Charlotte Mason Highschool: Year 11

This is our Year 11 Australian/personalised adaption of Ambleside Online. We've finished Term 1 and are a couple of weeks into Term 2 so I'll update this post as we continue through the year. 

Bible/Devotions

*  **  * *** In The Steps of the Master by H.V. Morton - Bible History & Geography

* Knowing God by J.I. Packer - continued from last year

Family line of Herod the Great

History

*  **  *** A History of the Twentieth Century  by Martin Gilbert

* A Short History of Australia by Ernest Scott (1953 Edition) We've used this in Year 9 up to the end of the first term of Year 11. We're using this one for Term 2 and 3 this year:

**  *** A Short History of Australia by Manning Clark - starting at Ch 9: Radicals and Nationalists - 1883 - 1901

* World War I and World War II by Richard Maybury

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain - this is scheduled in Term 1 but it's been slow going so Miss 16 will be reading it this term as well.

Biographies

*  Stalin by Albert Marrin 

** Hitler by Albert Marrin 

Speeches

Speeches That Shaped the Modern World by Alan J. Whiticker is our primary resource for Year 11 as well as some from the AO list that aren't too focussed on the USA. This book includes a couple of speeches made by Australian Prime Ministers.

Australian Literature

* We of the Never-Never by Mrs Aeneas Gunn

** A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

*** Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington/Nugi Garimara

Literature

* Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton (see here for some details) - we used this instead of The Great Gatsby.

I'll be substituting another book in place of Brideshead Revisited but will include all the others.

* Shakespeare - Much Ado About Nothing

Short Stories & Essays

I've been cherry-picking titles from the AO list.

Current Affairs

Conversations - John Anderson (former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia) via Podcast or YouTube. 

The Plight and Polarisation of Mainstream Media 

Authoritarianism 

Archaeology

* Digging For Richard III, How Archaeology Found the King by Mike Pitts - a great book to read after Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time.

** Come, Tell me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan

Geography

* Endurance by Alfred Lansing

** *** Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall - a combination of geography, history, current events and politics.

Science

*  **  ***  Novare General Biology by Heather Ayala and Katie Rogstad - this is a really in-depth biology book so we're not rushing through it. Lab work is included.

* The Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif

* Six Easy Pieces by Feynman - Miss 16 read four out of the six chapters and then I changed to this book:

** Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life by Helen Czerski - only 13 pages in but so far my daughter likes its conversational style. Thanks to Joy H on the AO Forum for mentioning this book. 

Plutarch

* Aristides

Art 

Reading a section of this each week - two to three pages on a wide range of artists; well illustrated, short biographies.

Free Reading

Pastoral by Nevil Shute

The Far Country by Nevil Shute (set in Australia)

The Black Orchids by Rex Stout

The Silent Speaker by Rex Stout

Shane by Jack Schaefer

The Lonesome Gods by Louis L'Amour

The Yellow Poppy by D.K. Broster

The Jacobite Trilogy by D. K. Broster

Son by Lois Lowry

Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie 

Books by Jackie French:

The Girl From Snowy River

Pharaoh

Pennies for Hitler

Tom Appleby, Convict Boy

Stay tuned for updates...

Narrative Non-Fiction Books for Young Readers: Australian Animals

I'm always on the look out for good narrative non-fiction books for children. I really like some of the Australian Natural History picture books that are available now that combine factual content within a story. I've previously written about one of these books, 'Emu' written by Claire Saxby and illustrated by Graham Byrne, that is very good. The same author and illustrator have collaborated in Big Red Kangaroo.

The illustrations in this book are large and were created with charcoal and digital media, capturing the dry, hostile beauty of inland Australia. The narrative storyline is accompanied by a section in italics on the opposite page that gives more information in factual form. The book was published in 2013 and has 29 fully illustrated pages. Recommended for Primary School aged children but an interested younger child would enjoy it, too.

Another book about Australian native animals by author Claire Saxby is Dingo. This book is illustrated by Tannya Harricks and though at first I wasn't that enamoured with her style, it grew on me as I looked at it more closely. The illustrations were created with oil paint in loose, broad brush strokes. This gives Dingo a very different feel to the Big Red Kangaroo. It has a lighter, softer background and the storyline is simpler with less narrative and larger writing.   

Dingo has the same format and page numbers as Emu and the Big Red Kangaroo and was published in 2018.

3 or 4 year olds and up would like this.

Bilby's Secrets by Edel Wignell; illustrated by Mark Jackson (2011) has a very similar format to the books above with lovely bright illustrations that evoke the Pilbara region of Western Australia - deep, rusty reds and brilliant sky blues. I've included some links below about this endangered Australian mammal.

