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.

What made Charlotte Mason craft her curriculum around the subject of history? Why is the subject important for today’s students? Join us on the podcast for our discussion today as we begin our series on Charlotte Mason history lessons.

Listen Now:

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

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

History Rotation Diagrams

Video Explaining History Rotations

Episode 11: Why Study History

Episode 12: The Chronology of History

ADE on YouTube

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
Well, Charlotte Mason said, “next in order to religious knowledge, history is the pivot upon which our curriculum turns.” And so we turn from Bible lessons to the subject of history, which informs so much of the rest of the curriculum. 

Nicole
Absolutely. 

Emily
So, Nicole, would you start by telling us why Charlotte Mason thought that history was so important, this mainstay pivot of the curriculum? And that’s a very striking claim.

Nicole
It is. You know, next to religious knowledge. But once you understand how she approached it, I think it really makes sense. History in a Charlotte Mason education isn’t about memorizing names and dates. It’s about knowing people. It’s about understanding ideas. It’s about helping a child find their place in the world. I think it’s so cool. It’s not in an abstract way or a theoretical way, but seeing themselves as part of a long and living story. 

Emily
Yes. 

Nicole
Through history, our children are introduced to the full scope of human experience. They come to see the choices people have made, their courage, their failures, their faithfulness. And over time, they develop principles they can apply to their own lives. That’s the beauty of history. It quietly shapes the way we think and the kind of people we are becoming. 

Our children also live in a global world now, but that doesn’t guarantee understanding. And Miss Mason believed that every child should be given the opportunity to form relationships with people, she said, of all sorts and conditions, of all countries and climes, of all times past and present. This kind of history study doesn’t create pride. It creates humility, compassion, reverence, and a deeper sense of the duties and the joys of a full human life.

Charlotte Mason did call it the pageant of history. It’s a rich, colorful backdrop filled with the drama of real lives lived. A pageant isn’t a dry timeline. It’s just not. It’s color, it’s story. It captures the imagination. And when our children are given the right kind of books, rich with story and truth, they begin to picture themselves in those scenes. They connect to the characters and they grow in empathy. And this widens their understanding of the world. And as they grow, the scope of history grows with them, beginning with simple stories and expanding to layered global narratives, and that develops their understanding over time. As a pivot, history provides a natural rhythm for the rest of the curriculum. The literature, geography, art, and music can all be informed by the time period that the child is studying.

And that doesn’t mean that we’re building unit studies, just to note, or trying to force connections. We don’t have to do that. It simply reflects what Miss Mason called the natural and inevitable coordination of certain subjects. When a child reads a poem written during the same era they’re studying in history, they start to hear the voices that time more clearly.

We do have some hints in this section we’ve been reading in volume six about when things came in. But you have done so much research in this area and really had many things come to light. 

Emily
Yes, I still remember when I was poring over all the programs. I mean, it’s been 10, 11, 12 years ago now, and literally feeling like I audibly heard the Hallelujah Chorus. I could see her big picture.

Here, especially, I think we see the lack of details in volume six. I remember struggling for years and it wasn’t until we had the digital collection that we had that whole scope of programs of her curriculum, what she did, that we could really put it all together. We were all kind of fumbling in the dark trying to make sense of these little clues and hints. And we had a couple of programs here and there, but we didn’t see that whole big progression of a child’s education. So once we did, that just helped narrow it down. Yeah, we got all of those details and then we’re like she’s not told us anything wrong, it just was lacking the whole picture. 

Nicole
Right exactly. 

Emily
So as we began our podcast, actually it was right at the same time, we set out to answer what does Charlotte Mason history look like? We kept hearing conflicting things and people have very strong opinions because we know this is such an important subject. We had just those little glimpses but we were still left with how is this applied? What do we do?, especially as Americans or any other context other than her British children. What do we do? 

So in order to develop an understanding of one’s own place in history and to begin having an informed patriotism, which she talks about, Charlotte Mason students continually study the history of their own country. That may seem odd, like what? We don’t want to have this narrow scope. But that helps put our country into perspective. And when we have a deeper view, we don’t just get the glorified simple stories, right? Of the heroic times. We get the good, the bad and the ugly. And we can really see the trajectory of men’s thoughts. I’m using men in the human term here, men and women. 

So Form 1B, that is the first year of school. We call it first grade here in America. They start with the earliest history of their country. Mason called this the heroic age because she said it was best suited to the children because the story moves on broad, simple lines. This is the time before we have a continuous chronological written record of everything that’s going on in our country. We have maybe some isolated stories, there’s periods of darkness, we don’t know what’s happening everywhere in the country at the same time. 

