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! 

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.

Christian Greats Challenge - Wrap-up Post

On the Incarnation by Athanasius

A Chameleon, a Boy, and a Quest by J.A. Myhre

The God Who is There by Francis Schaeffer

Life Under Compulsion by Anthony Esolen

Flynn of the Inland by Ion Idriess

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden

North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell

Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

The Nine Tailors by D.L. Sayers


The link up page is here if you wanted to add your review of any books you've read for this challenge.
Thank you to those who joined in!

Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers (1932)

Have His Carcase is the second book by D. L. Sayers to feature Harriet Vane who was first introduced in Strong Poison (1930) when Lord Peter Wimsey decides she is not guilty of a murder charge and sets out to prove it.
I’ve been filling in the gaps of my Sayers’ reading lately and Have His Carcase was one of the books I decided to read. It’s been quite a few years since I read Strong Poison and I don’t remember a great deal of it so I probably should have read that again before this one. I do remember quite a bit of Gaudy Night which comes after Have His Carcase, though.

Harriet Vane, the detective novelist, has just been acquitted of murder and embarks on a walking tour along the south-west coast of England.

'The best remedy for a bruised heart is not as so many people seem to think, repose upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest hard work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth. After being acquitted of murdering her lover, and indeed, in consequence of that acquittal, Harriet Vane found all three specifics abundantly at her disposal; and although Peter Wimsey, with a touching faith in tradition, persisted day in and day out in presenting the bosom for her approval, she showed no inclination to recline upon it.'

While on a deserted beach she discovers the body of a young man whose throat had been slashed and after some sleuthing she heads to the next town to report her findings. During this time the tide comes in and the corpse disappears. Once again Harriet Vane is drawn into the investigation of a murder where she is a possible suspect.

Lord Peter Wimsey gets wind of the situation and turns up at the hotel where she is lodged. Wimsey is still pursuing Harriet and much of the banter between them is just delicious. Harriet is having breakfast when he arrives on the scene:

‘Good morning, Sherlock. Where is the dressing gown? How many pipes of shag have you consumed? The hypodermic is on the dressing-room table.’

‘How in the world,’ demanded Harriet, ‘did you get here?’

‘Car,’ said Lord Peter, briefly. ‘Have they produced the body?’

‘Who told you about the body?’

‘I nosed it from afar. Where the Carcase is, there shall be eagles gathered together. May I join you over the bacon-and-eggs?’

‘By all means,’ said Harriet. ‘Where did you come from?’

‘From London - like a bird that hears the call of its mate.’

‘I didn’t -‘ began Harriet.

‘I didn’t mean you. I meant the corpse. But still, talking of mates, will you marry me?’

Harriet is attracted to Wimsey but complicating their relationship is the offence she feels at Wimsey’s patronage towards her. She resents the gratitude she owes him for getting her out of a death sentence. His influence protects her from the hostility of men like Inspector Umpelty and the sensationalist reporter of the Morning Star, Salcolme Hardy, and she is bitterly distressed about this.

Wimsey had been building cautiously building a ‘delicate structure of confidence’ between this ‘scathed and embittered woman and himself’ but this new situation threatened to annihilate what he had built.

'You think you can sit up there all day like King Cophetua being noble and generous and expecting people to be brought to your feet...You think if you go on long enough I ought to be touched and softened...I suppose every man thinks he’s only got to go on being superior and any woman will come tumbling into his arms.'

King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid by Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1884)

Wimsey’s reply to this outburst reveals his heart and his often comic behaviour when he’s around her. According to him he’d have a better chance if he was, ‘deaf, blind, maimed, starving, drunken or dissolute,’ so that she could have the fun of being magnanimous!
He treats his deepest feelings in a comic way to save himself the pain of her being disgusted by them. Poor Peter.

This tussle between Harriet and Wimsey is cleverly portrayed. Amusing but at the same time poignant. As usual, Sayers' plot is clever and inventive; full of connections and rabbit trails. A chapter is basically devoted to the pair working on a cipher that the deceased had used in some letters he wrote, but it went over my head. Puzzles are not my strong point.
I was a little disappointed with the ending to this book. The crime was solved but the evidence was such that a jury would likely reject it so it was left hanging, so to speak. Apart from that, this was an enjoyable and intelligent read.

Moozle has just started reading some of Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey books and read this after me. (I think some of her books are more suitable for older readers but this one was O.K.) She really enjoys them and said that she ‘gets’ many of the literature allusions & ramblings because of all the literature she’s read over the years such as mythology & Shakespeare, plus bits of Latin and French, both of which she’s been studying. I have to credit Ambleside Online for introducing us to a lot of that goodness.

These are the Sayers’ books I’ve read & written about:

Whose Body?
Clouds of Witness
Unnatural Death
The Five Red Herrings

Regarding King Cohetua, see here & also this blog.

Initiating Interests: Architectural Science

Our aim in Education is to give a Full Life. - We begin to see what we want. Children make large demands upon us. We wish to place before the child open doors to many avenues of instruction and delight, in each one of which he should find quickening thoughts... 
We owe it to them to initiate an immense number of interests. 

School Education by Charlotte M. Mason; Pg 170

One of the many reasons I was attracted to Charlotte Mason's ideas on education was her emphasis on a wide and generous curriculum - setting children in a large room:

Thou hast set my feet in a large room; should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. 

