Just a quick thought ...

I was thinking about the pros and cons of a Book of Centuries vs a timeline.

A Book of Centuries is more portable, and easier to just flip through a make a quick note of something interesting, or a little sketch. It's also very easy for each child to have his/her own book, since they are easily stored. The downside is that it can be hard for children to visualize all of history and the flow of events, when stopping to turn pages, and each page seeming like a separate piece.

A timeline is very visual and allows a child to see at one glance the entire sweep of history. It's not very portable though, and to be convenient to see and out of the way of little hands pulling it down, it needs to be UP ... like near the ceiling. This makes it difficult to add a quick note or sketch. Also, something so big would probably be shared among all the children in the family, which while fun might not give them as much a sense of ownership of history.

A solution hit me like a ton of bricks.

An accordian-fold timeline, with holes punched to fit inside a binder. Inside the binder the pages would turn for quick note-taking and personal perusal. Remove it, unfold, and hang on the wall for a shared history lesson display.

Toddler/Preschool Curriculum Chart

Language Arts	Letter play Word building Read a book
Nature Study	Free play outside Identify plants/animals/objects
Math	Counting Shapes & patterns Puzzles
Art	Drawing/coloring/painting Crafts Colors
Music	Singing (folk or children’s songs) Dancing (freestyle!) Listen to the radio/downloaded music or CDs
Foreign Language	Signing Time (1 video per day)
Montessori Activities	Plan 1 activity per day
Narration	Draw attention to connections & details
Habit Training	Help around the house - Mixing, kneading, washing veggies - Picking up and putting away - Sorting laundry - Vacuuming, dusting, wiping - Stacking dishes, setting the table - Weeding the garden Personal care - Brushing teeth & hair - Learning to dress self - Toilet training

We do each "subject" at least once per day. Something like Art or Nature Study will probably happen at least twice a day, but I aim for at least once!

I wanted to put up something easier to understand than my previous curriculum list. If you're looking for a little more detail though, the full list of our toddler/preschool curriculum has it.

Narration is one “subject” that I include only to remind myself that it’s important to me! It fits into the curriculum as a learning tool within other subjects, just as it will later when she’s narrating for me. I draw her attention to connections or details that I see while reading, playing outside, counting, drawing, singing, watching Signing Time, or anything else. For example, if my two-year-old asks me to draw a flower, I might say (after we’re done drawing), “We read a book about flowers this morning! Do you remember your book about flowers? Do you want to read it again?” Then she might say “Yeah! That flower book! Look on the shelf Mama.” We’ll get the book and read a few pages again, admiring the similarities and differences between the flowers we drew and the flowers in the book. Or we might be hunting bugs in the garden, when we find a spider spinning a web. After we’re done studying it and describing it, we might sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider for her baby sister’s entertainment. A book like The Runaway Bunny lends itself to pointing out details. Where is the little bunny hiding on each page? What is the mother bunny doing to find him? I don’t stop reading to point these things out, I just quickly note some little detail on each page and go on if she’s not interested. Sometimes she is and we examine the page in excruciating detail, describing the illustrations to each other (which is awfully like art study too!).

I’ve tried the same thing with my six-year-old nephew to see how an older child might react, and he will have some input for me, and relate the subject at hand to even more things. Sometimes we have a whole discussion that evolves through trains in movies, how trains helped build America, other forms of transportation that are faster or slower than trains, etc, and ends with looking things up online together or finding a book on my shelf.

For Habit Training, I give some specific activities because I’ve read some lists of habits Charlotte thought we should cultivate and asked myself “How do I teach a toddler neatness? What about gentleness?” I think the simplest way is to encourage them to help with these daily chores, show them the proper way to do it, and let them practice (demonstrating and reinforcing the proper way every time). This will hopefully teach how to do the necessary chores, and they can generalize the specific habits as well.

I've gotten a wealth of information from Simply Charlotte Mason's The Early Years Series of blog posts.