But this is the thing I think is most misunderstood. This is not just a collection of hero stories, right? Charlotte Mason was adamant that this is a consecutive chronological study. We’re not jumping around here and there. We are talking about the earliest history of our nation and that it is read in a consecutive way.

So she called the heroic age the time before “authentic history” began. So we have the Heroic Age and we have Authentic History. And so these stories include maybe some more mythical or legendary details. We have those in our own country, even though those are a lot nearer the present time than the ones that they were telling in Britain for her students. But it is that time before the continuous written record. 

So what this looks like in America is the time as Europeans were making contact. We have anthropological studies of the people who lived here before Europeans made contact but we didn’t have any written record from them, so we can only make anthropological assumptions about what was happening in the country. And we have a little bit. So we include those as we can, but really the records that we have that are going to give us that consecutive chronological narrative are from the contact with Europeans who came to explore and then settle. So that’s the first year of school.

And then form 1A, which students were in for two years, second to third grade. They’re continuing a chronological study and that goes up to the present time. So, it’s Charlotte Mason, that was the same book. We don’t have a great option for that. I’ll talk more about that in subsequent episodes. But in her school, that was just the first part of the same, we would call it a history spine, or the same book that looked at the whole history of the nation. So it’s not isolated tales.

Okay, so that’s form one. Then as they move into form two, so this is the upper elementary years, they’re in form two for three years. The first of those years, they’re going to have a deeper look at their country’s history starting again from the earliest recorded history through the present. They’re going to cycle through that in four years. And they’re going to add a second stream of history. Now we’ve come up with the same stream because it’s just something we see that’s descriptive of what Charlotte Mason did. She had multiple…

Liz
It’s the flow.

Emily
Yeah, it is. And that there’s three streams ultimately moving side by side. So they’re going to start their second stream and that is to add the history of a neighboring country. And this, she said, should be contemporary, be the same time period as what they’re studying in their own country so that they get a bigger perspective. We have a very different perspective of the events leading up to the Revolutionary War than British people do, right? Particularly those living at that time. 

And so we’re going to talk later in our form two episode about how to choose that neighboring country. But in a nutshell, it is a country that has strong cultural and political significance. So in England, that was France, even though there were much closer countries, even on the same island, there were some distinct countries at the time. And I would argue that for us in America, despite where we live, because of our, not only the founding documents, our governmental structure, and who controlled us when we gained our independence, but also because of our shared language and a lot of cultural things and continuing alliances…and those all match up with what England and France have. 

Liz
It just has the most influence on our lives. 

Emily
Yes, so I would argue that is England for us. It’s not our closest neighbor like Canada or Mexico. They have a very similar history of exploration and exploitation by people coming here. But all of those things go into making our Neighboring Country. 

And they can start that first year with the earliest history of that country and that’s the only departure from studying those things hand in hand at the same time. So that’s an option, you don’t have to, but it’s a good option. 

So then in Form 2a, which is fifth and sixth grade (the upper two years of that form) through Form 3, they’re continuing that four-year cycle through their own country’s history, and then they’re definitely lockstep, contemporary chronological history of their close neighbor’s country. But they add in a third stream, and that is the study of ancient history, which of course cannot be contemporary with our modern stream. And it’s a cultural look. So she would look at different cultures in the ancient Near East and then the culture of Greece and then the culture of Rome, for example, instead of trying to cut a sliver of time across all of those cultures. So we get a bigger picture of their scope. 

And then as they move into Form 3, they’re even adding current events. So not only are they getting their modern time, which could be as long ago as a thousand years, and their ancient time, they’re also getting the very current present-day history that is being made right now. 

So then as they move into high school, as we call it in America, Forms 4 through 6, they’re going through their last rotation of history. And Form 4 is what we would say 9th grade, Form 5 is 10th and 11th, Form 6 is 12th grade. They advance onto more stiffer books, which with Charlotte Mason, we look at the easier books that she used and think they’re pretty stiff. But for her students, they were even stiffer, a look at their own country. So now we’re getting into motives and ideas and really wrestling through those things that make the events happen.

The neighboring country instead of just one country, it’s going to expand to all of Western civilization. If you’re in the West, I guess that would be different if you’re in a different context. And then they go through another look at ancient history. And she said there was actually less time for that, so they just got a broader overview of it. And then they continue their current events. So really, it’s four streams of history going hand in hand.

Yeah, so overall I’ve hinted at it, but there were three four-year rotations overall, but it’s a total of an eight-year history cycle. And I think this is something that’s not recognized broadly. We get questions about this all the time, but that ancient stream is four years and it’s stacked on top of the four years for the modern stream. And they have to go in lockstep because when you get to the end of your modern stream, you’re at the beginning of where your modern stream picks up. And so you’re ready to cycle back and they all it’s a seamless chronological flow over eight years, but we covered every four. So the ancient ends up where the modern begins the following year. 