This is a lovely book for younger children to pour over and observe closely as the illustrator includes many other creatures in the background.

The narrative is excellent and has a literary quality with a broader vocabulary than the books above.

Bilby - WWF-Australia - WWF-Australia

The Greater Bilby - Bush Heritage Australia

About Bilbies – Save the Bilby Fund

If you're looking for some Australian Natural History books for the younger years I would recommend any of these publications. Some children aren't ready for chapter books (such as those written by C.K. Thompson). These pictorial but realistic non-fiction books are a great way to start introducing them to Australian animals.

An Australian Classic: The Fortunes of Richard Mahony by Henry Handel Richardson

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony is a 943 page classic and an Australian one at that. It is also a tragedy. The author relentlessly follows the ‘fortunes’ of both Richard Mahony and his wife, Polly (known as Mary later in the book), the ups and downs of their rollercoaster-like lives, the inevitable sadness of their circumstances.

Mahony is an Irish immigrant whose restless nature will never allow him to settle anywhere for very long. Although he is proud and exceptionally thin-skinned, he is at heart a kind man. Mary is originally from England and puts down roots easily. She is loyal, tends to see the best in people and makes the most of circumstances. They are as different as chalk and cheese in many ways but they care for each other and life goes on reasonably well it becomes clear that Mahony will never settle anywhere. 

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony was written between 1917 and 1929 as a trilogy: Australia Felix, The Way Home, and Ultima Thule, but was re-published as one book in 1930. Henry Handel Richardson is the pen name of Ethel Florence Lindsay Richardson (1870-1946).

The book begins during the mid 1800’s gold rush in Ballarat where Mahony works in his store selling supplies to the miners. He had originally qualified as a medical doctor before emigrating to Australia but set that aside for the lure of the goldfields. He meets Mary on a trip to Melbourne when he is in his late twenties and she is only sixteen. They marry soon after meeting and she comes to live in Ballarat.

With his wife’s encouragement, Mahony takes up medical practice again and does very well but his restlessness makes him miserable.  He insists that life in England would be much more suitable for them, culturally and socially. So off they go only for Mahony to find that the grass is not as green as he had thought. Doctors were still not much higher in the social scale than barbers in this 'slow-thinking, slow moving country.' 

‘Long residence in a land where every honest man was the equal of his neighbour had unfitted him for the genuflexions of the English middle-classes before the footstools of the great.’

Although his pride was hurt by the attitude of the people to his profession, he was furious when he learnt that Mary was snubbed by some of the ladies of the town. Studying her objectively, he realised that she was different. Her manner was natural and spontaneous which contrasted to their restraint and it seemed to him that,

'...into all Mary did or said there had crept something large and free - a dash of the spaciousness belonging to the country that had become her true home.'

There are some interesting backdrops to this book: the Victorian goldfields and the Eureka Stockade, the Crimean War, Lister’s experiments in Glasgow, the English class system, and the fear of the Kelly Gang in country Victoria. It touches, too, on the treatment of the mentally ill - asylums were basically prisons and visits by relatives were discouraged. Mahony becomes intensely interested in Spiritualism for a time, attending seances and the like - apparently Ballarat had a small group of very devout believers in the 1800’s. 

There are also many philosophical tangents in the book as Mahony thinks about faith, science and eternity.

It’s interesting reading this in 2020 where the average lifespan is significantly longer than it was in the 1800’s. I kept reading jarring comments about someone being past their prime at 39 years of age ?! and a person was described as ‘very old’ when they were 61 or 62 years old.

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony is a very compassionate and in-depth exploration of a marriage. At different times the author allows the couple to share their individual thoughts. I thought this was very well done and helped me to understand both parties. Mahony's personality is so thoroughly explored that even though at times he appears to be a real jerk, one cannot help but feel some empathy. He tended to have flashes of inspiration that came too late:

'For such a touchy nature I'm certainly extraordinarily obtuse where the feelings of others are concerned.'

'To be perpetually in the company of other people irked him beyond belief. A certain amount of privacy was as vital to him as sleep.'

'His first impressions of people - he had had the occasion to deplore the fact before now - were apt to be either dead white or black as ink; the web of his mind took no half tints.'

As time passed, Mahony grew increasingly withdrawn. His work left no time for friendships, so he said, and although his wife was dear to him he missed the companionship an old friendship provided. The 'solid base of joint experience' was gone but his life had become too set to allow him to start building another.

'...the one person he had been intimate with passed out of his life. There was nobody to take the vacant place...He had no talent for friendship.'

