I've been a bit absent from blog land for the past couple of months, just visiting from time to time as my time and moods allow:)
I've been through some serious 'curriculum' searching for Rebekah for her next academic year (year 4) which for us starts in April (as we don't follow the traditional school year).
I've had some health issues (ongoing and still working on getting answers) and so I've had to make life easier in terms of our homeschool curriculum.
I've loved the Ambleside Online curriculum but I've been finding it a little challenging in terms of my time and energy.
I find I need to research a lot before making changes to books as I don't want to short change Rebekah. I had already modified it a little to suit us but as I was looking ahead to their year 3, I found I just didn't like some of the books and would have had to swap out a few, changing/ adapting involving more effort and time on my part. I think I was starting to tire of all the "older" books too somewhat. Also, at this stage in my life I was looking for someone to 'tell me what to do' without having to research, research etc. So.....I'm going back to Living Books Curriculum!
I researched quite a few different curriculums and prayed a lot and I just couldn't get past LBC. We did enjoy the two years we did with them for Rebekah when we first started out. As I looked through their booklists and teachers manual samples, it brought back memories of some of the fun books we read and all the 'extra activities' they suggest, I realised that a few things were falling through the cracks for us including map work for geography, and a lot of the other hands on activities to add to our learning that don't come naturally to me! I'm sure I'll be changing some and adapting it to suit us but atleast I have a general guide for the year ahead that I pick up each week and know what to do! LBC is also rich in good books and utilises a lot of the classics like Ambleside Online but they also utilise a lot of newer books. I like exposing Rebekah to more modern well written books and being not a literary brain myself I have to search and trawl through book lists and blogs to expose her to these. LBC saves me a lot of time and effort with this!
I've continued to moderate our local homeschool group and also am very involved on a weekly basis with some families that have started recently homeschooling from our church, running the science class in this group. So it's a co-op style group and we're doing Apologia's Astrononomy book this year. I must say we're enjoying and appreciating the dynamics that comes with learning in a group for Rebekah (being an only child).
So, I've been busy and continued to stay productive with life in general (despite my health challenges and this is purely due to the grace of God and an amazing and supportive husband) but just not in blog land! :) I'm really really sorry to all my faithful blog friends out there, I've tried to visit as much as I've been able to but I have not been as active as I have in the past. I'm not sure how and when this will change but this is where we are at for now:) I'll continue to blog and visit you all as and when I can as I've missed my peeks into your lives and the interaction, sharing and friendship that come along with that:)
p.s. if you'd like to be friends on Facebook, please email me from my profile page and I'd love to keep in touch with you through FB :)
Showing posts with label Ambleside Online. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ambleside Online. Show all posts
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Understood Rebekah
I was going to title this post "Understood Betsy Rebekah" but alas I'm not clever enough (yet) to have figured out how to strike through a word in the title!
And if you're unfamiliar with the story of "Undersood Betsy" which we just finished reading for term 1 of Ambleside Online Year 2 (yay!) here's a snippet from Wikipedia:
"The story tells of Elizabeth Ann, a 9-year-old orphan who goes from a sheltered existence with her father's aunt Harriet and cousin Frances in the city, to living on a Vermont farm with her mother's family, the Putneys, whose child-rearing practices had always seemed suspect to Harriet and her daughter. In her new rural life, Elizabeth Ann comes to be nicknamed "Betsy," and to find that many activities that Frances had always thought too demanding for a little girl are considered, by the Putney family, routine activities for a child: walking to school alone, cooking, and having household duties to perform."
You can read more here.
This is a truly delightful story which we have both enjoyed reading and I highly recommend it especially for children around the ages of 8 to 10. You can read it for free online here and here.
Rebekah thought the author was a very funny writer as we laughed a lot at many places in the book!
It was amazing to see the connections Rebekah made between her life and that of early 20th century's Betsy. It was also amazing to see (without my questioning) what assessments she made of the various characters within the book, e.g, that Aunt Frances had given Betsy too much attention or that Betsy had become 'tanned' because of the manual work she had done on the farm. These are not discussions I have ever had with Rebekah but ones that she would talk to me about (uninitiated) after reading the book. Charlotte Mason was so right when she said not to get between the child and the book but to allow the child to make their own connections. Well, I've seen it time and again in Rebekah's life. It has freed me up and removed the 'burden' of me having to do the 'teaching'.
Also, on the topic of Betsy and making connections, I assume Rebekah concluded that she was perhaps a bit like Besty (when she lived with her Aunt Frances in the city) and wasn't allowed to do too much (ouch) because she has begun to ask me to teach her to sew and to allow her to do some cooking independently (another ouch for me)!
Being an only child, Rebekah is the oldest and the youngest! No younger siblings has made her the 'baby' of the house in some ways which has meant that at times I err on the side of 'babying' her too much and not allowing her to do things perhaps other children her age would be doing like cooking independently etc. (Ron is much better at this than me which is why I say 'I' not 'us')!
An example would be that she sat in her booster seat in the car until the age of 8 (though the law says they are not required to sit in one after 7), shhh, don't tell anyone lol! To make matters worse, we did this only after she complained that she was too old for it:)
On the other hand, not having any other siblings also means that she gets more 'adult' conversation and interaction with Ron and I, probably much more than other children her age that I find in some respects she can carry on a much more mature conversation than other children her age.
I know some of my mum friends must roll their eyes at some of the things I do or say:) I know some of this is inevitable as we all "learn" parenting with our first borns. But alas she has no one following her so I am never at the place where I can say confidently that I know what to do in a situation (because we've been there before).
I'm sure other mums of "onlies" can identify with this?
Whatever the case, I'm always learning; having to 'loosen' up a little to let her become more independent and 'trust' her with more responsibilities. This book has definitely helped me in this journey.
I'd love to hear from you all that were either an only child or have only children. What words of wisdom do you have for me? Would you care to share some of your thoughts on growing up as an "only" or raising an only child. Please do tell, I'd love to hear them. Also from parents of more than one child, what are your observations from the sidelines? Do you have any thoughts or wisdom to share?
