Ambleside Online is a rigorous curriculum and includes a few American books (which is understandable having been put together so generously by some wonderful American women who volunteered a LOT of their time to make this great free curriculum)
So, some aspects need to be modified to include Australian content and some I've modified to suit our home.
So, here it is, I've crossed out what AO recommends for their year 2 and put in our substitutes next to it. (A lot of these books are free online and I've linked to the free online sites where applicable)
Bible:
There is no formal AO Bible curriculum.
We are doing a mixture of things here.
We will be continuing with "Leading Little Ones to God" (which we began a few years ago I might add! but it's such a nice book that I don't want it to end, so we go through it very slowly) I blogged about this book here.
(I just love, love, love this book and can't recommend it enough as a devotional for the younger kids. Not only are the topics great, covering a lot of christian doctrine but the best part for me are all the conversations we have after we read a chapter. They are absolutely priceless. Rebekah and I have had the deepest and some of the best conversations about God, life, faith, issues she's going through etc. after these readings. Anyway, back to our curriculum....)
Egermeier's Bible Story book - reading through the stories and doing the questions for each chapter. They are not what Charlotte Mason would recommend but I think Rebekah enjoys these 'comprehension' type questions as they are a nice change from 'narration' and a novelty!
Charlotte Mason's Schools (PNEU) Bible Curriculum - we use this as a guide for memorisation passages at the moment.
Language Arts:
Penmanship:
Italics Beautiful Handwriting for children by Penny Gardner (our choice)
Poetry:
Finishing off from year 2 "A book for kids" by C J Dennis (Aussie poetry we added)
Poetry of Walter De la Mare, Eugene Field, James Whitcombe Riley and Christina Rossetti
Literature:
Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty
Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Robin Hood by Howard Pyle / The Way of the Whirlwind by Mary Durack (I haven't decided yet on whether we will substitute this last one or just add Mary Durack's book as a free read)
Maths: (no formal recommendation, it's our choice)
Continuing with Singapore Maths, we will finish 2A from year 2 and continue with 2B and on.
Science and Natural History:
Charlotte Mason emphasised nature study as a foundation for higher level sciences so we will be continuing our focus on nature study and using our own field guides and other nature books we've accumulated.
In addition to this we will be doing (as outlined in AO):
The Burgess Animal Book for Children by Thornton Burgess
Pagoo by Holling C Holling
and our additions to include some hands on experiments:
Usborne Science Activities – Volume One (Science with Water, Magnets, Light and Mirrors) along with many other science books we have in our home library (including the fun and educational Magic School Bus books) and other books on loan from friends:)
History: 1000 A.D. to Middle Ages
Our/An Island Story by H E Marshall
A Child’s History of the World by V Hillyer
History tales and/or biography:
The Little Duke by Charlotte Yonge
Joanne of Arc by Diane Stanley
We are substituting the following for Australian history:
The Australia Book by Eve Pownall
John of the Sirius by Doris Chadwick (an out of print book by so generously loaned to me by my friend Pam) (On a side note, Pam has recently re-commenced blogging, she is an experienced homeschooler and I'm so blessed to know her. If you click on her name it will take you to her blog or she is also on my blog list to the right under 'everything we need')
Geography:
We are not doing both of the above because they are about American geography, though I believe Seabird covers world geography. I may get them as free reads if I find reasonably priced copies!
Elementary Geography by Charlotte Mason (This is free online and covers the basics of geography which I want Rebekah to learn)
Children Just Like Me (a celebration of children from around the world) Unicef book by Dorling Kindersley (we have since ditched this one as it was adding too much to our workload. Instead, Ron will read it as a free read to Rebekah from time to time)
Foreign language:
This will remain an ideal for me but Rebekah has lost interest in learning Spanish, so the jury is out at present as to what we will do in this area!
Drawing:
Drawing with children by Mona Brookes (we continue to use this at a slow but steady pace)
Picture Study:
Artistic Pursuits (k-3 book 1) and other art books we have in our home library.
Craft: (no formal recommendation for this but we do this to satisfy my craft loving daughter)
Various books we have at home.
Handicrafts:
we will continue learning to knit and hopefully begin some hand sewing this year.
