In today’s podcast we are digging into what Charlotte Mason history lessons look like in early elementary school. We will cover the scope and sequence and show some helpful resources to make history come alive for our youngest students.

Listen Now:

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

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

America Begins by Alice Dalgliesh*

And There Was America by Roger Duvoisin

Meet the North American Indians by Elizabeth Payne*

Land of the Free by Enid La Monte Meadowcroft*

Stories of America, Volume One from Simply Charlotte Mason*

Stories of America, Volume Two from Simply Charlotte Mason

Heart & Soul by Kadir Nelson

America First by Lawton Evans

Wall Timeline at Riverbend Press

History Tools Planner

Episode 14: History Books

Episode 15: History Things

Episode 112: Notebooks and Paperwork, Part 2
(includes notes on History Tools and keeping track of the chronology rotation)

Video Explaining History Rotations

ADE on YouTube

*For out of print (OOP) or hard-to-find books, try searching at 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
So last week we began our series on Charlotte Mason history lessons and we learned why Charlotte Mason considered history such an important part of the curriculum. So today we’re going to be focusing on specifically Form 1. So that’s grades 1 through 3 in America. Nicole, will you tell us more about the history that is covered at these ages?

Nicole
Yeah, so when it comes to history in Form 1, Miss Mason begins where every child should begin, and that is with their own country. And she also begins with something else, and that is story. Always. In the earliest year, what we would call, well, it’s Form 1B, but we would call it first grade in America, children are introduced to the heroic age of their own nation. And these are the tales that form a people’s early memories. They’re kind of half legend, half history, told in broad strokes. In Charlotte Mason schools, that meant the earliest British history tales like, see if I can do this, Boadicea? 

Emily
I think they call her Boudicca? I’ve worked on that. 

Nicole
Alfred Cnut, etc. All right, for us, that might mean Pocahontas, Columbus, and stories from the early settlers. 

Emily
Yes, except one important distinction I would just add to that is these are still chronological and consecutive. So we wouldn’t do Pocahontas and then go back to Columbus. 

Nicole
Right. Absolutely. And also important to note is these are not tall tales. 

Emily
Correct. 

Nicole
These are just, they are based in history as far as we know it and they’re told chronologically like you said so the child begins at this point to absorb a sense of that linear time already and even if at that point, well I think it’s funny, even if at that point they don’t grasp the dates, which I didn’t grasp the days by the time I graduated so it’s okay. 

Emily
There’s so much in Charlotte Mason that is just laid out there that is absorbed and not clearly defined. 

Nicole
Absolutely.

So then in Form 1A, and these are your like grade second and third grade students, things are going to change a little bit. They move into what Charlotte Mason called the Authentic History, which you explained in our last episode. It’s a more continuous written record. And for British students, that meant the rest of Our Island Story. And that was from around 1150 AD through the present day. Form 1 also lays a foundation for one of Miss Mason’s key practices, and that is combining students within the same form.

And at the end of each of the Form 1 program, there’s a note that says, “when children in both 1A and 1B are present in the homeschool room, they may do the work of either group”. And we had to talk through this a little bit because this is kind of odd because they have two very different history readers that they’re using at this time. But in practice, this means that the younger student jumps in wherever the older Form 1 student is in the history rotation. And it makes it far more manageable, I think, in the home for the mom and the children, especially because the Form 1 students are usually not independent readers. 

Liz
They also don’t usually care. 

Emily
The thing that I think moms miss is that they think because they don’t, if they’re doing what you’re saying and they’ve got a third grader and they have a new first grader, that their first grader is going to miss those heroic age tales, which are the earliest history. And as you said, which is the beginning part of the same history spine. It was not, you know…we might have to do a little bit different books, but it’s still, you know, that really is history. They think they’re going to miss that. And this is a beauty of the four year cycle. They’re going to get that again in form one before they leave the rotation. 

Nicole
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s so great. So in that way, the older child sets the pace and the younger one joins in. And like you said, they’re going to cycle back. And usually they’ve already absorbed quite, you told me this, they’ve absorbed quite a bit of history through listening to Big Brother or Big Sister, doing some of their schoolwork at that point. It’s just kind of part of the atmosphere of their home. 

