Science & Natural History with a 15 Year old Boy

In my last post I shared some thoughts on coming to Ambleside Online late, and the adjustments I made with my older children. This post follows on from some of what I wrote there as it concerns Benj who started AO when he was 12 years of age.

He is nearing the end of AO Year 8 and as many of you would know, this particular year has been updated recently to add in living books for science. Apart from Phineas Gage, one of the new additions which he'd already read a couple of years ago, we've just continued with the book selections before the new plans were added. I added in books to bring him more into line with his actual grade level of Year 10.

What he's done this year:

Natural History - we continue to use Insect Life in Australasia by William Gillies for our special studies. There's a good article here which explains how to implement these studies. We've been doing this once a week as well as continuing with nature walks. In the past two weeks we had a day at the beach and an afternoon/early evening walk at the riverside.

Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov - he's enjoying this book and earlier in the year used Apologia Physical Science for experiment ideas which worked quite well. I found some interesting  videos recently I knew would appeal to him - posted here - and the notebook page above was based on one of them.

Apologia Biology - I picked out a few modules for him to work through; mostly the sections on the cell & DNA. It's a fairly dense book and he's more interested in other areas of science but I'd like him to do some biology and will probably include a biography or other narrative science book on this subject when I find one I like.

From the Year 8 selections:

The Microbe Hunters
William Harvey and the Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood 
Johann Kepler bio

Pelicans checking out the local fisherman

Special Study - Insects

From Benj's Biology readings:

The sun descending in the west,   
  The evening star does shine;   
The birds are silent in their nest.   
  And I must seek for mine.

William Blake

A 15 Year old Boy's Keeping

Benj is reading his way through the Renaissance and Reformation with books from Ambleside Online Year 8 and most of his Commonplace entries have been inspired by those books. He chooses his own quotes but when he first started keeping a Commonplace book and happened to comment on something that impressed him while he was reading, I would suggest he record the passage in his book. I don't do that anymore because the habit is in place. I just like reading what he has written and to see what books have kindled his interest enough that he would record something from them.

Recently, he has quoted mostly from Churchill's The New World and Whatever Happened to Justice by Richard Maybury.

It is very helpful to read with a commonplace book or reading-diary, in which to put down any striking thought in your author, or your own impression of the work, or of any part of it; but not summaries of facts. Such a diary, carefully kept through life, should be exceedingly interesting as containing the intellectual history of the writer; besides, we never forget the book that we have made extracts from, and of which we have taken the trouble to write a short review.

Formation of Character by Charlotte Mason 

Commonplace Books have been around for hundreds of years and were kept by many great thinkers and writers. I came across this post recently, not from a Charlotte Mason perspective, and not a blog I'm familiar with, but I enjoyed the thoughts there on the how & why of Commonplacing.
Jonathon Swift, the author of the book Gulliver's Travels amongst others, wrote a letter to a young poet in 1720 with this advice:

A commonplace book is what a provident poet cannot subsist without, for this proverbial reason, that "great wits have short memories:" and whereas, on the other hand, poets, being liars by profession, ought to have good memories; to reconcile these, a book of this sort, is in the nature of a supplemental memory, or a record of what occurs remarkable in every day's reading or conversation. There you enter not only your own original thoughts, (which, a hundred to one, are few and insignificant) but such of other men as you think fit to make your own, by entering them there. For, take this for a rule, when an author is in your books, you have the same demand upon him for his wit, as a merchant has for your money, when you are in his.

 

Science Notebook

Benj is using a combination of Apologia Physical Science and Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov. He loves the detail in Asimov's book and uses Apologia as a general overview and for experiment ideas and this has been working quite well. He's almost finished the Apologia book but will continue with Asimov and start doing Biology, which I'm in the process of planning.

Timeline

Weekly Review - with a Miserable detour

Last Christmas my friend & I were given tickets to Les Miserables by my friend's daughter. She checked with my husband before buying the tickets to see if he could work from home on the day, which he could do, and so the day came for us to go during the week. Miserable was the weather, bleak & grimy, a fitting sort of day for a tale such as this. My dear friend drove through torrential rain for about an hour to pick me up so we could drive into the city together. So I said goodbye to everyone & Dad did the maths and running around later in the day to this that and the next thing. I felt quite lazy. Need I say we had a wonderful day?

This week we completed week 20 of the 36 weeks of Ambleside Online's Years 4 & 8. Two of the boys have done AO Year 8 in the past, so it's familiar territory - to me, at least. This is the first year I've had a child following AO's Year 4, although the Australian substitutions are books we've mostly used before.

I print out a schedule at the beginning of each week for each child and each morning they get on with their individual work after they've done a couple of morning jobs:

Maths

Copy work

Music Practice

Reading - as per schedule. Benj organises his own time with this and the other work he does independently. We fit in oral narration (for both of them) in between Moozle's reading - some of which she does on her own and some I read to her.

I aim to do dictation twice a week with each of them and slot it in sometime during the morning.

Benj (15yrs) always starts with maths (Saxon Algebra 2). Moozle (10 yrs) either practices her cello or does her maths with me (Singapore 4A).

We do the following together and I space them out over the week.

Devotions, Shakespeare, Poetry, Plutarch, Read Aloud, Natural History, Nature Study, Picture Study, Folksong, Hymn Study.

Once a week we have a piano lesson for Benj (Friday afternoon) and a cello lesson for Moozle (Tuesday morning) which go for an hour each.

Devotions

We generally read through a chapter of a Bible book most days, taking turns reading a few verses out loud, followed by a narration of the chapter. Sometimes we talk about how a passage relates to us today, compare something in the passage with another elsewhere, or look up a map if appropriate. Last week we read in 1 Samuel 15 about Saul's disobedience regarding the Amalekites and discussed its relation to the events in the book of Esther, in which Haman, a descendant of the Amalekite king, tried to annihilate God's people.

Then we do memory work - new & review of verses we've already done and then we all take a turn praying.

Shakespeare

All's Well That Ends Well is our current play. Many people baulk at exposing younger children to Shakespeare but starting at a young age with such adaptions as those written by Edith Nesbit and Charles & Mary Lamb or listening to a retelling by Jim Weiss makes it easy. Moozle already knows the gist of the stories and the bawdy bits go over her head. (They often go over my head too unless I read a modern version of a play). As Charlotte Mason wisely said, a child will take what he needs at the time.

Shakespeare is not to be studied in a year; he is to be read continuously throughout life, from ten years old and onwards. But a child of ten cannot understand Shakespeare. No; but can a man of fifty? Is not our great poet rather an ample feast of which every one takes according to his needs, and leaves what he has no stomach for?

Formation of Character by Charlotte Mason, Pg 226

We're using the BBC Arkangel recording. Benj reads this free copy of the play (no commentary) and I use a Cambridge or Oxford School guide with the text on the right hand page & commentary on the left - mostly because I can find them for a dollar or two secondhand.

We read and follow along with the CD for about 15 minutes, or when a scene ends, and then each of them narrate or think of an idea for a composition.

Poetry

I like to read poetry aloud but they also focus separately on a poet each term, usually the AO selection from their year.

Picture Study

We've been studying the work of John William Waterhouse as many of his paintings are based on Greek & Roman mythology which is interesting when you've been reading books like Age of Fable or Marshall's History of English Literature. 

 Jason & Medea, 1907

Plutarch

The Life of Timoleon this term using Anne White's Guide. This takes us about 20 to 30 minutes a week and often provides a springboard for discussion & narration.

Read Aloud

We're still reading 'I Can Jump Puddles,' an Australian classic which I picked up years ago without really knowing too much about it. It's a great book based on a true story of the courage and  determination of a young boy with a disability. Highly recommended - may need some slight editing as you go.

Natural History/Nature Study

Once a week we concentrate on an area of nature study and I read from various books on natural history and they draw & write in their notebooks. Our focus at present is on Insects. We try to have a bush walk regularly but it doesn't always happen but having this weekly focus gives some continuity plus background knowledge for things we come across when we are out. I've noticed it also helps spark an interest to observe more closely.

We read about ants this week from First Studies in Insect Life in Australasia by William Gillies. We decided they must be Communists:

Among the bees and ants the individual is nothing; the community is everything. You cannot frighten ants with danger or death. One thing only frightens them: danger to the community. hence the recklessness of an ant in throwing herself on an enemy. Nothing is of value that cannot serve the community: and so the ants that are hopelessly ill are cast out.

Folksong

Whisky in the Jar is our folksong for the month. My eldest son jokes to his friends that he had to learn Scottish drinking songs during his education at home. It's been my little project to pass on the culture I grew up with and folksongs were a big part of that. But it is a little embarrassing when your ten year old starts to sing, 'Oh Campelltown Loch, I wish ye were whisky!' 
This one is Irish.

What they're reading:

These are some of their own choices, not part of their scheduled books - they often read over lunch and in the evenings.

