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In this post, I’m sharing our Traditional Catholic + Classical Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum picks for 2025 – 2026.

This year I have my last formal student joining us and we will be a combination of Form 1 + Form 2 (years 1, 4, and 6), as well as a special needs child.

holding catholic biographies in front of a book shelf.
history books on a table showing the book spine.


Our Homeschool changes + Transitions

Last year was a bit of a transitional year for us. I knew that something was missing and I needed something more. I’ll briefly touch on this and my conclusion below, but for anyone new to the blog, here are a few posts explaining what I was struggling with:

As I have shared in some of these posts, it was the poetic mode of education that I was missing in our homeschool. I have always loved the Charlotte Mason method—we began using it when my oldest child was in 1st grade. But over the years, I felt that something was missing. That God was calling us towards something more.

I thought it was simply a classical education. So I tried out Memoria Press, but ever so briefly. But honestly, all of the workbooks and memory drills were not life giving for us. Little did I know that all of this so-called classical education was just something else repackaged in the “classical” name. And it really is what is known as Neo-classical.

Btw, this is not to say that Memoria Press—or others like it— are bad per se, but it just wasn’t what I was looking for or a good fit for our family.

We went back to CM and finally found John Senior and The Children’s Tradition.

So in this post, I am sharing our curriculum choices using both Charlotte Mason and John Senior — and ultimately towards the poetic mode of education.

painting by Thomas Cole "the voyage of life: old age"

Our 2025-2026 Curriculum picks

I put together our plans with a variety of sources that are both Traditional Catholic & Classical too. This year, I have students going in to 1st, 4th grade, 6th grade, and one that is special needs.

My special needs student will usually be included with my year 1 student unless otherwise mentioned under each specific section of this post. And sometimes she even does well with year 2 and 3 work, so I adjust as needed for her wherever possible and don’t go too much in detail on her work in this post.

Over the years, I’ve learned that in sharing our curriculum choices, it is easiest to share by “subject” vs by grade level. But I will try to break all of that down a little bit too. And perhaps, I’ll write up separate posts by form and year in the future. TBD…

We are combining from The CMEC and The Children’s Tradition as well as adding in a variety of Traditional Catholic supplements.

Two things that I want to briefly mention about these curriculums — The CMEC is a membership for the entire family and changes out each year and currently The Children’s Tradition (TCT) currently covers years 1-7. There are plans for the older years (tbd) in the future. But it is worth it for the philosophy alone — which is what I am trying to base a lot of our home life off of.

That being said, I won’t share specific details that can violate any privacy or copyright. The CMEC uses a lot of old books that are usually easily obtained through places like Living Book Press, Yesterday’s Classics, and other sources online. TCT uses mostly John Senior’s 1000 Good Book list with some sprinkling of Charlotte Mason throughout.

And I am so happy that Cor Jesu Press has started to reprint many of the good books from John Senior’s list. They have so many other favorite spiritual reading books that I’ve been purchasing over the past couple of years.

Read my reviews of both of these curriculums:

school books and other vintage books on a book shelf.

Note: We use a lot of vintage editions of some of these books and will share links whenever possible for reference. I will try to link to the exact copies or as close as possible to the originals as I can find.

Common Subjects

These subjects we learn together as a family and will break off on occasion for additional individual assignments, narrations, note booking, etc.

Usually we cover a lot of these things during our morning time or Benediction Table as described in TCT. I will put together a more in depth post on how we schedule out our morning time together and what we use and love. This post would be entirely too long if I went into that here.

For our morning time we rotate through:

  • Prayer together — usually begin with the Morning Offering and a few other short prayers.
  • Old + New Testament—we alternate these and follow the schedule from The CMEC.
  • Psalms—TCT recommends singing these together. We are just reading through the Psalms and possibly adding in parts the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin in the future.
  • Baltimore Catechism—I pull a few questions for our “lesson catechism” time in the morning. The children receive individual catechism lessons as well.
  • Lives of the Saints—read daily.
  • Spiritual Reading—varies and usually something from Mother Loyola or Ronald Knox. (see more under religion + catechism below. We will also go through My Path to Heaven together slowly and prayerfully.
  • Devotionals—usually based off the Liturgical season and read together as a family. I love a variety of options from TAN Resurrection series and the daily meditation books written by St. Alphonsus Ligouri—here is the Advent and Christmas version.
  • Hymns + Folk Songs — I use seasonal or liturgical hymns (usually in Latin). Lingua Angelica (skip the workbooks) is a great place to start if you’re new to Latin hymns. And we follow The CMEC’s program for folk songs.
  • Artist study + Composer study — following with The CMEC.
  • Fables—daily a short reading from Aesop.
  • Habit training — from Simply Charlotte Mason.
  • Shakespeare — on Fridays only. See more about how we learn Shakespeare together. And we are following along with the term schedules from The CMEC.

Related: Musical Education in the Classical Homeschool

I know that this seems like a lot. But it really isn’t and we usually finish in under an hour. A lot of it alternates and is looped throughout the week.

