Simply Charlotte Mason Preschool

Simply Charlotte Mason's preschool offering is not a boxed curriculum. It is a book, a philosophy, and a parenting posture — rooted in Charlotte Mason's insistence that the first six years of a child's life belong to habit, outdoor time, and story, not to formal academics.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Charlotte Mason
Worldview	Christian-ecumenical (broadly Protestant, Charlotte Mason's Anglican heritage)
Grades	PreK (approximately ages 2-6)
Formats	Print book, digital guide, free podcast library
Cost tier	Budget
Parent intensity	3
ESA-common	No
Accredited	No
Established	2004, by Sonya and John Shafer with Karen and Doug Smith
Website	simplycharlottemason.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	2	By design — the Early Years philosophy is explicitly anti-academic for children under six
Ease of teaching	4	Clear, short, and practical; the parent does less, not more
Content quality	4	The Early Years handbook is faithful to Charlotte Mason's primary texts without being precious about it
Flexibility	5	No schedule to break; the parent applies the principles as the family's rhythm allows
Value for money	5	A handbook and a podcast library; the investment is time and attention, not money
Worldview scope	3	Gently Christian and usable across denominational lines, though rooted in Mason's Anglican formation
Visual/design	4	Clean, warm, text-driven — the website looks like a library and reads like one
Support resources	5	450+ free podcast episodes and an active community; the support is the product

Who the publisher is

Simply Charlotte Mason was founded in 2004 by two homeschool families — Sonya and John Shafer and Karen and Doug Smith — who had been using Charlotte Mason's methods with their own children and began writing guides and lesson plans to share with others. The founding history appears on the publisher's About page, and Sonya Shafer has served as the primary author and public face of the organization for the two decades since. Shafer is herself a homeschool graduate of four daughters and is continuing to educate her youngest, who has special needs — a biographical detail that informs the publisher's consistent attention to gentle pacing and accessible presentation.

The company's full catalog spans K-12, with a six-year history rotation that weaves biblical and world history, family-style studies, handbooks on habit training and picture study, and a large library of living-book selections. The preschool offering sits at the front of that catalog and is philosophically distinct from the rest — not a curriculum in the usual sense but a carefully argued refusal of curriculum at the early-childhood stage.

The core preschool product is The Early Years: A Charlotte Mason Preschool Handbook, by Sonya Shafer and Karen Smith, published by Simply Charlotte Mason in 2009 and retailing at the publisher's store with used copies available in the $20-$30 range as of April 2026. It is paired, in practice, with Laying Down the Rails for Children, Shafer's habits handbook, and with the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast, which runs to more than 450 episodes and functions as a free continuing-education library for parents.

The core pedagogy

Charlotte Mason (1842-1923), the British Anglican educator whose methods the publisher applies, was emphatic that children under six should not be subjected to formal school work. Her phrase — that the youngest children need "a quiet growing time" — is Simply Charlotte Mason's organizing thesis for the preschool years. The Early Years handbook compiles Mason's scattered counsel on young children from across her six-volume Original Home Schooling Series and presents it in short chapters with modern examples, organized around five emphases: habit training, outdoor time, short read-alouds, Scripture memory, and exposure to living books.

The preschool approach, in practice, reads almost as anti-curriculum: no formal reading lessons, no worksheets, no sit-down instructional blocks, no early academics. What the parent is given instead is a detailed picture of how to structure a young child's day around free play in the out-of-doors, parent-read stories from picture books and classic children's literature, short daily habit-training exercises (attention, obedience, neatness, kindness), and daily Scripture and hymn exposure.

Signature mechanics: (1) Habit training as curriculum — Laying Down the Rails for Children works through Mason's list of childhood habits one at a time, with the parent choosing one habit per season and working on it as the operative "lesson" of the period. (2) Nature time as the primary teacher — Mason's conviction that "a child has a right to his rations of nature" is taken seriously, and the Early Years handbook recommends substantial daily outdoor time, including weather that would keep most American preschools indoors. (3) Short read-aloud sessions — five to ten minutes at a time, multiple times a day, with a rotating library of picture books, folk tales, nursery rhymes, and simple Scripture stories. (4) No screens and minimal toys — the handbook argues for a quiet sensory environment and modest play materials, not as a rule but as a philosophical preference.

The program pairs into Simply Charlotte Mason's kindergarten and first-grade offerings at around age six, when the child is deemed ready for short, formal lessons — typically fifteen to twenty minutes of reading instruction, handwriting, and oral arithmetic, plus family-style Bible and nature study.

A day in the life

A four-year-old in a Simply Charlotte Mason Early Years household wakes naturally. After breakfast and family devotions, the morning goes out-of-doors: weather permitting, the child spends an hour to two hours in the yard, a park, or a woods trail, with a parent or older sibling nearby but not directing the play. Back inside around 10:30, a short read-aloud (ten minutes from a picture book), then a snack. The parent gives the child a simple habit-training task — perhaps "putting away what you get out," the current habit of the season — and observes without nagging. Helping in the kitchen for lunch preparation. After lunch, a rest or nap (Mason considered young-child rest essential). A second outdoor stretch in the afternoon, another read-aloud, some unstructured play, family dinner. Scripture and a hymn before bed. Total formal instruction: zero minutes. Total structured parent-child time: roughly forty-five minutes across the day, most of it in story, habit, and song.

For families accustomed to preschool curricula with daily academic objectives, the shape of this day can take several weeks to settle into. The work, such as it is, is the parent's: being present, reading aloud cheerfully, tending the habit without scolding, letting the child play without managing the play.