Native Reading and Charlotte Mason

I believe Charlotte Mason would have approved of children being native readers, and that she would have approved of Timothy Kailing’s Native Reading method. I think parents who ask “What should I do with my preschooler?”, referring to the apparent lack of structure in the CM method for young children, should at least be aware of the idea of native reading.

Charlotte Mason believed children (especially young children) should be outside as much as possible, and not forced to sit through long lessons. But in her own description of a child learning to read, she points out that he already has a lot of the building blocks of reading, before that magic sixth birthday that makes him “CM school age” (as I have heard it referred to on the internet!). How did he know without being taught?

He was read to and he played with letters that were present in his natural environment. The knowledge and familiarity he has make it much easier for him to learn to read when the time comes. The native reading method takes this a bit further.

When you read, you remember text pointing, running your finger under the words as you pronounce them. This draws the child’s attention to the fact that the written words correspond to the spoken words. I think Charlotte Mason would approve of this because there is no forcing or lesson involved. You are demonstrating the correlation to them, in the same way as her reading lesson. Even though the child is probably younger than six, you are simply letting this correlation exist in their environment and not trying to “make” them read. He will start paying attention and make the connection himself when he is ready. Is this so different from simply reading aloud? The only difference is that you make it easier for him to make this connection. Something like a Book of Centuries also makes it easier for children to grasp the concept being “taught”. A major caveat here is that the native reading method of text pointing is very fluid and unobtrusive, and takes some practice. Making it super-obvious and heavily pointing out each word as you read will not work, and Charlotte wouldn’t approve of it either. I think she would call that too much teaching, too early, and taking the enjoyment out of books!

The letter play and word building parts of a native reading environment take the alphabet knowledge of Charlotte’s example child a bit further. Her example child knew the letters on sight, because he had played with letter forms. I assume that if he knows their names and sounds, someone was playing with him and naming them. When you create a native reading environment, you are also playing with your child as they explore the letters you provide. I described several letter and word-building games in my post on Native Reading. The part that takes it further than Charlotte Mason’s example is word building. She does this with an older child as an explicit part of the reading lesson. With native reading, you do this with younger children as a game. I don’t think Charlotte would have objected to that since it is supposed to be a game, and you’re not supposed to force a child to play it (awfully similar to stopping a lesson if a child loses focus!).

Lastly, I think Charlotte Mason would have approved, on principle, of children being native readers. Native readers are not explicitly taught, so the idea doesn’t conflict with her position against forcing small children to do lessons too soon. Native readers intuitively grasp what they are reading, without having to “translate” as they read, which I believe she would have appreciated since so much of her curriculum was based on reading. If your living book is enhanced by natively understanding the written word as easily as you do the spoken word, your mind could be busier making connections and absorbing the literature. I think Charlotte would have found it wonderful that a child could be a “native reader”.

Charlotte Mason Toddler & Preschool Curriculum

I designed a curriculum for my toddler daughter mainly because – let’s face it – if I don’t write it down and make it look “official”, it’s probably not going to get done!

I know most homeschoolers advise “winging it” for preschool and even kindergarten, but it’s very easy for me to get distracted by something else (cooking, cleaning, shopping lists, TV, computer, pets, etc) and most days if I don’t have a plan, we just lounge around. Letting things just happen can be good! We’ve learned a lot of great stuff together that way. I feel guilty though when I realize we haven’t read any books today, I cooked lunch without letting her measure and pour things, or I’ve been so busy cleaning we haven’t colored in a week.

I try to cover Language Arts, Nature Study, Math, Art, Music, and Foreign Language. We also do some enrichment Activities, and practice Narration. I aim to touch on each area at least once per day.

So this is my schedule. I know we won’t get it all done on some days, but I put it out here on the internet to hold myself accountable. These are things I should be doing anyway. I’m calling it a curriculum to get myself off my behind!

Here it is in an easier-to-read chart.

Language Arts

Language Arts at our house includes reading, writing, and literature. For reading, I make an effort to play a native reading game every day, something with word building or letter play. Writing hasn’t really come into play yet, but when it does it will include tracing and copywork. Our literature study is reading at least one book per day.