So again, Charlotte Mason lays this huge emphasis on chronologically progressive work. That is the underlying fundamental principle of history studies. So we aren’t picking and choosing what time period our kids are most interested in. If we’re jumping into this, we might want to start at the beginning, but if we have just studied maybe the 19th century we need to move forward. We need to continue the 20th century into the present because that chronology, until we get to the end of the current time and then we cycle back, that helps give them that vibrant understanding of the pageant of history. If we’re jumping all around you’re gonna be like me when I started organizing the library and going did that happen in the 1800s? When was the Middle Ages? You know, we just don’t have those things. 

So I know this is probably as clear as mud from this very general thing that I have and we have diagrams on our website that we’ve had for the last 10 years. But I have just recently made a video showing how your one child and then subsequent children move through the forms and that will be linked in the show notes. So from this wide feast of history, Charlotte Mason says, “we may not be able to recall this or that circumstance, but the imagination is warmed. We know that there is a great deal to be said on both sides of every question and we are saved from crudities in opinion and rashness in action. The present becomes enriched for us with the wealth of all that has gone before….we may not delay to offer such a liberal and generous diet of History to every child in the country as shall give weight to his decisions, consideration to his actions and stability to his conduct.” (6/178)

Liz
Wow, that’s so wonderful. 

Nicole
It is. 

Liz
You know, and it’s really common for us to not have ourselves had a chronological approach to history in our own education. It was often really piecemeal at best and inconsistent and scanty which is why Emily got lost. You know we just also had very superficial you know knowledge about anything.

So in our desire to improve this understanding for our own children and give them a better sense of the sequence of the centuries, we naturally think we should always start at the very beginning, right? And that is fine if you only have one child to consider, but suppose you’re starting with older and younger children altogether. Charlotte Mason said it was okay to start, as Emily’s pointed out, at any time as long as you’re always moving forward and when you arrive at the present, you return to the beginning. So it’s kind of like a merry-go-round. It doesn’t matter where you hop on, you’re going around full circle, right? So each child joins in where the older students are, all ages are kept together and they’ll arrive at the beginning, maybe at a different age, but they will receive the whole picture. In Charlotte Mason’s day, her whole school moved together every year forward. 

Emily
And by whole school, we’re talking 40,000 children across the British Empire. 

Liz
You know, another thing that sometimes concerns us is if your country of origin was a different one from where your children are growing up. And this focus in history should be of the child’s own, the country where he lives. But other nations’ histories can be studied a bit as they come into the geography lesson or they’re going to be encountered when that country has events that involve the country that was being studied in school. 

So it can also be studied, another country’s stream of history perhaps…as a family you could do it outside of regular lessons if you want to or when a student is older and has a lot more interest in the parents’ country of origin, they could study it. But Charlotte Mason really thought that a superficial glimpse, and I think you touched on this, of everything left us to make unfair judgments when a better grasp of the history of our own culture can give us more appreciation of the scope and the complexity of other cultures. So to learn one thing well now prepares us to want to know other things well and not be satisfied with little tidbits. And when we value our own rich history, we can comprehend how much other people groups in the world, other cultures, value their own struggles and accomplishments and heroes. 

Emily
Yeah, and I think that and that is another benefit of these streams. It’s not just even the one neighboring country that expands to Western civilization. We get the ancients, which are generally living very differently than we are today. And I think that helps expand our purview.

Liz
Full picture.

Emily

Thank you for joining our discussion today. You may like to go back and listen to our earlier episodes on history, particularly episodes 11 and 12. You can find links to those as well as all of our resources for the Charlotte Mason history rotation in the show notes. As we continue to discuss Charlotte Mason curriculum this season, we invite you to read along with us in chapter 10 of volume six. We have created a reading schedule so you can keep up with us.

Next week, we will be looking at the specifics of history lessons in Form 1, Grades 1 through 3, or early Elementary School. We hope you’ll join us as we continue to spread the feast with the Charlotte Mason Method.

If you’ve been following along with our series on Charlotte Mason Bible lessons, you likely have some lingering questions. Where should I place my students in the progression if they’ve not been doing Charlotte Mason from the beginning? Or where can I, and where ought I not, combine my children? What about specific translations or how to assess my child’s progress? We’ll do our best to answer these and more in today’s podcast.

Listen Now:

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

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

Episode 224: Combining Multiple Students

Episode 290: Bringing Older Children into the Charlotte Mason Method

Episode 17: Bible 2.0

ADE on YouTube

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
And today we are concluding our series on Bible lessons in a Charlotte Mason curriculum. This subject, Charlotte Mason believed, was the most important of a child’s education. In fact, she said a child might, in fact, receive a liberal education from the Bible alone, for the book contains within itself a great literature.

