How do Charlotte Mason Bible lessons change as students get older? Join us for today’s discussion on the podcast as we turn to middle school students and answer some common questions like, why can’t we continue Bible lessons with the whole family? And how can I help facilitate separate Bible lessons for my older students? Tune in to hear some insight to help navigate these issues, and more!

Listen Now:

Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

The Old Testament History by Costley-White and Hardwich (online version or hard copy at Living Library Press)

Commentary on the New Testment: The Four Gospels by W. Walsham How*

Scripture Journals (ESV and CSB options) on Amazon or here

Acts of the Apostles by Ellen M. Knox

The Gospel History of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by C.C. James

The Saviour of the World by Charlotte Mason (Amazon for Vol 1-3 or Riverbend Press for all 5 volumes)

ADE Bible rotation

Bible: Forms 3-4 Lesson Breakdown

ADE Schedule Cards

Episode 128: Form 1 Bible Immersion Lesson

ADE on YouTube

*For OOP (out of print) or hard to find texts, try BookFinder.com

Emily
Welcome to A Delectable Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I’m Emily Kiser and I’m here with…

Liz
…Liz Cottrill…

Nicole
…and Nicole Williams. 

Emily
All season long, we are exploring a Charlotte Mason curriculum and we are in the middle of our series on what Charlotte Mason thought was the most important subject and supreme knowledge due to a child, Bible lessons. Today, we are looking at the next group of forms, Forms 3 and 4, or grades 7 through 9. Students in these forms basically do the same work as one another, right? 

Nicole
Well, three and four, yes. Yes, in form three and four, the students continue reading the Old Testament, but now they’re reading it for themselves. And so you’re going to talk later about what they would use to facilitate that so that the omissions are made. But they’re still following a clear chronological path in using these resources. 

One important note is that I’m going to describe the full rotation that the students in Form 3 and 4 move through chronologically, but you don’t necessarily have to start at the beginning. You know, Genesis is the beginning of the rotation, but if you just finished Genesis, or that student just finished Genesis in Forms 1 and 2, they could pick up an Exodus or whatever that actually looks like. 

Emily
And subsequent children will jump into where older children are in that rotation. 

NIcole
Yes. So again, as long as we’re moving forward, we’re doing fine there.

Like in Forms 1 and 2, the students read from Genesis to Kings, but while the content covers much of the same narrative, students in Forms 3 and 4 encounter a broader scope and greater depth with the readings. The readings are longer, for one thing, and they are more layered because the rotation weaves in the prophetic books alongside the historical ones, allowing the students to connect not just with the historical events but also the prophets who wrote about them and interpreted them.

Some of those books that they read were Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, and Nahum. And then they also read some of the books from the post-exile. So that was kind of a new thing. Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Malachi, Esther, and Jonah. This rotation is just shy of four years. So three and two terms, I think, is what we have. Again, students will just, you know, rotate back through when they get done. And maybe they will miss a little portion of something possibly, but that’s not to worry because we still have Forms 5 and 6 to go and they’ll get covered. 

Emily
And you’re saying that because they’re only in Forms 3 and 4 for three years. 

Nicole
Yes. 

Emily
And so if this rotation is longer, they’re not going to make it through the whole time. 

Nicole
Exactly. Right. So now in the New Testament, students begin a deeper engagement there also, and they read for themselves the entire book of Acts and the gospel of John. Acts takes two years and John takes one year, so they are taking it slowly and really dealing with that.

But don’t worry, they’re not leaving the synoptic gospels. They are reading them and they are using Charlotte Mason’s own poetry to do that now, very slowly reading them alongside a harmonized version of the synoptic gospels that you will share more about in a minute. 

It is very fitting, I think, that after they have studied for six years those synoptic gospels, really learning those stories, that they are now primed and developmentally ready to deal with them in a little bit of a different way, a deeper way. So really lingering on each episode. 

Emily
Yeah that’s true. 