So in Form 1A, biography is also introduced. Miss Mason said, “the life of a single man can give a picture of the whole age in which he lived”. And these stories help the children immensely in individualizing their heroes. And they begin to see historical figures as real people and not just names on a page.

And anyways, I just think there is a lot to be gained from this very, it’s a very thoughtful approach. I think she has a real plan in mind, but maybe most important is Charlotte Mason said that “the children learn at any rate to love history at this age”. 

Emily
Yeah, it’s so true. And what you’re saying about biographies is all of my children have people that any time there’s a reference to it, even if it’s a street name, they’re like, we read about__. And they have such a deep connection with them. 

Well, I’m going to talk a bit about how lessons are structured for Form 1 students. They’re twice a week for maximum of 20 minutes each time. So we’re talking a small portion of the overall program, but it is such a key part, right? And I will just add, because we are asked about this all the time, that those 20 minutes include everything that I’m about to tell you that goes on in a lesson, including changing to the next subject. There is no added time to this to get out the books for the next lesson. That comes out of the lesson. So pulling out your history books and everything that comes to the end of your history lesson is in that 20 minutes. 

So each lesson should begin by recalling the last. We don’t need to worry about defining all of the words that they’re going to encounter and all of that. But Charlotte Mason said children are not just learning history but how to deal with books. So we’re letting them deal with books. And the first thing they need to do is link this lesson to the last lesson. So they’re going to be able to visualize the scene, or this is what they’re learning to do to deal with books. They’re visualizing the scene as it is read to them, or maybe as they’re able they read it aloud to the group. And immediately after the reading, they narrate. We want them to narrate chronologically, but in their own words and include details that they feel important, not that we feel important. We don’t ask questions or try to get them to draw out the moral of the story. 

Nicole
Right. 

Emily
So as we might set up a lesson, we are not trying to preclude everything that they might not know. The book is there to do that for them. Okay. So that’s the basic history lesson. 

Now there are time tools that Charlotte Mason used. I call them time tools, they’re just things that go with history. Charlotte Mason education is about books and things. And the time tools best suited to these ages are history pictures for them to get images because then they can better visualize what they’re reading about. You know, if they’re picturing people in shorts and tank tops and flip-flops, you know, coming over on the Mayflower, they need to adjust that and we can trust that they will, but we can help them by pulling in some pictures of what people wore at these times or what the ships looked like, maybe even pictures of artifacts that they use. This is how they cooked over open fires in their hearth or whatever. Or even historical events, like I always think of Washington crossing the Delaware. It’s vividly described in our book, but here’s one artist’s picture of what that would have been like. So that can enhance a lesson. And usually these are after we’ve read. So we’re just giving them the pictures of that and they can then correct their visualizations in their imaginations with a better representation.

And then there is a stream of history chart or Charlotte Mason also refers to it as the Table of Centuries. She describes this in her first volume and it’s just columns for each century and we don’t put people in any specific order, but we’re just kind of starting to categorize people. There’s no dates written on it. Putting people into their representative centuries and this helps them to start making connections. Oh, they were living at the same time. You know, we often don’t think about that. I’ve even had revelations later like, that’s what was going on at the same time. And they do continue this on through Form 2. So that is basically all the tools of your lesson. 

Our objectives, though, are to make history come alive for the students. We want it to be more real to them so that they take a living interest in, as you said, to love history. We want to give them mental pictures of time and places and people from the past and to furnish their mind with living ideas. So all of these things help them see themselves as vital actors in history. This is going to be a gradually unfolding idea. So that’s kind of an objective of what our whole history program through all of our years does. We’re setting that up, the foundation of that right now. 

So as far as teacher prep, what’s required of us, I think at this level, it’s important to skim, at least be familiar with the topic that we’re going to be reading. You don’t have to pre-read every word, but just in order to find some picture, this might be something that they would like to see a picture of afterwards. If I am reading with or to my child, I don’t pre-read. I’m right there in the lesson and I got it. But I do want to show personal interest, even if I thought it was kind of not that stimulating, they might have. And so I need to be ready to be as interested as they are. And it shouldn’t be hard because we’re using really good books. 