There are still some common questions and concerns that we often hear about Bible lessons and we’re going to be addressing those today. So Nicole, why don’t you start us off? 

Nicole
Yeah. So one of the big questions is can I combine my children for Bible lessons? And this is a question we often hear, and with some subjects there’s some flexibility in that. But in this one, I hope that you’ve seen with the big picture that it’s not really possible. It’s not advisable. Forms one and two are already combined, so that is a blessing to you and those students where you’re going to need to read aloud, you have everybody together. So that is good. But once the student moves to form three and beyond, the Bible lessons shift. They begin reading independently at that time and the readings increase in complexity and depth, both spiritually and intellectually. And at that point, it’s important that that student work at their own level.

Over the course of 12 years, the Bible curriculum offers a truly sweeping and comprehensive exposure to scripture, covering the overarching story of both the Old Testament and the New Testament and the exhortation to Christian living. All of the New Testament is read and all but three and maybe four ones touched on of the Old Testament are read.

That kind of depth and progression won’t be accomplished if you hold back your older students so that they can be working with you. And it’s not appropriate, developmentally if nothing else, for those younger students to be pulled ahead for you to go on and do that with the older kids so that you’re keeping everybody together. The beauty of this curriculum lies in its gradual unfolding designed for the student to grow in maturity and understanding as they go year by year through this course of study. 

So no, the Bible lessons aren’t a subject to combine any more than she has already done there with form one and two and three and four together. It’s really essential. 

Emily
And anywhere from three through six can be combined for Saviour of the World.

Nicole
Right. So we’ve got a little bit of that built in, but other than that, you need to stick to where your child is form-wise. 

Emily
We do have an episode on combining multiple students that might be of interest to people who are asking this question, number 224, and we’ll put a link in the show notes. 

Well, placement is another question. Like well I am bringing in a high schooler so shouldn’t we go back to form one and two? They don’t have that foundation. And I think we have a whole episode on the topic of bringing older students in that might also help, so that’s Episode 290. But this is a question of like, what level should they be at? How much is necessary? What is a prerequisite for coming in? And we’ve seen that unfolding. We’ve seen the robustness. 

But there was a note on Charlotte Mason’s programs that answers it for us. It asked members to remember that an average pupil should cover the whole program suitable for their age. So that means if you have a high schooler they should be covering the high school program right, forms five and six.  Other than math or grammar, which were always spelled out, the student is given the work of their age appropriate form. Yes, they might have missed some of that foundation, but they can still do the work. And I think using the commentaries, that is developmentally, as you were saying, the kind of questions that they’re going to be wrestling with and will prepare them. So it would maybe be insulting to them to keep them in just the “read and narrate”, even to go through the earlier books of the Old Testament. 

Nicole
That makes a lot of sense. Like even quantity-wise if they’re reading the amount that you know like a lower form student was and not reading that commentary…yeah I think you make a really good point there.

Emily
And they of course will have the same wonderful foundation in the gospels because they always have that going through. 

Liz
I was gonna say, yeah that’s kind of the root and they’re still getting that. 

Emily
And so but note in the program note it said “the average pupil,” so I think the exception would be severe learning challenges. We would make accommodations for that. But again, that is a per child decision and not just a sweeping, I have an older child, they’ve missed this and they have to go back. 

So of course, the caliber of work that we will expect from them will be different. If we’re bringing older students in and they haven’t had that groundwork, they haven’t been narrating for six, eight years, they’re going to give less robust narrations and that is okay, right? But they’re going to still be attempting the material that would be appropriate for their age. We need to make sure that they have an opportunity to do more oral narration than probably we would expect a student who’d been in Charlotte Mason for that whole time because they’re learning that skill of narration. So as always in Charlotte Mason, we’re looking at the child in front of us and then we just want to help him or her make steady progress from wherever they are at. 

But Bible, this isn’t a skill. Material isn’t a skill, right? It’s more their own mind and development that’s helping them, maturity, helping them tackle that material. 

Liz
Another common question I think we get is which version of the Bible should we read? And I will say that she did not use children’s picture Bibles or, you know, various retellings of the Bible for the Bible lessons. So all I would say is to read whatever is the version that you already currently use or are happy with. Just make sure that it’s not a paraphrase because there’s a lot of those out there too. We’d like it to be a good English translation. 

Emily
I did find a note when I was re-looking through the programs that for the New Testament epistles they were told to read them in the Revised Version, which is not the King James, they call that the Authorized Version. 

Liz
It was new in her day. 

Emily
It was very new in her day. I thought it was interesting. That’s the only other time I’ve seen an edition specified. The Costley-White commentaries they use in Forms 3 and 4 are the text of what we call the King James, what they call the Authorized Version. But so it was really interesting I think just because that was a good resource and that was the translation they used.