Richardson was a gifted woman and an excellent writer. Obviously well-educated, her writing is peppered with allusions to mythology and Latin words. From what I've read of her life, this book has strong undercurrents of her own experiences.

Linking up with Brona for the 2020 AusReading Month.

A Charlotte Mason Highschool: In-between Years 10 & 11

Last month I wrote a post about our Year 10 studies. I'm now thinking about and making plans for Year 11 which Hails won't be starting until next year after a Christmas break. Now, for the interim, we are keeping up with cello lessons and exam preparation for her final exam in the first half of next year.

We started Novare General Biology, a new science curriculum, which I wrote about here and will continue that for the rest of the year and into next. This has inspired an interest in microscopy. We have an average, inexpensive sort of microscope but it has an attachment for a mobile phone so you may photograph what you're observing. This has been a big plus as Hails has an interest in photography and it's easy for everyone else to have a look without adjusting everything each time.

Microbehunter on YouTube has some great videos on all things related to microscopes and microscopy, including some good advice on choosing one suited to your situation (you don't need to spend a lot of money!!) and we've been watching these. He has also reviewed and highly recommends 'The Microbe Hunters,' by Paul de Kruif, a classic book on the major discoveries of the microscopic world that Ambleside Online uses for Years 8 to 11. 

Other books for our interim time:

Economix by Michael Goodwin; Illustrated by Dan E. Burr - we've had this for a few years and my next youngest, who is studying Economics at university, recommended his younger sister read it. It's a light, fun, graphic book on the economy - how economic forces affect you and have shaped history. My husband loves watching the nightly financial news and after reading this book Hails said, 'Now I understand what they're talking about!'

War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy - this is her slow read, which isn't her usual style, but she's reading a bit most days and once she was a few chapters in she started to enjoy it. 

World War I: The Rest of the Story and How it Affects You Today by Richard J. Maybury - an interesting perspective on wars and history. This book is followed by his book on World War II which we will use next year also. 

Discretionary Reading:

Escape or Die, The Dam Busters, The Great Escape, and Reach for the Sky by Paul Brickhill (WWII)

We Die Alone by David Howarth (WWII)

The Venetian Affair by Helen MacInnes

Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour - a superb book, written by a Palestinian Christian

Nemesis by Agatha Christie

Raw sugar crystals

Something new that I've taken on is working with My Homeschool, an Australian Charlotte Mason Inspired homeschooling curriculum that provides a complete curriculum from Kindergarten up to Year 9 and registration assistance for Australian families all over the country. It was started in 2017 by Michelle Morrow and during this Covid year it has expanded to serve about 600 families. I've been helping to run homeschooling workshops on the Charlotte Mason method via Zoom and just love doing it! 

Charlotte Mason Highschool - a 15 Year Old's Year

This is a review of what we've done this year. It's based on Ambleside Online Year 10 but with some adaptions for Australian content, personal interests, and substitutions I wanted to make - books I have and wanted to use or thought were important to include. I've linked to reviews or thoughts I've shared on some of the books.

Theology/Devotional/Apologetics

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis - a great book for a teen reader; full of humour but deadly serious!

By Searching by Isobel Kuhn - autobiography of a missionary to China that concentrates on the struggles of faith in her youth. I like to include a Christian biography each year and also a book that is set or focussed on the Asia Pacific region. This book worked for both categories.

Women of the Word by Jen Wilkin - we took turns reading this aloud: 'How to Study the Bible With Both Our Hearts & Minds.'

How Should We Then Live by Francis A. Schaeffer. I've used this now with all seven of our children. It's a book I think is very important as it traces key moments in the history of Western culture and the thinking of the people behind those moments in order to shed light on modern times. Schaeffer draws on his study of theology, philosophy, history, sociology and the arts in this work.

History

The Great Democracies by Winston Churchill

A Short History of Australia by Ernest Scott - out of print but online here. We used this book last year, the relevant chapters for this year and will continue with it for the first part of Year 11.

Killer Angels by Michael Shaara - the American Civil War. This was a free read because we had the book and Hails wanted to read it.

Biographies

Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey. We also watched The Young Victoria, the 2009 production which concentrated on the lead up to Victoria's coronation and her marriage to Albert. I read Queen Victoria by Lucy Worsley thinking I could possibly use that but it had too much information on the improprieties of some of the royals for a 15 year old. A pity as it also touched on many other important characters of the time such as Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone although there were chapters I could have assigned that would have worked but I felt we'd covered enough in the end.

L'Abri by Edith Schaeffer - a book I wanted to include at some point so I used it this year.

Science & Natural History

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson - we started this last year and finished it in Term 1 of this year.  I read it aloud and it was engaging and an excellent book to discuss.

Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif -  as per AO schedule

The Planets by Dava Sobel - a very literary guide to the planets. The author obviously loves her subject but she does wax very lyrical so I wasn't sure if Hails would enjoy it but she did and it inspired many written narrations. 

The Girl Who Drew Butterflies by Joyce Sidman - a beautifully illustrated book about Maria Merian, an artist, adventurer and scientist in 17th century Europe.

Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman -  I wasn't expecting Hails to like this but she has so far. We started it later than scheduled and will finish it in the next couple of months.

Nature Studies in Australia by William Gillies - we finished this earlier in the year. 

The Wilderness by Amy Mack - a very short book (26 pages) Read aloud

Exploring Creation With Physical Science by Jay Wile - very good for experiments.

All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot - I've been reading this series aloud for a couple of years. We've just started the next book, 'All Things Wise and Wonderful.' Hilarious and touching memoirs of a Yorkshire vet in the early to mid 1900's.

Archaeology 

I wrote about our archaeological studies a la Charlotte Mason here. Our main book has been God, Graves & Scholars by C. W. Ceram. We also made use of the free Dig School resources that were offered during COVID.

We continued with 50 Architects You Should Know that we started two years ago and finished it earlier this year.

Geography

Eothen by Alexander Kingslake 

Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson - we didn't finish this one (16 out of 29 Chapters). I bought the book at the end of our U.K. trip last year thinking it would be a great way to re-live some of the places we visited but in the end I was sick of the author's lewd, crude and obnoxious comments, not to mention his deplorable behaviour towards others on his travels through the U.K. in 1995. Very disappointing as we really liked his The Short History of Nearly Everything but he whined and complained in almost every chapter in this book and I had to edit so much on the fly I got fed up!! Not recommended and I'm not the only one who felt that way - I checked out Goodreads later. Apparently he must have lost the plot with this one.

We regularly use Seterra for map drills.

Australian Literature

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - I read this years ago and thought it was 'O.K.' but Hails really enjoyed it. I liked the movie a lot more so we'll watch that some time soon.

Pied Piper, Trustee From the Toolroom and No Highway by Nevil Shute. These books weren't set here but I included them as an introduction to Shute who made his home here. The books I've read that have an Aussie setting are a little too mature for a 15 yr old, I think.

All the Green Year by Don Charlwood - a coming of age Aussie story.

General Literature

We used all the suggestions in AO Year 10 except Uncle Tom's Cabin and added In This House of Brede, which she loved, Mary Barton, and Martin Chuzzlewit. I didn't require narrations from these.

Shakespeare's Henry V - the play and then we watched the Kenneth Branagh DVD

Short Stories - I chose four from the AO selections

Essays - selections from AO and from God in the Dock by C.S. Lewis

Other

Plutarch - the Life of Alexander - this was one of the best lives we've read!

Ourselves by Charlotte Mason

One Blood by Ken Ham, Carl Wieland & Don Batten

How to Read a Book

The Deadliest Monster - liked this very much

Invitation to the Classics

Personal, Career, and Financial Security by Richard J. Maybury

Health

How Not to Diet by Dr Michael Greger - whole foods, plant based

HIIT sessions with me

Swimming several times a week

Art/Music

Musicianship & AMEB Studies for the cello

Folksongs & Hymns

The Arts by Van Loon

Picture Study - I put together a Charlotte Mason style study on the Australian artist Tom Roberts.

Masterpiece Society - we've used their watercolour and acrylic courses and they are very good for teaching technique. (affiliate link)

Free Reads

Hails is a very fast and voracious reader and I can't keep up with her but her favourite books lately are: 

Anything and everything by P. G. Wodehouse

Agatha Christie re-reads

Regina Doman's fairy tale retellings (the first two only at the moment)

Books by John Flanagan (The Ranger's Apprentice etc.)

The Walking Drum by Louis L'Amour

Witch Wood by John Buchan - one of the very few of this author's books she hadn't read before.

This year she read some more Dickens (who hasn't been her favourite author) and is in the process of reading War & Peace by Tolstoy.

I asked her to write about some of her favourite books and here is what she wrote: Ten Favourite Books of a 15 Year Old.

I've read and heard comments that using the Charlotte Mason method in highschool doesn't provide a rigorous enough education - it's too gentle, doesn't cover STEM subjects, won't prepare kids for university etc., etc. I really don't agree, if you provide a broad feast with enough of a challenge and plenty of living books to provide the mental sustenance a young person needs.

See this article I wrote for Afterthoughts:  'Charlotte Mason Doesn't Work for Highschool.' 

