Ambleside Online Year 7 in Review

The Lady of Shalott by J.W. Waterhouse, 1888

Bengy, our 14 year old, turning 15 later this year, has come to the end of AO Year 7. I've mentioned in other posts that the upper years of AO are sufficiently challenging for a students over a range of ages. It helps to think in terms of forms (as used in Charlotte Mason's schools) as opposed to grades for History and Literature in particular, while the content covered in a subject such as Maths is a separate consideration and more indicative of a student's 'grade' level.

For Year 7 we basically followed the schedule as it is written, omitting a few things, adding in others for various reasons, including the fact that we'd started before the new changes for Year 7 came in earlier this year. This year also included preparing for a Grade 7 AMEB piano exam which requires a lot of preparation. The Ambleside Online website states:

This is a collection of some of the best resources for this time period. Even Advisory members aren't able to cover all of these with every single one of their own students and have to be selective. Feel free to pick and choose from among these suggestions. The best choice may just be the book you already own, and the one from which your student can narrate.

What we didn't include:

The Once and Future King, by T. H. White - didn't have the book; had a look at a copy from the library & thought we could skip it.

We didn't use these books either, mainly because of the time factor, but plan to at some time:

How To Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler and Chares Van Doren 

The Fallacy Detective, by Nathaniel Bluedorn & Hans Bluedorn 

The Story of Painting, by H. W. Janson

Devotional:

* Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
** The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer
Saints & Heroes - as scheduled

Literature & Poetry:

The Grammar of Poetry, by Matt Whitling - slowly going through this.

The Albatross Book of Verse

Poets: G.K. Chesterton & Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Easy Grammar Plus - completed this book a couple of months ago and since then has used his Latin studies for grammar.

Chaucer - we used one of the selections before the changes were made.

This is an interesting post with a variety of Chaucer resources and suggestions:

 

Shakespeare:

Twelfth Night (or What You Will)

The Winter's Tale

We are going to see the Bell Shakespeare production of Henry V in a few weeks.

A narration from The Winter's Tale:

Plutarch:

Quintus Fabius Maximus - Some thoughts on our study of this man

I've linked to the study guides on the men below:
Nicias

Crassus

Natural History

Life of the Spider by Henri Fabre

Warrigal the Warrior by C.K. Thompson - a fascinating insight into the Australian dingo as well as being a great story.

Bush Calendar by Amy Mack - we continue our monthly reading; free online.

Nature Study - we've been bush walking regularly and have had some good beach visits and a focus on rocks and clouds.

Maths

Saxon Algebra 2 with Art Reed's DVD

Latin

After finishing Getting Started with Latin by William Linney, (which I highly recommend) Bengy commenced Linney's Latin Class, a free online course by the same author.

The website has audio lectures/lessons which can be downloaded and uses an out of print book available on Google Books or at archive.org:

(Don't do what we did and start with the wrong book. There is another by the same author called Latin for the First Year.)

Each audio lasts from around 1/2 hour to an hour and includes explanations and instructions on when to do exercises in the book etc. An answer key is included on the website to go along with the lectures. We spread a lesson out over a week, sometimes two if it's a long one.

We aren't in the USA and we generally can't access Google Books so we usually go to archives.org to download books but we found that two pages were missing on our download. I emailed Mr. Linney who replied about an hour later. He was very helpful and sent us a link to Google Books Australia (which I didn't know about) but the pages were also missing in that so then he sent us a PDF of the missing pages. This man provides this course free of charge and then goes out of his way to help a random person on the other side of the world find two missing pages - I'm impressed and very grateful!

Here are those two pages in case you have the same problem:

 

There is enough material in this course to cover the equivalent of high school Latin I & II and it has been a good fit for this young man. He did try Henle Latin first and really disliked it so I was happy to find a Latin course to replace it that didn't cost me anything!

Science

The Human Body - see here.
Apologia General Science

Eric Sloane's Weather Book, by Eric Sloane 

Great Astronomers, by R.S. Ball (Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Brahe) 

Science videos

Science Notebook & below an example of a narration in the form of a science quiz ie. set a list of questions to which he had to know the answers:

"The mind can know nothing save what it can produce in the form of an answer to a question put to the mind by itself." 

A Philosophy of Education pg.16

 

Fearfully & Wonderfully Made - we started this late so we are still going. It's a wonderful book.

Picture Study:

Jan Vermeer - I have a Pinterest board with the paintings we studied.
Marc Chagall

Diego Velasquez

Music Appreciation:

Chopin

Spanish Composers - we spent a few months listening to this wonderful music.

AMEB Grade 7 piano exam

Physical Education

Indoor Soccer

Swimming

Handicrafts/Manual Skills

Cooking

Fiddling around with electronics
Meccano:

Scottish folk songs - this is a post I did on these and other Scottish material that fits into this time period.

Free Reading

The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott

Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore (AO Year 9)

Safely Home by Randy Alcorn (AO Year 11) 

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy (AO Year 11)

The following two books by Regina Doman:

The Shadow of the Bear
Black as Night

I'd recommend previewing these first; there are more in this series of modern day fairy tales but they're for an older age group. There is a parent's guide here and the two books above are recommended for ages 14 years and up.

The "D'Artagnan" Romances by Alexandre Dumas: (they're all here.)

