For families, teachers & purchasing teams

Charter Schools

Academic curriculum, with clear content guidance.

We welcome charter school families and educators. Fostering Wonder offers curriculum designed for academic learning, alongside website articles that may express Christian faith. Here we explain the distinction and identify religious references within the curriculum’s books and lessons.

Explore curriculum for review Academic & faith-based content

Our approach to religion in the curriculum

The curriculum’s intended purpose is academic study, not religious formation. It is not designed as a Bible-reading or devotional program, or to ask children to adopt a particular faith.

Living books can contain Christian references, Greek mythology, folklore, and accounts of different beliefs and people groups. Encountering those ideas in literature or history is different from practicing a religion.

Curriculum and the wider website

Some of the founder’s articles, newsletters, and family reflections discuss the Bible and Christian faith. These express her personal perspective and are separate from the curriculum products offered for purchase.

Please review the specific product and everything assigned or included with it. Charter schools are always welcome to direct questions about specific curriculum to our business email, hello@fosteringwonder.com.

Curriculum to consider for academic use

English Language Arts

Reading, narration, vocabulary, copywork, grammar, and composition through living books.

What to review

Review each grade’s book list, assigned passages, and student activities. Some literary works contain Christian themes or religious language. Grades 2 and 3 include The Pilgrim’s Progress, a Christian allegory.

The teaching material in the English curriculum does not ask students to reference religious thoughts or ideas. Students are asked to notice grammatical components within the literature, complete copywork from the assigned reading, and narrate the passage by simply telling back what they remember.

Grades 1 and 2 also use Parables from Nature, a book of more advanced moral stories, similar to Aesop’s Fables. Although the stories carry underlying meanings, the curriculum uses this literature for grammar, copywork, and narration rather than for Bible study or interpretation of religious ideas.

Poems are selected from renowned poets. Students listen to them to develop an ear for rhyme and rhythm, with additional literacy skills developed in the upper grades.

History

People, places, events, geography, and historical understanding through reading and narration.

What to review

Grade 6 history is on ancient history. Due to the nature of ancient history, different religious groups are mentioned and views of prehistoric life are mentioned in this curriculum as well.

Foreign Language Spanish

Spanish language learning through traditional rhymes, songs, and word activities.

What to review

Traditional songs and folklore can include religious references. These songs and folklore are more of a cultural introduction to the Spanish culture rather than teaching a specific religion.

Academic content and faith-based resources

A secular educational purpose does not mean a book never mentions religion. The distinction is how the material teaches and what it asks the student to do.

Academic instruction: Reading, language, writing, history, and geography activities intended to build knowledge and skills, without asking a student to adopt or practice a religion.
Explicitly faith-based website content: Bible-focused articles, Christian reflections, and religious guidance for family life are used to describe what a Charlotte Mason education looks like for all subjects that Charlotte Mason spoke about in her volumes, which are the Home Education volumes. They are not the curriculum for purchase. They are free resources for parents that would like to know what else Charlotte Mason wanted her students to learn. For example, Let the Bible Teach is a faith-based newsletter article, not a curriculum product.

Let’s help your school review the materials

For curriculum questions or a vendor inquiry, email the course or grade you are considering and any particular book, passage, or lesson you would like to discuss. We welcome questions that help distinguish academic instruction from religious content.

hello@fosteringwonder.com