 

Homeschooling Help During Lockdown

The Australian Homeschooling Summit, (which is not just for Australians, by the way) was originally scheduled for April but due to the coronavirus it was postponed and will now be held in May from the 4th to the 15th.
This has actually worked out well because some of the presenters have had time to run additional sessions adding to the originally 30 workshops that were planned.

Some Details

•  It's online, so you don't have to leave home - how convenient, especially now we have to stay home!

• This will be Summit's 4th year and it's had attendees from all over the world in that time.

•  About half the workshops are live, and half are pre-recorded, however, when each workshop is released the presenter will be available to answer questions, either verbally if live, or in chat if pre-recorded.

•  All workshops are recorded and added to the website for you to access whenever it’s convenient.

• If you don't have Facebook you'll be able to watch the live workshops and ask questions within Zoom, so you’ll have complete access to everything except the chat in the FB community.

• All the mp3 files are split from the workshop and uploaded to the website, so you can listen whenever you like. Plus, the mp4 and mp3 files are available to download.

• The total cost is only $25 and that's for lifetime access to everything.


My Thoughts

I was in two minds about presenting at this Summit. I've spoken at a couple of homeschooling conferences and enjoyed doing it but this one is online via video so I wasn't keen about that! However, my husband encouraged me to do it and Kelly George, the Summit organiser, makes herself available to help with the technology side of things.
In the last couple of weeks Kelly asked if anyone wanted to do some FB Live workshops and I surprised myself by putting up my hand for that. I presented one on 'Encouraging Kids to Write,' and there were others who presented a whole range of topics such as having a healthy relationship with screen time, self-care, and journaling. These will be available as part of the Summit package.
If you need to refresh your homeschool, whether you're an old hand or brand new to all of this, I think you will find the Homeschooling Summit helpful & encouraging.
If you're feeling a little isolated, come and join in with some kindred spirits from all over the place and meet some new people.

See here for details & ticket sales. Hope to see you there!

An Australian Living Book: All the Green Year by Don Charlwood (1965)

All the Green Year by Don Charlwood is an Australian coming of age classic set during the year of 1929. The story takes place around the Port Philip Bay area of Victoria in the fictionalised town of Kananook, which was modelled on the real town of Frankston when it was still rural.
1929 was the end of an era. It was still the age of silent pictures where ‘mood music’ was played during a movie by a pianist and the American accent was seldom heard.
It was the age of gramophones, coppers for boiling clothes, blacksmiths, cable trams, and milkmen delivering milk into billies outside everyone’s gate. By 1930 this began to change with the coming of talking pictures.

‘Now alien speech poured into our ears: in musicals, westerns, gang warfare, smart comedy. Implicit in my story of boyhood in 1929 would be the suggestion that our era had been much less Americanised than those to come.’

Charlie Reeve narrates the story which mostly revolves around his best mate, Johnno, school, family life, boyish adventures and hijinks.
1929 was the year Charlie turned fourteen and started 8th Grade at school. It was also the year when his grandfather’s mental state worsened and Charlie’s family moved into ‘Thermopylae,’ Grandfather’s house on the cliffs, to take care of him.

This is a memorable story of adolescence, adventure and family friction at the beginning of the Great Depression. Fathers worried about their sons, their school grades and future prospects with the downturn in the economy, and this inflamed the conflicts at home. Both sides in the conflict misunderstood the other or just couldn't relate to their concerns and attitudes. It didn’t help that Charlie & Johnno’s teacher, Mr Moloney, targeted the two of them and made life and learning generally miserable.

'After five grades together this was my last year with Fred Johnston, a tall, melancholy boy of extraordinary physique...head and shoulders above everyone else, as a swimmer and boxer hardly anyone in the town could touch him. He had learnt boxing from his father who at one time during the war had been R.A.N. welter-weight champion...
About Johnno himself there was a contradiction I have never forgotten. He had practically no physical fear, yet he was always afraid of his father and of old Moloney…
His fear of both of them went back a long way; back, I suppose, to the third grade when Johnno had lost his mother. About a year after that Moloney, in a temper, had hit Johnno across the face with the strap. Johnno had gone home and told his father and old man Johnston had given him a note to bring to school. But the note only told Moloney to give him more for not taking his punishment like a man.'

During the year, Miss Beckenstall, a new, young and pretty teacher replaced Moloney and Charlie and Johnno began to enjoy school and do well. She encouraged them with their writing, and read poetry and David Copperfield with them, giving each of the students parts to read.

'“Don’t like being Steerforth,” said Johnno. “Look what he’s done to Little Emily.”

