Ambleside Year 9 - Adapted for Australia

 A tweaked  version of Ambleside Online for a 15 going on 16 year old young man. The work will be spread over 4 to 4½ days due to work and music commitments. No doubt I'll be adjusting as we go so I may end up coming back to this page and making changes as they occur.

Bible & Devotional

Personal reading                                                                                                                                          Together time – Bible memory etc.

Saints and Heroes by George Hodges (for Church History) 

I’m substituting books here with what I have on hand or because we’ve already used the AO suggestion:

* The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
** The Pursuit of God by Tozer                                                                                                           
*** The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis
                                                                                                               

History

A Short History of Australia by Ernest Scott   
The Age of Revolution by Winston Churchill  
This Country of Ours (TCOO) by H.E. Marshall                                       
*** The Invasion of Canada by Pierre Berton
                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Biographies

* Buccaneer Explorer (William Dampier)
* Four Great Americans by James Baldwin                                                                                                                                                                                      

** Captain James Cook                                                                                                                          

** Jean-François de Galaup La Pérouse

*** Napoleon Bonaparte by Albert Marrin                                                                                         
*** William Wilberforce by Kevin Belmonte

Geography

* Book of Marvels by Richard Halliburton (from previous years of AO)
** Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks
*** Matthew Flinders 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Government and Economics

* Whatever Happened to Justice? by Richard Maybury (continued from last year)
**  Economix by Michael Goodwin  
                                     

                                    

Literature

Ourselves – as a read aloud 
Shakespeare – The Tempest; A Midsummer Nights' Dream                                                                                                                      

Plutarch's Lives – read aloud
History of English Literature by H.E. Marshall - Chapters 60-73 

** The Vicar of Wakefield                                                                                                             

*** Pride and Prejudice                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
The Count of Monte Christo 

Current Events

Informally with Dad in the evenings

Worldview

How Should we Then Live by Francis Schaeffer; DVD series volumes V & VI

Poetry

The Grammar of Poetry – continued from last year

Read a poem daily – William Cowper, William Wordsworth, Australian anthology

Grammar and Composition

Our Mother Tongue by Nancy Wilson - 1 lesson per fortnight

Written narrations each week

Copywork

Dictation - Twice a week

Maths - Continue with Algebra 1

Science

Continue with Physical Science
The Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif 
The Great Astronomers (Newton to Le Verrier)                                                                                                                  
Nature Study                                                                                               

Nature Journal
The Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock

Nature Studies in Australia by William Gillies & Robert Hall   - 40 Chpts:  1 to 2 lessons a week

Bush Calendar by Amy Mack: One reading per month; start with January (book starts with August)      

Drawing & Art

The Arts by Hendrik Van Loon - Chapter 41 – 48
Continue drawing skills
Picture Study   

Logic 

Love is a Fallacy by Max Schulman

Music

Composer Study
Music lessons
Hymns & Folksongs

                                                                                                                                         
Health                                                                                 

Gym, swimming

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made by Paul Brand (possible read aloud & discuss)

                           

Life & Work Skills

Update first aid skills
Driver’s Education 
Gardening & Yard Work 
Home repair and maintenance 
Make regular meal
Continue with paid work

Free Reading

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska  Orczy     

Man Alive by G.K. Chesterton

Books by P. G. Wodehouse 
Sir Gibbie by George MacDonald
Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome 
Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini
Horatio Hornblower books by C. S. Forester



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Ambleside Year 9 - Australian History & Geography - Part 2 Substitutions

These are our Australian selections for History & Geography for Ambleside Year 9. I'll do a separate post which will include selections that are not just about our part of the world.

Term 1: 1688-1730

The Buccaneer Explorer : William Dampier's voyages /​ edited and with an introduction by Gerald Norris. (328 pages)

This is a combination of autobiography and voyages written in the first person, singular, by Dampier himself and with separate comment sections from Norris to give background context.
This summary is from the book jacket:
  
"William Dampier (1652-1715) is the most remarkable seaman that England produced in the century and a half between Drake and Captain Cook. They each circumnavigated the world once; Dampier did so three times. A good seaman, but a bad commander, he spent most of his life as a privateer, buccaneer, or pirate, and his career culminated in the capture of the great treasure galleon sent each year from the New World to Spain. He was also a great writer, author of the first major English travel book, A New Voyage Round the World, and of scientific treatises and descriptions of natural history. 
His expedition to Australia was in many ways disastrous, with his ships being lost; but the book that came out of it, A Voyage to New Holland, is rich in evocative accounts of the peoples and places he had found or visited. He was not afraid to record things he could not explain, for 'better qualified persons who shall come after me', and his books were reference works used extensively not only by subsequent voyagers but by modern scientists who continue to cite his observations.This edited account of his voyages gives an admirable picture of this fascinating and unorthodox figure in his own words."