Liz
And they are so often not interested in the things we are and vice versa. 

Emily
And sometimes it seems like they want to be not interested in what we are. But the other important thing that we need to do as teachers is not to prod them, not to question or nag them, but to let the child do the work of his lesson.

So as far as resources, Charlotte Mason used what we call now – I don’t think this is a term she ever used – a spine book. And we get this question a lot. What is a spine? A spine, we just call like a backbone of history. It tells us–

Liz
It’s a shorthand word for us. 

Emily
It’s the kind of book that instead of talking about one specific instance, event, or person, it is giving us a broader look at a whole span of history of either one nation or you know, a whole region. And so in Britain, Charlotte Mason had a great one. It was written after she wrote Home Education, so you don’t hear this kind of thing described at all, but once she got it, they used it and they continued to use it. And I know it was well used in British schools, like through the 20th century. And that was Our Island Story. And so that, this is how we can really discern what that heroic age is. It’s just the first third of that book.

It’s just these earlier simpler stories. We might have gaps in time. Some of these kings are maybe a little more legendary like Arthur than others. We don’t have all the written records, but they’re simpler. And then they would just keep reading that book. So in America, we don’t really have a lot of spine books that do that early period as well as the rest. So we don’t have all the explorers coming and making contact in different parts of the country and then that same book continuing on. They might do a passing glance. It’s just not as thorough. 

So we usually do use a specific book for that age. One I do love, but it is sadly out of print and hard to come by is America Begins by Alice Dalgliesh. I think it’s available though on archive.org, so you can read it online if you have no other option. And another one instead is And There Was America by Richard, Roger, excuse me, Duvoisin and this one has been reprinted. So you can get that. 

So those two cover the scope of explorers coming, you know, different places to America. And it is chronological. There’s just gaps between and it’s not all connected. Added to this, I love to do some books about the indigenous people that lived in America beforehand, Meet the North American Indians is one that gives a lot, not their history, but much more their culture.

And then as they move on into form one, my very favorite, and I tend to combine this because it is short. is, you know, it starts with Columbus and very quickly in the first chapter moves into–

Liz
Do you mean 1A? 

Emily
I’m sorry, did I say that? Form 1A. So this is called Land of the Free by Enid La Monte Meadowcroft. It also is hard to come by, but it’s just very vividly told. And I like to do this because she gives a whole it’s kind of like a spine for a specific time period. So she gives a whole overview of the area and then I will read more specifically. 

One that I have really enjoyed is now out of print, so also hard to come by, is Stories of America volume one, but Stories of America volume two is still in print. And I like to combine these two even when I do have access to that. Simply Charlotte Mason has reissued a book of this called America, Our Stories and it is not the same. It’s not bad, it’s just not a good spine for, I believe, Form 1 kids. It’s just too much more abstract. The ideas behind it would make a better Form 2 spine. So those are not synonymous. 

And then to add to that, I love to put in this book, it’s beautiful, by Kadir Nelson – Heart and Soul. And it’s the story of America and African Americans. And it just gives a different perspective that we don’t have in some of these older books that we’re not really telling the story of a huge swath of our population very well. 

And then if you can’t find any of those, another good option is America First. This one is a revised and updated edition that has taken out a lot of the what we would call questionable language and derogatory names for people. And so it’s just a hundred stories from American history. It’s by Lawton Evans and you’ll find links to all of these things in the show notes.

But then I need to show you some time tools. When a child is eight or nine years old…

Before I get to that, we supplement all of these with biographies, because you look at the size of any of these and you see they are nowhere near as good as Our Island Story. Charlotte Mason used one set of books that was many biographies of famous people who were buried in a specific abbey or cathedral. And so they got all different glimpses into those people. But I like to assign, some of our favorite biography series for this age are the Step Up books or Gerard Discovery biographies, and then just isolated other ones. And there’s so many new picture book biographies that are really, really well done for children at this age. So I usually just pick one or two per term, depending on the length that fit into the time period that we get to really connect with one person. And that just helps throw more light onto that time. 