I wasn’t sure what he’d done to Little Emily; in any case Little Emily was being read by Janet Baker, who had nothing to recommend her.

“A chap’s really bad if he’s tough on women,” said Johnno gazing into the distance...

“She’s only in a book.”

He hadn’t heard me. “I’d drop Steerforth cold.” He punched the air absent-mindedly.'

Charlie’s grandfather and his antics were portrayed so well as was the family’s attitude towards him. It was refreshing to read about their sense of duty in their care towards him, making difficult decisions in order to keep him in his own home. He wasn’t an easy fellow to live with.
There were many humorous anecdotes throughout the book: stealing a camel and riding it to school, antagonising a bull, fist-fights with the town bully; the two boys reluctantly escorting Johnno's sister to a dance and 'defending her honour' as they were directed to do by her father; but the author also portrayed the pain and discomfiture of boys moving from childhood to adolescence; their physical and emotional upheavals, as if they were recent experiences for himself.

When two of Australia’s foremost critics commented that the first part of All the Green Year read as a ‘book about boys’ but the second part read like ‘a book for boys,' the author replied, ‘I was writing as an adult repossessed by boyhood and that the state of ‘repossession’ intensified as the book neared its climax so that, briefly, I shed my age and became in spirit a boy again.’
I think this expresses the feel of the book well. Charlwood sounds like he's looking back at events that just happened.

All the Green Year is an evocative novel that is wonderfully Australian. It is honest, compassionate, humorous, sad at times, and a compelling read. It was one of those Aussie classics that I knew about but I’d never seen in book shops. A while ago, I noticed that Erin had used it as a read aloud and their family enjoyed it so I had a look for it online. I saw that Text Classics had republished it so I bought a copy. (They have reprinted some other worthwhile books.)

We’re using it this year in our Ambleside Online Year 10, which I have modified a fair bit for Australia. It had been read in high schools here for twenty years but has suffered the same fate as other noteworthy classics such as I Can Jump Puddles.
Don Charlwood’s writing career spanned more than eighty years and he was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1992 for services to Australian Literature. He served in Bomber Command during the Second World War and later wrote several books about his experiences during this time. He died in 2012 aged ninety-six.

A Charlotte Mason Picture Study Resource

Here is Part 2 of the Australian Artist Picture Study featuring the work of Tom Roberts. I've concentrated mostly on his portraits this time. For a short biography of his life see Part 1.
Download the PDF for Part 2 here. I hope you find this helpful and if you find any errors or have difficulty downloading it please let me know.

‘By making art the perfect expression of one time and one place, it becomes art for all time

 and of all places.’

Tom Roberts (1856-1931)

Free Picture Study Resource: Tom Roberts - Part 1

Australian artists tend to be neglected, partly because there isn't anywhere near as much information about them compared to artists from other parts of the world. I put this guide together for those who would like to explore some great works by an Australian artist who made an important contribution to the art world. Tom Roberts painted some iconic works that showpiece the Australian landscape but he also was an excellent portraitist. This resource has two parts. In this first part, I've included mostly landscapes but in Part 2 I'll include mostly portraits.
This is a simple guide and it's also the first time I've done anything like this. Hopefully you will be able to download it without any problems. If there are any, please let me know in the comments and I will try to fix them. If you enjoy it, let me know, too!

Download PDF to view this:

Our High School Archaeological Studies

The Ring of Brodgar, Orkney

Gods, Graves & Scholars: The Story of Archaeology by C.W. Ceram

I’ve used this book in the past with my older ones and it’s very good. Ceram, a journalist and not an archeologist, traces the development of a highly specialised science in a way that the ordinary person can read it with genuine excitement as they would if they were reading a detective thriller.
The book was originally published in 1949 and was later revised and substantially enlarged. We have the 1971 edition and it is well-illustrated with black & white photographs, pen drawings and maps. There are 32 chapters, an appendix with chronological tables and a bibliography for the topics he covers.

The Folio Society have published the book and of course it's lovely, but expensive. Here is what they say about it:

'From Pompeii to the Rosetta Stone and from Nineveh to Chichén-Itzá, this hugely influential book was the first to tell the story of archaeology. First published in German in 1949, it was translated into 26 languages and became an international bestseller. More than any other book, it helped stoke a passion for archaeology in the imagination of the post-war world, and remains one of the world’s most widely read books on the subject...
Ceram tells us that ‘the great Palace of Minos was as large as Buckingham Palace’, that the bronze statues of Pompeii ‘rang like bells’ when they were first struck by the workmen’s shovels, and describes how our modern superstition about a black cat crossing our path stems from ancient Babylon.'