Liz
It was a new translation at the time. So many of the common ones that we have in use today, we have many good translations, but those weren’t available in her day. But we’ve seen over and over in every subject that she always used the best current book that was there that met the standards of what was needed for the subject. So yeah.

Another one I get a lot of times is moms that talk about children being confused by alternating from the Old Testament one day and the New Testament the next day. They say the kids request, you know, to not be going back and forth. Have you had that question before too? 

Emily
I’ve heard it, but I’ve never had it from my children. I mean, we’ve always done it. 

Liz
Yeah. Well, part of it for me that I think about is that they’re used to this in a Charlotte Mason education. They read multiple history books. They even sometimes have a couple of different geography books, and they’re used to every day being presented with different books. So that should not really be confusing, especially if you just say today we’re reading from Matthew. And if you do that moment or two, minute or two at the beginning of a lesson to review the last lesson, they should be able to pick up and carry that thread. 

Another thing I think that a lot of moms find really interesting, and I probably should have brought this up when we were talking about form one and two, is that younger children tend to narrate the Old Testament better than the New Testament, which is always surprising to adults because I think we have greater familiarity with the New Testament as a whole, as a rule.

But children find the stories in the Old Testament to be just fascinating and maybe because it’s more familiar or maybe just because there’s a lot more didactic information in the New Testament. They aren’t as naturally attracted to that. 

Emily
It’s more abstract than it is a narrative. Even the life of Jesus, there’s long passages in there of his teaching that does seem more abstract. 

Liz
It’s very difficult, which is another reason they only do those synoptic gospels because the gospel of John is far more abstract and a six-year-old has a rough time narrating “I am the vine and you are the branches.” 

Emily
I do want to say before we move on from the alternating that I think the strength of it is that they make connections… 

Liz
I was just gonna say that. 

Emily
I’m sorry to preempt you! 

Liz
No, go for it!

Emily
I just have seen it over and over with my kids. They say “that reminds me of…” and it’s whatever Bible Old Testament we’re reading when they read it in the New and then they see and make those connections between the whole story of scripture and I think that as an adult is one of the most amazing things about the Bible is how unified it is after being compiled and written over such a long period of time. 

Liz
Yes and I remember first graders also having amazing connections between the Old Testament and other subjects that they were studying, and it’s just exciting. You know, that they would see a connection between a greedy king in the Old Testament and one of the kings in ancient Greece or something like that.

And then I do find that a lot of moms are a little bit nervous about teaching the Bible because they know it is an authoritative book and it’s a very in-depth book. I just want to remind us all that it was given to people of every level of life and that is what is so amazing about the Bible is that it speaks to scholars and it speaks to the unlearned person equally.

But many mothers I think, are intimidated a little bit too because what if I don’t know the Bible very well myself? Moms have told me, you know, I’ve never read it through myself. I don’t know a lot about it. And I just want to encourage you because especially with your Form 1 and 2 students, lessons are really short and you’re just taking it one little bite at a time. And if a six-year-old can handle it, you can handle learning along with them. And that is actually one of the joyful things about this lesson. I think a lot of us feel that we are much more informed from having taught this lesson, do you not? 

Emily
Absolutely. 

Liz
And you know…were you going to say something? 

Nicole
I was going to say, especially with the use of the commentary that we have to work with, it’s really a help. 

Liz
That Paterson Smyth, yeah. 

Nicole
Yeah. 

Liz
And there is nothing wrong if your children ask. I think this is the other fear that goes alongside of that is my children are going to ask me things I don’t know and that’s okay. It is perfectly fine to say I don’t know.

But like Nicole said, the Paterson Smyth often answers some of those most basic questions. But I think it’s wonderful even in nature study or any other subject. If we don’t know, our children realize adults don’t know everything. I can keep learning even when I’m an adult. And we are leading the way, so to speak, and showing them how to do that. And I just would encourage you to use the Bible passage right in front of you that has just been read and has just been narrated and discussed to the best of your ability. It may answer some of their questions, just point them back to it. This is why we’re teaching our children, because knowledge is delectable, right? 

And I think that we all just need to realize this is one book that contains many books, but they are all tied together in some way. And that over 12 full years of school, how many days is that? I didn’t do the math, but it’s just a slow cumulative building of understanding of this one amazing book that is actually there to be studied for a lifetime. 

Emily
We also want to consider how to assess our students. I think this is a common question that we have. How do we know they’re doing okay in this subject? And maybe this one particularly? So I would just encourage you to go back to the lesson objectives for each form level that we laid out in these last three episodes and ask yourself at the end of the term or the end of the year, has my child grown in his knowledge of the Bible? Has he gained new thoughts of God? Has my child grown in his or her ability to narrate the Bible? And I think that is the baseline for assessing their progress. 

