Charlotte Mason had very deliberate ideas about how geography should be taught. Like other subjects, geography must present living ideas to the students. Yet, unlike other subjects that rely on living books, the principle ideas in geography come from the map–the living book serves a subordinate role by painting the “flesh on the bones” of those initial ideas through vivid description. The P.U.S. was privileged to use a set of “Geography Readers” written by Miss Mason herself, and those of us trying to implement her method, specifically in this “most delightful subject” have felt the lack of adequate books very keenly.
While in other subjects like history or literature it may make sense to use some of the same books Miss Mason used, the same cannot be done in geography. First, her principle of starting where the child is, requires us to begin our study from other places than England. Additionally, boundaries have drastically changed in the intervening 100 years since Miss Mason’s death, and the British Empire, which features so strongly in her own books, would be unrecognizable to her today. For these reasons, today in the 21st Century we can’t simply use the Ambleside Geography Books as written in the 19th Century.
After World War I, Miss Mason’s books went into revision and were temporarily out of print. It’s interesting to look at the Programmes of Work, the curriculum of the P.U.S., from this time and note how Miss Mason, after trying to use different books, term after term, failed to find good substitutes and reverted to using her outdated Readers alongside updated maps–a process familiar to many of us educating students today trying to bring her books up to date. Along with a few fellow home educating mothers, we revised the Geographical Readers: Book IV and Carpenter’s Geographical Reader: Europe, bringing the facts up to date and reflecting the dramatic changes to the political map that have occurred since originally written in 1883.
Though still needing some editing before going to print, these lessons are useful now, and we sincerely hope these updates will be a useful addition to your geography lessons! We had the help of many of our fellow CM mothers and teachers who are members of our Patreon community in revising these lessons–thank you all!
Year 1 includes chapters 1-9 of Geographical Readers: Book IV and the section on “The British Isles” from Book II, both by Charlotte Mason. Also included are some original sections on countries not included by Miss Mason. It covers the British Isles, France, Monaco, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany.
Year 2 includes chapters 23-28, 37-56 of Carpenter’s Geographical Reader: Europe, again including some original sections on countries not included by Mr Carpenter. It covers the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Greece, Macedonia, Albania, Malta, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.
Additional Resources Needed
Each of these Teacher Helps include *everything* needed for a full year’s worth of Geography Study for the “Geography Reader” portion. You will need a good atlas, though some maps have been linked in the Teacher Help. To round out the full scope of the Geography portion of the curriculum in the upper forms, you will need a book of Travel Tales and a book of Physical Geography as well as map questions for the weekly “10-minutes Map Exercises.”
Updated 5/5/2023
This resource now includes separate teacher and student copies. The student copy only includes map questions (without answers) and the text to be read. The Teacher Manual provides answers to the map questions, links to maps, and exams for each term. The exam questions are from the exams Charlotte Mason sent her Form 3 students.
*Note: If you are interested in using these materials with a co-op or group, please email us at contact@adelectableeducation.com for group rates.
Samples: