MOSAIC

A Thousand Precious Stones

The Nourished Life Retreat Registration is open and the CMNW community is excited to come together again! We hope you will be among us!

November 6-8, 2026

Mosaic: a thousand precious stones

This theme was built around the understanding that it is not one action, choice or habit that forms the education we intend to lay out for our family. An education is always a multi-faceted picture, requiring us to work with deliberation while trusting the process. The best assurance, and what gives the joy and hope in the process, is the discrete hand of the Holy Spirit who carefully shapes, colors, and places each element that we clumsily prepare. In the process and reflecting back, we find opportunity to stand in awe and rejoice that our Lord is the Master Artist and is building a mosaic of His choosing. May our participation in this process be a blessing for us, our family, and our Maker. Join us at the NLR Weekend where we will hold up many of these elements that go into our family's education, in order that we can inspect, understand, and find precious these stones of the educational life we are helping build.

We will explore the creation of this mosaic with seasoned Charlotte Mason educators providing encouragement, leading discussions, and plenty of workshops on the practicality of what “this really looks like.” What is a nature study object lesson? How do you jump in with a CM education in the middle years? What does writing and composition look like for upper years? How do you start a book study or co-op? How do you go through the steps of planning your year, and what does high school science look like? How do you “do” narration, and why is it so important? What in the world is “Plutarch?” And can you still have a CM education if you have children with special needs ? (spoiler: YES!) These, and so many more, are questions we will be covering over the weekend. It would be a joy to have you join us!

Retreat Schedule

Friday:

4:00-5:30 pm Check-In

Optional Gatherings for CM Beginners, Group Leaders, or General Socializing

5:30 Dinner

6:30 Immersive Lesson

Plenary I: Amy R

Guided by a Soul at Rest: Mother and Child as Icon of Divine Peace

7:30 Group Activity

8:00 Night Owl Hangout

Saturday:

7:00 Morning Lark Walk

8:00 Breakfast

9:00 Immersive Lesson

Plenary II Erin Underwood

Using Your Spiritual Octopus…. The Philosophy of Planning and Teaching

10:00 Workshop Block I

11:00 Workshop Block II

12:00 Lunch

1:00 Immersive Lesson

Plenary III: Sarah Dempsen

A Unique Mosaic: The Never-Ending Feast

2:00 Workshop Block III

3:00 Workshop Block IV

3:30 Free Time to rest, visit the Book Market, or socialize

5:30: Dinner

6:30 Immersive Lesson

Leaders and Speakers Panel

8:00 Night Owl Hangout

Sunday:

Check out from your room must be completed by 10:30am. The lobby and grounds remain open beyond this.
This day is built to refill and refresh you before you return home.
A self-serve cold breakfast will be available throughout the morning so you can take it at your own pace.
There will be planned opportunities for table talks, solitary walks, guided reflection time, prayer, and 1-on-1 meetings with a speaker, a CMNW team member, or other knowledgeable CM educator.
Whether you prefer to to ponder quietly in your room until checkout, process with other educators in our community, or ask some final hard questions and get advice, this final day gives just such flexibility.

Lodging and accommodations

Canby Grove Retreat Center in Canby, OR has full accommodations for shared and single rooms for both nights of the retreat. Each room has a private bathroom and shower. You can view the rooms on their website at https://www.canbygrove.com/lodging. We will be using the Riverfront Lodge and expect most rooms to have only two people in a room unless otherwise specified on your registration or unusual registration volumes require more.

Snacks and coffee will be provided in the main meeting space in the Riverfront Lodge periodically throughout the weekend. Meals will be in the main cafeteria, which is a short walk from the Riverfront Lodge. Dietary accommodates are available but the Canby Retreat kitchen will charge our team an extra $5 per meal for special food preparation, so we ask that at this facility you only request an alternative diet if it is for an allergen or spiritual reason, rather than a preference. Thank you for understanding!

We hope that you will join us for as much of this retreat as possible, for your own enrichment and for the CM community that can be blessed by your enthusiasm, questions, or knowledge. However, we understand that a whole weekend isn't always available to you. Therefore, we have arranged several attendance options so that you can come for the portion that is possible for you. Spouses and teens are welcome. We love having the whole family involved and letting these other members (not just the primary educator) experience the enthusiasm, connection, and wisdom around the CM education that is in this community.

Please email us at info@charlottemasonnw.org if you have any remaining questions after reading this site and the info on the registration page.

Charlotte Mason Curriculum Used Book Market

Due to popular demand, we will be having another Charlotte Mason used curriculum sale, as we did at the Warm Beach Conference. More details will be emailed as the retreat approaches.

