Charlotte Mason DIY Planning: A Favorite History Resource

Welcome to A Mother’s Thinking Love: Living Ideas, Lovingly Shared! When I first started planning our own Charlotte Mason style curriculum, I searched for resources that would help give me broad overviews of subject areas. In today’s post, I’m going to share one of my most used resources for planning our broad feast of history. Join me for: Charlotte Mason DIY Planning: A Favorite History Resource!

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DIY Charlotte Mason History in Middle and High School

We have used a variety of Charlotte Mason inspired or based curriculums over our eight years of homeschooling. Our favorite of those years was absolutely Year 6 of Ambleside Online. No matter which curriculum we used, however, we found that we always needed to make significant adjustments. While I’m sure this is true for most homeschooling families, it left this always lingering feeling of stress when we couldn’t fit everything in. I know plenty of families who can adjust curriculums and move on with no issue, but we have found it better for us to take the DIY route and plan for ourselves. It has required more work from me, but I have found that extra work to be so worth it on every level. History was my favorite subject in school, and it is still my favorite subject to study today. However, I still wanted a solid resource to help me see the big picture of our history studies throughout the years.

DIY Charlotte Mason History Elements

As I read Charlotte Mason’s philosophy over the years, I realized that there was more to history education than the reading of facts from a textbook. I began to see the need to provide a feast for our history studies. This feast would include things like: living history books, spine books, art history, composer study, poetry, literature, historical fiction, biography, and more. I knew I needed help! I searched high and low for a resource that could help me organize my thoughts and plans.

“All through the Ages: History through Literature Guide” by Christine Miller

Finally, my search paid off! “All through the Ages: History through Literature Guide” by Christine Miller was exactly what I had been searching for. The book is organize into the following main sections:

• Chronological History
• Geographical History
• History of Science & Mathematics
• History of the Arts
• Great Books of Western Civilization & the Christian Tradition

From the “How to Use this Book” section:

All Through the Ages is a glorified list of books, commonly available from public libraries and homeschool catalogs, which are useful for learning history using literature – real books – rather than textbooks. The heart of All Through the Ages is the compilation of suggested books from the following sources. The original source is indicated after each book entry by a letter.”

The books in each section are grouped by age range as well. I appreciate that the suggested books come from a variety of sources. There are more books listed than a student could possibly read, but I also appreciate the options. However, I think one of my favorite parts of this book is the Timelines of major events given in each time period.

How I Use This Resource to Plan

Since this Guide contains so many books, you may be wondering how we make use of it. First, I go to the time period we are studying. Next, I look at the spine books suggested for the time period. Then, I choose a couple of books from each of the following categories: Specific Events, Biography, Historical Fiction, and Literature. After that, I look at the recommended books in these sections: History of Science & Mathematics and History of the Arts. Now that we are in the middle school, and, almost, high school years, I have begun looking at this section, too: Great Books of Western Civilization & the Christian Tradition. Finally, I use the “Geographical History” section to find books for the main area of geography we are studying that term. I base our choices on a few factors, like:

• Which specific events have we not studied?
• Which specific historical figures have we not studied?
• Church History
• Our interests
• History from multiple perspectives

This Guide is not the only resource I used to plan our Charlotte Mason history studies. It is, however, the first resource I go to in order to help me wrap my mind around the time period. I try to find a preview of each book before I purchase. In addition to the preview, I also try to read some reviews. Sometimes, the Guide gives me an idea of an event, for example, to study, but I don’t like any of the book options listed. I will then look for book ideas elsewhere.

This is not the only way to use this Guide, but it’s the way that works for us! Do you plan your own homeschool history studies? If so, do you use any resources to help? Share your ideas in the comments!