Composer:
We will be following AO for this and listening to the music of Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bartok and Hindemith
Music and dance:
Rebekah will continue her study of the recorder and her ballet lessons
Hymns and folksongs:
We are only this year beginning to officially implement this in our homeschool!
I have decided to pick my own from a variety of hymns and folksongs suggested on the AO website. So even though we are doing this, it will not follow the AO schedule closely.
In addition to these modifications, our 'tweaking' involves not doing a straight 'narration' for every reading. But that's a topic for another post!
Besides the above 'school' books, Rebekah will be reading these in her free time (as recommended by AO) along with other books we might come across to buy her / borrow through the year:
Heidi by Joanna Spyri
A Wonder Book by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney
Hans Christian Anderson Fairy tales
Pied Piper of Hamlin by Robert Browning
Abraham Lincoln by Ingri D'Aulaire
Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
Brighty of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry
Mr Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater
Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle
Chanticleer and the Fox - Barbara Cooney
Along Came A Dog by Meindert De Jong
The Door in the Wall by Marguerite De Angeli
Additional Aussie literature for free reading (if our library has them or if I can get my hands on some reasonably priced copies!)
Thiele Tales - Three Long Tales for Children by Colin Thiele
Scottie in Gumnutland by May Gibbs
As always, I couldn't do all of this myself, no way! As mentioned, Ambleside Online is run by a group of homeschooling mums, who give so generously of their time and support. In addition to them, I have a lot of generous blog and real life friends who help me along the way with book recommendations etc. Thank you to all of you!
11 comments:
Always super interesting to see what others are using / doing. :o)
Hello!
Oooo, good on you for getting all that down. AO can feel exceedingly confusing because there is just so much there! Especially, when you start to modify it with Australian contact as you (& we!) have.
But how brilliant to have all your links in one place.
We only formally (well, as formally as an eclectic homeschooler is going to get) started AO this year though I ensured that we had read all of the Yr. 0 recommendations during L's Kindergarten year. I am currently doing a hybrid AO1 and AO3 mix. Not sure if it's the best way and often I wonder if I should meet in the middle and use AO2 for both my boys. Lol.
May I ask how you schedule/document your progress through these books?
Thank you for saying hello over at my blog :)
Amber. x
Thanks Deborah :)
Hi Amber!
Yes AO can be quite confusing at first lol!
I just copy the weekly schedule to a word document and then add our extra substitutions and cross of the ones from AO we are not doing and make a weekly list from that.Then we just cross it off as we go. That's pretty much it:)
Does that answer your question? :)
Let me know if it hasn't and if you meant something else lol?
Xxx
Rosemary
Sounds like you are all organised and doing well. What a great list of books for Rebekah to enjoy.
Have a great week:)
Your book list looks great. We have read a lot of those and loved them. Many of them were recommended by Sonlight, so that's how I found out about them. It sounds like you will have another great year.
Thank you so much for visiting my blog regularly and leaving a comment each time. It means so much to me! You have been a great encouragement to me. And I enjoy reading your blog, too!
Great booklist! And thanks for your lovely comment on my blog!
Ah, so fun to read your list!!!
I have to ask, have you found a copy of Hillyer's Child's History of the World? (Hoping there's a secret inexpensive stash somewhere out there LOL~!) Seriously, my sis in law had that book for awhile & it was really neat to read, even I (a grown up) was caught up in it.
It looks like a really fun year ahead for you both. I wish you well as you begin!
Blessings,
Eve
Eve: yea CHOW is not cheap is it ! I was blessed to be able to score a brand new unused copy for second hand prices from our Aussie homeschool forum. We are really enjoying it:) hope u can find a reasonably priced one too!
Oh we love CHOW and the Holling books! I hope you find a reasonable copy so you can read them! This is an excellent plan. I am so grateful that I don't have to modify AO but you and Jeanne do it so well. Makes me wish I was Australian. :)
Hi Rosemary!
Really love this post not least because this is helpful to learning mums like me with a younger child. Thanks! That must have taken quite a while to put together.
Lynnisha
You have it all laid out really well! The literature is wonderful! xxx
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