It also can help to look back at their exam questions from term to term or year to year. Remember, they don’t need to include everything that we felt was important from the Bible text or specific lesson. But do the answers show that they have built relationships with the ideas and stories in their Bible lessons? And I think that will give you a good idea if they’ve made progress or not. 

Liz
Just yesterday, a mom told me that at the beginning of the school year her six-year-old could hardly say anything at all about every Bible lesson and after two or three weeks of this she began to be quite nervous about it. But she said I just kept encouraging him to listen and say what he could and we had little conversations in the last you know five to ten minutes of the lesson. She said yesterday was his exam and she said “I could not even write down all the things he could remember” and she said he still knew whole sections almost verbatim.

Emily
Well, do you have any closing thoughts to share with us? 

Liz
I think that story kind of sums up a lot, doesn’t it?

And I think with all of our subjects, we have no idea the true value of what is happening here. We are serving the feast, presenting the subjects, and the students deal with it in whatever way they need. And who knows at what point in their life they will reach back and draw from these lessons in the future.

Emily

Thank you for joining the conversation today. Please check the show notes for links to the resources that we mentioned in this episode and to explore these discussions further. You might enjoy listening to our previous episode, Bible 2.0 is our last name because we’ve already redone it one time. 

But next time we will be turning our attention to the pivotal subject of history. And we think you’ll find Charlotte Mason’s method to be a brilliant design. We’d love it if you would read along with us. And so we have a reading schedule for Chapter 10 of Volume 6 linked in the show notes. We hope you’ll tune in as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method.

In today’s podcast we are taking a close look at Charlotte Mason Bible lessons for high school students. Which portions of the scripture did Miss Mason reserve for our oldest students? How are they equipped to continue reading the Bible on their own after the full feast of Bible lessons from their whole education? And where do they go from here? Listen as we discuss!

Listen Now:

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

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

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

The One Volume Bible Commentary JR Dummelow*

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

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

ADE Bible rotation

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
As we continue exploring a Charlotte Mason curriculum, we have made it to Forms 5 and 6, which is Grades 10 through 12, and their Bible lessons. So, Nicole, will you remind us what portions of the Bible these students study in their last years of high school? 

Nicole
Yeah, things change a little bit now. Their Bible lessons expand again. By this point, students have moved through nearly the entire Bible narrative, and now they’re ready to engage with more challenging books and kind of finish off some of the things that they haven’t got to yet. 

So in these upper years, students no longer follow a chronological storyline. Instead, the focus shifts to the prophetic and the poetic books. So they’ll read Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, along with the minor prophets like Hosea, Amos, and Zechariah. And they complete the entire book of Psalms over the course of three years. So there’s some mashing up going on here. And the final term adds in the book of Job, even. 

And then just note there that I feel like this demands more of the child. Again, we’re looking at a child who has had all this foundation and is ready to deal with some of these deeper books. In the New Testament, the student reads from the epistles and the revelations. Paul’s letters to the early church, the pastoral letters and the general epistles from Peter, James, John, and Jude, and then Revelation, and that completes the entire New Testament. They will have read all of it at that point. These texts help students explore not only the doctrine, but the theology and the Christian living. I really think it pulls in all of that, how faith is worked out in community and suffering in the face of cultural pressures. So really a greater maturity is required to read these books. 

Alongside their New Testament readings, students continue the Saviour of the World, which we’ve talked about in previous episodes. These again are Charlotte Mason’s retelling in verse of individual episodes in the synoptic gospels that are read alongside a harmonized account of the Gospels. And one thing I didn’t note in the last episode is that all the students who would be in any level to be reading this Saviour of the World would all be in the same place. So as they rotate through, as new children come up into this, they’re going to be at the same place as their older brothers and sisters, or the older kids in the class. So…

Emily
Yeah, it is robust, isn’t it? 

Nicole
It is. It’s beautiful when you think about what they will have accomplished and just really the deliberateness of it. You know, how many people do we know that have never finished reading the Bible? And with this scope and sequence, there are just four books that aren’t included. One is 1&2 Chronicles, but that really dovetails with 1&2 Kings. So they have covered that and…I think I did write it down somewhere. 

Emily
Did they leave out Daniel? 

Nicole
No, Daniel’s read. I think Leviticus. And Song of Solomon.

Emily
Leviticus is covered slightly in the tiny bit, but it is in there a little bit. Okay. 

Well, not a lot changes as far as the frequency of their lessons. They still do four Bible lessons a week at this level, but they do get longer. So they’re 30 minutes instead of 15 or 20 as the younger kids. So they have a bit more time to deal with these meaty books. Again, it’s the same format for Old Testament to New Testament, and we alternate Old Testament, New Testament, Old Testament, New Testament throughout the week. And they still have Bible as the first lesson of the day, just like all the other forms. So that format is going to stick with them after 12 years. Like “this is the first lesson that we do”.