Nature Study

For a toddler, this includes free outside play, and close examination (which toddlers naturally do!) of anything interesting we find outside. I try to make it at least an hour every day.

Math

Learning to count to ten, shapes, and patterns. Counting is fun! Count when you play hide-and-seek, count bugs on a leaf, or draw hopscotch squares with sidewalk chalk. Patterns are interesting when you alternate pasta shapes while stringing a necklace, point out patterns on the rug, or arrange the flatware a certain way when you load the dishwasher. Doing puzzles together (big chunky wooden ones) can reinforce all these concepts. We have number puzzles, shape puzzles, and pattern puzzles. We also read books that reinforce numbers and shapes.

Art

Art is pure fun. We draw, color, paint, and learn the colors. My daughter learned the colors just from hearing me name them as we drew together. When she gets older this will translate into more traditional Art Study. At kindergarten age we’ll start looking at paintings together and pointing out some of the same things we like to draw and notice in our own artwork.

Music

Music is pure fun at this stage too. We listen to the radio (XM and Sirius satellite radio have some great classical, opera, and other stations for this), name the instruments we can hear, and dance along. We have fun playing her drums, piano, xylophone, and recorder.

Foreign Language

Charlotte Mason started with French, since many of her students would at some point travel to France. I have very little use for French (unless it would be Cajun French, which would be useless anywhere else). We are learning ASL, mostly using Signing Time videos.

Activities

I try to set up one Montessori-style activity to do each day. Most of my ideas come from blogs, like Chasing Cheerios.

Narration

I do include narration! Even though she’s very young, I want her to see the connections between things and the richness of books, music, art, and nature. I’m preparing her for narration by drawing her attention to connections and details. So, for now, it’s more like I’m the one narrating our discoveries. I do leave space for her to talk, and she sometimes points out details I leave out, or remembers a similar or connected prior discovery.

Habit Training

Mostly at this point, habit training is getting her to help me out! She helps me cook and clean, pick up and put away, and we're working on behavior as issues come up. I do have to remember to let her stir when I'm cooking, wipe when I'm cleaning, and race the clock to get all the toys back in the toy box. I hope including it in our "curriculum" will help my brain recognize it as "important"!

I hope that by putting this online, I can be encouraged to make more of an effort in structuring our day, and maybe even help someone else who wants to follow a Charlotte Mason approach with their toddlers/preschoolers, but is disorganized and forgetful like me! We just need a little nudge to see the opportunities we have. "Winging it" doesn't mean letting the kids sit in front of the TV all day. You do have to do things with them, and these (I think) are the natural things we should be doing.

Our Toddler/Preschool Booklist

If you have a baby or a very young toddler (18 months or younger) and are just starting to build your library, I would recommend starting with sturdy board book printings of the starred books on this list. Even babies can enjoy the rhythmic language and illustrations. Older toddlers and young preschool-age children (2 and 3 years old) can enjoy the others. If your toddler is a bit older but hasn’t read the starred books, by all means get them anyway. If yours is a bit younger but you’re looking to move beyond the starred books, I’d buy used (cheap and easily replaceable if torn) regular versions from thrift stores or online. Most are appropriate for younger kids, it’s just hard to find affordable board versions of them. If you see one, go for it!

All of these are on our little just-for-the-kids bookshelf, available to be read at any time.

Meet Peter Rabbit (and others illustrated by Beatrix Potter) *

Goodnight Moon *

The Runaway Bunny *

My World *

Mother Goose (any thick volume of nicely illustrated nursery rhymes will do)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar *

The Little Red Hen

The Gingerbread Man

The Three Little Pigs

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

The Emperor's New Clothes

The Ugly Duckling

Where the Wild Things Are

Little Bear books

Doctor De Soto

Caps for Sale

Scuffy the Tugboat

Madeline

The Little Engine That Could

Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? *

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom *

The Emperor and the Kite

The Gruffalo

Guess How Much I Love You *

Harold and the Purple Crayon

Little Toot

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod *

Also two Usborne books, Touchy-Feely ABC and Touchy-Feely 123. *