And if you're unfamiliar with the story of "Undersood Betsy" which we just finished reading for term 1 of Ambleside Online Year 2 (yay!) here's a snippet from Wikipedia:
"The story tells of Elizabeth Ann, a 9-year-old orphan who goes from a sheltered existence with her father's aunt Harriet and cousin Frances in the city, to living on a Vermont farm with her mother's family, the Putneys, whose child-rearing practices had always seemed suspect to Harriet and her daughter. In her new rural life, Elizabeth Ann comes to be nicknamed "Betsy," and to find that many activities that Frances had always thought too demanding for a little girl are considered, by the Putney family, routine activities for a child: walking to school alone, cooking, and having household duties to perform."
You can read more here.
This is a truly delightful story which we have both enjoyed reading and I highly recommend it especially for children around the ages of 8 to 10. You can read it for free online here and here.
Rebekah thought the author was a very funny writer as we laughed a lot at many places in the book!
It was amazing to see the connections Rebekah made between her life and that of early 20th century's Betsy. It was also amazing to see (without my questioning) what assessments she made of the various characters within the book, e.g, that Aunt Frances had given Betsy too much attention or that Betsy had become 'tanned' because of the manual work she had done on the farm. These are not discussions I have ever had with Rebekah but ones that she would talk to me about (uninitiated) after reading the book. Charlotte Mason was so right when she said not to get between the child and the book but to allow the child to make their own connections. Well, I've seen it time and again in Rebekah's life. It has freed me up and removed the 'burden' of me having to do the 'teaching'.
Also, on the topic of Betsy and making connections, I assume Rebekah concluded that she was perhaps a bit like Besty (when she lived with her Aunt Frances in the city) and wasn't allowed to do too much (ouch) because she has begun to ask me to teach her to sew and to allow her to do some cooking independently (another ouch for me)!
Being an only child, Rebekah is the oldest and the youngest! No younger siblings has made her the 'baby' of the house in some ways which has meant that at times I err on the side of 'babying' her too much and not allowing her to do things perhaps other children her age would be doing like cooking independently etc. (Ron is much better at this than me which is why I say 'I' not 'us')!
An example would be that she sat in her booster seat in the car until the age of 8 (though the law says they are not required to sit in one after 7), shhh, don't tell anyone lol! To make matters worse, we did this only after she complained that she was too old for it:)
On the other hand, not having any other siblings also means that she gets more 'adult' conversation and interaction with Ron and I, probably much more than other children her age that I find in some respects she can carry on a much more mature conversation than other children her age.
I know some of my mum friends must roll their eyes at some of the things I do or say:) I know some of this is inevitable as we all "learn" parenting with our first borns. But alas she has no one following her so I am never at the place where I can say confidently that I know what to do in a situation (because we've been there before).
I'm sure other mums of "onlies" can identify with this?
Whatever the case, I'm always learning; having to 'loosen' up a little to let her become more independent and 'trust' her with more responsibilities. This book has definitely helped me in this journey.
I'd love to hear from you all that were either an only child or have only children. What words of wisdom do you have for me? Would you care to share some of your thoughts on growing up as an "only" or raising an only child. Please do tell, I'd love to hear them. Also from parents of more than one child, what are your observations from the sidelines? Do you have any thoughts or wisdom to share?
Friday, June 22, 2012
Narrating upside down and other things!
We had a very productive week this week after a couple of weeks of being sick and having relatives visit from interstate!
I always feel great being able to tick off all my boxes in a week. This week was one such week, we even fit nature study in, hooray!
I've got a great friend Pam and we've been attempting to do a monthly nature walk day together with our girls.
We didn't let the weather beat us today; it was freezing and blowing a gale but we got out there and did a small nature walk and had fun! We even got to draw some wattle in our journals! The girls had fun with plastic bag kites - another one of Pam's very clever ideas!
Earlier this week, Rebekah decided to do her narrations up side down again - I'm not sure what type of a learner she is (I haven't spent too much time reading up on this) but she does enjoy being read to and narrating with her feet in the air or doing something with her hands! I say, go for it, if it works for you! I am not good at multi-tasking even though women are supposed to be good at this, sorry ladies, it's just not one of those things I'm good at; actually there are other things women are supposed to be good at/ like to do that I'm not, but that's another story:)
These are Rebekah's best friends and companions. She reads with them in bed, sleeps with them next to her, takes them on car trips and to visit her friends. Jacob (though I insist he's more like Jackie not Jacob) is on the left in green and Sparkle on the right is her 'dog'. Rebekah has wanted a dog so badly, ever since she could talk, but we've repeatedly told her we'll consider it when she's 10. In the meantime, Sparkle will have to do!
Rebekah decided that she would now be their teacher and teach them how to read and write, maths, history and other things. Jacob is doing Year 3 reading, Year 1 writing and preschool maths; Sparkle is doing Year 1 history, Year 1 writing and pre-school maths or something like that! I got last after the Year 3 reading bit lol!
Any of you doing/ have done AO will know we've been reading "Understood Betsy" this week where Betsy realises she can be in Year 7 for reading and Year 2 in math and that it's all ok:) Much like most homeschooled kids (which I haven't divulged to Rebekah yet).
Enjoy your weekend!
I always feel great being able to tick off all my boxes in a week. This week was one such week, we even fit nature study in, hooray!
I've got a great friend Pam and we've been attempting to do a monthly nature walk day together with our girls.
We didn't let the weather beat us today; it was freezing and blowing a gale but we got out there and did a small nature walk and had fun! We even got to draw some wattle in our journals! The girls had fun with plastic bag kites - another one of Pam's very clever ideas!
Earlier this week, Rebekah decided to do her narrations up side down again - I'm not sure what type of a learner she is (I haven't spent too much time reading up on this) but she does enjoy being read to and narrating with her feet in the air or doing something with her hands! I say, go for it, if it works for you! I am not good at multi-tasking even though women are supposed to be good at this, sorry ladies, it's just not one of those things I'm good at; actually there are other things women are supposed to be good at/ like to do that I'm not, but that's another story:)
These are Rebekah's best friends and companions. She reads with them in bed, sleeps with them next to her, takes them on car trips and to visit her friends. Jacob (though I insist he's more like Jackie not Jacob) is on the left in green and Sparkle on the right is her 'dog'. Rebekah has wanted a dog so badly, ever since she could talk, but we've repeatedly told her we'll consider it when she's 10. In the meantime, Sparkle will have to do!
Rebekah decided that she would now be their teacher and teach them how to read and write, maths, history and other things. Jacob is doing Year 3 reading, Year 1 writing and preschool maths; Sparkle is doing Year 1 history, Year 1 writing and pre-school maths or something like that! I got last after the Year 3 reading bit lol!
Any of you doing/ have done AO will know we've been reading "Understood Betsy" this week where Betsy realises she can be in Year 7 for reading and Year 2 in math and that it's all ok:) Much like most homeschooled kids (which I haven't divulged to Rebekah yet).
Enjoy your weekend!
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Our Year 3 (AO2)
Some of you asked / may be interested in this:
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
Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan Pilgrims Progress Told to the Children by Mary Macgregor (I chose a simpler version for this year and will tackle the original next year. I want Rebekah to enjoy this book and learn from it so I opted for this easier version rather than diving into the original for fear that the more difficult language might be a turn off!)
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
This Country of Ours by H E Marshall (American history)
History tales and/or biography:
Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula We are substituting with missionary stories instead.
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:
Tree in the Trail by Holling C Holling
Seabird by Holling C Holling
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:
Art works of Fragonard, Bierstadt and Norman Rockwell
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
Mary Poppins by P L Travers
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!
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!
Monday, April 23, 2012
AO1 is done, year 3 - here we come!
I've had to explain our 'years' and how we work our school years to many a friend in real life, so I thought I'd explain it to you all here as well.
You see, Rebekah began a year of Kindergarten when she was 5 (2009) for which I used Living Books Curriculum's Foundation Year for this.
The following year we began their Year 1 when she was 6.
But halfway through that, I found myself tweaking their curriculum so much, that I found I was pretty much doing most of it on my own and not following the teachers manul much nor using all of the suggested books.
I then decided I would use the Ambleside Online curriculum that I had been eyeing for many years but just didn't feel confident enough to take on. You see, it's a free online curriculum and there is no teachers manual to tell you what to do each day or give you lots of extra tips and such. Also it seemed quite rigorous to me.
However, as mentioned earlier, due to me changing what we were doing so much anyway in year 1 and gaining a bit more confidence in my home school endeavours, I set out to do AO with Rebekah when she turned 7. I blogged about that here.
This curriculum being quite advanced I started Rebekah in their Year 1. Now, you might say she repeated year 1, which would be technically true except that they are quite different curriculums and the recommended age to begin year 1 (from a lot of mums who've done it) was age 7. (It truly is an advanced curriculum, just a quick look at the book lists will prove that!). So, this is what we did but we called it our Year 2. Clear as mud?:) For all extra curricular activities, Rebekah needs to be in a 'grade' and I didn't want her doing ballet etc with much younger kids, so I decided to call it our Year 2!
Well, we've just finished AO1 (our year 2) and all I can say is that we love it so much we are continuing with it this year. 'This' year for Rebekah is 'Year 3' which we started today. More confusing I know! Not only do we not keep our years simple but to confuse everyone even more, our school year doesn't start till April! Hey, that's the beauty of homeschooling though isn't it! It's quite flexible.
So, often Rebekah is doing school when her friends are on holidays and vice versa. This time however, her holidays coincided with the schools, so she had even more fun with plenty of play dates and a sleep over!
I try to keep things simple but often they get a bit complicated, much to my amazement! I seem to have a talent for this:) It was the same when we decided to call her Rebekah and not spell it the traditional way - Rebecca. I sincerely apologise to everyone out there for the confusion related to this. I just didn't anticipate that it would throw people so much that her name would end up getting spelled as Rebekkah, Rebekka, Rebekha, Rebekahh and so on:) Sorry!
Anyway, back to our homeschooling: I feel such a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction at having completed a whole year of AO. It might seem trivial but I know for me, I was apprehensive about using this curriculum as I knew it would be challenging forRebekah me:) But I am happy to report that yes, it was challenging but only to the point of stretching her us and not to the point of frustration. I can now say I truly love AO after doing it for a year, though I probably only did 70 to 80 % of it as laid out. We omitted a couple of things and changed a couple to make it our Australian AO1. I've got to say though, I absolutely love the books. The online discussion group is very lively and supportive and best of all it's a curriculum that's doable on a tight budget as most of their resources are free online. You've got to love that!
Here's Rebekah on her first day of Year 3 (AO2) with a few of the books we'll be covering this year, (more on that to come in another post):
You see, Rebekah began a year of Kindergarten when she was 5 (2009) for which I used Living Books Curriculum's Foundation Year for this.
The following year we began their Year 1 when she was 6.
But halfway through that, I found myself tweaking their curriculum so much, that I found I was pretty much doing most of it on my own and not following the teachers manul much nor using all of the suggested books.
I then decided I would use the Ambleside Online curriculum that I had been eyeing for many years but just didn't feel confident enough to take on. You see, it's a free online curriculum and there is no teachers manual to tell you what to do each day or give you lots of extra tips and such. Also it seemed quite rigorous to me.
However, as mentioned earlier, due to me changing what we were doing so much anyway in year 1 and gaining a bit more confidence in my home school endeavours, I set out to do AO with Rebekah when she turned 7. I blogged about that here.
This curriculum being quite advanced I started Rebekah in their Year 1. Now, you might say she repeated year 1, which would be technically true except that they are quite different curriculums and the recommended age to begin year 1 (from a lot of mums who've done it) was age 7. (It truly is an advanced curriculum, just a quick look at the book lists will prove that!). So, this is what we did but we called it our Year 2. Clear as mud?:) For all extra curricular activities, Rebekah needs to be in a 'grade' and I didn't want her doing ballet etc with much younger kids, so I decided to call it our Year 2!
Well, we've just finished AO1 (our year 2) and all I can say is that we love it so much we are continuing with it this year. 'This' year for Rebekah is 'Year 3' which we started today. More confusing I know! Not only do we not keep our years simple but to confuse everyone even more, our school year doesn't start till April! Hey, that's the beauty of homeschooling though isn't it! It's quite flexible.
So, often Rebekah is doing school when her friends are on holidays and vice versa. This time however, her holidays coincided with the schools, so she had even more fun with plenty of play dates and a sleep over!
I try to keep things simple but often they get a bit complicated, much to my amazement! I seem to have a talent for this:) It was the same when we decided to call her Rebekah and not spell it the traditional way - Rebecca. I sincerely apologise to everyone out there for the confusion related to this. I just didn't anticipate that it would throw people so much that her name would end up getting spelled as Rebekkah, Rebekka, Rebekha, Rebekahh and so on:) Sorry!
Anyway, back to our homeschooling: I feel such a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction at having completed a whole year of AO. It might seem trivial but I know for me, I was apprehensive about using this curriculum as I knew it would be challenging for
Here's Rebekah on her first day of Year 3 (AO2) with a few of the books we'll be covering this year, (more on that to come in another post):
Friday, December 16, 2011
So long 2011
This may well be my last post for this year, so I thought I'd have a look back at our 2011 (well atleast some aspects of it that I can share online).
Homeschool:
We changed curriculums end of last year so this was our first year with Ambleside Online. I must say it definitely is a rigorous curriculum and reading the weekly schedule online does not give you that sense at all! I didn't even attempt to do everything, probably only 80% of what is set out and I still found it a lot busier than last year for us. It was definitely enjoyable though and I am so enjoying reading all the great books it lists along with Rebekah.
I'm happy to report that we will continue homeschooling her next year as the plan was to take it a year at at time! She is thriving and developing beautifully and we are happy with the progress she is making.
Motherhood and family:
Rebekah and I continue to share a very close relationship, a by product I'm sure that's a result of not just being an only child but an only child that is being homeschooled. We continue to have some amazing times spent together during the week, snuggled up on the couch reading, being out in nature, shopping together, riding our bikes together, etc. We have such great conversations about life, God, etc that happen at the most unpredictable times. I will always cherish these wonderful moments we have together.
Rebekah is the sweetest little girl and I'm blessed to not only be her mum but to be able to homeschool her, but of course I'm biased!
Family:
What can I say about my husband, he is amazing! He continues to be a great support to me, my closest friend, a great provider, a hard worker, the list goes on....Thanks honey, I love you!
We've enjoyed some fun times together this year including a holiday down in Victoria to celebrate Ron's big birthday with his family. While there we caught up with Jeanne and her lovely family. This was the second time we got to catch up with her and it was just lovely to meet her husband this time. Jemimah kept Rebekah amused and the girls had fun together! I'd been meaning to tell you all about this since we got back in April but seeing I didn't get around to it then, here's a wonderful excuse now to show you these pictures:
Ron's and Rebekah's birthdays (combined celebration)
Rebekah and Jemimah:
A koala out in the wild:
A rainbow in the Ocean. I've never seen anything like this before, it was amazing!
Church life: We continue to be very active in our church and life has been extra busy this year for us. Our church hosted a regional conference for the first time and I must say our little church did extremely well and we were all so proud of our achievements. We also celebrated 10 years as a local church in Sydney. This was a big milestone for us and we had a weekend of celebrating with old pastors visiting etc.
Friends: I've been super blessed in this area. God has blessed us with such great friends and speaking for myself personally, I've met some amazing and wonderful mums since I became one. They continue to enrich my life and bless me with their time, friendship, wisdom and generosity. Rebekah also has been blessed with some great friends. Homeschooling an only child is challenging in the sense that we have to be proactive about meeting Rebekah's 'social' needs. We have been blessed with friends that understand this and are so generous in inviting Rebekah to play dates with their kids etc.
In fact, towards the end of last year, even though Rebekah had lots of friends, she really wanted a girl friend who lived on our street, someone she could play with more often. Our street is filled with boys! So, we decided to pray about this and wouldn't you know a couple of months later, a little girl a year older than Rebekah moved in and they've become really good friends, God is good!
Besides 'mum' friends, I am also blessed to have other non-mum friends who continue to enrich my life in many ways!
Family: My mum and step dad continue their work in India that they began several years ago, in the orphanage they run and doing other work there as well. We miss them and are looking forward to their return in under a month's time!
Health: I've had a major breakthrough this year after finding a wonderful holistic doctor who specialises in women's health. Yes, reaching my forties has been challenging in this area, well, it started in my mid thirties really but as with most things, I don't rush into things, hence it took me this long! I can't begin to tell you what a difference the treatment I am receiving has made to my overall health which in turn has been great for my emotional well being! All I can say is GO bio-identical hormones! If you'd like to find out more feel free to email me:)
And last of all, I started this blog to keep an online journal of some aspects of our life that I wanted to pass onto Rebekah one day. It's not the most interesting of blogs in blog land so I'm honoured that the lovely friends I've mad online keep coming back to read and comment and encourage me. To all of you, I wish you a merry Christmas (if you do celebrate it) and a great 2012!
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Christmas Stories to read - for free, truly!
I've always wanted to have a collection of Christmas stories to read to Rebekah leading up to Christmas (like I've seen so many other mums do in their families) but have never gotten around to it. Well actually I did try to collect a few over the last couple of years but I wouldn't even dare show you my collection as it's quite measly!
Anyway, you all know I use Ambleside Online, that wonderful free Charlotte Mason curriculum. Well, what do you know, it only took me a few years to realise they had a page with loads of free Christmas stories and poems to read. The AO website is truly a treasure trove!
I was so elated to find this out the other day, I just had to share it with you all.
Now that we have an ipad and I'm trying to cut down on buying physical books that are free online, this is just perfect for us.
So now if you've been like me you no longer have an excuse to not read these wonderful stories to your children:)
They'll thank you for it in years to come I'm sure.
Here's the page link: http://www.amblesideonline.org/HolidayStoriesPoems.shtml
The stories listed there are carefully selected by the AO advisory (a group of mums who so generously volunteer their time and efforts to put together and maintain this wonderful curriculum, a group of women I've come to appreciate, admire and respect very much for all their hard work) so I am quite sure you'll love this list of stories.