Liz
What about historical fiction? 

Emily
That doesn’t come into the history lesson. But definitely, yeah, we don’t read historical fiction for lessons, but we absolutely enjoy them outside of it. 

Okay, so time tools for pictures. I just often do a Google image search. You can do a Google search and click on the images up at the top and it will just bring up pictures. I’m familiar as an art history student or you know, I’m maybe more familiar than others that there is, oh, there’s a famous painting of William Penn making the treaty for Pennsylvania with the native tribes that were there. Or like I said, Washington crossing the Delaware or whatever it may be, I might just Google that. But you could also just say “an event” + “fine art” in your Google search and you can come up with actual paintings of that. 

Liz
So cool. 

Emily
Or you can, they’re talking about, you know, the Mayflower. Let’s find a picture of, you know, even the replica that they have made that we can see what it looks like in pictures.

And then as they move into their eighth year, eight or nine, they make a personal history chart. This is simply one lesson in the afternoon. It does not, it’s not something they keep up. Although I will say, as I have done this with more of my children, the ones who’ve already done it, remember that they have one and want to pull it out and add things to it. But this is starting to get their history and seeing themselves in history. And really that the flow of time is definite and we can break things into years and months, et cetera. 

And once they have done that, then they start the stream of history chart. Now this is one that is published by Riverbend Press and we’ll have a link in the show notes. And you can see it’s actually three of these big pieces of paper. And we just simply add names to the different centuries. As it gets full, I’ve found that our children have moved on to the next stage of history and they’re moving on to other tools and we can start a new one if you have other kids coming on up. 

And all of this, if you’re just left wanting to know more, you can find very detailed instructions in our history tools planner that we have on our website. And you’ll find links to that in the show notes as well.

So now, mom, what are some other questions that people commonly have about history lessons at this age? 

Liz
Well, I think it would be helpful just to define the word tale because when most of us hear that word, we think of make believe, right? All right. But the actual definition of the word tale is a story or narrative often told in imaginative ways, but it can be either truth or invention.

So Charlotte Mason knew children responded to story and this is how we can really bring children into a subject like history at a very young age because they love the story. But they’re beginning to digest information from the past by engaging in these narratives of real events that happened. Tales are appealing to children. And they acquaint a child with real times and people and events. 

And I think it’s also really helpful to remember that this is just the beginning, a start at a 12 year long study of history. So think how little you know about a person when you’re first introduced to them, right? But this is what we’re doing with our history. We’re just introducing our children a little bit, giving them a taste and whetting their appetite. And they will like their biographies and stories, as Emily was saying. The stories of people are what are their favorite because events are less familiar to them. But they’ve had a lot of experience with people, right? 

And the pictures really do help them, I think. It builds their own imagination when they have those to think about when they’ve heard stories about events that might not have otherwise interested them. 

Emily
And one other thing that occurs to me is we never talked about why they start with their own history. You know, I think that’s a common question. And it’s that very same principle that we get in many, many other short ways and subjects is we start with what the child knows. He can’t go on to abstract and he can’t understand that people live differently in different cultures until he really understands…I mean, it’s different enough to think about the pilgrims living in his own country, but he happens to know they landed in Massachusetts and he can find that on the map. So it is because we’re moving from the known to the unknown that we do that. 

Nicole
And we see that too with the personal timetable. 

Emily
Yes, exactly. 

Nicole
Their known life, that’s their introduction to the concept of time on a paper.

Emily
Yeah, and when we get to other subjects, you’re going to see that they get a lot of other very unfamiliar cultures. I’m thinking specifically in literature at the same time, but it’s not the history yet. They’re going to get there, but it’s not yet.

Form 1 lays a solid framework for the history of the child’s own country, and this foundation is built upon in subsequent forms. So next time we’re going to be talking about how additional streams are added to the child’s history rotation in Form 2, and how they engage more deeply with their history lessons as they grow older. In the meantime, please check out the show notes for links to the resources we mentioned in this episode, including our history books episode, with our favorite history books and links to all of those that we showed today. We’ll be back next week as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason method.