"A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six" can your child do these things?

My 7yo can do numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 15 and parts of numbers 2, 9, 13, and 17. She is newly 7, as of July. This gives me some ideas of some things we can work on though.

My 6 year old can do 15 of the 18, though her language things would be Spanish or American Sign Language, not French. Her older brother (7) can do the same, and the oldest (11) could have done all 18 at 6. (The stumbling block for the other two is the trees and flowers identification mostly).

My younger four kids are all under age 5 so not there yet, though my precocious 4 yo son can do 12 or 13 of them.

McCormickmomma thank you for posting this. I can say I have a reference point and will work on these things with my dd who is 7. So eye opening to me…knowing theses things are truly important…of value…I have had such a difficult start to our year, not feeling like I am doing “enough,” so this will help;-))))

My understanding is that these are things that they should be working on as a 4 and 5 year old. We deffinatly need to pull this out and start being more intentional about some of them. Some of these things I can not even do!

I was under the impression that these are things that the child should be able to do before they set foot in a CM “classroom” at age 6.  If I am correct, I think perhaps some of us are overthinking these (and I used to, too!).  For example, #1 can be simply Mother Goose rhymes and something like “Jesus Loves Me.”  My children learn to recite the following (don’t know who wrote it or where I learned it, but I love it, and so do they):

I see the moon,
And the moon sees me.
God made the moon,
And God made me.

Poem #1.  Mary Had a Little Lamb, Hickory Dickory Dock, Jesus Loves Me, Pat-a-Cake, I Am Jesus’ Little Lamb, Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, Simple Simon…  All of these are simple, quick, easy poems/hymns for a small child to learn.  I don’t think of these as like Sara Teasdale/Walt Whitman short poems, or even Robert Louis Stevenson’s children’s poems (though they could be) or something like that.  I think of these as specifically children’s poems.  Am I wrong in assuming this?

For #2, I haven’t done this with my olders, but will be working on it with my 3yo for the next few years.  But most parables are very short, just a few verses or so.  If they are memorizing Scripture, they easily can memorize a short parable and psalm.

My 3yo is learning to add and subtract with his fingers.  All we do is say, “Here are 3 M&Ms.  Here are 2 more M&Ms.  How many M&Ms do we have?”  He says 5 and gives me 5 fingers.  Same with subtracting.  Now granted, 3 may be a little young for some kids.  My 3yo seems to have a knack for that kind of thing.  But I don’t think she means to be memorizing facts, I think just the concept of using objects to fiddle with groups of numbers, kwim?

For my 8yo, I substitute insects for flowers.  She is a bug girl, and she can tell you tons about just about any bug you come across.  My 9yo is great with the flowers.  I don’t know if it’s so much the “what” as the “what can you tell me about God’s world,” if that makes any sense.  To be paying attention to the world around you, as a beginning to narration.

For birds, around here it’s common to have crows, robins, and cardinals.  Those are very, very easy to tell apart from other birds.  So that’s 3 right there.

I hope this helps simplify this list for some of you!  BTW, we are learning most of this on our own, just being out in nature, just doing what we do, not as part of “formal school,” if you will.  Granted, I didn’t find CM until my oldest was nearing 2nd grade, but she still could do a good majority of this list even without that.  And the others as they’ve followed have steadily increased the number they can do by the time they’re 6 or 7, depending on how much time they’ve had since I found the list.  I have no doubt my 3yo will have this list down, perhaps even plus some, because he has 3 years to get it all down.  We are already working on a few, and I had forgotten about this list!  🙂

I meant to add that I think it is worth noting that in the 1890s children with any type of learning difference or deafness or blindness or any cognitive differences wouldn’t have even been allowed an education. With that said, I take this with a huge grain of salt. But that is just me.

I was wondering about whether or not CM meant for these to be obtained when the child turned 6 or during the year after the 6th birthday (before the 7th birthday).  I asked on an AO board last year, and was told it was for during the year after the child turned 6, although I’m sure the people who  answered weren’t experts either.  

But, from looking at the list, I would think Charlotte means after the child has their 6th birthday, because many of the things are (like reading, memorizing a parable, make a scrapbook, and such seem more like formal education.  Again, I’m not saying that to say I think that is so, just that’s how I take it.

While our children may not do everything on this list, and it is a good guideline to follow I wanted to mention that there are things our children are doing that aren’t on the list that perhaps the children that Charlotte was teaching couldn’t do.  Maybe things like follow a simple recipe, identify the 50 states on the map,  plant a small flower or herb garden.  So, if your child can’t do everything on the list don’t concentrate on what they can’t yet do as much as something they can do that would be equally challenging.  With that said, I hope to follow many of the guidelines on CM’s 6 yo list, just not stress if I don’t teach everything, since I know my dc will know other things that are equally challenging.