Handicrafts

"Education is the Science of Relations"; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of––
"Those first-born affinities
That fit our new existence to existing things." --Charlotte Mason

This quote is taken from Ms. Mason's own writings. One of her goals in education was to educate the whole child, not just the mind, but the spirit and the body as well. This is one of the main reasons I homeschool our children. In order to educate the whole child, you need to have access to the whole child for the whole of their life, not just from 8-3:30. An important part of the whole child was the spirit of creativity and competence that is developed by learning valuable handicrafts. By this, Ms. Mason did not mean arts and crafts, but real useful work. She gave as examples needlework of all kinds, basketweaving, candle and soapmaking, woodworking, and whittling.

I have searched for ways to incorporate some of these into our lives. About 5 years ago, Grandma taught my two oldest and me how to knit. B, now 14, had the most interest and time to practice so she is very accomplished. I have shared of her knitting before. But she also crochets, does cross stitch, needlepoint, sews, makes jewelry, and a variety of other serious crafts. dsB, 12, prefers to crochet and made himself a fun hat last fall. What he really likes, though is intricate paper crafts like origami and fancy paper airplanes. I see this as a valuable introduction to engineering concepts. He also likes to carve (mostly soap), build models, and try to make homemade ballistic weapons ( like potato guns). The younger girls are learning to knit and crochet. When do they do all of this, you ask? Here are some pictures from a recent read aloud session during our morning school routine.

They get lots of practice during this time. Also, if we watch TV, they have their work out to help pass the time. The boys often are working with paper or Legos during read aloud time. Today as we sat at W's soccer game, B and I both had our knitting. Of course one of the other parents happened to notice and comment on the fact that B is much faster than her mother :)

The library is a wonderful source of books about every skill/craft you might want to learn. B has a working knowledge of the Dewey decimal system in and around the crafting area (745 is knitting if you were wondering).

This summer I have promised to teach the younger girls to sew on the machine. They can both do a pretty nice back stitch and running stitch and I think they are ready to move on. When B was about their age, I gathered a group of her homeschool friends and we got together every Wed afternoon to learn to sew. It held me accountable and gave us time with our friends as well. We are going to try that again, this time with the younger set.

I think it is important to pass these skills on to our sons and daughters, lest they get lost in our modern commercial society. Sure, we could buy almost any of these things somewhere but the satisfaction that comes from learning a new skill and producing a product with your own hands has real value, educational value, I think.

P.S. A sad commentary, when I ran spell check on this entry, it did not recognize either basketweaving or soapmaking. Pitiful...