I have doing a Charlotte Mason homeschool since 2000, and I’m always surprised by the things that Charlotte Mason expected 6 years old to know. Charlotte Mason was an educator that lived in England in the 1800’s. Her method of teaching was formed by her observation of watching how children naturally learn and supporting this learning with rich ideas that would teach them to think and reason on their own. Charlotte believed that ‘Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life‘, which starts at the beginning of a child’s life.

18 Things Charlotte Mason Expected 6 Year Olds to Know

As you can imagine, I get this question often, especially with our culture’s pull for preschools and early education. I love that Charlotte Mason believe more in a relaxed education for children 6 and younger, and believed that they should learn as much as they could with their sense.

Charlotte Mason viewed children as individuals, capable of learning, retaining and building their own ideas from the things introduced to them in the world around them.

Introducing children to nature, living books and utilizing their ability to memorize to retain and recite poetry, hymns, parables, verses, language, parts of geography, and things in nature were part of her expected learning activities.

Charlotte Mason taught that inspirations came through books, providing children with ideas and relationships to the things they read about or had read to them. With that begin said, Charlotte Mason didn’t believe a child should start their formal education until they were 6 years old, so the list I’m about to share with you would have been expected of a child at the end of their sixth year.

What I love about this list is that many of these 18 things are things that could be learned prior to the formal education, and done by nature study with older children in the family, or by enjoying nature walks together.

One of the first words that our forth child spoke was ‘bird’, because we were outside a lot from the time he was born and observation is something that he learned from our activities outside.

With these belief, Charlotte constructed a list of 18 things that she believed could be taught to children by the age of 6.

1. To recite, beautifully, 6 easy poems and hymns
2. To recite, perfectly and beautifully, a parable and a psalm
3. To add and subtract numbers up to 10, with dominoes or counters
4. To read — what and how much, will depend on what we are told of the child
5. To copy in print-hand from a book
6. To know the points of the compass with relation to their own home, where the sun rises and sets, and the way the wind blows
7. To describe the boundaries of their own home
8. To describe any lake, river, pond, island, etc. within easy reach
9. To tell quite accurately (however shortly) 3 stores from Bible history, 3 from early English, and 3 from early Roman history (my own note here, you may want to substitute American for early English)
10. To be able to describe 3 walks and 3 views
11. To mount in a scrap book a dozen common wildflowers, with leaves (one every week); to name these, describe them in their own words, and where they found them.
12. To do the same with leaves and flowers of 6 forest trees
13. To know 6 birds by song, color and shape
14. To send in certain Kindergarten or other handiwork, as directed
15. To tell three stories about their own “pets” — rabbit, dog or cat
16. To name 20 common objects in French, and say a dozen little sentences
17. To sing on hymn, one French song and one English song
18. To keep a caterpillar and tell the life-story of a butterfly from their own observation

If you find this list overwhelming and not quite fitting your family’s needs, you may want to learn how to create your own attainable list for your children.

If you want some inspiration for implementing more of the Charlotte Mason way into this age group, be sure to read my tips on how to teach preschool through 2nd grade the Charlotte Mason way.

It is through this list of attainable items that a child’s curriculum can easily be created for the first years of their education. Many of the items included can begin to be worked on in the preschool years, especially those things that allows for children to be outdoors, and exploring the world around them.

Check out the 21 Things Charlotte Mason expected from a 12 year old.

Would you like to learn more about the Charlotte Mason way of education? If so, this list of 10 Charlotte Mason Books All Homeschool Moms Should Read will help you learn all the important things for a wonderful journey using her method…