I am a person that likes structure and knowing what I need to do ahead of time (well, at least a little ahead of time :) ).
However, I found, moving out of that ready made curriculum to piecing things together for year 7 was not as bad as I anticipated. We still have structure, but instead of going to one place for all our needs, I just needed to go to a few.
I came up with this schedule to help plan our days and also to use it as a method of record keeping (from which I write out our end of term reports) for NESA (formerly the Board of Studies).
She finished up with Allinonehomeschool's curriculum for some subjects but continued with it for others as you'll see below.
This year, we veered from Charlotte Mason and began a classical curriculum for history, literature and theology combined. Rebekah fell in love with it from the start and this is something she looks forward to doing each week, and is known to also do schoolwork from this during her holidays (that's how much she loves it).
It combines the three subjects together and is called Omnibus Primary and Omnibus Secondary and is put out by Veritas Press and you can find them here: https://veritaspress.com/selfpaced/omnibus. This course includes books about the time period being studied, both from the actual time period and books written later about the time period. The course is designed to teach children a strong Biblical worldview.
This was Rebekah's year 8 curriculum:
English Literature, History and Theology:
Time period Medieval history through to the start of the Reformation
For term 1, we continued with year 7 of EP (Allinonehomeschool.com) and added in some other books for Aussie Literature, some of which she read in her free time.
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Treasure Island, R L Stevenson
Aussie Literature:
The Little Black Princess, J Gunn
(she did a book study and report on this)
From Term 2 onwards, she began Omnibus and these are the books studied for literature, history and theology combined:
Eusibius: The Church History
The Hobbit, J R R Tolkien
The Fellowship of the ring, J R R Tolkien
The Nine Tailors, Dorothy Sayers
The Dragon and the Raven, G A Henty
The Gospel of John
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, H Pyle
Confessions by Augustine
On the Incarnation of our Lord, Saint Athanasius
The Creeds (Christianity)
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Bede
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare
Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun by Rhoda Blumberg
Rule of St Benedict by St Benedict
Beowulf
She also kept a Book of Centuries (not needed for this course but I find this helpful for her and we've done this for years with a Charlotte Mason education 😊 )
Language Arts:
Grammar -
Intermediate Language Lessons part 3, Emma Serl
Language Arts level 7 of EP (AIOHS)
Poetry - as covered in Intermediate Language Lessons, AIOHS, debate class and lots of free reading poetry with mum and dad (Dad in particular loves reading poetry with Rebekah) :)
Debate -
Weekly classes at a local homeschool co-op.
(Rebekah loves these classes as she really enjoys debating and public speaking.
Her favourite role in debates is 3rd speaker as she loves having to think on her feet).
Spelling and Dictation - Language Arts of EP
Writing: Rebekah continued the Language Arts course of EP, also did book reports, written narrations, and writing speeches for her debate class.
Maths:
My Pals are Here Maths (Singapore Maths)
Science:
Aplogia Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics, Jeannie Fulbright, along with the notebooking journal (Rebekah wanted to do it this time though she hasn't liked the Apologia journals much in the past)
Apologia Exploring Creation with General Science, Jay Wile (began in term 4)
Biography of Isaac Newton, Hudson Tiner
Geography:
EP Geography and Cultures course continued from year 7
Around the World in Eighty Days, Jules Verne (continued from year 7)
Material World, Peter Menzel
Hungry Planet, Peter Menzel
Civics and Citizenship:
Term 3 was set aside to focus on this subject (formally). We do discuss a lot of this in real life anyhow but in order to record it for NESA we decided to use these resources.
Prime Ministers of Australia, Jill B Bruce
Magna Carta, C Walter Hodges
PEO website (Parliamentary Education Office)
Skwirk (Rebekah used this online resource in year 7 as a supplement for a couple of things and we used this to study civics and citizenship)
Languages:
Biography of Isaac Newton, Hudson Tiner
Geography:
EP Geography and Cultures course continued from year 7
Around the World in Eighty Days, Jules Verne (continued from year 7)
Material World, Peter Menzel
Hungry Planet, Peter Menzel
Civics and Citizenship:
Term 3 was set aside to focus on this subject (formally). We do discuss a lot of this in real life anyhow but in order to record it for NESA we decided to use these resources.
Prime Ministers of Australia, Jill B Bruce
Magna Carta, C Walter Hodges
PEO website (Parliamentary Education Office)
Skwirk (Rebekah used this online resource in year 7 as a supplement for a couple of things and we used this to study civics and citizenship)
Languages:
Rebekah loves Latin so she continued Visual Latin (from Compass Classroom) the course she began in Year 7.
Creative Arts:
Ballet 3 x week, lyrical dancing
She began teaching herself how to play a keyboard, using a program called Piano Maestro as she loves playing her keyboard!
Composer Study:
Haydn (also read Josephy Haydn by Opal Wheeler)
Schubert
Art Study:
Giotto
Rembrandt (and a visit to the Art Gallery for the Rembrandt exhibition)
Additional books studied:
Emily of New Moon, L M Montgomery (and wrote a book report)
Emily of New Moon, L M Montgomery (and wrote a book report)
Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze by Elizabeth F Lewis,
Free Reads:
The first four years, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Anne of Avonlea, L M Montgomery
Aslan's Call, Mark Eddy Smith *
A Midsummer Nights dream, Shakespeare
The Fire in the Stone, Colin Theale *
Anne of the Island, L M Montgomery
At the back of the North Wind, George Macdonald
Anne of Windy Polars, L M Montgomery
Amy Carmichael Rescuer by Night, Kay Walsh (Trailblazer books)
Anne's House of Dreams, L M Montgomery
Maggie Rose, A Birthday Christmas, Ruth Sawyer **
Anne of Ingleside, L M Montgomery
Kidnapped, R L Stevenson
Meet Marly (Our Australia Girl series), Alice Pung***
Marly's Business (Our Australian Girl series), Alice Pung***
The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, Trenton Lee Stewart
Escape from Mr Lemoncello's Library, Chris Grabenstein
Behind the Gates: Tomorrow Girls series, Eva Gray
Run for cover: Tomorrow Girls Series, Eva Gray
Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Patterson (read before)
The Australian Twins, Daphne Rooke
Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain*
The Silver Chair, C S Lewis (read before)
Brownie, Amy Le Feuvre
Gillian and the Garden, Elisabeth Batt
Flower of Gold, Dorothy O Royce
The Thirty Nine Steps, John Bunyan
Cocos Gold, Ralph Hammond
Picwick Papers, Charles Dickens
*Ron read these to Rebekah at night
** I read these to Rebekah
***Historical Fiction about a vietnamese refugee to Australia
