- "Homeschool Hybrid" (meeting select days for cooperative Charlotte Mason-style learning, homeschooling independently on other week days)
- Living books, living ideas, and living things
- Spreading the feast every day
- Narrating (oral and written retelling)
- Notebooking & Journaling (instead of dry worksheets)
- "Forms" instead of "Grades"
- Woodland Friends
- Form I - ages 6-9 (roughly grades 1-3)
- Form II - ages 9-12 (roughly grades 4-6)
- Form III - ages 12-14 (roughly grades 7-8)
- Form IV - ages 14-15 (roughly grades 8-9)
- Form V - ages 16-18 (grades 10-11)
- Nature study through generous outdoor play, observation, gardening, caring for creatures, and nature journaling
- Handicrafts like paper sloyd, sculpting, knitting, sewing/stitchery, drawing, weaving, beadwork, etc.
- Afternoon Poetry Tea Times
- Steps toward individual mastery over age comparison assessments
- Daily fresh air and exercise
- Skilled and inspiring degreed teachers who carry a variety of specialties and certifications
- Latin alongside expanding study of modern languages
- Winchester Gatherings: delight-directed student clubs and electives
- All students arranged into our "Narnian" House System for the sake of camaraderie and community, fun competition, reading and recitation challenges, and traditions:
- Archenland House
- Cair Paravel House
- Dragon Island House
- Stone Table House
- Age-old celebrations like All Saints Day, Saint Nicholas Day, Twelfth Night, Speech Meet Week, Shrove (Pancake) Tuesday, St. Patrick's Day Ceilidh, Shakespeare Festival Week, Olympic Games Week, Certamen (Classical Studies Competition), Christmas School, Forest School, Holy Week Celebrations
- Weekly recitations and reflections with reverence and delight
- Piano, violin, hymns, folksongs, foreign language songs, solfege, classical music appreciation
- Art appreciation and fine arts study
- Poetry readings
- All 37 Shakespeare plays learned and loved during the course of a child's studies at Branches & Vine
- Hands-on science, math challenges, chess, and critical thinking skill development
Wonder & delight woven throughout our day!
Are you open to embracing a different way ...
a rich Charlotte Mason educational approach and lifestyle?
STUDENTS FLOURISHING THROUGH ...
A REFRESHING ATMOSPHERE
GOOD HABITS OF THOUGHT & LIFE
A GENEROUS FEAST OF LIVING BOOKS, LIVING IDEAS, & LIVING THINGS
A REFRESHING ATMOSPHERE
GOOD HABITS OF THOUGHT & LIFE
A GENEROUS FEAST OF LIVING BOOKS, LIVING IDEAS, & LIVING THINGS
All applicants and BVCS parents are expected to have read: For the Children's Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay and In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass. Our families must be supportive of Charlotte Mason principles and methods to ensure that your hopes for your children resonate with our vision and priorities for BVCS, and are in keeping with the philosophical distinctives of our work.
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Branches & Vine Cottage School is a Charlotte Mason “Cottage School” (homeschool hybrid) coming alongside families located in South Dayton, Ohio.
Guided by the Word, and informed by Charlotte Mason principles, we spread the feast of a “life-giving education” (living books, living ideas, living things) through three-fold knowledge (God, man, universe) with depth of relations and habits of thought & life, to be used by the Holy Spirit to transform students (Branches) in loving, serving, and abiding in Christ (True Vine). “I am the VINE, you are the BRANCHES. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing." John 15:5 |
The Cottage School Branch of our TRUE VINE CM NETWORK
An educational initiative of Calvary South Dayton |