Julie H Ross believes that every child needs a feast of living ideas to grow intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. As a former public school teacher, Curriculum Coordinator, and Assistant Director of a Homeschool Academy, Julie Ross has worked with hundreds of students and parents over the past 20 years. She has also been homeschooling her own five children for over a decade. Julie Ross developed the Charlotte Mason curriculum, A Gentle Feast, to provide parents with the tools and resources needed to provide a rich and abundant educational feast full of books, beauty, and Biblical truth. As Certified Christian Life Coach, Julie helps moms find a life of freedom from the negative thoughts and patterns that are holding them back. Julie lives in South Carolina with her family. When she’s not busy homeschooling, reading children’s books, hiking, or writing curriculum, you can find her taking a nap.
BS Elementary Education, Penn State University
Certified Life Coach, Life Mentoring School
CEO Gentle Feast Press
2023 Conference
Creating Nourishing Routines and Rhythms to Grow Heart, Souls, and Minds
We often can become so focused on “covering the basics” that we forget the importance of filling our homeschool days with truth, beauty, and goodness- then we wonder why homeschooling can feel so draining! In this talk, Julie Ross, the creator of A Gentle Feast, will explore how we can easily add more beauty in our days through nourishing routines and rhythms that will breathe life into our homes. Julie will show you how poetry, art, music, etc. are just as vital as any other subject in the educational feast. In fact, they are absolutely essential if our goal as homeschoolers is to develop students that are whole persons and magnanimous citizens that can bless the world with living ideas and love to learn for knowledge’s sake through the rest of their lives.
2022 Conference
Transform Your Thoughts, Transform Your Homeschool
Charlotte Mason wrote in Parents and Children, “Take care of your thoughts and the rest will take care of itself. Let a thought in, and it will stay, will come again tomorrow, and the next day, will make a place for itself in your brain, and will bring many other thoughts like itself.” The thoughts that we think on a daily basis and the way that we talk to ourselves is the biggest factor in influencing the atmosphere of our home. In order to effectively transform our homeschools, we need to transform our mindset. Join Julie H Ross for this encouraging session that will leave you highly motivated and empowered to be the homeschooling parent you desire!
2021 Fall Retreat
How to Teach Language Arts in a Charlotte Mason Education
Language Arts in a Charlotte Mason education is more than a list of skills or activities; it is the connection of the elements of living books, copywork, dictation, narration and composition that all come together so that children learn about language and how to communicate in a natural, interesting, effective way. In this workshop, Julie will talk about these elements and how they all tie together in a Charlotte Mason education.
2021 Conference
The Gentle Art of Teaching Reading
Charlotte Mason wrote that the traditional methods of teaching reading in her day were “one of the many ways in which children are needlessly and cruelly oppressed,” and were “an abuse of his intelligence.” What were the methods she so vehemently spoke out against? Unfortunately, many of them are still used to teach reading today. In her volumes, Miss Mason outlined steps in a reading lesson that would arouse the imagination and awaken the “joyous interest which is the real secret of success.” In this super practical workshop, Julie H Ross (who has taught dozens of children how to read), will guide you through Miss Mason’s approach to reading lessons. You will walk away ready to implement this method in your home without spending any money on expensive curriculum or fancy manipulatives.
2020 Conference
Nitty Gritty Narration
Julie H Ross often gets asked this common question when she shows the stack of books she is using for the coming school year. When she told a mother about Charlotte Mason’s powerful practice of having the students retell, or narrate, back what they read or heard, the mother responded, “It sounds too good to be true. Is it really that easy?” Julie’s answer: “It is far from easy, but the practice is powerful.”
Join Julie for this informative workshop where she breaks down this powerful method into simple steps that will equip you to start implementing this practice right away. “As knowledge is not assimilated until it is reproduced, children should ‘tell back’ after a single reading or hearing: or should write on some part of what they have read. A single reading is insisted on, because children have naturally great power of attention; but this force is dissipated by the re-reading of passages, and also, by questioning, summarizing. and the like.” (Charlotte Mason’s 20 Principles)
2019 Conference
THE PAGEANT OF HISTORY
Charlotte Mason said,
“Next in order to religious knowledge, history is the pivot upon which our curriculum turns.” (Vol. 6, p. 273)
What does this mean? How is Charlotte Mason’s approach to history different than unit studies? What order did her programmes give to History? Is teaching History with living books the only way her philosophy impacts the study of this subject? In this in-depth workshop, Julie H Ross, creator of A Gentle Feast will break down how to practically approach History with Miss Mason’s methods of living ideas, narration, short lessons, notebooks, and more.
Vendor Hall
A Gentle Feast is a complete Charlotte Mason Curriculum for grades 1-12 rooted in books, beauty, and Biblical truth.
Featured Products
100 Gentle Lessons in Letters and Sound
100 Gentle Lessons in Letters and Sounds is based on the natural development of children. Children are able to hear and speak sounds before they are able to visually discriminate or write. Therefore, a child needs to hear and speak sounds before they are ever able to start reading or writing their letters. This “hear and speak” instruction should be done in a playful way, waiting to begin formal reading lessons until the child is ready. These lessons include: Nursery Rhymes, Letter Flashcards, Handwriting, Phonemic Awareness Activity, and optional Read Aloud and Cooking activity.
Cycle 1 Morning Time
Cycle 1 Morning Time Our plans are “open and go” for 36 weeks of Bible Time and the Beauty Loop subjects of hymn study, poetry recitation, picture study, composer study, folk songs and fables. Also included are information on each painting, artist print, poet study, composer biographies, and a listening guide for each piece of music. Digital student pages allow you to print off what you need for each child to practice their recitation, hymns, and more. Your accompanying online membership has all the hyperlinks needed in one place!
Cycle 1 includes Composers: Henry Purcell, Hildegard of Bingen, Claudio Monteverdi Artists: Leonardo Da Vinci, Johannes Vermeer, Diego Velazquez Poets: Shakespeare, Edward Lear, John Donne
