Early Years/Year 0

"A quiet growing time."

Year 0 goes from the nursery to the time a child is "wanting" to learn to about the age of six, so it might be easy for you to think of it as a Prek/K combined. Our students "officially"start Year 0 at age 3 and Year 1 around 6 depending on readiness to proceed.

During this time, the child should NOT be made to spend time mimicking school but rather playing, learning, and growing. Instead of formal lesson times, children learn by doing real projects with their parents (CM advocates avoiding the use of an artificially "child-friendly" play environment and instead giving the child the opportunity to use his five senses to learn about the REAL world around him. She also recommended that young children spend copious amounts of time out-of-doors and that parents work on securing good habits in children at this age.)

Charlotte Mason said:

"Away with books, and 'reading to'--for the first five or six years of life. The endless succession of story-books, scenes, shifting like a panorama before the child's vision, is a mental and moral dissipation; he gets nothing to grow upon, or is allowed no leisure to digest what he gets."

She also said:

"In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mothers first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet and growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it for the most part spent out in the fresh air."

This might seem a little.... too gentle for those interested in an excellent academic pursuit, but her students grew to be very advanced as the years go by, so there is no need to worry. In the younger years.... less truly is more. We ourselves pushed our oldest two students a bit before they were ready and now regret the decision, having seen the benefit of waiting with our next child. That being said, there is a magical moment in the day called "the Children's hour" where even the youngest of children are remarkably open to good influence. Wise mothers take advantage of this time and use it to read the good books with rich language to their attentive children.

In this stage, then, children spend a good deal of time outdoors, learn good habits that eventually enable them to spend much of their time in "masterly inactivity" (ie. undirected play), build a relationship with their parents and begin to do for themselves what their parents do now.
These ideas affect even the choices of toys-- and books. Better to have a few, highly literary, quality books than dozens of books filled with twaddle. Better to have a few helpful toys (a box of wooden letters, etc) than dozens of wasteful pretend-toys (plastic food, etc.) There are naturally a few periods in the day where children are more attentive and in need of cuddles, etc than at other times. The parents, attentive to these moments, will take advantage by reading to the baby or toddler from the booklist. The child needn't *understand* the reading, only to be exposed to the language.

Once all this has been secured and the child shows an interest in-- and readiness for--- school, start gently. Perhaps around five, with the following:

PRE-MADE CURRICULA:

We have used and strongly recommend:

26 Letters to Heaven for Pre-school (around age 3/4/5)
Five in a Row for Kindergarten (with the addition of a math and phonics program if needed) (4-8)
Catholic Mosaic for the early years (4-8)
CLAA's Petty School for reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Conversely, if you would like some ideas for mix and match curricula, we recommend the following:

READING

No need to buy an expensive reading curriculum-- or any at all. CM taught reading with manipulatives, a good poem, and a combination of phonics and sight words. We do the same using:

Phonics Pathways

Phonics Pathways Booster supplement if desired

or just.... letter tiles and a good poem.

once the child is ready to read, we use the Catholic National Readers Primer and Book One. If you're using Phonics Pathways, don't begin in any reader until AFTER you have started page 55 of the book.

For more information on how to teach reading using CM's methods, please read her work here.
You can read a synopsis here.

WRITING

A theory book of whatever style you decide to use.

Reams of paper
A tray or box of sand.

No formal writing course is required at this stage, but the child can begin to learn the proper way to form letters by using his finger in rice or sand, in the air,  using a chalkboard, etc.

One beautiful choice for children who might want a workbook is Lighted Lanters from Cascia Books. We also like the Prescripts Cursive series from Classical Conversations, and Memoria Press' New American Cursive. For older students, Spencerian Penmanship is great.

With great success we have used a simple laminated handwriting chart.

ARITHMETIC

Seton Math K is a math workbook that does an excellent job of teaching pre-math skills and basic counting if one is desired (for example if the child has older siblings who do school each day, it may be useful.) It should not be started before age 5.
Abacus (Melissa and Doug make a started abacus that is very sturdy)
Various Manipulatives (we like counting toys like bugs or bears)

RELIGION

Habits training based on "Laying down the Rails" or some other program that teaches the virtues.
Family Culture of prayer and work.
A regular family devotional time (Liturgy of the Hours is a good place to start for Roman Catholics)
Children's Bible

Too early to start formal Catechism, but critical to involve the child in daily religious life and to surround him or her with religious art and imagery.

FINE ARTS

Art and music (free draw, listen to hymns and poems)

HISTORY
If you use the Connecting With History literature and free reads described below, you won't need to do any history. If not, you can opt for simply doing read-alouds from Founders of Freedom Book I, to cover prehistory and early civilization,  from Neuman Press, although you should NOT require narration if you should choose to include history.

RC History's Connecting with History program for Kindergarden (beginning stage) Booklist. Volume I (Ancient History) is a wonderful way to get children to begin thinking about history without putting much pressure on them, and the older ones (4 and 5) will love the projects and crafts. It is also really easy to use alongside an older sibling's history rotation, or as a family.
OR you can save it for next year and just skip the extra reading. CM would have probably liked that anyways. ;)

This year, my Year 0 just read "Fifty Famous Stories Retold" by James Baldwin. It is a GREAT introduction to history for an advanced five year old. (not every child will respond to this one.) If you plan on using Year 1 with Ambleside Online, though, you will want to skip it. Perhaps try "On the Shores of the Great Sea," by Synge, instead.

SCIENCE
Nature study with emphasis on the habit of attention. If you like, you can add curriculum from Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding Volume I, but be gentle. Just let them look at bugs, tress, clouds and plants and go: "WOW!"

LITERATURE BOOKLISTS:

Best one volume and budget-friendly choice is Volume I of "The World Treasury of Children's Literature." Opt to read aloud from this once a week, and a poem every day.

If you want more:
There is a FABULOUS book out by Yesterday's Classics called "The Children's Hour." We have used that and Poems for the Children's Hour for the younger set as they neared school-readiness.

Putting it all together:

We follow our basic weekly schedule with the older kids and use that to determine what we do with the younger kids.
Our Year 0 students do reading, writing, religion and arithmetic (it all takes about thirty minutes. ;)) in the morning, and get a read aloud or project based on the older kids' subject matter later in the day. MUCH more important than academics at this age, which should be presented like a game, are habits training-- in particular the habit of attention, the habit of obedience, and the habit of truthfulness, and frequent outdoor play.


Nursery Year (age 3)
The Complete Tales of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
The Language of Flowers by Kate Greenaway
Mother Goose Coloring Book by Kate Greenaway
The Crimson Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
The Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
The Yellow Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
A Apple Pie by Kate Greenaway 

Preschool Year (age 4)
My Book House 1
The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
The Complete Poems of Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
The Lilac Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
Complete Nonsense Poems by Edward Lear
The Pink Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
The Olive Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
Anderson’s Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Anderson
The Complete Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales
The Violet Fairy Book by Andrew Lang 

Kindergarten Year (age 5)
My Book House 2
The Children's Hour
Treasury of Mother Goose
The Complete Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault
Charlotte's Web
The Orange Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
The Green Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
The Brown Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm