Wildwood Curriculum

Wildwood is the secular Charlotte Mason curriculum, a free, volunteer-built, open-web program that adapts the PNEU programmes of the 1920s and 1930s for modern homeschool families who want Charlotte Mason's method without Christian framing. It is the answer to the most persistent question in homeschool-forum Charlotte Mason threads: "Is there anything like Ambleside for secular families?"

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

At a glance

Method	Charlotte Mason (narration, living books, nature study, picture and composer study)
Worldview	Secular
Grades	Birth through Form IV (ages 14-15), expanding over time
Formats	Digital, booklists, schedules, and guides published free on the Wildwood site
Cost tier	Free
Parent intensity	4
ESA-common	No (no SKUs to reimburse)
Accredited	No
Established	Volunteer project developed over the last decade; exact founding year not published
Website	wildwoodcurriculum.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	4	PNEU-derived booklists are genuinely rigorous for elementary and early secondary
Ease of teaching	3	Method is clear; implementation requires a parent who reads the philosophy first
Content quality	4	Books are chosen carefully with attention to literary merit and author diversity
Flexibility	5	Free, modular, swap-friendly, the model of a curriculum that invites adaptation
Value for money	5	Free curriculum plus library-borrowed books makes this one of the cheapest serious programs available
Worldview scope	5	Explicitly designed to work across secular, religious-accommodating, and blended households
Visual/design	2	Website is functional and informational; not a designed experience
Support resources	3	Volunteer community, forum, Facebook group; no paid customer service

Who the publisher is

Wildwood Curriculum is not a publisher in the traditional sense. It is a free, volunteer-maintained curriculum website created by Marjorie Lang and Jennifer Gehman, currently developed by a small rotating team of contributors including Laurie Connor and Miriam Hur, with a longer tail of past volunteers and community reviewers (per the Wildwood About page). Marjorie Lang has been homeschooling since 2001 and describes the project as a group effort to make Charlotte Mason's approach accessible regardless of a family's religious or cultural background. The curriculum does not operate as a nonprofit with a staff and a development cycle; it operates as an open-source-style volunteer project where contributors donate hundreds of hours to research books, publish schedules, and maintain the website.

The curriculum's core distinction is stated directly on its website: Wildwood is not a secular version of Ambleside Online, Simply Charlotte Mason, or Mater Amabilis. Its book selections were developed by going back to Charlotte Mason's original Parents' National Educational Union (PNEU) programmes from the 1920s and early 1930s and selecting modern books that match those programmes in reading level, page count, and subject focus (per the Wildwood FAQ). This is a meaningful architectural choice. Ambleside Online, which Wildwood is most often compared to, descends from the same PNEU programmes but retains their explicitly Christian framing; Wildwood rebuilds from the source with a secular framing.

What secular means at Wildwood is defined plainly. Approximately 90 percent of selected materials are entirely non-religious. When books contain spiritual references, and classical literature unavoidably does, the editors apply five criteria: whether religiosity is pervasive throughout the work, whether the author denies scientific or historical consensus on faith grounds, whether equally strong secular alternatives exist, whether the material would require extensive modification, and whether there is a religious agenda being promoted (per Wildwood's statement on being secular). A book with one scene of religious reference that otherwise stands on literary merit can make the list; a book with a religious argument running throughout typically does not.

The core pedagogy

Wildwood is recognizably Charlotte Mason. A typical day uses short lessons (15-20 minutes for younger students, 30-45 minutes for older), with each lesson structured around a living book reading followed by narration, the student tells back what was read in their own words, orally at first and in writing from about age nine. The curriculum includes daily readings across history, geography, literature, nature study, picture study, composer study, poetry, Shakespeare (beginning in Form III), and foreign language (families choose). There are no textbooks in the conventional sense; the Wildwood method substitutes a rotation of living books, typically ten to fifteen titles across a term, with several read concurrently.

Scope and sequence follows Charlotte Mason's graduated Forms: ages 6 and under is the pre-academic "quiet growing time" (no formal lessons, emphasis on outdoor time and read-alouds); Form I covers ages 6-9; Form II ages 9-12; Form III ages 12-14; Form IV ages 14-15. The curriculum continues to extend upward as its volunteer team completes additional forms; as of April 2026, formal Form IV was the most recent completed band, with later forms in development.

Signature mechanics: (1) Narration over comprehension questions, students tell back or write back what they've read rather than answering end-of-chapter questions, which is Mason's core pedagogical commitment. (2) Short lessons with variety, a morning rotates through six to eight subjects, each for short durations, to maintain attention and prevent fatigue. (3) Nature study as a subject in its own right, weekly outdoor observation sessions, the keeping of a nature journal with sketching, and reading of nature-focused living books. (4) Picture and composer study, six weeks on a single artist's work (three to six paintings studied in depth) followed by six weeks on a single composer's music. (5) Free and library-sourced. Wildwood assumes families will borrow from libraries and purchase used, and structures its book lists to support that.

A day in the life

A Form I (age 7) student using Wildwood has a morning that runs roughly two and a half to three hours. Begin at 8:30 with a math lesson. Wildwood does not prescribe a math program, so the family chooses Singapore, RightStart, Beast Academy, or another, for 20 minutes. Then handwriting or copywork (10-15 minutes, a sentence from the week's reading). Reading practice (15-20 minutes, oral reading from a graded reader). A Wildwood-assigned history reading (one chapter of a biography or living history, read aloud by parent with narration afterward; 15-20 minutes). A nature study observation, weather permitting outdoors (20-30 minutes). Picture study or composer study on alternating weeks (10 minutes). Poetry (5-10 minutes, memorization of a short poem across the term). Total morning time: approximately 2-2.5 hours, parent-led throughout. The afternoon is unstructured, free play, outdoor time, handicrafts.

A Form III (age 13) student has considerably more content and runs mostly independently. Morning begins with math (45 minutes, independent). Then a written narration or short essay on yesterday's history reading (30 minutes, independent). A fresh history reading from a substantial work like A Distant Mirror or a biography chapter (30-40 minutes, independent). Literature reading (30 minutes, independent), Form III students are working through Shakespeare plays, Dickens novels, or similar. Science reading and lab work (45 minutes, mixed independent and parent-directed). Foreign language (20-30 minutes). Picture study, composer study, and nature journaling continue at form-appropriate depth. Total academic time at Form III is four to five hours, mostly independent, with parent engagement concentrated on the written narrations and Shakespeare discussion.

What they do exceptionally well

The PNEU-anchored booklist. Wildwood's willingness to return to Charlotte Mason's original program sources and rebuild a secular booklist from them, rather than strip out the Christian content from Ambleside, yields a curriculum that feels coherent. The page counts match, the difficulty gradients match, and the subject balances match what Mason and her PNEU colleagues actually designed. That internal coherence is rarer than it sounds.

Genuinely secular implementation. The five-criterion editorial framework for evaluating religious content is honest work. It produces a book list that can be used by secular families without mid-chapter edits, by religious families comfortable discussing differing worldviews with their children, and by families in charter or ESA programs that restrict religious materials.

Cost. Free curriculum plus library-sourced books puts Wildwood among the cheapest serious programs available. A family committed to using the library and used-book stores can run a Wildwood year for $50-$150 in books; a family preferring to own their core texts new can run it for $200-$400. Compare to Ambleside Online, which is also free, or to Build Your Library at roughly $200-$300 per grade purchased, or to a paid Charlotte Mason publisher like Simply Charlotte Mason at $300-$500 per grade.

What they do poorly

Upper-form incompleteness. As of April 2026, Wildwood's completed curriculum extends through Form IV (age 14-15). Families committing to Wildwood for high school will find later forms in progress rather than finished. For a full high-school program with transcripts and recognized credits, families will need to supplement or transition to a different resource for Forms V and VI (roughly grades 10-12).

Self-directed implementation. Wildwood does not hold a parent's hand. The website provides book lists, schedules, and pedagogical notes; it does not provide scripted lessons, daily lesson plans with minute-by-minute teacher guidance, or a hotline a new parent can call when the method feels overwhelming. Families new to Charlotte Mason typically spend the first term reading Mason's original six-volume series, working through pedagogical forums, and figuring out what narration looks like in their household. Wildwood assumes a parent willing to do that preparation.

Production quality and discoverability. The Wildwood website is functional, not designed. Finding the right book on the right list requires clicking through multiple pages and cross-referencing. Print-formatted schedules are not always available; some families reformat the lists into their own planners. For a volunteer-maintained free project, this is expected. For a parent used to Sonlight's full-color catalog or Masterbooks' printed teacher guides, it is an adjustment.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick Wildwood if: you want a Charlotte Mason curriculum without Christian framing; you value a carefully built booklist derived directly from the PNEU programmes; you are comfortable with a self-directed, library-heavy implementation; you want a free or very low-cost program and are willing to source books from libraries and used-book stores; you are in an ESA or charter program that restricts religious materials and want a Charlotte Mason option that qualifies; you appreciate a project built by homeschoolers for homeschoolers rather than by a publisher.

• Skip Wildwood if: you want a publisher-supported program with printed teacher guides and customer service; you want scripted lessons with daily parent instructions; you want a complete K-12 program and cannot commit to a curriculum that is still completing its upper forms; you want an explicitly Christian curriculum and find secular framing a mismatch; you want a curriculum with physical materials in a box rather than lists you compile yourself.

Cost honest assessment

Wildwood is free. The curriculum itself, schedules, booklists, pedagogical guides, is published at no cost on wildwoodcurriculum.com. The only costs are books, math, and whatever supplies families purchase for nature study and handicrafts. A library-heavy Form I family can realistically run the year for $50-$150; a family preferring to own core texts new runs $200-$400. Comparable programs: Ambleside Online is also free but Christian-framed; Build Your Library is secular and paid at roughly $200-$300 per grade; Simply Charlotte Mason is Christian and paid at approximately $300-$500 per grade.

A realistic all-in annual family budget using Wildwood for two elementary students, assuming library borrowing for roughly 70 percent of books and modest purchase of core texts: $150-$350. Adding a math program (typically $100-$200) brings the total to approximately $250-$550 annually for the full program across two children.

ESA eligibility notes

Wildwood does not sell products, so there is nothing for a state ESA marketplace to reimburse through the Wildwood storefront directly. Families using state ESA funds typically purchase individual books on the Wildwood list through approved marketplace vendors. Amazon, Christianbook, Rainbow Resource, or the library, and claim those individual books under the marketplace's book-purchase category. Because Wildwood's secular framing makes it one of the few Charlotte Mason options explicitly permissible in states that restrict religious materials, it is a structurally convenient fit for ESA-supported homeschoolers in those states. Verify individual book eligibility and vendor availability through the specific state marketplace.

Alternatives

• Ambleside Online, a family would pick Ambleside Online over Wildwood for a Christian-framed Charlotte Mason curriculum descending from the same PNEU source materials, with a larger and more settled community and a more complete upper-grade program.
• Build Your Library, a family would pick Build Your Library over Wildwood for a secular literature-based program with printed guides and tighter daily scheduling, at roughly $200-$300 per grade rather than free.
• A Gentle Feast, a family would pick A Gentle Feast over Wildwood for a publisher-supported Charlotte Mason curriculum with printed materials, customer service, and a full K-12 scope, at standard-tier pricing.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed Wildwood's public website, the About page, FAQ, the On Being a Secular Curriculum statement, and the form-specific pages at wildwoodcurriculum.com, in April 2026. We cross-referenced against the broader secular-Charlotte-Mason homeschool literature and Ambleside Online as the most-compared adjacent program. Prices and program details verified April 2026.