The Three Musketeers

Twenty Years After

The Vicomte De Bragelonne

Ten Years Later

Louise de la Valliere

The Man in the Iron Mask

 

I asked Bengy to tell me which books were his favourites this year and these are the titles he gave me:

The Pursuit of God
Whatever Happened to Penny Candy
Ivanhoe
Watership Down
The Age of Chivalry
Eric Sloane's Weather Book
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
The Talisman
Hereward the Wake
The Birth of Britain

Free Science Resources

We've used the videos below alongside Apologia Science, Secrets of the Universe (Ambleside Online Year 7), The Mystery of the Periodic Table, by Benjamin Wiker and Archimedes and the Door of Science by Jeanne Bendick (AO Year 6).

The Periodic Table

We've been using the University of Nottingham videos to go through the periodic table. Each element is explained and some experiments are shown with a good dash of humour thrown in.

A photographic table showing the elements. Click on the element to see a photo and description. For example this page on Titanium, something we were talking about after the dentist explained how it came to be used in humans for implants.

The Periodic Table in song in the order of the elements:




Physics

Professor Julius Sumner Miller’s TV Show “Why Is It So?” was broadcast in Australia on the ABC from 1963 to 1986. We've used a number of his videos to supplement our science studies. I've put some of those below and this website has a list of others we've also used.
The following videos fit with this book:

 Pascal's Law - Part 1





Pascal's Law - Part 2

Archimedes - Part 1




Archimedes - Part 2 (just don't go putting your fingers in the mercury)



'Why doesn't the temperature rise as we get higher?' This question came up recently and as my boys really enjoy Top Gear this video was helpful.



And then we added this one, Where Does the Atmosphere End?

Ambleside Online Year 7 - Creative Narrations using Alliteration

Many children write verse as readily as prose, and the conciseness and power of bringing their subject matter to a point which this form of composition requires affords valuable mental training. One thing must be borne in mind. Exercises in scansion are as necessary in English as in Latin verse. Rhythm and accent on the other hand take care of themselves in proportion as a child is accustomed to read poetry.

A Philosophy of Education Pg. 193

Bengy is working through The Grammar of Poetry and I asked him to use write a narration based on the Battle of Bosworth (covered in AO Year 7) using alliteration:

Lesson 23 is on Alliterative Imitation and the student is asked to read some excerpts from Beowulf and then write an alliterative poem with a similar sound and feel. Bengy chose to base his poem on Ivanhoe.

We're not rushing through The Grammar of Poetry but it's been interesting to note that this is my son who would choose to do a poetic narration any day over any other kind of narration but he struggles with the more formalised presentation in this book. I have the older spiral edition which doesn't have a great deal of practice in some sections where it would have been helpful but there is a new version with additional aids that I haven't seen. The book does go in to quite a bit of technical detail on the different types of 'feet' which is probably the hardest part and there are numerous exercises in scansion. I like how the tropes or pictures such as similes, metaphors etc are presented but more ideas for practice would have been helpful. The book is easy to use and so far I haven't seen a book that includes both the writing of poetry and the appreciation of poetry that I like better.
Bengy says of the book: 'Some parts of it are interesting but some I find extremely boring.'

Fearfully & Wonderfully Made by Philip Yancey & Dr. Paul Brand

I've been reading a chapter of this book aloud each week, mainly to my 14 year old son but my 9 year old daughter always wants to listen in. It has required some editing but it's been easy enough to do it as I go.

The book is a unique and beautiful exploration of the human body - with an unusual twist. The author takes the intricate structure and function of cells, body chemistry, bones, muscles and the myriad other complexities of the human body, and presents them as analogies to the Church, the Body of Christ.

It is such a quotable book. Every chapter I've read has had something that has stood out to me or has prompted questions from my two listeners. My son normally doesn't like anything in the least way medical but he is enjoying this book. 

Today we read the chapter, Inside-Out, which presented us with the analogy of the crayfish. This creature has an exoskeleton. This hard, external skeleton protects the crayfish and is its defense against the outer world. We, on the other hand, have an internal or endoskeleton. Our outer bodies are vulnerable, warm and responsive.

And then the author in a twist links the exoskeleton to legalism, where Christians wear their skeletons on the outside. As he looked at the history of the Church, and its areas of failure, the author saw that the failures,

'can be traced to a misunderstanding of the place of the skeleton in the Body of Christ...

As the rules God gave to free His body begin to calcify, we tend to hunker down inside them for protection. We develop a defensive exoskeleton...

But Jesus never described anything resembling an exoskeleton which would define all Christians.'

I've been thinking lately on idealistic versus realistic expectations in regards to bringing up children. Idealism can produce unrealistic expectations. The crayfish analogy revealed an aspect of this to me. When idealism comes up against reality the temptation is to develop an exoskeleton - a hard shell that in reality is a covering  for weakness. We become legalistic and in response our children learn to wear their skeletons on the outside.
The author gives us a sobering thought relating to this:

A troubling phenomenon recurs among young Christians reared in solid homes and sound churches. After living their early years as outstanding examples of Christian faith, many become spiritual dropouts. Did they fail because they concentrated on the exterior, visible Christian life? Did they learn to mimic certain behaviours, nuances of words, and emotional responses? Crayfish-like, did they develop a hard exterior that resembled everyone else's and conclude such was the kingdom of God, while inside they were weak and vulnerable?

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made is scheduled for the upper years of Ambleside Online under Health. It has some adult content which is discussed here but as I mentioned above it isn't difficult to edit.

A free 26 page preview is here.