Well I’m gonna cover the lesson format and just as I have said in previous episodes remember volume six is not a comprehensive teacher’s manual. It was absolutely necessary for the readers back when Charlotte Mason released it as well as us now to study the programs and see it, because she’ll leave out whole parts. Actually if you are looking for forms three and four in this section of volume six chapter 10, you’re going to not even pick up until the very last paragraph after you’ve talked about Forms 5 and 6 that they’re doing Saviour of the World, right? So just know that we’re drawing from those programs to give you a fuller picture of how things are. 

Forms 3 and 4 have Bible lessons four times a week, just like Forms 1 and 2 did. And it’s the same two Old Testament and two New Testament and alternating. So you do Old Testament, New Testament, Old Testament, New Testament through the week.

Their lessons get a little bit longer, so instead of 15 minutes they have 20. And it’s still the first lesson of the day.  Now in the programs we see a whole lot of other books assigned than the ones I’m going to talk about lessons for, and those Charlotte Mason mentions are good for Sunday reading. So these are books on church history and other theological books that they were assigned, so those are not fitting into their typical morning lessons. So we’re just sticking with those as I talk about the format. 

So for an individual lesson, I think the biggest change, and you’ve mentioned this, is students are going to be reading for themselves. They were each to own a copy of the Old Testament history, which I’ll show you in a minute. They had to have their own copy of Saviour of the World, the poems, and also the commentary for their New Testament reading. I think she’s assuming everyone has a Bible to read from as well.

So the note from the programs at the top of all of form 3/4 Bible lessons says “in all cases the Bible text as given in the books used Must be read in the narrative first” so when they did Acts they were not assigned…she didn’t say read these chapters of Acts for this time. She gave page numbers out of the commentary for Acts that was assigned but that note tells us no, they were to be reading the section from Acts in the Bible that that portion of the commentary was going to be covering. 

Students could work independently or a teacher may set up a lesson or even listen to them read aloud. Just because a child is reading for themselves doesn’t mean they’re reading for themselves in isolation necessarily, right? And if you have a group of students, they’re absolutely working together, taking turns reading, but they have their own copies to follow along in. Of course, we want to have trained them by this time to recall the previous lessons, so they’re making the hooks in the chain or the links in the chain that Charlotte Mason talks about. It should be a habit that they just know after six years of doing it that that’s what we do. 

And then they were to read the Bible passage as set by those lesson books. So if it’s Old Testament, it’s coming actually out of the book that also contains the commentary. I’ll talk more about that in a minute. But if it’s Acts or John, they’re reading the portion out of the Bible text for the day, and then they narrate that first. And they’re again supposed to use as close of language as possible. Charlotte Mason actually talks about that in this section, believe, of chapter 10, that that becomes just a second nature for them to do that. And it’s wonderful that that language has gotten into them. 

So basically, she says the big process of our method of lessons doesn’t change. The children are reading reverently, but now they’re reading reverently to themselves or aloud to one another instead of, you know, relying on the teacher to do that. And we still only do a single reading before narration. So then after that Bible was read and narrated, then they would read the commentary for that section. And then they might have some more narration or discussion that they want to do. So again, these lessons can happen with a teacher present, but the main work of the reading should be done by the students. 

Now that is for their Old Testament lessons and it’s for their New Testament Acts and John. I’m going to describe The Saviour of the World lesson because that one is just a little different. It has a lot more parts to it I think. So The Saviour of the World is Charlotte Mason’s narrative poems on, really reflections on, Bible passages and she doesn’t just go through each gospel. She used a harmonization called The Gospel History written by C.C. James. And so that portion is all text of scripture, but it’s harmonized from all four gospels. And it will literally tell you which part is from which one and which verse. So it’s just a harmonization. And that is what she uses as her source material for writing her poems. 

And so she wanted students to read and narrate the portion of The Gospel History, which is the Bible words, before they were to read that and narrate it, before they read the poems. And you can find tables in the back of Saviour of the World that tell what portions of The Gospel History correlate. There’s also tables online that you can find as well. I think we have them linked in our Bible episode. We’ll throw links in the show notes here. 