And then again, just as in form three and four where they had a lot more other theological books assigned, church history or whatever they may be, those were viewed or intended to be read as Sunday reading. Because you’ll notice there’s no Sunday reading portion on their programs. It’s just all that extra stuff. 

Which, Sunday reading, I don’t think I even said last time, but that was just special reading that was set aside for Sundays to, you know, when everyone kept the Sabbath or whatever you would have specific occupations to do on that day of the week that you didn’t do other days. 

Okay, so looking at the individual lessons, just as in forms three and four, these can mostly be independently done by the students themselves. Students will use the same methods as the lower forms, the reverent, expressive reading, even if it’s to themselves. They’re going to recall the last lesson at the very beginning to form the links in the chains, you know, bring forward what they’ve done before. And then they’re going to narrate in the words of scripture. 

But the addition is that they use a one volume Bible commentary, which I think it’s still in print. There’s hundreds of copies available used. It’s just been in print for a really long time. And I’ll show you that in a minute. But before beginning a book of the Bible, they would read the introduction from the commentary. So if they were going to study Isaiah, they would read the introductory essay article in the commentary on Isaiah before they began reading Isaiah. And then after reading the passage for the day, they would narrate and then they would read the corresponding notes for those verses or those chapters, whatever they read from scripture, they’re going to read the commentary after they’ve read and narrated from scripture. And that is similar to in forms three and four as well. 

So this is for the Old Testament, the New Testament, and then basically it is for Saviour of the World, except instead of a commentary, that’s where they would read the poem. So they’re going to start the day by recalling the last lesson. They’re going to read from the gospel history, that harmonized account of all of the gospels, the passage that will be covered in the poem or poem set to be read that day, and they would narrate the Bible from the gospel history. And then they would read the poem. And then you would probably have subsequent narration and discussion as well.

In addition to the introductory articles, there are some in the beginning of the commentary, there’s some just general Bible context articles and those were assigned as well in turn over those three years. So they would read a significant portion of this Bible commentary. 

So the lesson objectives for forms five and six, Charlotte Mason said, “thus they leave school with a fairly enlightened knowledge of the books of the Bible”. And I think we’ve seen that with this scope and sequence from not just forms five and six, but all along. And she said it was aided by biblical scholarship, having the commentary again, like we talked in form three and four to introduce those ideas or to have the commentary to work through some of those troubling or seemingly contradictory parts of the Bible. And Charlotte Mason believed that would give him such a confidence in the authority of scripture. 

She also said that “they would have an increased reverence for and delight in the ways of God with men”. So they will have read much of what we have recorded for the ways God has personally interacted with humankind. 

And then thirdly, “that the person of our Lord as revealed in his words and works becomes real and dear to them.” So they know God and they know specifically their savior. 

And lastly, she says, and all of this is just one extended quote. I just thought I’d pull out like four separate objectives here. But lastly, she says, “loyalty to a divine master is likely to become the guiding principle of their lives”. So that’s our aim in all of these Bible lessons. 

As far as teacher prep goes for lessons, again, just as I said before, even though our students are becoming more independent and they’re really wrestling with these texts themselves in their lesson time, I think Charlotte Mason would tell us we need to have an understanding sympathy with our students. And we can do that by preparing to discuss with them, especially at this age and as they deal with some of these…yeah, there’s a lot of sorrow and hard things in the books that they’re going to be encountering. I’m thinking of the prophets, but I’m also thinking of Paul and his letters and what people in these early churches we’re going through that is going to be things that they’re probably going to come up against. And so this is a rich environment to have conversations with our children before they leave our home, you know, about these very real things. 

But again, Charlotte Mason advised us to avoid preaching at our children. She said that there was a danger in provoking them to form a counter opinion, and if we were to do that, if we were to come down too heavy handed about this is what this means or no, that’s wrong and I think this, or even just to apply it to their lives ourselves bluntly, that we are actually putting them in a greater danger to doing opposite of what we would like to see them do with their life. Instead, Charlotte Mason encouraged us to let scripture point the moral out to them directly. So we’re again, not the showman of the universe here, just like in other subjects.  We are letting the text, the biblical authors and God himself, interact and speak directly to them through the books that they read. 

As far as resources, again, I love using scripture journals and this is the one for Psalms and I just brought it you can see. They still make scripture journals with just one book in it when it’s a huge thing. Some of the epistles are teeny tiny and they put three or four of them all together. So those are still an option.  And what a nice library that they will have, especially if they do take notes, like to have lots of space as they rustle through these texts. 

