but finds yourself surrounded by timelines, Latin drills, and memory work charts at co-op, you know the particular ache of wondering if you've wandered into the wrong room. Here's how our family made peace with loving one method while belonging to a different community, and the study companion, Classical Quest, that's helped our children steward what they're learning in community without taking time away from the literature we love most.
Read MoreSimple Studies Now Available in More ESA Marketplaces!
Use Your ESA Funds for Charlotte Mason Homeschool Guides!
Simple Studies is now available in more state ESA marketplaces. (I hope to keep this blog updated with new states as we’re approved).
Whether you're in ClassWallet , Odyssey or StepUp states, you can use your funds to bring simple yet beautiful and comprehensive living literature and Charlotte Mason's gentle method into your home.
Use your ESA funds for Simple Studies purchases:
ClassWallet: Alabama, Arizona, New Hampshire
Odyssey: Utah, Georgia
StepUp: Florida
From the very beginning, my goal has been to make Simple Studies accessible and affordable for every family and being approved in these marketplaces feels like such a meaningful step toward that mission.
If you've been curious about living literature and the simplicity of Charlotte Mason's method, now it’s easier than ever to grab these guides that have helped shape our family’s homeschool for years.
Spring studies are having a moment… and for good reason!
I’m sharing customer favorites below during the spring season to help your family embrace this beautiful time of year through Charlotte Mason's gentle, literature-rich approach.
Whether you're watching birds at the feeder, spotting creatures at the pond, or reading fairy tales on a rainy afternoon, there's something here for every kind of spring day.
We hope these bring as much joy to your home as they have to ours!
Daddy-daughter day fishing in the Atlantic! 🎣💗
Thanks for spending time with me today!
Reading Roundup 📘 [Personal + Homeschool Books]
Hey fellow book-loving friends!
I know, I know. This post is embarrassingly overdue. Between moving across the state of Florida and our epic trips back up to the Pacific Northwest (including spending ample time with my sister and 1-year-old niece while my husband and son went fishing in Alaska!), and spending time in Georgia, summer flew by in a blur of boxes, cross-country trips, and absolutely zero routine.
But now that we're finally settling into those cozy autumn rhythms that make our hearts happy (even if the Florida weather hasn't gotten the memo about "fall" yet!), I'm feeling that familiar pull to reconnect over books.
You know how it is, I only post these when inspiration strikes rather than forcing it, because honestly, homeschooling (and parenting in general) and Simple Studies keeps me busy enough without adding pressure to my reading life.
But there's something about this time of year that makes me want to curl up with a good book and share what I've been reading with people who actually get excited about book recommendations.
So here's what's been filling my reading time:
books I read over the summer:
The Messy Lives of Book People ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Pearl by John Steinbeck ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Midnight Bookshop (Read for free on Kindle Unlimited) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Dance of Lies (Pleased to find out this Illumicrate featured book’s author is Christian) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Broken Country (Listened to the Audible version) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires (content warnings) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession and Shipwreck ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Convenience Store Woman ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Breath of a Dragon ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Unwind (YA sci-fi) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Violent Bear It Away (Recommended by The Literary Life Podcast) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Ice Queen ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Blues in Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Anne of Green Gables ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Lantern of Lost Memories ⭐️⭐️⭐️
And just for fun, I’ve been enjoying Carnivore in the Kitchen and The New Essentials Cookbook.
books I'm reading right now:
📙 The Iliad (with my daughter)
📙 The Hobbit (Our current morning circle read aloud)
📙 The Hidden Peace: Finding True Security, Strength and Confidence Through Humility
📙 Lady Tan’s Circle of Women (I’m attending my first local, in-person book club this weekend as we read this book and can’t wait to discuss this historical fiction book. It’s SO good!)
📙 Robert Frost: Selected Poems
📙 Strong: Devotions to Live a Powerful and Passionate Life
📙 The Inheritance Games (YA read that’s sat on my TBR for years)
📙 When We Were Animals (Coming of age story - content warnings)
📙 The Raven Scholar (Chunky book I received as a gift and so really enjoying it!)
📙 Story of the Romans (Ancient history pre-read for my daughter)
📙 The Story of the Thirteen Colonies by H.A. Guerber (American history with my daughter)
📙 Our Island Story (Our European/world history spine this term)
📙 Grimms Fairy Tales (sporadic read-alouds when we have some down time)
📙 Marvels of the Occident (Second-time read this time with our youngest)
📙 Marie Curie and the Discovery of Radium (science biography with daughter)
I’d also like to thank Julie Rothman for sending us her brand new Insect Anatomy book and Nature Anatomy Posters (which you can pre-order today)! We LOVE LOVE LOVE her Nature Anatomy series and our daughter loves to keep them all handy for her nature journaling expeditions.
What Will We Read Next?
I'm very much a mood reader, so who knows what I'll pick up next. That's half the fun, right? But I’ll be sure to update you later this fall.
Regarding our homeschool reads, we’re only halfway through Term 1 so I’ll be planning Term 2 books soon and hopefully sharing that with you as well.
I hope you're all finding your groove with the new school year and carving out some time for the books that are calling to you!
You can still grab my FREE 2025 Reading Challenge here!