Enjoy! I know we will.
Anyway, you all know I use Ambleside Online, that wonderful free Charlotte Mason curriculum. Well, what do you know, it only took me a few years to realise they had a page with loads of free Christmas stories and poems to read. The AO website is truly a treasure trove!
I was so elated to find this out the other day, I just had to share it with you all.
Now that we have an ipad and I'm trying to cut down on buying physical books that are free online, this is just perfect for us.
So now if you've been like me you no longer have an excuse to not read these wonderful stories to your children:)
They'll thank you for it in years to come I'm sure.
Here's the page link: http://www.amblesideonline.org/HolidayStoriesPoems.shtml
The stories listed there are carefully selected by the AO advisory (a group of mums who so generously volunteer their time and efforts to put together and maintain this wonderful curriculum, a group of women I've come to appreciate, admire and respect very much for all their hard work) so I am quite sure you'll love this list of stories.
Enjoy! I know we will.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Keeping up with the Jones' Technology
If you know us in real life, you'd know that we are not a keeping up with the Jones' type of family.
We are simple people, happy to live a simple and uncomplicated life. We put certain things in life ahead of keeping up with the latest gadgets, tv, phones etc.
We drove an old car until it died a couple of years ago and we were forced to replace it!
We live in a small villa and drive a smallish car.
Recently we had our small group (Bible study) from church over at our place and we had to watch a dvd as part of it. In typical Aussie humour, someone made a comment about our latest flat screen tv :) (NOT) :)
I hope that gives you some indication of the type of people we are.
We are also laggards apparently (a word I recently learned) over at this blog I've just started following: Fountainside. So, there you have it, we are a couple of laggards who live a simple life:)
We live in a city that is obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses!
We feel we swim against the flow with our lifestyle and hope others can be encouraged to live the same way. In fact, we live mostly on one (average) income in an expensive city where mostly everyone thinks it's impossible to do!
We make many sacrifices to live this way but that is another topic for another time.
So, in recent times, I got an android phone, not because I wanted to because I had no other choice. A couple of months ago my old phone started dying and when we started looking into a new phone for me, the only one I found comfortable to handle on the plan I wanted to get was an android phone. (I am not on a big mobile plan in fact it's the second cheapest) It has millions of apps I can download for free (so I am told) but I don't think I'd bother. I use my phone mainly to text and call and to take photos and videos. It even comes with some internet data which I was not interested in:) In fact I would go so far as to say this android phone is truly wasting all it's capabilities on me!
Fast forward a couple of weeks and guess what we get.....voila:
- an Ipad2! Yes indeed! Yes even our friends' jaws dropped when they found out:)
Now, even this was driven out of necessity. You see we have one desktop and often when Ron's at home at night I am working (on it ) and there have been times when Rebekah wants to watch something on iview (remember her allotted daily 60 minutes I blogged about here) is often when I need the computer! We really needed another pc. We ummed and ahhed for several months on whether to get a laptop (we've never owned a laptop ever, now even that is saying something) or to get an ipad.
Ron researched it a lot and we decided we'd get an ipad.
This has purely been out of necessity and after owning it for a month I can tell you it's been a huge blessing for us.
It has changed how we homeschool and how we do our family read alouds.
Ambleside Online is a free curriculum with most of the books available for free online, so guess what Rebekah and I do each morning for school - yes, we pull out the ipad to do most of our readings!
We've already downloaded quite a few ebooks.
We use it's notes function as a daily checklist that Rebekah can tick off as we do our school work. (Great for transitioning to more independent study as she gets older wink wink )
We use it for our family read alouds each Saturday night as we are currently reading Peter Pan which is available for free.
I'd read that it's just not the same as reading from a book but honestly once you get engrossed in the story you forget you're reading it from a screen.
We use it at our
It even gets used in the kitchen to look up recipes to cook.
We're only scratching the surface as we've only had it for a month or so. But already it's been put to heavy use.
Yes there are some great games on it but not wanting Rebekah to become addicted she is allowed to use some of her daily allotment of one hour of screen time on the ipad if she so desires.
I'm told there are many educational applications, we're yet to look into that. We are laggards after all:)
I just love it because of it's slim design, weight and portability.
We are loving it so much so I just had to tell you of our latest addition:)
It has been a huge blessing for our homeschool and our family. We are finally having to keep up with technology! How about you, do you have an ipad, are you thinking of getting one, tempted to get one? If you do have one, I'd love to hear of some of your favourite educational or other apps.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Fitting in nature study and all those 'extras'
I noticed this year as we got into a more rigorous curriculum (Ambleside Online), with more books to read, more work than last year, nature study had slipped a little around here. Sure, we still do a bit of nature study but it hasn't been as much as I would have liked nor as much as Charlotte Mason's students truly did.
Also, some of the so called 'extras' too like handicrafts, art etc were taking a nose dive! Because I am not an arty person, they would get left to the last and then when we ran out of time they wouldn't get done:(
So, I tried to rectify that by adjusting our schedule this term.
I've alloted certain 'days' to certain 'subjects' so they don't get left out.
So my schedule goes like this. Besides our daily subjects like Bible, Maths, penmanship and poetry, we allot the other subjects as follows:
Mondays and Tuesdays we cover Literature, History and Geography (the readings are spread out over two days as I don't want to overload her with one subject on each day)
Wednesdays is our 'science and nature study' day.
Thursdays we call our 'artsy' day in which we do all the extras (which are not really 'extras' because they are a key differentiator between a Charlotte Mason education and other methods): composer study, picture study (art), drawing, hymns, handicrafts (knitting) and the all important 'craft' for my craft loving daughter:)
Fridays we have off for park days, etc.
We are almost at the end of second 12 week term and I can say we've had better success with this than term 1.
By having a set day to do certain subjects that I don't necessarily like, I ensure it gets done and that Rebekah is getting that liberal education that Charlotte Mason talked about.
