A Gentle Feast: open-and-go Charlotte Mason -

Curriculum Review: Cycle 3

an image of a gentle feast curriculum cycle 3 on a bench — The question is not,–how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education–but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?” -Charlotte Mason
(School Education, pgs. 170-71)

When I began my deep dive into curriculum research there was always one philosophy that continued to surface as meeting all my check boxes for our family. It never ceased to amaze me with both it’s complexity and simplicity. But, I felt overwhelmed by the number of subjects required to follow her methods. That was until I found A Gentle Feast (AGF): The best Charlotte Mason, open-and-go curriculum I have ever found.

AGF takes all that I love about Miss Mason’s ideas – living books, notebooking, a robust subject offering, freedom to explore interests – and structures it into a concise plan for the whole family. Julie Ross, the creator, put all her years of researching CM methods for her five children and made it accessible to any family. How? By using excel spreadsheets of course!

Now, excel spreadsheets never have excited me before (not like my engineer brother who makes them for every aspect of his life…for fun🙄). That was until I joined the online community of AGF and accessed the beautifully laid out membership area. Behind each aspect of the curriculum there is a wonderful (yes, wonderful) spreadsheet organized and hyperlinked by form. This includes term plans with six weeks per page, TWO book lists (one with the front covers of all the books for visual learners like me and another in excel by subject and form), morning plans, and so much more! It takes all the guess work and never-ending gathering out of the CM method and presents the feast for Mama to easily implement for her family!

a gentle feast online membership area with many boxes to access documents and has picture of open book and laptop

a gentle feast online membership area with many boxes access documents

There is just so much goodness on the online membership area of the AGF website that you can print yourself or use on a device. If you prefer a hard-copy of the Teacher’s Manuals and Morning Time plans, you can buy those too! I share these in my Youtube video below and give an in-depth review and flip-through of each. Take a look and let me know if you have any questions!