Speakers and Workshop Presenters

Erin Underwood

Erin Underwood is a mama to 4 incredible young men, ages 12-17, who have been braving homeschooling since the beginning. She was first introduced to Charlotte Mason after reading For the Children’s Sake when her oldest was 5 (who will be graduating this year) and she knew she had found a friend and mentor in Miss Mason!

She grew up homeschooled and wanting to be Anne of Green Gables. She hosts a Charlotte Mason monthly reading group in her home and for the last five years has been the co-director of a CM co-op with about 100 students! She loves to nerd out about Shakespeare, science (especially upper level science), Plutarch, fairytales and all things Charlotte Mason.

After reading and talking about great books and ideas with her boys, in any 'extra' time she likes to squeeze in time to read, sew, knit, be outdoors, laugh with friends, hang out with her amazing husband, and generally tries to live as much like a hobbit as possible.

Amy R

Amy lives with her husband and five children in an immigrant and refugee filled community in the Portland metro. She first discovered Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy when her oldest was a pre-schooler and immediately knew that this was the road she wanted to travel in pursuing the “atmosphere discipline and life” of education in their home. Over the past decade, she has come to deeply value Charlotte Mason’s philosophy as a way of living and learning which has brought flourishing not only to her own family, but has also become a source of blessing to their wider neighborhood and community as well. She is a life-long-learner and passionate about the healing nature of stories, poetry, and art as well as the sacred beauty found in the most quotidian moments of life.

Sarah Dempsen

Sarah Dempsen, a second generation homeschooler, developed a passion for education when she stumbled on Charlotte Mason’s philosophy fifteen years ago. The premise that a child is a whole, unique person was an instant draw to her child-loving soul. She has enjoyed learning alongside her three daughters, age 13, 15, and 16 for more than a decade, and is excited to start all over again with her new baby boy. She and her family live in beautiful Yakima, Washington where she can found either in the kitchen or at the dining table where the Dempsens spend an inordinate amount of time reading and talking about living books over nourishing food. Since favorite books speak volumes about a person, she would like you to know that her favorite books include The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, The Enchanted April by Von Arnim, and Piranesi by Clarke, all of which she thinks you should read as soon as possible.

Sarah Dale

Sarah Dale is a second-generation veteran homeschooling mom. With her loving husband’s support, she homeschooled both her daughter and son through high school graduation. She discovered Charlotte Mason when her kids were in first and third grade. Mason’s philosophy of education deeply resonated with everything she knew to be true about the learning process. She is excited to share what she and her children have learned along the way and to encourage everyone on their homeschool journey. Now that her homeschooling journey has ended, she works for an Oregon charter school where she gets to pursue her passion of encouraging other homeschooling mamas.

Bethany Lowndes

Bethany thrives on the green of the Northwest. Hiking the foothills and reading rich books underpinned her own homeschooling experience and inspired her to immerse herself into Charlotte Mason’s philosophy. With her husband, Patrick, and five lovely children, Annaleah (13), Elisha (11), Meredith (9), Cyrus (7), and Hadassah (5), they journey through each up-and-down day of homeschooling, seeing the fruits of Christ and the CM philosophy gradually appearing in their home. Bethany’s spare time goes into upkeeping their property and supporting her husband’s entrepreneurial spirit as they labor to bring Christ to the world through overseas businesses

Kerry Kaminski

Kerry embraces life with compassion and empathy for the humanity of others - especially her children. Stumbling upon Charlotte Mason through the influence of a friend in a time before her eldest daughter could even walk, she dove in early with an eagerness to have a solid foundation of “why” before the duty of education was made formal. Almost a decade of study later, she is confidently and imperfectly in the midst of educating her kids at home. Kerry spends most of her time with her husband Wesley and two daughters Euphemia (11) and Gweneviere (9) at their forest farmhouse outside of Snohomish where she dabbles in homesteading, preservation, and herbology. Kerry and her family love to travel and spend a prolonged period of time in sunnier skies during the gray PNW winter. They take their lessons with them when they travel, embracing a relaxed CM approach to world-schooling when away from home.

Our Amazing Sponsors:

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You should know...

Our CMNW Team and the Retreat Planning Committee are both volunteer groups. Not a single person makes any money on the experiences and materials we provide. In fact, we each give hundreds of hours of our time, and many of us have given a lot of money, in order to offer these teachings and writings to our CMNW community. We give this time and money because we care so much about home education and the families who are bravely seeking to provide their children with a better life, education, and spiritual foundation, than are available in the public schools.

Please join us and help us by simply reading and sharing the purposeful material that we create. By contributing and adding your own voice to the affirming and uplifting community. And by showing up at events so that your warmth, experiences, hard-fought choices, and creative mind can be in this web of amazing Charlotte Mason educators.