And then this is the Bible commentary that Charlotte Mason assigned. It’s by J.R. Dummelow. He’s the editor. It’s a one volume Bible commentary. If you’ve been reading along with us in Chapter 10, you read an extended quote that the author or the editor himself writes about it. And Charlotte Mason says we can’t add on to it, and just how parents are maybe skeptical about using a resource that’s not from their specific denomination or tradition. Just know this is one commentary on the entire Bible. It does not have time to get into partisan denominational quibbles. This is very general and I think that is the benefit to using one. And again, you used this a lot. 

Liz
It’s very succinct. It’s just the main ideas in each book of the Bible. It doesn’t have time to go into a lot of side trails. 

Emily
Yes. Charlotte Mason said it was a very practical value, in that it just covers the principal difficulties of the passage that the child is going to encounter and hopefully will have questions about. But it doesn’t take one or other of the extremes that she says, no, this is where she’s quoting what Dummelow says, that his aim, which was “to find the spiritual value and authority of the Bible have been enhanced rather than diminished” in the discussions. 

Okay, so that’s that. And then just like in Form 3, Saviour of the World, again, this is the edition from River Bend Press, but there are some paperback editions. It’s also available online if you prefer to read online. So there are six finished volumes, and so they read one a year for all six of the years that they’re in Forms 3 to 6. And just like you said, whoever is reading Saviour of the World is reading the same volume together. And then the Gospel History of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by C.C. James is the harmonization that Charlotte Mason used as the inspiration for the poems in Saviour of the World. 

And then we have created a few resources. The first is the Bible rotation. So we have everything that they cover by term for forms five and six, and then also the sections of Saviour of the World that they would cover in a term. So that is a free resource that we will link in the show notes. And then I will just mention briefly our schedule cards. We have these for all of the forms so you know how long and how frequently, many times a week to do each lesson. 

Liz
And if you have children that are of different ages, sometimes moms are concerned how they can do all these separate Bible lessons. So again, just to remind you that these students of this age are independently reading all of this and it’s wonderful if you can keep up with them and be reading that yourself in case they do want to discuss something and the Savior of the World lesson could be done with Children in the last six years of school so they would still at least have that one New Testament day together. And just as I said with forms three and four, when you have younger children sometimes because the older students have a longer day, at this point in high school they have four hours of lessons, so perhaps they would start before the younger children begin their day so you might have two sessions of bible but some of you have many sessions of math lessons every day too. Right?

I find so many questions, various concerns come up about the Bible lessons. But I think we’re going to get to that next week. And I think as far as the upper grades, you guys have pretty much answered everything right?

Emily
Can you think of anything else somebody would want to know? Why don’t they read the Song of Songs? 

Nicole
Hahahaha.  

Yeah, I don’t know. I think it’s…probably just pretty, I mean, I just find it very exciting to watch your older kids grapple with the Bible in such a robust way when we know that it can be hard even for adults to do that and the habits that we’re setting with them through this are just hopefully going to serve them for a lifetime. They will know how to work with the Bible, how to use a commentary, how to use articles.

Liz
It occurs to me too that they find, you know, there’s whole sections of the Bible that are neglected in being read by most adults. And when they have had to read them for school, they’re not going to be as intimidated about entering back into Hosea or Micah or other prophets. 

Emily
Maybe they’ll even be curious about it. 

Liz
It’s just like every other subject we’re planting seeds for their future knowledge quests that they go on. There was something you said earlier too about them having a confidence and I find this across the board with my home school graduates who’ve done Charlotte Mason, just a general confidence. But if you are faced with questions about the Bible and the validity of it and that you have truly read all of it, you’re not thinking, did I omit? Did I not read that part? Is that in there somewhere? And I don’t know what’s in there. But no, they know what’s in there. And they’ve taken it slowly over these years. They do know what’s in the Bible. 

Emily
That is such a good point. Yes, I think I have heard many people who talk about college students going off and losing their faith because somebody challenges something that they were taught, opposite of what they were taught and says, but this is what the Bible says, or it’s in there. I just saw one in a TV show the other day, just all these things. And I’m like, you’re just missing the whole point, right? And having that bigger picture in context. Yeah, it does lend such a confidence. 

Liz
Yeah. And Charlotte Mason said they are going to have more doubts and questions if they have not read it than if they have.

Emily
So we hope that you can see how robust and thorough their Bible education really is.

Thank you for joining the conversation today. You can find links to all of the resources that we’ve mentioned today in the show notes, including a demonstration lesson that the three of us did with a Saviour of the World scholar. And you can hear how a whole lesson plays out with the commentary as well in that episode. 

So we invite you to read along with us this whole season. The reading schedule link is also in the show notes. So next time we will conclude our series on Bible lessons as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method.

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.