With Nature study however (where we actually go to a specific place to observe nature, do nature journalling etc) I have allowed myself to schedule it in once a fortnight (for my non-Aussie readers that's once every two weeks) (smile) instead of once a week as it involves much more time and preparation on my part! I figured that this way instead of constantly feeling like we never do it, if I allow myself some leeway and set a more realistic goal, it will actually get done!
So, having said all that, as we had no park day this week and also because of poor weather, we had our nature study day yesterday - a Friday.
We had a lovely picnic lunch along with Rebekah's new Sylvanian family bike and picnic set,
fed the ducks at leisure,
took time to relax and breathe, observed and discussed at length about the birds, trees and flowers, have fun,
did some nature journalling,
did some reading in a shady spot, and just marvelled at God's creation!
I brought to Rebekah's attention the design on the petals of the above flower. Nature has some invaluable lessons for us in that they display the beauty and wonder of God and teach us so much about Him. Prior to homeschooling Rebekah I would never have noticed the intricate designs on the inside of a flower!
Isn't this flower just amazing! It's a dietes and is a very common flower. I'm sorry that these shots are just from my mobile phone and don't do the beauty of the flower any justice but when Rebekah took a closer look, she was amazed and said, it's like God drew it with a texta! That's exactly what it looked like! A texta drawing / or as if someone had personally hand painted that brown design on the inside of the petal! To think that God put so much detail into a flower that is here today and gone tomorrow.....
We had an awesome day! It actually turned out to be a lovely nature study day mummy/daughter date actually:)
Also, some of the so called 'extras' too like handicrafts, art etc were taking a nose dive! Because I am not an arty person, they would get left to the last and then when we ran out of time they wouldn't get done:(
So, I tried to rectify that by adjusting our schedule this term.
I've alloted certain 'days' to certain 'subjects' so they don't get left out.
So my schedule goes like this. Besides our daily subjects like Bible, Maths, penmanship and poetry, we allot the other subjects as follows:
Mondays and Tuesdays we cover Literature, History and Geography (the readings are spread out over two days as I don't want to overload her with one subject on each day)
Wednesdays is our 'science and nature study' day.
Thursdays we call our 'artsy' day in which we do all the extras (which are not really 'extras' because they are a key differentiator between a Charlotte Mason education and other methods): composer study, picture study (art), drawing, hymns, handicrafts (knitting) and the all important 'craft' for my craft loving daughter:)
Fridays we have off for park days, etc.
We are almost at the end of second 12 week term and I can say we've had better success with this than term 1.
By having a set day to do certain subjects that I don't necessarily like, I ensure it gets done and that Rebekah is getting that liberal education that Charlotte Mason talked about.
With Nature study however (where we actually go to a specific place to observe nature, do nature journalling etc) I have allowed myself to schedule it in once a fortnight (for my non-Aussie readers that's once every two weeks) (smile) instead of once a week as it involves much more time and preparation on my part! I figured that this way instead of constantly feeling like we never do it, if I allow myself some leeway and set a more realistic goal, it will actually get done!
So, having said all that, as we had no park day this week and also because of poor weather, we had our nature study day yesterday - a Friday.
We had a lovely picnic lunch along with Rebekah's new Sylvanian family bike and picnic set,
fed the ducks at leisure,
took time to relax and breathe, observed and discussed at length about the birds, trees and flowers, have fun,
did some nature journalling,
did some reading in a shady spot, and just marvelled at God's creation!
I brought to Rebekah's attention the design on the petals of the above flower. Nature has some invaluable lessons for us in that they display the beauty and wonder of God and teach us so much about Him. Prior to homeschooling Rebekah I would never have noticed the intricate designs on the inside of a flower!
Isn't this flower just amazing! It's a dietes and is a very common flower. I'm sorry that these shots are just from my mobile phone and don't do the beauty of the flower any justice but when Rebekah took a closer look, she was amazed and said, it's like God drew it with a texta! That's exactly what it looked like! A texta drawing / or as if someone had personally hand painted that brown design on the inside of the petal! To think that God put so much detail into a flower that is here today and gone tomorrow.....
We had an awesome day! It actually turned out to be a lovely
Monday, September 12, 2011
Ambleside Online - year 1 we're half done!
I've had a busy busy few weeks, and came back to my blog to discover a few new followers, woohoo! I'm an introvert and my blog reflects that - so 31 followers was good; I'm actually amazed to see the number go up suddenly and so I'll be coming your way to check you all out soon my new followers:)
In the meantime I want to let you know we've been busy celebrating a certain someone's birthday, nursing a sick guinea pig with a few visits to the vet thrown in, organising play dates and attending homeschool park days with two different groups for extra measure :) - an essential when one homeschools an only child, working two part time jobs, volunteering at church and celebrating 10 years as a local church! So, please excuse my absence from your bloggy worlds but I will catch up with you all soon.
I told you some time ago we switched curriculums this year, so I thought I'd post an update with how it's all going with Ambleside Online seeing that we're in week 18 of the 36 week curriculum!
Well, the ladies over on those discussion boards are not wrong, it surely is a rigorous curriculum; don't let first glances deceive you:)
The books are quite challenging but not overwhelming for Rebekah which is right where she needs to be.
We follow the curriculum pretty closely but do our own thing for art study and hymns; we also added in and substituted some Australian material. And oh, we haven't gotten around to folksongs yet!
I started off adding in Australian material but quickly found out that this was just going to overload us so I have decided to substitute instead (where possible).
We now use "Old Bob's birds" by C K Thompson instead of the "Burgess Bird Book". This book was filled with American birds and while Rebekah enjoyed the stories I felt reading an Australian Bird Book would be far more fruitful in bringing natural history to life for her.
We still add in "My place" by Nadia Wheatley to the history selections but since this is a fairly easy book to follow we are managing.
Also, we don't do narrations for every reading; we just read and discuss "Tales from Shakespeare" and "Just so Stories". I felt narrating every reading was overkill for Rebekah and I didn't want reading for school to become a drudgery.
One thing that has happened ths year (due to the increase in work load for school work) is that our nature walks and craft activities were falling by the wayside, the latter to my dear craft-loving daughters chagrin:(
So, a rethink was done and now we have decided to make one day of our four day week an 'arts' day.
We do all our academic subjects from Monday to Wednesday and leave Thursdays for the arty subjects like picture study, composer, hymns, handicrafts (knitting) and craft. Those of you familiar with Charlotte Mason would know she didn't place too much emphasis on what we would call 'craft' activities, but one of my daughter's love languages would be doing craft together (if there was such a love language) :)
So, to fill her love tank in this area I schedule them in on Thursdays.
I've also decided to aim for one nature walk per fortnight at least. This way I don't beat myself up over not doing one every week. This is not to say that she hasn't been on nature walks this year! My husband is a nature lover so he does take Rebekah on bush walks regularly and while this covers that subject a little, I still want to do 'focused' nature walks with her and hence my new goals. Our backyard and informal nature study still continues due to her being exposed to it since she was much younger, so we have managed a few nature journal entries too.
I'll be heading over to yours soon.....
In the meantime I want to let you know we've been busy celebrating a certain someone's birthday, nursing a sick guinea pig with a few visits to the vet thrown in, organising play dates and attending homeschool park days with two different groups for extra measure :) - an essential when one homeschools an only child, working two part time jobs, volunteering at church and celebrating 10 years as a local church! So, please excuse my absence from your bloggy worlds but I will catch up with you all soon.
I told you some time ago we switched curriculums this year, so I thought I'd post an update with how it's all going with Ambleside Online seeing that we're in week 18 of the 36 week curriculum!
Well, the ladies over on those discussion boards are not wrong, it surely is a rigorous curriculum; don't let first glances deceive you:)
The books are quite challenging but not overwhelming for Rebekah which is right where she needs to be.
We follow the curriculum pretty closely but do our own thing for art study and hymns; we also added in and substituted some Australian material. And oh, we haven't gotten around to folksongs yet!
I started off adding in Australian material but quickly found out that this was just going to overload us so I have decided to substitute instead (where possible).
We now use "Old Bob's birds" by C K Thompson instead of the "Burgess Bird Book". This book was filled with American birds and while Rebekah enjoyed the stories I felt reading an Australian Bird Book would be far more fruitful in bringing natural history to life for her.
We still add in "My place" by Nadia Wheatley to the history selections but since this is a fairly easy book to follow we are managing.
Also, we don't do narrations for every reading; we just read and discuss "Tales from Shakespeare" and "Just so Stories". I felt narrating every reading was overkill for Rebekah and I didn't want reading for school to become a drudgery.
One thing that has happened ths year (due to the increase in work load for school work) is that our nature walks and craft activities were falling by the wayside, the latter to my dear craft-loving daughters chagrin:(
So, a rethink was done and now we have decided to make one day of our four day week an 'arts' day.
We do all our academic subjects from Monday to Wednesday and leave Thursdays for the arty subjects like picture study, composer, hymns, handicrafts (knitting) and craft. Those of you familiar with Charlotte Mason would know she didn't place too much emphasis on what we would call 'craft' activities, but one of my daughter's love languages would be doing craft together (if there was such a love language) :)
So, to fill her love tank in this area I schedule them in on Thursdays.
I've also decided to aim for one nature walk per fortnight at least. This way I don't beat myself up over not doing one every week. This is not to say that she hasn't been on nature walks this year! My husband is a nature lover so he does take Rebekah on bush walks regularly and while this covers that subject a little, I still want to do 'focused' nature walks with her and hence my new goals. Our backyard and informal nature study still continues due to her being exposed to it since she was much younger, so we have managed a few nature journal entries too.
I'll be heading over to yours soon.....
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Year 2 - Leaving Living Books Curriculum to do Ambleside Online
I'm finally getting around to posting what we do for year 2 which we began early April!
I had been looking into Ambleside Online for many years but had been too overwhelmed or too intimidated by it all to really take the plunge and start it:)
I think two years of Living Books Curriculum has given me the confidence I needed to step out and do Charlotte Mason on my own without the need for a teachers manual.
So, even though I like LBC, I found that after a while I was tweaking it so much that I thought I would be better off to just do it on my own.
Not that you have to do it on your own with AO! There is a very active discussion group where mums discuss the curriculum and it is a great support network for those who decide to use it. This was actually one of the things that kept attracting me to AO and not to mention the great books used as well! I must also add that most of the books AO use are free online, a great bonus for those on a tight budget!
So, even if you don't home school or use another curriculum, may I recommend you look at their booklists? You're sure to get some great ideas from there!
Anyway, back to our year 2! I had heard that AO was quite an advanced curriculum and that one is better off waiting till the child is close to 7 to begin year 1. (hanging around that afore mentioned discussion group for years was great for me!)
So, Rebekah turning 7 this year I decided to take the plunge and do their year 1.
Now, for the purposes of extra curricular activities and for the Board of Studies I need to 'grade' Rebekah so we are calling it Year 2 and also I believe that this curriculum is quite advanced so calling it year 2 is quite appropriate in my opinion!
We are using the curriculum pretty closely to how its laid out with some small adjustments. I am adding some Aussie poetry, literature, art and history in this year by either substituting or adding it in as an extra.
Here is our take on it:
Bible:
We are following Charlotte Mason's PNEU curriculum along with the leftover pages of the Early Reader Wonder Devotional Book from last year and Leading Little Ones to God which we've been doing very slowly for the last couple of years!
Language Arts:
Penmanship:
Continuing with Italics Beautiful Handwriting for Children by Penny Gardner.
Reading:
Rebekah is a very fluent reader so we will continue buddy reading.
Poetry:
A Child's Garden of Verses by R.L. Stevenson
Now we are six by A.A. Milne
The Animals Noah Forgot by A.B. Paterson (Australian poetry)
Literature:
Aesop for Children by Milo Winter
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit
The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty
The Way of the Whirlwind by Mary Durack (Aussie literature) (We intended to use this book last year but didn'nt as I felt Rebekah would get more out of it this year)
Maths:
We are continuing with Singapore Maths, doing the 1B and 2A books this year.
Science:
Charlotte Mason emphasised nature study as a foundation for higher level sciences so we will be continuing our focus on nature study using The Handbook of Nature Study as outlined in AO along with our own field guides and other nature books we've accumulated.