We also have blocks in the afternoon time each day where we loop through these together:

  • gymnastics, folk dancing, Swedish drill, or other physical exercise; together daily. The Schoolyard Co has great options for Swedish Drill and other physical activities. I have a coupon code for you to save 10% off at The Schoolyard if you’re interested. Use code: MARYWOITA for 10% OFF.
  • term biographies, and more lives of the saints / catholic heroes
  • nature study + natural history reading
  • Latin
  • Spanish
  • literature or term novel
  • poetry + tea time
  • current events
  • handicrafts
  • watercolor lessons — we started using Lily and Thistle last year and will continue on.
stack of catechism books for 4th grade on a table.
stack of 6th grade catechism books on a table.

Spiritual Formation + Liturgical Life

These are the books we are using for individual catechism lessons.

We are use these as supplemental reading: Angel Food for Boys & Girls and Catholic Stories for Boys & Girls.

I have also more favorite catechism sources in this post.

holding catholic biographies in front of a book shelf.

History + Biographies

We are combining recommendations from both The CMEC and TCT this year and paired with lots of catholic supplements and resources.

Also—I want to share my take on anti-catholic bias in our history lessons in our homeschool. I think it is important to cover these topics with children and we don’t avoid certain stories just because of this. It is important for us to have discussions and know how Catholics were treated in history.

We balance this out with plenty of stories of saints and other Catholic heroes. Of course, this also depends greatly on the age and maturity of the child. For the younger years, I avoid the anti-Catholic bias completely. But as they grow older, we have very good discussions around these issues.

This is also why pre-reading is super important as prep for lessons. We need to be ready to address certain issues and topics, have discussions, and answer necessary questions.

stack of 1st grade history biography and picture books.

We are following The CMEC for the bulk of our history this year and the time period we are studying is 1650-1800. We are also adding in historical fiction and accounts (year 6) as scheduled in The Children’s Tradition.

Year 1

We will be reading a lot of D’Aulaires books together during her history block. But we are also including a couple of vintage editions from Holling too.

year 4 history books stacked on a table.

Year 4

stack of year 6 historical account and fiction books on a table.

Year 6

The biographies listed below are within our time period studied, but the historical accounts (above) are not, although some of them are pretty close. Nevertheless, I chose to keep them for my year 6 student this year.

Biographies:

I have put blocks on our time-table to read through biographies together as a family. I’m not sure how many we will get through, but I will pull from the list below as needed. They will also work on history charts + notebooks during specific time blocks in the afternoons.

I would love to find a good living book on Father Junipero Serra. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!

Citizenship

This is for my Form 2 students. Plutarch was one of my favorite things studied last year and my daughter really enjoyed it too — especially the life of Caesar. We will continue to follow The CMEC’s guide and program for Plutarch this year.

Year 4:

Year 6:

I also found some neat books with vintage images of Nebraska pioneers and prairie life to view at leisure time.

stack of citizenship books for year 4 on a table.
stack of citizenship books for year 6 on a table.

Literature + Poetry

We are pulling from a combination of The CMEC + TCT for literature and poetry. Some of these will be for their independent reading time and others are for our family read aloud time. Dad will often read to the children before bed as well.

In addition, whatever we don’t finish, we usually read together over the summer months.

stack of novels for year 1 on a table.
Mother Goose book on a dining table.
stack of year 1 poetry and fairy tales on a table.

Year 1 novels:

There are many other Doctor Doolittle books in the series and we will enjoy more together over leisure time. I linked a couple for reference, but try to find older versions if you’re able. We found a lovely collection of vintage editions online—it may take a little hunting around, but it’s worth it, in my opinion.

Year 1 poetry:

year 4 novels stacked on a table.
stack of year 4 poetry books on a table.

Year 4 novels:

Year 4 poetry:

year 6 literature and poetry books stacked on a table.

Year 6 literature:

My year 6 student has a pretty big school load this year, so I am not assigning as many novels. However, she is reading enthusiast and will probably need more. In that case, I will pull from John Senior’s list as described in TCT. She will probably continue with the Anne of Green Gables series since she’s expressed interest in it.

Year 6 poetry:

myths, fables, legends + fairy tales

I’m happy to see a lot of cross over between CMEC and TCT with these books. We’ve used most of them over the years and it’s so fun to see my youngest reading what her older siblings have read. We have a few fun additions that I’ve never heard of, but are excited to enjoy them together.

One of my favorite things of a classical Charlotte Mason education is that I am receiving the education that I never had as a child! Full of truth, goodness, beauty, and wonder!

stack of myths and legend books on a table for year 1.

Year 1 myths + legends:

Year 1 fairy tales:

stack of citizenship books for year 4 on a table.

Year 4 myths + legends:

Year 4 fairy tales:

year 6 myths and legends book stack on a dining table.

Year 6 myths + legends:

Adventure Stories

I am very excited for the addition of adventure stories for my older children— especially for my son. I really think that he will enjoy these books this year.

