Charlotte Mason Weekly Schedule

When someone decides to use the Charlotte Mason method for homeschooling, it usually includes an understanding of how to set a working schedule. Some families make their own booklists and schedule them out throughout the year; other families buy or use a set curriculum, which may or may not require them to make their own weekly schedules. Because of that, scheduling is a very dynamic part of the CM homeschooling experience. 

When we think about a Charlotte Mason education, we tend to think of all the literature books that the students read, and feel like they’ll be stuck indoors all day reading. It’s a gentle, yes, but rigorous education, structured according to important principles of learning and how children are created to be. This includes a wide curriculum, too, which means that not only are they reading lots of living books, they also have music, art, nature study, and plenty more. 

So how in the world can they get all that done in a week—much less a day? 

The interesting thing is that, in the CM philosophy, school lessons are expected to be done by lunch time! Now, if that doesn’t make us moms feel all the more pressured, I don’t know what will! 

Take a look at what Miss Mason says in Vol 6, page 9: 

All intellectual work is done in the hours of morning school, and the afternoons are given to field nature studies, drawing, handicrafts, etc.

Sure, it sounds nice and idyllic, but is it actually possible? Let’s take a look at some of the principles that can help us achieve this. 

Principles Behind Scheduling Your CM Homeschool

Here are some principles to remember when setting your weekly schedule for your CM homeschool:

1. A CM homeschool secures habit of attention from an early age. 

The habit of attention is one of the most crucial foundations in all the work that students do in a CM homeschool. This means that, when Mama is reading aloud, or when Billy or Bess are reading their lessons, they give their full attention. This also means that, because they pay full attention, their minds don’t wander and they don’t need to read the passage again. This is one magic behind why lessons can go by quickly even though there may be a ton of material to go through! 

2. CM emphasizes short lessons and changing gears to keep the mind fresh. 

Another important thing to remember is that Miss Mason recommends two things: short lessons, and changing “gears” regularly (term mine). This means that the student gets a fixed amount of time for a lesson, for example, ten to fifteen minutes for younger kids, up to thirty minutes for older kids. This alone keeps them on their toes, and also helps motivate them because they know there’s a specified “end” to the lesson. (Of course, it doesn’t guarantee perpetual motivation, because there are times when the kids may just not be into the lesson, but that’s OK.) 

Then, we call for a change in the kind of work that they do: for example, if they just spent thirty minutes reading from a literature book, the next lesson might be math, or singing a hymn, or reciting poetry. This helps ensure that they use different parts of their brains, keeping them from getting fried! 

3. CM uses narration and does away with busywork. 

The CM method requires all school lessons to be narrated, except for math, poetry, and the riches. This means that all the school readings may be narrated orally, with some written narration for older students. But we don’t do busywork-type activities, which means that learning is focused and we don’t spend a lot of time doing extra projects that eat up a lot of time and don’t really add much value to the learning! 

4. CM places value in a wide curriculum of learning. 

Because we value our students’ learning across a wide variety of things, we don’t expect book reading to have precedence over all other subjects. In fact, in one of the Parents’ Review articles, it recommends us to reduce the readings if needed in order to give one or two hours a week to handicraft! This in itself gives us permission to leave the afternoons free for our children’s other “pursuits,” which includes riches like music, art, extended nature study, and working with their hands. 

5. CM values self-education. 

Miss Mason places strong emphasis on our children learning to educate themselves. Many parents want to be so involved in their children’s education that we want to add this thing and that thing, thinking they need all these extra stuff. But take a look at this excerpt from a Parents’ Review article: 

Miss Mason devises time-tables which cover such reasonable hours as to leave time over for this solitude, but parents are often very culpable in thinking that Tango or some other new thing must be learned as well, and the much needed time for solitude is used for plans which necessitate hurried journeys, always in the company of a responsible person, who feels it her duty to talk in an instructive way, and the thinking time, the growing time, the time in which the mind is to find food is diminished, and the child becomes restless, tiresome, irritable, disobedient—everything that a child who is reputed to be difficult can be. 

The parents marvel and say, “But we are giving him the best education that can be procured, we are neglecting no opportunities.” Kind, generous parents! You are giving your child every opportunity but one, and that is self-development; by your generous care, you are safeguarding him from ever using his own mind, ever relying upon himself in any way. The child who at first found interference irksome, later depends on it so much that he is unable to work without constant prodding from his mentor. I believe that this is the prime reason of the oft repeated lament of teachers and professors, “Little ones are so eager, older children are less keen, adults are dull and lethargic.”

(From Imagination as a Powerful Factor in a Well-balanced Mind, by E.A. Parish, Volume 25, no. 5, 1914, pgs. 379-390)

A Sample Week in a CM Homeschool

The good news is that you don’t need to schedule everything in everyday! Some components of a CM homeschool can be done one or twice a week.

Basically, the following subjects need to be done daily, because the daily practice helps cement some basic skills in children:

• copywork
• math
• reading
• poetry
• recitation

The following may be done once a week (although AmblesideOnline advisory member, the late Wendi Lord Capehart, swears by doing hymns at least once everyday!):

• hymns
• folk songs
• picture study
• composer study
• nature study
• handicraft
• foreign language (in our case, I’ve found that at least twice a week works better)
• musical instrument (for my second son, I’ve found that at least twice a week works better)

The main school subjects can be done between 3 to 5 times a week:

• literature
• science
• history
• geography
• biography

Taking the above principles, for example, for Form 1, you might have:

• Mondays: Hymn, Bible, Copywork, Literature, Biography, Math, Reading, Poetry, Recitation, History, Nature Study, Musical Instrument
• Tuesday: Folk Song, History Biography, Copywork, Literature, Math, Reading, Poetry, Recitation, Foreign Language
• Wednesday: Picture Study, Biography, Copywork, Shakespeare, Math, Reading, Poetry, Recitation, Science
• Thursday: History, Copywork, Literature, Math, Reading, Poetry, Recitation, Foreign Language, Science, Musical Instrument
• Friday: Composer Study, Bible, Copywork, Geography, Literature, Math, Reading, Poetry, Recitation, Handicraft

You Can Schedule Afternoons Free

With these principles in place, you can schedule your child’s schoolwork during the mornings all throughout the week, and keep afternoons free. Read more on Charlotte Mason afternoon occupations to get ideas on how to make the most of your child’s week.

If you want to see how a typical week can look like in a CM homeschool, check out the FREE SAMPLES to our Charlotte Mason International Curriculum, a full open-and-go guide that you can use over one school year.