If your elementary education looked something like mine, it was probably filled with workbooks,

textbooks, and worksheets. Lots of worksheets. We had worksheets for math, for handwriting, for science,

for social studies, for spelling, you name the subject, there were most likely activity sheets. I still don't

know why they're called activity sheets when the only activity you're doing is bending

your fingers to move the pencil. But today we want to walk through how a Charlotte Mason

approach to the elementary grades looks quite different.

And I think you'll see that children who follow this approach gain a lot more education than we did with our worksheets.

Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast.

I'm Sonia Schaefer.

We're going to focus on grades 1 through 4 in this episode.

What does the Charlotte Mason education look like in those elementary years? Well, this is when formal lessons begin at age six.

As we discussed last time, when we looked at a Charlotte Mason preschool,

from ages 3 to 5 you've been engaging with your child in good conversations,

you've been working on good habits, and you've been surrounding your child in good conversations, you've been working on good habits, and you've been

surrounding your child with good ideas through books and art and music and time outside

in nature. You've been offering informal experiences with math concepts and reading and writing as your child is ready for it.

I'll leave a link to that preschool episode in the show notes for you. Now it's time for

the next level of challenge. Formal lessons. But as you'll see all the way through this series, while the standards are high, and we expect

a lot from the student, all of the challenges he will face through the grades are presented

incrementally in small steps. This does two important things. It sets the student up for success. Rather than throwing

him in the deep end and seeing if he will sink or swim, we offer a gradual incline into that deeper

water and make sure he feels confident at this depth before moving a little deeper. Yes, it's challenging,

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