This page contains affiliate links which means at no additional cost to you when you click through a link and make a purchase, I might make a small commission. Thank you for supporting Our Cooper Nest!
I thought I’d walk through our Charlotte Mason Inspired Preschool Plans in this blog article. Preschool is sort of challenging to share about because what we do during the early years in our home vs. what a more traditional preschool approach does are very different. Not to say it is wrong, but this is what is best for my family.
A Quiet Growing Time
In the early years, I believe it is more about allowing the child their quiet growing time which includes independent playing, being read to, and spending time outdoors. It’s also my priority to establish good rhythms to guide and structure our day to day. Family rhythms are great for children because they can anticipate what comes next, and learn and experience the benefits of an ordered life.
I don’t really believe children are “ready” for preschool because they are a certain age. Instead, I’ve looked for readiness signs in my children, which was different for each of them. For my oldest, she was eager and ready when she was 3, but with my son, he will be 4 in November and he’s just starting to show signs. He knows his numbers, can count past 10 and such, but those things were learned just by-the-way. I think it’s been a great benefit to him learning and hitting milestones at his own pace.
What I love about a Charlotte Mason education is that it frees me from the idea that we have to be doing worksheets, learning math facts, or even have our child in a desk in order to call it preschool. Miss Mason’s principles give me the confidence to look at my child as a person, uniquely created, so for me as both a mother and educator, I know when we are ready to build upon our living education piece by piece, adding in more elements to our time learning.
I have 3 main bases that I’m focusing on during the preschool years: Foundations, Riches, and Academics.
Foundations:
In our Charlotte Mason inspired education, the foundations include reading the Bible, habit training, and outdoor time. These foundations are already part of our daily rhythms as a family.
We will continue enjoying Bible stories using the Jesus StoryBook Bible, and the Tales That Tell The Truth series. While I believe reading the Bible is the highest priority in the early years (and any age for that matter), I know there are many wonderful living books that bring the Bible stories to life in a way that my 4 year old will connect with.
During morning time, we’ll also continue using the New City Catechism, as well as memorizing short Bible passages. I’ll use the scriptures from my ABC Scripture Copywork to memorize, and when he’s ready, we will do the gentle copywork that’s included. I used the ABC Scripture Copywork with my oldest when she was 4.5/5 years old and she really enjoyed it and we still recite those scripture passages together.
one // two // three // four // five
For habit training, our focus is on continuing to grow a habit of attention through read alouds and nature exploration. We’ll also work on table manners, practicing good hygiene, and accomplishing age-appropriate chores. I really like this free printable of Charlotte Mason Habits that gives a great list of other important habits to build!
Outdoor time will be as simple as heading to the backyard or to our local parks. It may also include our weekend camping trips where the weather will be much more tolerable than our AZ desert heat.
As I continue to do nature study with my oldest, my 4 year old enjoys tagging along, learning about whatever it is we are discovering. A durable pair of kid binoculars, and nature picture books are our favorite nature study tools for this age, as they learn to seek and observe creation around them.
one // two // three // four // five // six // seven // eight // nine
I’ll also be picking a handful of nature study activities from Lily And Thistle’s Invitations To Nature E-book that’s included in her Nature’s Art Club. I actually snagged this E-book in the Quiet Growing Time Homeschool Bundle back in April 2022.
I’ll share future Charlotte Mason bundles on my Instagram so be sure to grab CM homeschool bundles when you see them! They are always full of amazing resources for a variety of ages!
Riches:
The riches are subjects like artist study, composer study, poetry, fairy tales/literature, and hymns. These subjects are already part of our morning collective with my oldest, so my son will continue to join in.
There isn’t any requirement for him to memorize or actually study any of these subjects. We’ll simply sing our hymns, look at artwork, listen to the composer in the background of playtime, and enjoy poetry with snacks. This year I’ll be reading Little Pilgrim’s Progress, Some of The Winnie The Pooh Tales, and Frog And Toad.
My goal is to build familiarity with a wide feast of living ideas from the beginning for when it’s time to actually start formal lessons. Our Riches resources are from Ambleside Online’s Schedules as that is our spine curriculum for the 2022-2023 year.
Academics:
Our academic goals for the year will be me continuing to understand where my son is at in terms of readiness and interest through play.
We will continue learning letter sounds, letter identification (upper and lower case), number identification, counting, read alouds, and pen control/beginning writing through games, songs, and short “lessons”/activities.
I’ve been working on a master list of preschool activities we’ll use to pick and choose from, and I want to share it here as a free download! The master list includes activities by subject for math, reading, and writing.
These activities were found on Pinterest, and I’ve compiled them (and more) into a Pinterest board!
one // two // three // four // five // six // seven // eight // nine // ten
Our Schedule
I will be sharing more of our daily homeschool rhythms on Instagram when we start school back up in July 2022. For my preschooler, I am only planning to sit with him for short structured play-based activities 2-3x a week (so 2-3 math activities and 2-3 reading/writing activities each week), and only up to 5-10 minutes at a time.
I hope this blog article was encouraging and helps someone in deciding how to go about preschool using Charlotte Mason methods.
We are looking forward to this homeschool year! If I can answer any questions for you, please feel free to reach out here or on Instagram!