In addition to this we will be using (as outlined in AO):
James Herriot's Treasury for Children by James Herriot and
The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess
We will also be completing 'Growing Strong and Healthy' from LBC Year 1. This is a great book on the human body and nutrition and if you are looking for something free which is also good, it is available online!
History:
Early history, focusing on people rather than events-
Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula (we are omitting this book)
An Island Story by H.E. Marshall
Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
Viking Tales by Jennie Hall
To this we are adding My Place by Nadia Wheatley for Aussie history.
Geography:
Paddle to the Sea by Holling C Holling (This is a book covering the great lakes in America but it is such a lovely book that we just had to use it!)
Foreign language:
We are continuing Spanish with Play and learn Spanish by Ana Lombarda.
Drawing:
Drawing with Children by Mona Brooks
Craft:
We will use the many craft books we have in our home library!
Picture Study:
Here we are not following AO, instead we will be using:
Come look with me, exploring Landscape art with Children by Gladys Blizzard
Roy and Matilda: The Golden Locket by Susan Venn (Aussie art)
Composer:
We will be following AO for this and listening to the music of Beethoven, Vivaldi and Chopin.
Hymns and Folksongs:
AO have scheduled these but I am not doing them for now but will add them in later in the year after we are more used to this new curriculum!
P.S. I am deeply indebted to many that have gone on before me in this homeschooling adventure that I have learned from over the years. I especially wanted to mention Jeanne (ohpeacefulday) for her mentoring me in Charlotte Mason and Ambleside Online in particular! I also want to mention that I glean from various resources for my Aussie stuff, in particular I want to make mention of Ruth (From Wonder to Wisdom) and Michelle (Homeschooling Downunder) whose websites / blogs have also helped me immensely. You will find many many wonderful Aussie resources on each of these ladies websites.
I had been looking into Ambleside Online for many years but had been too overwhelmed or too intimidated by it all to really take the plunge and start it:)
I think two years of Living Books Curriculum has given me the confidence I needed to step out and do Charlotte Mason on my own without the need for a teachers manual.
So, even though I like LBC, I found that after a while I was tweaking it so much that I thought I would be better off to just do it on my own.
Not that you have to do it on your own with AO! There is a very active discussion group where mums discuss the curriculum and it is a great support network for those who decide to use it. This was actually one of the things that kept attracting me to AO and not to mention the great books used as well! I must also add that most of the books AO use are free online, a great bonus for those on a tight budget!
So, even if you don't home school or use another curriculum, may I recommend you look at their booklists? You're sure to get some great ideas from there!
Anyway, back to our year 2! I had heard that AO was quite an advanced curriculum and that one is better off waiting till the child is close to 7 to begin year 1. (hanging around that afore mentioned discussion group for years was great for me!)
So, Rebekah turning 7 this year I decided to take the plunge and do their year 1.
Now, for the purposes of extra curricular activities and for the Board of Studies I need to 'grade' Rebekah so we are calling it Year 2 and also I believe that this curriculum is quite advanced so calling it year 2 is quite appropriate in my opinion!
We are using the curriculum pretty closely to how its laid out with some small adjustments. I am adding some Aussie poetry, literature, art and history in this year by either substituting or adding it in as an extra.
Here is our take on it:
Bible:
We are following Charlotte Mason's PNEU curriculum along with the leftover pages of the Early Reader Wonder Devotional Book from last year and Leading Little Ones to God which we've been doing very slowly for the last couple of years!
Language Arts:
Penmanship:
Continuing with Italics Beautiful Handwriting for Children by Penny Gardner.
Reading:
Rebekah is a very fluent reader so we will continue buddy reading.
Poetry:
A Child's Garden of Verses by R.L. Stevenson
Now we are six by A.A. Milne
The Animals Noah Forgot by A.B. Paterson (Australian poetry)
Literature:
Aesop for Children by Milo Winter
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit
The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty
The Way of the Whirlwind by Mary Durack (Aussie literature) (We intended to use this book last year but didn'nt as I felt Rebekah would get more out of it this year)
Maths:
We are continuing with Singapore Maths, doing the 1B and 2A books this year.
Science:
Charlotte Mason emphasised nature study as a foundation for higher level sciences so we will be continuing our focus on nature study using The Handbook of Nature Study as outlined in AO along with our own field guides and other nature books we've accumulated.
In addition to this we will be using (as outlined in AO):
James Herriot's Treasury for Children by James Herriot and
The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess
We will also be completing 'Growing Strong and Healthy' from LBC Year 1. This is a great book on the human body and nutrition and if you are looking for something free which is also good, it is available online!
History:
Early history, focusing on people rather than events-
Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula (we are omitting this book)
An Island Story by H.E. Marshall
Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
Viking Tales by Jennie Hall
To this we are adding My Place by Nadia Wheatley for Aussie history.
Geography:
Paddle to the Sea by Holling C Holling (This is a book covering the great lakes in America but it is such a lovely book that we just had to use it!)
Foreign language:
We are continuing Spanish with Play and learn Spanish by Ana Lombarda.
Drawing:
Drawing with Children by Mona Brooks
Craft:
We will use the many craft books we have in our home library!
Picture Study:
Here we are not following AO, instead we will be using:
Come look with me, exploring Landscape art with Children by Gladys Blizzard
Roy and Matilda: The Golden Locket by Susan Venn (Aussie art)
Composer:
We will be following AO for this and listening to the music of Beethoven, Vivaldi and Chopin.
Hymns and Folksongs:
AO have scheduled these but I am not doing them for now but will add them in later in the year after we are more used to this new curriculum!
P.S. I am deeply indebted to many that have gone on before me in this homeschooling adventure that I have learned from over the years. I especially wanted to mention Jeanne (ohpeacefulday) for her mentoring me in Charlotte Mason and Ambleside Online in particular! I also want to mention that I glean from various resources for my Aussie stuff, in particular I want to make mention of Ruth (From Wonder to Wisdom) and Michelle (Homeschooling Downunder) whose websites / blogs have also helped me immensely. You will find many many wonderful Aussie resources on each of these ladies websites.
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