What they do exceptionally well

A philosophically coherent case for doing less. The Early Years handbook makes a serious, well-sourced argument — drawing on Mason's primary texts and contemporary developmental research — for holding off on formal academics until around age six. For families who feel pressured by preschool checklists and early-literacy marketing, the handbook is a permission slip written by someone who did the work of reading Mason closely.

Habit training as a practical discipline. Laying Down the Rails for Children is a short, usable book that gives parents a concrete weekly focus (attention, truthfulness, order, kindness) without turning habit formation into a moralistic project. The book's short chapters and clear examples make it the most-used piece of the preschool package in practice.

An enormous free library of parent education. The Simply Charlotte Mason podcast, now past 450 episodes, is genuinely useful continuing education — roundtables, interviews with other Mason practitioners, answers to reader questions. A parent who reads The Early Years and listens to twenty podcast episodes has a better grounding in Charlotte Mason's method than most paid curricula provide.

What they do poorly

No boxed preschool product. Families who expect a preschool curriculum with a weekly schedule, printable pages, and a parent portal will be frustrated. The Simply Charlotte Mason preschool offering is a philosophy supported by a short handbook and a podcast. It requires the parent to read, think, and build the daily rhythm themselves. This is a feature, but it is also a genuine barrier for parents who prefer structure.

Limited academic preparation if misread. The Early Years approach is not a phonics program and does not teach early reading skills. Parents who misunderstand Mason's "quiet growing time" as "no exposure to letters and numbers" sometimes arrive at kindergarten with a child who needs a more intentional reading-readiness push than Mason herself would have recommended. The handbook does address early literacy, but the guidance is gentle and the parent has to apply it.

Christian tone, soft but unambiguous. The program is not denominationally aggressive, but Scripture memory and hymnody are part of the daily rhythm, and the reading selections include biblical stories from the earliest ages. Secular families can and do use the Early Years approach, but they substitute other content for the Scripture and hymn components and should not expect a secular-neutral product.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick Simply Charlotte Mason Preschool if: you want a principled, Mason-rooted approach to the years before formal schooling; you are comfortable building your own daily rhythm from a handbook and a podcast; you value outdoor time, habit training, and picture books over preschool worksheets; you are a Protestant or ecumenically Christian family (or a family comfortable substituting Scripture elements); you plan to continue with Simply Charlotte Mason's K-12 offerings.

• Skip Simply Charlotte Mason Preschool if: you want a boxed preschool product with a weekly schedule and printable pages; you want formal reading instruction to begin at four or five; you prefer a screen-inclusive early childhood approach; you want a secular-neutral product rather than a gently Christian one; you need ESA-vendor approval for early childhood materials.

Cost honest assessment

The Simply Charlotte Mason preschool "package" is among the lowest-cost early-childhood approaches in homeschool publishing because it is, in its core form, one book and a large free audio library. The Early Years handbook retails from the publisher and from third-party booksellers in the $25-$45 range as of April 2026, and Laying Down the Rails for Children similarly runs approximately $20-$40. A family that adds the companion Laying Down the Rails adult handbook and one or two supplementary Simply Charlotte Mason habit resources will spend $75-$150 total on the preschool years.

Compared against Sonlight Preschool (approximately $400-$600 for a boxed package with curated picture books) and Memoria Press's Simply Classical Level A set (approximately $240 as of April 2026), Simply Charlotte Mason is an order of magnitude cheaper. What you give up for the price difference is the curated book list, the printed lesson plans, and the scheduled structure. What you gain is a philosophically coherent case for giving your preschooler fewer structured academic demands and more time outside.

ESA eligibility notes

Simply Charlotte Mason is not a listed vendor on most state ESA marketplaces we surveyed in April 2026, and the small dollar amount of its preschool resources typically falls below the threshold at which families pursue ESA reimbursement. Because preschool-age children are generally not ESA-eligible in most state programs — Arizona's ESA is open to children ages 3-22 but requires a previous-year public-school designation or qualifying disability, Florida's Family Empowerment Scholarship has similar qualifying requirements, and Utah Fits All begins at kindergarten — the ESA question is largely moot for Early Years families. Older siblings using Simply Charlotte Mason's K-12 materials may find some of those products on state marketplaces; families should verify directly.

Alternatives

• Sonlight Preschool — a family would choose Sonlight over Simply Charlotte Mason because Sonlight's Preschool package ships a curated library of picture books and an Instructor's Guide with a 36-week schedule, providing the structure that Simply Charlotte Mason deliberately declines to supply.
• Ambleside Online — a family would choose Ambleside over Simply Charlotte Mason because Ambleside is a free, volunteer-run Charlotte Mason curriculum with a more detailed Year 0 / Year 1 reading list, for parents who want a Mason-faithful schedule without a commercial publisher.
• Memoria Press Simply Classical Level A — a family would choose Simply Classical over Simply Charlotte Mason when they want a classical-Christian readiness program for ages 2-3 with a structured daily plan, rather than Mason's intentionally unstructured approach.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed Simply Charlotte Mason's About page, the product pages for The Early Years handbook and Laying Down the Rails for Children, and a sample of the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast episodes in April 2026. We cross-referenced Sonya Shafer's biographical details with Shafer's interview at The New Mason Jar and with ThriftBooks' author page for Sonya Shafer. We verified the alignment of the Early Years handbook with Mason's primary texts by consulting Charlotte Mason's original volumes as hosted online by Ambleside Online. Pricing reflects publisher and third-party retailer listings as of April 2026.