My older student read a few of them last year when we began the beta year with TCT and she enjoyed some, but not all. But this isn’t surprising as John Senior’s list is especially tailored for little boys. And since his list isn’t a complete one, I have no problem with making necessary changes for our needs.

stack of adventure books for the year 4 student on a table.

Year 4 adventure stories:

year 6 adventure story books stacked on a table.

Year 6 adventure stories

Reading Lessons

My students have been taught reading by following Charlotte Mason’s method as she described in Home Education and it has worked well. We have also have used some of the suggestions from the Discover Reading book. 

holding a stack of American Cardinal readers.

Language Arts + Latin

The basis of a language arts in a classical Charlotte Mason education is through narration, copywork, and dictation. Dictation and grammar are introduced in form 2 (year 4).

Related: The Foundations of Language Arts in a Classical Charlotte Mason Education

Year 1 language arts:

language arts and latin books stacked on a table.

Year 4 language arts:

Year language arts:

We are continuing with Latin Through Stories as a family subject. It is recommended for K-5th grades, but my year 6 student has enjoyed it and we will continue on for at least this year.

We break the lessons up over a couple of days and go through them slowly. But we have really enjoyed the program and will continue with it for the younger years, probably for the foreseeable future.

In addition, we are still using Spanish from Cherrydale Press and will likely move to French next year. The lessons are short and we only spend about 5 minutes at a time per lesson.

Math

After a lot of back and forth and testing out a variety of math curriculums, we have chosen a combination. This year we are combining The Charlotte Mason Elementary Arithmetic Series with Life of Fred (LOF) for the bulk of our math curriculum. We will also work on Paper Sloyd in the afternoons.

We started using LOF over the summer for a fun way for the children to keep up on skills. They enjoyed it and so, we will continue using it one day a week.

holding 3 simply Charlotte mason math books to show the spines.

Year 1 math:

Year 4 math:

Year 6 math:

Special needs math:

We will use Number Stories: First Lessons in Number from Verily Schoolhouse and continue working through The Charlotte Mason Elementary Arithmetic Series, book 1 and 2.

I had considered using the Business math series from Simply Charlotte Mason. The lessons are built around the children running their own fictional business. But I decided to save these for the summer months.

Geography

There will be plenty of fun things to include in the children’s geography notebooks this year! Year 1 is my favorite for geography lessons as they begin with land forms and work in sand trays. This is also a time where we can slowly start working on mapping.

year 1 geography and natural history books on a table.
geography and natural history book stacked on a table.
year 6 geography books stacked on a table.

Year 1:

Year 4:

  • Nellie Allen’s North America and map work
  • Mapping from adventure stories + history readings

Year 6:

  • Nellie Allen’s Europe + map work
  • US States + Capitals — are using the America the Beautiful set from Verily Schoolhouse
  • The Book of Marvels: The Orient — we may also visit some chapters not covered last year from the The Occident if time allows.

Special Needs:

a variety of nature books on a bookshelf.

Natural history + nature study

I had considered using the Sabbath Mood curriculum for nature study as was recommend to me on IG. But, I decided to continue on with The CMEC. We’ve enjoyed their special studies and overall recommendations for natural history.

In addition, we will touch a bit on the sciences and experiments for my year 2 students. But it is also important to note that we don’t fall into too much of the analytical and remain in the poetic mode.

Musical Education

Lastly, I want to share how important musical education is to a classical education. It is an essential part of cultivating virtue, order, and harmony within the soul.

  • sing hymns + folk songs
  • composer study
  • piano lessons — we have been using Hoffman Academy for the past 4 years now and the children really enjoy it. We are moving to string instruments next year for some of the children.
  • Gregorian chant

I cover music much more in depth in this post: Musical Education in the Classical Homeschool

Final Thoughts

I know that it seems like a lot, but it really isn’t. All of this is divided up into 3 terms, over the whole year. And we still follow Charlotte Mason’s recommendation for short lessons. So, I try to be done with the bulk of our school lessons each day by 12-12:30, with our start time at 8 am.

Also I had to cut a lot from the recommendations from TCT. There is no way that we could manage as heavy of a load as they recommend and also be done with the bulk of lessons by lunch time. But my goals may be different than yours. We live on a working cattle ranch and are busy year-round. This is what works for my family to spread a generous feast of living ideas and things.

We also spend the time between lunch and dinner for afternoon occupations. During this time, we have tea time with poetry or a novel, piano practice, independent reading, handicrafts, nature study.

If we do not finish some of the independent reading, novels, and adventure stories, we will carry those on into the summer — but as a more leisurely scholé approach.

Lastly, I want to mention that we started to incorporate more audiobooks into lesson time for the older students. And to keep it screen free, we use Yotos in our homeschool.

Related: How We Use Yotos in a Classical Charlotte Mason Homeschool

Resources for the Mother Teacher

These are a few resources that have helped me in my journey and I hope that they are helpful for you too!

Share your thoughts with us!

→ How is your homeschool planning going? What are you using for the 2025-2026 school year? Let us know in the comments section below! ♡

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