We're using Ceram's book as our main 'text' for the year and this term I'm adding in some fiction that is centred around archaeology. 

The Boy with the Brown Axe by Kathleen Fidler

This book is geared towards a younger audience (around 9 to 13) but I included it because it's a fictionalized account set in the Neolithic village of Skara Brae on the Orkney Islands which dates back 3,000 to 5,000 years ago. It describes how the village may have been destroyed and weaves in some geographical detail such as the Bay of Skaill, the Standing Stones of Stenness and Maidstowe. One of the characters in the book is a stone mason who is working on the Ring of Brodgar. Both my daughter and I enjoyed it even though it was a quick read for us.
Thanks to Sarah @delivering grace for suggesting this book.

The Rediscovered Village of Skara Brae

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters (1975)

This is the first book in the author’s Amelia Peabody series and it was a delightful read. We've both read this and my daughter loved it. While her characters in these books are fictitious, historic figures do make an appearance from time to time. For example, in Crocodile on the Sandbank, a well-known French Egyptologist plays a small part in the story. William Flinders Petrie, the famous archaeologist, is referred to a number of times, as well as a some other Egyptologists.
Amelia Peabody had lived a quiet life with her father, a scholar and antiquarian, generally supporting him and keeping house as he got older. The story takes place in the 1880’s. Amelia is 32 years old, single, and very sure of herself. 
When her father dies he leaves her his considerable fortune and she decides to leave England and travel to see all the places her father had studied: Greece, Rome, Babylon and Thebes.
She engages a companion, a Miss Pritchett, to go with her. Miss Pritchett contracts typhoid while they are in Rome and is dispatched back to England. Amelia, musing whether or not she should find a substitute, comes across Evelyn, a young English woman on the street near the Roman Forum. She had been heartlessly abandoned by her false lover when he realized she had no fortune and had fainted from hunger and exhaustion. Amelia rescues her, nurses her back to health then two of them take a boat up the Nile to an archaeological site to embark on their Egyptian adventure.

I looked into this series of books for my daughter to read alongside her Archaeology studies this year, for enjoyment mostly, but the settings bring archaeology to life and certainly give a feel for antiquity.
Elizabeth Peters earned her Ph.D in Egyptology and her archaeological knowledge comes through into her mystery writing which adds an authentic touch.
The author writes well and there’s a good dose of humour in her writing. Both my daughter and I think this first book has some similarities to Agatha Christie’s The Man in the Brown Suit, which we both really enjoyed.
I've started reading the second book in the series, The Curse of the Pharaohs, and while it's a great read, I think it may be just a tad mature at the moment for my daughter. Fortunately our library has a good number of the Amelia Peabody books so I'll check them out to see if they're suitable. I think once you've read the first one it's not necessary to read them in order. But do read Book 1 first if you decide to try them out!

Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie - a murder mystery set in a Middle Eastern
archaeological dig.

Appointment With Death by Agatha Christie - set in Petra. When Christie was 40 years of age she met her second husband, Max Mallowan, an archaeologist who was assisting Leonard Woolley in Ur. Christie worked alongside her husband and became an invaluable aid to him in his work. 

Ur from the air, 1927 - about a year before Christie visited

A Tweaked Version of Ambleside Online Year 9

We finished up AO Year 9  at the end of 2019. I made a few changes and omitted some things for various reasons. Australian titles were substituted in some areas and I've marked these with an *

Books written in black are from the Ambleside Online curriculum.

We only did one of Plutarch's Lives and two Shakespeare plays during the year.

An overseas trip during August and September, some additional family matters, and preparation for a Cello exam over the course of the year meant that we were a little stretched for time.

The following is basically what we did for Year 9:

Devotional/Theology/Apologetics

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

* The Flying Scotsman by Sally Magnusson - a biography of Eric Liddell

* Chariots of Fire - the movie of Liddell's life

Biography

* Captain Cook by Alistair Maclean (I've written about it here - scroll down) Enjoyed by everyone here.

* My Love Must Wait by Ernestine Hill - I really liked this (review) but it was a bit too descriptive/wordy in Moozle's opinion.

* Napoleon by Albert Marrin - a couple of my children have enjoyed this bio of Napoleon as well as  other books by the same author. A well-written & engaging book.

* Currency Lass by Margaret Reeson - all of my girls read and appreciated this book about a young woman growing up in the early days of Sydney.

Age of Revolution by Winston Churchill

* A Short History of Australia by Ernest Scott - I had books by modern historians (Geoffrey Blainey and Manning Clarke) but I prefer Scott for this time period.