Benj

Yes, Prime Minister: The Diaries of the Right Hon. James Hacker

  

Former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, wrote of the book, 'Its closely observed portrayal of what goes on in the corridors of power has given me hours of pure joy.'

Captain Hornblower R.N. by C.S. Forester 

Simon Black in Peril, Simon Black in Space & Simon Black in China were written in the 1950's by Ivan Southall. Out of print and hard to find but I found these three at a used book sale recently. Fast paced and exciting, so my son told me, and an easy read for him. I'll give them a quick flick through before I give them to Moozle but I think they should be fine for her age and up.

Moozle

Lately she's been reading through a whole swag of G.A. Henty books - With Frederick the Great (she'd just read about him in George Washington's World by Genevieve Foster) is one she's re-read recently.

Her beloved Biggles books by W.E.Johns are an ongoing re-read.

We had Benj's visit to the orthodontist the other week and Moozle took one of her Biggles books with her. The orthodontist, an older man, was surprised when he saw her with the book and commented on how much he used to enjoy the Biggles' books. He asked her a couple of questions and she floored him when she rattled off the names of all the different types of planes, their 'gravity tanks' and other bits of information she's garnered through reading the books. He then told her that he's a member of  a club that restores old planes ('Moths' etc) so she was treated to some photos of their projects.

The Biggles' experts in the house don't agree about the best book to start with but here are a couple of suggestions:

Science

Making an electroscope:

This is Moozle's write up of an experiment she did after reading Chapter XLIII of The Story Book of Science by Jean Henri Fabre. She really enjoys this book & I add extra supplements to a Pinterest board as we use them to update some of the outdated ideas - how to treat snakebite, for example.

Linking up with Weekly Wrap Up and Finishing Strong

A Peek into our Place - and a Girl Graduates

 A Learning Journey

Education is an Atmosphere

Education is a Discipline and a Life...
  
And yesterday - her reward for four years of hard work...Zana finished her degree in November last year and this was her 'official' graduation ceremony.

 

 It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt, 1910 

An Impromtu Jam Session

 I really miss this. It used to happen most days but now with the older two married and three studying or working full-time, it only happens big time on the weekends. I didn't always feel like listening to the racket they made but it was worth the inconvenience and noise. My 'reading room' turned  into a music studio, but it is one of my greatest pleasures to have everyone playing music together.

 Benj has been reading through Isaac Asimov's, Understanding Physics in conjunction with Apologia Physical Science. This is an experiment he did on Newton's Third Law:

 

a












This website reviews Asimov's books (he wrote many). This one is highly regarded and has some good reviews on Amazon. It also comes as three separate volumes:

Benj went to the Royal Easter Show with his older brother & a group of friends. He came home with hundreds of photos. He thought I'd appreciate this one:

And from Moozle after our reading of  Plutarch's Life of Timoleon...

 A Syracrusian's Soliloquy on a Tyrants Statue

A man stood looking at a statue in his house. He said, "O thou wicked thing! I am glad that I sell thee tomorrow! Indeed, I should have sold thee before, when the tyrant fled. But I waited too late, ah, never mind. I am indeed grateful that I sell thee on the morrow! Thee and the one who thou art made in likeness of have wronged me sorely. Tch, tch, he was a very bad man. I wonder who will buy thee, hm........Maybe... Aha! Malisianio Cornierio He was very attached to the tyrant! If he buys it.........I wonder........well, well! Glad am I to sell thee! T'will rid me of the memory of him! The tyrant was very ugly, and so are thee! The tyrant had a round face, with a nose like a hawk's beak,and large pale eyes, he hardly had any eyebrows! Thou art the very likeness of him! Tut, tut! If no one buys thee, I will reduce thee to a heap of rubble! I will denounce Cornierio if he buys thee!" So saying, he left the house leaving the idol sitting where it was. The next day people saw in the newspaper that Malisianio Cornierio had been denounced by Litianio Katierio, for aiding and abetting the tyrant in his work of being a cruel ruler. The newspapers said that Katierio had denounced Cornierio when Cornierio had come to buy his idol, saying, "Thou art a foul traitor, and I denounce thee in the name of the populace, for aiding and abetting the tyrant in his work of destroying the city!" Cornierio had replied, "Why dost thou accuse me of being a traitor, I helped the tyrant only to gain favour, and see if I could help the city, and thou dost accuse me now when I buy this idol only to gain pleasure when I reduce it to a heap of rubble!"

He was arrested and his statement searched, and was found that he was lying.

                                                                          THE END

(She hasn't quite got the idea about paragraphs.)

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