What Does a Charlotte Mason Education Look Like for a 6-year-old?
People have often asked me, “ What does a Charlotte Mason homeschool look like?”
Before the age of six, you do foundation work. You implement Picture Painting as preparation for Narration, Memory Work and Picture Study. Picture Painting is simply sending your child to look at a landscape, shut their eyes and then describe it in detail. The objective is for your child to be able to see a mental image of the landscape and communicate it to you. The ability to create such imagery in the mind is critical to language comprehension. You also go on Nature Walks/hunts, looking for specific phenomena in nature. Maths foundation work was elaborately described in the previous post. You play music and introduce the name of the artist just before the music starts. You invite your child into your life with chores. You focus on habit training and family values. You spend as much time as you can outdoors.
With the preparation/foundation work done, your child may/may not be ready to start formal lessons at age 6. If your child is ready, Schoolwork should not take more than 21/2 hours a day, 30 minutes of that is Physical Activity.
Here is a list of Subjects you’ll be working on:
Hymns
Poetry
Scripture Memory
Folksongs
Copywork/ Transcription
Reading lessons
Art -Brush-drawing /other appropriate media
Handicrafts.
Bible lessons read from the Bible
Folktales/Literature
Natural history (Science- Nature)
Geography
Swedish Drill
Foreign Language
Picture Study
Composer Study
Habit Training
History
Seems like a lot doesn’t it? Remember that you are going to read a passage for the lesson, talk about it a little then let the child narrate what he has read. You do not interrupt his narration. At the end of the term, an examination is conducted containing one or two questions on each book.
Now let’s discuss how this looks like in various families. Some families run 6- week cycles and conduct exams after 6 weeks. Some families (like mine) do not purchase all the books I need at any one time so we conduct exams at the end of every book we finish. In a Charlotte Mason Education, exams do not need any preparation.
Narrating is an art, like poetry-making or painting, because it is there, in every child's mind, waiting to be discovered, and is not the result of any process of disciplinary education. A creative fiat calls it forth. 'Let him narrate'; and the child narrates, fluently, copiously, in ordered sequence, with fit and graphic details, with a just choice of words, without verbosity or tautology, so soon as he can speak with ease.
- Charlotte Mason
Best Regards,
Olufunmike