So they would read and narrate the passage for the day that came from the poems, from the Gospel history, then they would read the poem from The Saviour of the World, and then they would narrate and discuss the whole lesson. Because they’re going to hopefully get new ideas about that passage from the poem. She said that they were, the poetic nature of the language helped give them those new ideas, and she thought they were specifically well-fitted to deal with things in poetry that they wouldn’t necessarily from prose alone. 

We do have notes of lessons for a Bible lesson at this age that seems to be an introduction very heavily directed by the teacher to the life of Paul and the world at his time. And I think that would be an excellent thing to do before you dive into reading Acts or the portion of Acts that covers Paul’s journeys. So you could do a similar lesson in place of that from the straight reading of the text on occasion, but that’s not every time. Most of the lessons are going to be this reading and narrating from the scripture and then adding the knowledge from the commentaries. 

So our lesson objectives are very much the same as Form 1 and 2. We want to make sure our children are getting new thoughts of God. And they’re also hopefully having a deeper understanding of the Bible itself. And they also, and I think this is where Charlotte Mason is just brilliant. She knows they’re going to start having this critical debating, challenging, you know, the things that they’ve been taught. They’re trying to struggle and work things out for themselves. And she thought it was very important that we not shy away from difficulties in the Bible or perceived difficulties we might have, or even some of the criticism ideas that were very prevalent in her age, but are, you know, we have different ones, but they’re still very important. And those, if when our children leave, if they never encountered that and they just hear from us, the Bible is 100 % reliable, which we believe it is, but you know, it’s no error, all this stuff. And then they come up against some of these ideas that question things that really can undermine the faith foundation that we’ve been trying to instill in them. So she thought that into the books that she was using are bringing out some of those ideas, just again, in a very general way, not getting into super…different denominational quibbles but kind of broad issues with the Bible as a whole and she thought that if they dealt with these in the context of their Bible lessons that that would give them confidence in the reliability of scripture rather than undermine it, right? 

Liz
So basically you’re saying what one of the differences besides that they’re being more independent, right, is that the two New Testament days have different content.

Emily
Yes, which is always very hard to explain and I hope you can follow along here. 

So as far as teacher prep, even if your students are going to be working independently or more independently, I really do think it is important, and I get this idea from Charlotte Mason, that the teacher have an understanding sympathy with their students and also we know they’re going to be wrestling with some more heavy passages and ideas about the Bible as a whole. So I think it rests on us to be familiar with what they’re going to be reading so we can have discussion with them. And really even keeping up with that on a weekly basis. 

I have maintained the same process that I’ve done for all of my elementary years and prepped like the week’s Bible lessons together for myself before teaching them. And so I think that’s a really helpful practice. Sometimes it has to be just the day before, but you just need to carve out some time to make sure you’re up on that. And then that might give you an idea of, hey, you know, today instead of you reading this passage, I think we’re going to talk about what is going on in the world at this time. 

So let me show you briefly the resources that we have. This is a reprint of The Old Testament History by Costley-White and Hardwich. This is not just the commentary; it also contains the text and Charlotte Mason talks about this book extensively here as well as…I think she talked about it in volume three, but it’s mostly here. And these you can find online, but since this is the text students are actually reading I know most of us prefer to read from real books, physical copies, Living Library Press has begun reprinting these and has the first three volumes available. 

I do also think since students are getting their own, or they’re reading for themselves, giving them a scripture journal for their Bible lessons would be excellent. You can even use it to mark, you know, where they’re supposed to read to or whatever if you’re forecasting out their lessons for them. And again, Charlotte Mason talks about that in volume one, that that would be a good plan to give a child so that at the end of their education they have a whole library of the books of the Bible, not just in one.  But they may want to jot down notes. You know, this is kind of taking ownership of their lessons in a different way than before.

The Acts of the Apostles, this is what was assigned. And again, this does not contain the Acts scripture at all. It’s just commentary on it. So you would read the scripture first and then read the commentary portion of it. This has been reprinted by Yesterday’s Classics, but is also available online. 

I have not found a reprint of the commentary that she used for John. It’s the Four Gospels or Commentary on the New Testament: The Four Gospels by Walsham How. And we will put a link to that in the show notes because it is available online. 