* Personal, Career, and Financial Security by Richard J. Maybury 

Essays by Jane Haldimand Marcet

Ourselves by Charlotte Mason - we finished Book I

How to Read a Book - plodding along slowly with this one

Literature 

The History of English Literature for Girls and Boys by H.E. Marshall
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Science

Great Astronomers 
* Men, Microbes & Living Things by Katherine B. Shippen (Biology)
Napoleon's Buttons & Phineas Gage - both carried over from the year before

* A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson - this has been a favourite book in Year 9. It is full of evolutionary content but Bryson has a light-hearted touch and is quick to point out holes in scientific thought and the quirks of scientists through the ages.
Cosmology, Biology, Geology, Physics, Chemistry...a broad sweep of what we have discovered about the Earth and what scientists have deduced from these discoveries; odd scientists, accidental discoveries and a good amount of humour sprinkled throughout. This has been a read aloud & discuss type of book and it has generated many good conversations, not to mention guffaws from my daughter, over some of the stuff that has gone on in the scientific world over the past two hundred or so years. The chapters are quite long so we'll be continuing this book in Term 1 of year 10.

Natural History/Nature Study

* All Things Bright & Beautiful by James Herriot - this is the second memoir in Herriot's series about his life as a vet in the Yorkshire Dales in the years just before WWII.
We visited this beautiful area on our 2019 overseas trip (which I wrote about here, here, and also here!)

* Nature Studies in Australia by William Gillies

* The Art of Poetry - I reviewed this here. This is an excellent resource but I think for some students it might be overkill. 

Plutarch: the Life of Demetrius
Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice & Measure for Measure

The Arts by Van Loon

Free Reading

Rafael Sabatini re-reads of a number of his books. Scaramouche, * Seahawk, * Captain Blood, * The Gamester
* The Dean's Watch by Elizabeth Goudge
* Henrietta's House by Elizabeth Goudge   

* Murder Must Advertise & The Nine Tailors by D.L. Sayers
Agatha Christie - various
Ngaio Marsh - various
Margery Allingham - various

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren - I bought Moozle a lovely HB copy of this as she didn't have the book. it's written to a much younger age level but that didn't stop her enjoying it.

This Present Darkness & Piercing the Darkness by Frank Perretti - there are some excellent aspects touched on in both of these hard to put down books but there are also some negative aspects. I though this article explained things well and it was good to discuss those points. I read the books when they first came out and found them quite inspiring but I understand the concerns stated in the article.

Geography

Longitude by Dava Sobel
A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland by Samuel Johnson - we saved this for reading after we'd been over there.


Art & Music

For Picture Study we looked at works by John Everett Millais, Francisco Goya, and El Greco.
We've used YouTube videos to learn some art techniques and Pinterest for ideas at times but I wanted something more structured for Moozle to work through.
I bought the art course below just over a year ago in the Black Friday sales and it was very good so at the end of 2019 I bought the Pastels 101 for her to work through this year. With our low Aussie dollar everything from the USA seems exorbitant to us so a decent discount is always appreciated. At the time of my writing this they have a 40% off sale for the Art School Bundle which includes Drawing, Watercolour, Oils & Acrylics, and Pastels.
I added an account for Moozle on my Instagram so she can display her prodigious art work and various projects. It's missy_hudson05 if you want to have a peek.

During 2019 Moozle prepared for her Grade 8 Cello exam so we incorporated music by Haydn, Edward Elgar, and Ernest Bloch that she was studying into our Composer Study and read through sections of The Arts by Van Loon that were scheduled in AO 9.

A highlight of the musical side of the year was an 11p.m. orchestral performance Moozle was involved in just before Christmas for the launch of the latest Star Wars movie at a local cinema.

Clear Music Australia was recommended to me for sheet music about two years ago by one of Moozle's accompanists. A supplier we used closed down so I had to scour ebay and random internet stores to try to find what we needed and for an instrument like the cello it was really difficult. Clear Music has been excellent - great service, reasonable prices & everything arrives quickly and undamaged (!!) so I highly recommend them.


Architecture

I added this subject in Year 7 and have continued with it. The exciting thing was that in 2019 we travelled to the UK & Paris and saw some of this stuff first hand. The oldest building we have here (Elizabeth Farm) only dates back to the 1790's so it was incredible to walk through castles, churches, and ruins that have been standing for centuries, and in some cases, millennia.

Stirling Castle, Scotland

York Minster

Bath, England

Notre Dame, Paris, September 2019

Swimming in a competitive squad continues three to four times a week with a two week break over  Christmas. We're nearly at the end of that and she's itching to get back into training.

An example of a week's scheduling:

See here for other options for Australian homeschoolers.