We're using the above book for History, Geography and Biography.
If you just wanted to use Dampier's writings for Geography, a free PDF download of Dampier's account of his voyage to Australia can be found here.

Some free online books about Dampier:

 William Dampier by W. Clark Russell - 192 pages. 7 Chapters - written in 1894
 Early Australian Voyages by John Pinkerton which also includes two other explorers, Francis Pelsaurt and Abel Tasman, 192 pages, written in 1893
 Early English Voyagers which has a section on Dampier (pages 261 - 458).

Interesting information about William Dampier 


 Term 2: 1730-1786

The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks (1743-1820) edited by Paul Brunton - pictured here, is an account of The Endeavour's voyage along the east coast of Australia in 1770.

The complete Journals of Joseph Banks, about 460 pgs.are here. Chapters VIII - XIII cover Australia and New Zealand.
This will cover Geography and Natural History/Science as well as History.

The National Maritime Museum has teacher resources relating to Banks.
Joseph Banks & The Royal Society includes a short biography of Banks on pages 58-90.

The Life of Laperouse by Ernest Scott is available as a free download here. It is only 64 pages. A French navigator sent by King Louis XVI of France (the one who lost his head) on a scientific expedition of the Pacific, Laperouse (1741 - 1788) disappeared after leaving Botany Bay. A suburb of Sydney is named after him.



Captain James Cook (1728 - 1779) 

You can read about Cook's link to Canada and the Seven Year's War and further information about his life here and here.
A definitive biography of James Cook is J.C.Beaglehole's, The Life of Captain James Cook; 772 pages, very detailed. Beaglehole was a New Zealand historian who died in 1971.
 
 Essays written by Beaglehole on Captain Cook might be an option.
Captain James Cook by Richard Hough is one I'm going to borrow from the library and possibly use. 385 pages; 28 chapters.
The Cannibal Islands by R.M. Ballantyne is a story of Cook.

Term 3 (1786 - 1815)

Matthew Flinders is the Australian choice for History & Geography for this term. Some interesting information about an expedition supported by Napoleon in 1800 in which Nicholas Baudin was dispatched to chart the unknown coast of southern New Holland: National Gallery of Victoria. Matthew Flinders was sent out for the same purpose by Britian.

Sir Ernest Scott (1867-1939) an Australian historian wrote The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders.
You can download the free ebook; 460 pages.
He also wrote an account of French exploration and projects in Australia which is available as a free download. 244 pgs.
By the way, Dodo Press often has free ebooks and I often check to see if they have republished older books.
Another biography of Flinders is by Miriam Estenson which looks promising:

'The Life of Matthew Flinders is a story of persistence and audacious risk-taking, driving ambition and frustration, obstinate determination and doubt. It is a richly detailed account of tragedy and short-lived triumph, of exile on an enemy island, of love thwarted and a painful early death. It is also the story of a man who became one of the great navigators of the nineteenth century, an adventurer who left an indelible mark on a continent and a nation.'

Update:

Two other book suggestions for Term 3:      

 Bligh Master Mariner by Rob Mundle

“From ship's boy to vice-admiral, discover how much more there was to Captain Bligh than his infamous bad temper. Meet a 24-year-old Master Bligh as he witnesses the demise of his Captain and mentor Cook; a 34-year-old Lieutenant Bligh at the helm of the famous Bounty then cast adrift by Fletcher Christian on an epic 47-day open-boat voyage from Tonga to Timor; and a 36-year-old Captain Bligh as he takes HMS Providence, in the company of a young Matthew Flinders, on a grand scientific voyage around the world. And all this before he was forty.”

 Flinders: The Man Who Mapped Australia by Rob Mundle    

A Short History of Australia by Ernest Scott - 346 pages and 30 chapters is a book I think I'll use as a spine for this year.
Chapters 1 - 8 (up to "Extension of Settlement") looks like it would fit the time period. So that's 98 pages for the whole year. Have a look and tell me what you think.