And then Saviour of the World. This edition is published by Riverbend Press and each volume is a beautiful sewn binding. It’s going to last forever. And it does have some pictures of art in it as well. So that’s The Saviour of the World.  There are other editions, I think the first three are in a very inexpensive paperback edition on Amazon. And those are very nice as well. And then this is The Gospel History of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by C.C. James, that harmonization of the gospel. So you would read this, narrate the passage, and then read the poem or poems that correspond to that passage in The Saviour of the World and narrate the whole thing.

Liz
And that poem is kind of like her narration, but they will be asked more as they get older to sometimes do their narrations or themes in verse. And so it’s a little bit of help along that road for them.

Emily
Yes, and you see some poetical narrations included in this portion of volume 6. 

Liz
And she said, I believe here in chapter 10, that poetry can sometimes give us even more potent ideas than writing in prose.

Emily
To help you remember all of this, we also have a free Bible rotation that just shows you at a glance all of the parts that they’re doing. So Old Testament, New Testament, extra books that were assigned. You might want to find a comparable resource from your own denomination as you do that for Sunday reading. And then also it includes The Saviour of the World Breakdown by term.

And if you want even more help than that, we do have Bible breakdowns for Form 3 and 4 Bible lessons for all three of these streams: the Old Testament, The Saviour of the World, and the other New Testament lesson a day. And those forecasts I should say also include exam questions for each term, so that’s another thing that you do not have to prepare for. And we do have our ADE schedule cards that tell you how long and how frequently, not just Bible lessons, but all lessons can be at this stage. 

Liz
And speaking of scheduling, I think this is one of the perplexities for a lot of moms. You’ve had your little ones and you’ve gotten used to those form one and two lessons with your younger kids. And then all of a sudden the oldest one has gotta move on. And this is kind of sad for moms. Well, let me tell you that never stops. You’re always a little sad when your children grow up and become independent and begin to do things on their own, but of course it’s a critical thing as the Bible is the most important lesson. It’s especially important for a 12 or 13 year old who’s moving into seventh grade, or Form 3, to begin to take ownership of this Bible lesson. But how do you do it when the younger kids still need their lessons? And there is more than one way to accomplish this, but one common way that seems to work for a lot of families is that the older student who actually at this point has three and a half hours of school every day and not just three, that they actually begin school before the younger children do. So if your start time is nine, they might start at 8.30 or just whatever it is in your family. And that way, if you do sit down with them and accompany them with their lesson, even though they’re reading on their own, but want to have some conversation with them, that works pretty well for most moms. And then the younger children can just begin at the normal time, while the older one goes on to do something independently. 

But we are working toward independence. I mean, that is our goal, right? That our children, when they finish school are able to cope with their own life themselves. I just thought I should bring that issue up because that’s a common question. 

Emily
Can you think of any other concerns or questions at this age? 

Liz
I think you should not worry that it’s going to be super overwhelming for them because even though there’s more reading it isn’t beyond their ability at that age.

Emily
It might be a good push. 

Liz
Yeah. And you know, some children are reluctant to leave the safety of mom being more in charge and they resent even sometimes they want independence and they don’t want independence. 

Emily
I did find a note, there’s several notes at the end of every program, and one common one at this level is that forms three and four can work together in all history lessons, which is including scripture. Charlotte Mason considered this a history because it is, we’re reading the history of God’s people. So just to know if you have a ninth grader and a seventh grader, even though mostly they reserve John for ninth grade, they would jump into that. 

Liz
Oh yes, so if you have a seventh and a ninth grader, the seventh grader might actually begin with John. Because as Nicole keeps pointing out in these episodes, we always move forward. But it doesn’t matter where you get on the merry-go-round because it is a cycle. So you’re going to come around to these things again.
Emily
Thanks for joining us today. Next week, we’re going to continue the conversation as we look at high school Bible lessons in Forms 5 and 6. You can find links to all of the resources we discussed today, including a demonstration lesson episode on The Saviour of the World. Now, we did that for high school, so there’s an added component. But if you’re really floundering at this age and going, how did these lessons actually look, we have that for you. So we invite you to read along with us Chapter 10 of Volume 6 as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method.