One of Charlotte Mason's most well-known and oft-quoted sayings is “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.” The more that I read her writings and implement her philosophies in our homeschool and family life, the more I find myself applying them to other areas of life too. I have had to rethink many things that I previously would have just gone along with. For example, Sunday School. I grew up in a church where the children went to crèche, then preschool classes, then Sunday School, then a youth programme. It is only in the last few years that I felt the desire to keep my children in the main service so that we could worship together as a family. I didn't want to get to church and then send everyone their separate ways.
Towards the end of 2021, my family joined a new church plant. Because there were no existing ministries, I have had the opportunity to start a Charlotte Mason-inspired Sunday School programme. We don't call it Sunday School, though; the children prefer Kids' Bible Study, which is fitting since it is nothing like our previous Sunday School experience. I have modelled it on our family Morning Time. Brittney McGann's letter towards Sunday School with Charlotte Mason and Min Hwang's interview were helpful in terms of thinking through what to include.
Our church is still small and there are currently six children in our Bible study. The age range is six to 16 years. I suppose that as our church grows and the needs change, we may end up splitting into different age groups, but for now I quite like that the age range is varied (but maybe that's just the homeschool mom in me rebelling against the system). We meet for half an hour after the service. I would like to meet for longer so we can do more, but this is still fairly new and nothing is set in stone. (I confess to being tempted to increase the time in small increments and see if anyone notices. Shh, don't tell.)
Our programme roughly follows this structure: hymn study; Scripture reading, narration and discussion; picture study; recitation; Scripture memory work; closing prayer. Every six weeks or so we use the time to work on a handicraft. I would love to include a readaloud (a biography or classic Christian literature) and even nature study (though that will have to wait until we have a church building of our own).
Three of the children play the ukulele, so there is musical accompaniment when we sing. So far I have picked the hymns; we learn one for six weeks. Did Fanny Crosby and Isaac Watts ever dream we'd sing their hymns accompanied by ukulele? Probably not. This month I asked the children to choose a hymn they wanted to learn—they picked “Open the eyes of my heart”.
In her writings on education, Charlotte Mason said, “First and chiefest is the knowledge of God, to be got at most directly through the Bible.” One of the biggest advantages that I can see about using her philosophy in a Sunday School situation is approaching the Bible as a living book and not just re-reading the same out-of-context stories. We started last year with the book of Esther, then read Ruth, then parts of Luke for Advent, then braved the book of Daniel. We are currently reading Jonah, as requested by the children.
After each reading, I ask the children to narrate, and then we have a discussion on the text. We read from the Bible—my preferred translation is the ESV—and not from Bible storybooks. We read the whole book, broken into manageable chunks. Initially only a few of the children were comfortable with narrating, but over the last months it has been wonderful to see all of them narrating. We have reached the point where everyone wants to narrate first.
Everyone's favourite part of the morning is picture study. I haven't focused on a particular artist—instead I have found pictures related to the week's chapter. (I did not anticipate the difficulty this would be with regards to the latter half of Daniel!) I include a bit of history about the artist, the style of painting, the materials used, and where the painting is currently located. When we finish the book we are studying, the children put all the pictures out and talk about which ones they liked the most or the least, or thought were the strangest. When we have our own building, I would like to display the pictures on our classroom wall.
For recitation, we are slowly working our way through Psalm 119. For Scripture memory work, we have been learning passages from Proverbs. Even the children who were less enthusiastic when we began have now started volunteering to recite each week. As Charlotte Mason said, “It is a delightful thing to have the memory stored with beautiful, comforting, and inspiring passages, and we cannot tell when and how this manner of seed may spring up, grow, and bear fruit.”
I let the children choose the handicrafts. They are always more involved when it's something they want to do. Their favourite activity so far is to make little dishes out of clay. Once, they voted to paint flowerpots; it was only slightly less messy than the clay. I suppose that's one way of judging how much fun they're having—more mess equals more fun, right?
My sister-in-law and I often talk about how strange and wonderful it is that the philosophy of a Victorian teacher is still relevant in the 21st Century. What a gift Charlotte Mason was to education, all forms of education, including Bible education. Lord, help us not to hinder the children as they come to you.
“Then the children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.'” (Matthew 19:13-14)
So beautiful Mel, a lovely opportunity to start like this, I pray many more children get to join your kid's Bible study!
Thank you for sharing your journey Melanie! Those two links are so good too. 🥰