Charlotte Mason Curriculum

In our local Charlotte Mason group we've been talking about different options for a Charlotte Mason curriculum! I developed this post to hopefully be an aid to you as you begin to search for the best fit for your family! These are just a few of the popular options available - many families pick and choose selections from a variety of sources to piece together their family's feast! 

A Delectable Education

The Curriculum Templates have detailed subject information for selected forms. They include links to podcasts to learn more about what Charlotte Mason said for each subject. I believe they were also the first Charlotte Mason website to visually show how the original PNEU schools used a history cycle for each school year. (See it here) They also offer paid consultations to help families put together a curriculum customized for your needs.

A Gentle Feast

AGF offers very organized lesson plans and resources for each week. They have easy to access hyperlinks for each subject. I found that most of the content is also used in free curriculum like Ambleside Online and WildWood Curriculum, but the organization and community offered with the AGF curriculum is worth the price! The biggest benefit to using AGF is the Language Arts packets for each form.  In these LA packets, copywork, dictation, and grammar lessons all align with the readings used in the lesson plans. Julie also gives wonderful videos and instruction on the “why” of a Charlotte Mason education. Each form has a separate schedule but follows the same historical timeline. You purchase the year you need determined by your history cycle. There are only 4 cycles that you need to purchase. Once you purchase the cycle you will come back to it and your child will follow the lesson plans in the next form. For example, in 2021 you purchase Cycle 1 for your 1st grader. They will complete lessons in Form 1. In 2022 you purchase Cycle 2, in 2023 you purchase Cycle 3, and in 2024 you purchase Cycle 4. In 2025 your child will be in 5th grade and will be in Cycle 1 again but they will read books that are intended for Form 2. They will also have the Form 2 additional subjects that are listed in the detailed lesson plans (like Latin and Plutarch.) For the whole family, the lessons with one Language Arts packet is about $100 per cycle. (Remember, you’ll also have to buy books!!! This is just the price of lesson plans.) A Member’s Only Group is active on Facebook and offers helpful advice and resources!

Simply Charlotte Mason

SCM is one of the very first curriculum publishers for a Charlotte Mason curriculum. They offer so many stand alone resources (like picture study) but also have detailed lesson plans for each subject. SCM is a website that every Charlotte Mason homeschooler should bookmark. They have a searchable database of books (link) Free narration helps (link) Free scheduling cards (link) and a blog that can be searched by topic whenever you are wondering what Charlotte Mason might have had to say about a certain subject! (link) This website gave me understanding and clarity when I began homeschooling with Ambleside Online. As much as I like a free curriculum that AO provides, I found myself inadequate on the practical methods on how to teach! I feel that Sonya does a wonderful job sharing her wealth of knowledge to parents! Her curriculum is very family friendly! However, the cost could be higher than AGF if you buy all the things. Instead of 4 cycles of history, there are 6. The enrichment studies are not included in the history cycle so those must be purchased separately. The language arts elements also must be purchased separately.  There is a “Keep it Simple” guide to help you choose each of these options. For the whole family, the lessons with one “individual studies” packet is about $50 per cycle (remember, you are buying 6 cycles by the end of K-12 rather than 4 with AGF) Even if you do the Keep it Simple and only order history, enrichment, and individual studies you will find that you’ll want to invest in their nature study lessons and the amazing “Visits to….” guides! Not to mention the picture study prints and guides! It can start to rack up! They also have a dedicated Facebook group to answer questions about the curriculum. A forum is located on their website if you prefer to stay off Facebook.

Ambleside Online

I think this is the first Charlotte Mason curriculum that was put out there online, for free, in our digital age. The creators of the curriculum are incredibly intelligent and worked very hard to have something accessible to all people. It is exactly what CM originally wanted—”A liberal education for all” and AO did exactly that! As I learned more about Charlotte Mason I did find some things in AO that did not line up with what was originally intended. One of them being the history cycle. I started with AO but switched to creating our own family studies by organizing our book list and activities closer to what A Delectable Education outlines. After I had already switched, AO came up with a family style learning schedule! It’s called AO 2.0 or Ambleside for Groups! For a family with children in the same form, this is a super handy schedule! If you have multiple forms you’ll still have some of the problems of keeping up with many book lists and schedules! I’ve also heard from friends and how difficult the website is to understand. Fortunately, bloggers like Brandy Vencel have videos to help you through navigation! The people I know that have used this curriculum from start to finish have graduated some of the most well-rounded young people! It is a very rich curriculum and very affordable. The biggest price to you is the time involved in making your daily/weekly plans and managing multiple forms/years with your children. They also have a dedicated group on several social media platforms (Facebook, Mewe) and have an online forum for discussions and resource links.

WildWood Curriculum

WildWood started after several Charlotte Mason enthusiasts wanted to have a culturally diverse book list and secular options for families. I do prefer the WildWood organization over AO’s website and it is easy to add in your own books for Bible and missionary biographies. One of the benefits to WildWood is that as a free curriculum, they give you multiple book choices to fit into your curriculum. The creators of the curriculum are active in their FB community and many users offer helpful advice and resources when questions arise. I also like to listen to their podcast “Stonechats” and was featured as a guest speaker on the music and solfa episode!

With the popularity of Charlotte Mason and the amazing, creative people out there that study her works, there are several other options that you might find better suited to your family! In my own opinion, I suggest Simply Charlotte Mason to large families. A Gentle Feast to families that would like a little more hand holding through the learning process of Charlotte Mason, and Ambleside Online or WildWood to families that are able to manage their own daily/weekly schedules and just need a tried and true booklist for their curriculum. If you like to create your own curriculum from amazing living books, I think A Delectable Education Lesson Templates are the way to go! This is what I do and you can see our 2020-2021 schedule here.

Scheduling is another aspect of curriculum planning that is addressed at each of the curriculum websites above. Families that are spreading the feast typically seem to enjoy loop scheduling. There are subjects that you do each day (like math) but many of the subjects are scheduled only once or twice a week. Knowing how to fit them into your own family’s rhythm is something only you can figure out! You might need a lot of structure and post a timetable of lessons for each day. Or, you might work best with a general idea of what to cover in one week and take it day by day until those subjects are checked off. Simply Charlotte Mason and The Good and the Beautiful both have very helpful schedule ideas on their websites!

My honorable mentions for Charlotte Mason Curriculae are: Charlotte Mason Plenary, Alveary, CMEC, A Modern Charlotte Mason, Reshelving Alexandria, Delightfully Feasting, Well-Educated Heart, The Good and The Beautiful.