lots and lots of books!

"The mind feeds on ideas, and therefore children should have a generous curriculum."



What a thought-provoking quote! (from CM naturally. preface, vol6)


The mind feeds on ideas.

and so the curriculum should be generous.


Sometimes people say "do you follow the Charlotte Mason curriculum?"   but Charlotte Mason's writings are a philosophy of education; there isn't a single rigid curriculum.
However various modern-day curricula have been put together, inspired her CM's writings. 
A Charlotte Mason education is not really meant to be a haphazard and random "we'll learn whatever we come across"; it is a curriculum deliberately put together with thought and care to ensure that the child does have a generous and diverse diet of ideas to feed his mind.

In a Charlotte Mason curriculum we cover

Catechesis, Bible
Biography,
Natural history/science,
Geography
History
Myths, Legends, Fairy Tales
Poetry
Literature
Shakespeare
Maths
Handwriting & Phonics/Reading
Picture study
Composer study
Nature work
Language (Italian)
Handicraft
Physical Education


Now depending on your approach, this may seem a little OTT, or entirely reasonable.

Here in England the overwhelming majority of home educators adopt a seemingly very relaxed approach to what they cover with the kids, especially with children under 10yrs. They stay on top of the 3Rs in a relaxed way, but as for everything else...well, they seem to be quite laissez faire: they'll cover it as they come across it.  I know very few people with children under the age of 10yrs who follow any sort of formal guidance or structure with their children; they just learn whatever whenever.
There is nothing wrong with that, and it is incredible how much children do learn in that way, just by following their interests, and just reading randomly and widely, and going out and about on trips.

Across the pond however in the States, they seem to be at the other end of the spectrum. Home schoolers seem so strict about their curricula, endlessly debating the pros and cons of various programmes, and doing everything according to a rigid timetable, and always seem quite stressed about what they need to be doing, even when their kids are young.
(this may be because some States require home schoolers to do a certain number of hours of work, or show what they've done).


In a Charlotte Mason education the child is provided with an intellectual feast, and the parent-teacher needs to ensure they are laying the table with rich and diverse food. This is done deliberately, to make sure all the food groups are covered! You don't leave the child to just eat whatever they want, and neglect certain areas. So you make sure the child is getting poetry, and a language, and nature, and history and art and Shakespeare etc etc by offering it all to them.

However, on the other hand, you realise that the child is a person, and so their limits need to be respected. The lessons are kept short, so the child is mentally fresh and able to eat the food for themselves, you cant just cram it down them if they've lost interest. And then they need to be given time, lots of free time, most of the day, to just be and to ruminate and digest it intellectually.

and then during their free time they can delve more and deeper into different areas that they are interested in, but that is in addition to what you have provided, not instead of.


Okay, enough with my food analogy!


It's also not in my nature to be laissez faire; I like to be deliberate and intentional; know what I'm doing and how I'm going to do it. Hence the books lists! I want to make sure each child gets to cover the essentials, and I want to keep a record of what they have done.



anyway, soooo where have I got my book suggestions from? Well, five main places



1- Ambleside Online
This is a very good site; I've been using it for book suggestions for four years now, and have yet to be let down on the quality. The people who put it together really know their stuff. I find their choice of books is excellent, and I really appreciate that lots of them can be sourced free online or very cheap.
The books there form the bulk of my book list.
(Some I haven't used; for example one gave a solely Protestant view of the Reformation, and one of the recommended history books is all American history, so I skipped them for now).



2-RC History
This is NOT CHarlotte Mason, but we use it in a CM way (i.e. narrate the books.).
God bless the people who put this together! We have just finished our first full year of using this and have been really very happy with it.
All of history has been divided up into 4 (5) time periods:

Unit 1: Ancient History & Old Testament
Unit 2: Early Medieval
Unit 3: High Medieval & explorers
Unit 4a: American history
Unit 4b: European history (*not written yet*)

and then each of those units has been divided into 4 different levels for different aged children (from aged 5yrs - 17yrs). Then for each level there are multiple book recommendations.

Nowadays people tend to separate "history" from "church history" or from "religion", and think they have nothing to do with each other. However the history of the world is the history of the Church! Particularly in Europe, there is no way of separating what happened historically from religion.

I would say RChistory is a very good package if you want to ensure your child doesn't miss out of the richness of the  Catholic rooted in history, but you don't know how to cover it yourself.

So for example, in Unit 2 which we did this year, we started off the year learning about the Romans, but we also learnt about Saints who lived during that time, or who were killed during the Christian persecution etc. So the child can see how the Saints of the Church fit in to historical events and culture, and I think they develop an appreciation for the place of the Church in history.




3- Mater Amabilis

As it says on its home page "A Charlotte Mason curriculum for Catholics."

I look at their recommended books for each subject and age, and tend to blend it with the Ambleside Online (AO)  suggestions.

The books tend to be published more recently than those on AO.

Looking at China page in the book Children Just Like Me , while daddy was in China . (book is part of the Mater Amabilis curriculum)

4- Websites/blogs/facebook


Joyous Lessons blog
Helped me a great deal in seeing what a Catholic CM education can look like in practice

 A Modern Charlotte Mason
This site has just started up and the lady who is doing it is still working on the majority of the book recommendations, but I have found it helpful browsing, and have incorporated some of her recommendations into our books lists.

Catholic education on a shoe string
Not CM, but  helpful information written by a Catholic mother of many with lots of home educating experience.


5- Facebook;

These FB groups have been extremely helpful:

Charlotte Mason Homeschoolers
Charlotte Mason Conversations UK
Charlotte Mason Show
Ambleside Online
Mater Amabilis
A Modern Charlotte Mason
Catholic Charlotte Mason & Vintage Home Schoolers
Charlotte Mason-ish (enrichment group)
Public domain books for home schooling






and speaking of books.......we need more book shelves!