You can use captain ideas to improve your homeschool and I’d love to show you how. It might be the missing piece to bring your homeschool together!
If you’re following the Charlotte Mason philosophy, you know all about narration. But do you ever feel like there’s something missing? Do you notice your students retelling what they heard but missing a key concept or overarching theme?
Captain ideas can be used in any subject to improve retention and make connections.

What Is A Captain Idea?
Captain ideas can take your homeschool from a full but disconnected spread, to a comprehensive, cohesive and rich feast.
A captain idea should:
- Be a succinct summary of the main point in the lesson to come
- Explain why we are learning about it
- Pique the student’s interest
We can accomplish all this in a one or two sentence phrase!
Examples Of Captain Ideas In Homeschool
- Subject: World History
- Connect the current lesson with the previous one; “Last time in World History we read about Alexander the Great, his father Philip II, and his horse, Bucephalus.”
- Add on your captain idea to pique your students’ interest and give them an idea of what’s to come; “Now we’re going to learn about Alexander’s conquests and why he is still remembered today.”
In one sentence we’re getting our kids curious and invested, giving them a sort of anchor to ground them, and letting them in on why they should care about this ancient figure hundreds of years later.
Here are a couple of examples:
- Subject: Artist Study
- “Last time we read about Albrecht Durer; how he was training to be a goldsmith like his father but secretly wanted to be an artist. Today we get to see what kind of artist he became and look at some of his art for ourselves!”
Then, for the picture study portion where you are viewing the art, show your students the artwork without giving the title or context. I’ll cover more on how we do Picture Study in an upcoming post!
- Subject: Geography
- “Remember how last week in Geography we started learning about the subcontinent of India? This time we get to do some mapwork and read about the River Ganges, and why it’s important to the people of India.”
How Do You Use Captain Ideas To Improve Homeschool?
Most of us in the Charlotte Mason world are familiar with the idea that we should connect the previous lesson in a given subject to the current lesson. We want to keep the flow going, keep it all connected.
But don’t be tempted to wax eloquent and unleash a deluge of words on your child as you’re setting up the lesson!

Remember before when I said a captain idea should be a succinct summary of the main point? Succinct is the key word there.
It can be so tempting to get carried away telling your students how exciting the lesson is going to be, why they should care, how important it is, dropping fun facts and defining words you’re afraid they won’t know, because you’re excited!
And that’s great! A mother-teacher has a lot of work ahead of her when preparing for a lesson. So it’s natural to want to share all these amazing ideas you’re learning as you do so.
But your child doesn’t need all of that. You’re learning for yourself, as you should, but as we know, all education is self-education. That applies to yourself and your students.
Let your students make their own connections. Don’t stand between your student and the ideas.
How do we do that? Simple. We use good quality material and living books, and we let those do the teaching.
Is that a free pass to never prepare a lesson? Obviously not. We are to be a guide, philosopher and friend to our children. We connect the previous lesson to the current one, and we give them a taste of what’s to come. Short and sweet.
Then they’ll be ready to listen with full attention, and tell you the ideas they picked up at the end.

How Captain Ideas Can Help With Narration
We’ve covered what a captain idea is, some examples, and how they can help make connections.
Now let’s talk about how captain ideas can help with narration specifically.
Do you ever notice how the subtitles above Bible passages help you keep the context in mind, and ultimately retain the idea of the passage better? Those headers weren’t there in the original text of course. They’re added for our benefit as readers.
Captain ideas work a lot like that. They say, “Here’s what’s coming. Keep it in mind.”
Narration is a complex, multi-layered skill. Not only do the students have to give full attention to the lesson and recall the information and living ideas within, but also put all of it back together like building blocks in their own words, including facts and information as well as living ideas of their own!
Giving them a little handhold at the beginning, a quick rundown of what’s to come with an overarching theme, can help them to focus on as well as retain each lesson.
Sonya Shafer of Simply Charlotte Mason recommends “spotlighting” certain ideas, and even listing them where the child can see.

A “spotlight” is essentially a captain idea. Using this format can be especially helpful for students newer to narration, or for anyone having a tough time grasping the concept.
Here’s a real example from one of our recent homeschool lessons:
- Subject: American History
- “Last week we read about the founding of Jamestown and their rocky start in the New World. Today we get to read about Pocahontas, Chief Powhatan, and how they saved the lives of many settlers.”
- I had an index card with the words ‘Pocahontas’, ‘Powhatan’, ‘John Smith’ and ‘corn’. Showing this list can help students with spelling over time, as they’re seeing the words not just hearing them, as well as give them those ‘mental hooks’. (Corn was an important part of this story!)
Have you ever used captain ideas in your homeschool? What do you think would be a good subject to try this out on?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
As always, I truly hope this helped you or blessed you in some way. Thanks so much for reading,
-Tara
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