Often the temptation we have is to allow a narrow focus, to follow our child's desires or main interests. On the surface of it, it appears educational and wise. I mean, how satisfying is it to see them completely taken up with something? They don't even want to stop for lunch let alone other studies. Of course, this focus means excluding other things, and the room they are in shrinks.

In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him? I know you may bring a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. What I complain of is that we do not bring our horse to the water. 

Which brings me to...

Architectural Science

We added Architectural Science studies in Year 7 because Moozle expressed an interest in modern architecture. She wasn't interested in Ancient Greek or Roman architecture and would have been quite happy to jump in at the 20th Century. However, I wanted to 'bring my horse to water' and place her feet in a large room, not limited by her idea that older architecture would be boring. I also wanted to lay a foundation and build upon that, so we started with the books I posted here - if you scroll down to 'Fine Arts' in this post you will see what we've used.
As well as watching some of Kevin McCloud's Grand Design DVD's, which she loves, Moozle has done some hands on activities and keeps an Architecture notebook.

The other week my husband showed Moozle our original house plans. The couple we bought our house from built it themselves but obviously departed from some of the plans as they went. Over the past 10 years we’ve done some renovations which included knocking out a weight-bearing wall so there are even more changes that are not in the original plans. My husband went over the plans with Moozle and she worked out how many square metres our house is, what has changed from the original design and using a free app, ‘built’ an updated version of our house on the Ipad. The second photo below is the free app she used. She had a lot of fun doing this but the free app doesn’t let you save the plans ☹️ although you can pay for the upgrade that does.
This exercise was a good one for a girl who would much rather not do Maths!

The books we're using this year for Architectural Science were chosen after a visit to one of our favourite independent bookstores. I was interested to see what books Moozle would be drawn to and I thought she showed a wider interest than she had a year ago when we first started. These are the books we chose:

50 Architects You Should Know by Lowis, Thiel-Siling, & Kuhl

This book starts with the Renaissance and covers a selection of architects from then to recent times. It's concise, but covers a wide range of architects and buildings and is our basic spine for this year.

The series of books by James Gulliver Hancock, All the Building In... are beautifully done coloured sketches of buildings in different cities where the author has lived at different times. We bought the Sydney and Paris books to start with and plan to collect the others in the series which cover Melbourne, New York, and London.

All the Buildings in Paris by James Gulliver Hancock

A Concise History of Western Architecture by R. Furneaux Jordan is a comprehensive book we are using mostly for reference. The author starts with ancient Egypt and continues through to the 19th Century & Modern Times - great to see it includes the Sydney Opera House! Out of print; ISBN 0500 20087 4

The Ambleside Online years are full and generous so if you do add something, it is a good idea to substitute it for something else. We skipped a couple of the science books in Year 7 (Adventures With a Microscope & a large part of Signs & Seasons because we're in the Southern Hemisphere) in order to fit in the books we added. We'll be doing the same this year.

Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking - the strain would be too great - but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest.

All quotations are from School Education; Pg 170

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

‘No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.’

So H.G. Wells began in what was to be the first modern science fiction novel. The planet Mars had been cooling; its oceans had shrunk and the planet was in the last stages of exhaustion. 
‘The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened heir hearts.’

As the Martians looked upon the earth with their advanced instruments, they saw what they regarded as inferior creatures, as we would look upon ants. They saw a planet that could offer them an escape from their own doomed orb and they prepared for war.
The anonymous narrator of The War of the Worlds witnesses the first arrival of the Martians in Britain and documents their actions and his experiences of their invasion.

 Martian Emerges, Henrique Alvim Corrêa, 1906

Reading The War of the Worlds in 2018, it does come across as sensational and dated at times, but to readers living in the 19th Century before the invention of flight, let alone space travel, it would have been an entirely different experience; one which would have been quite confronting and perhaps terrifying to some.

It’s been said that The War of the Worlds is a critique of imperialism; a political allegory of the climate prior to World War I, more than a work of science fiction. Wells made comments throughout the book that seemed to reflect this idea. It took some time after the Martians came for humans to move from complacency to action which suggests a sense of superiority or hubris, and even then the action wasn’t a collective response but every man to himself, more or less.

'For that moment I touched an emotion beyond the common range of men, yet one that the poor brutes we dominate know only too well...I felt the first inkling of a thing that grew quite presently clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals, under the Martian heel. With us it would be as with them, to lurk and watch, to run and hide; the fear and empire of man had passed away.'

Abandoned London, Henrique Alvim Corrêa

'And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years.'

Wells described a Martian as possessing a tentacled brain. They were genderless, with no digestive system, and received nourishment by drinking the blood of humans while they were still alive...
Their behaviour towards the people on the earth was compared to that between humans and ants.

 Martian Viewing Drunken Crowd, Henrique Alvim Corrêa

"This isn't a war," said the artilleryman. "It never was a war, any more than there's war between man and ants."

'By ten o’clock the police organisation, and by midday even the railway organisations, were losing coherency, losing shape and efficiency, guttering, softening, running at last in that swift liquefaction of the social body.'

The War of the Worlds is a work of literature, beautifully written by a skilled wordsmith, so I found much to enjoy in my reading of it. However, I wasn’t so enamoured by the whole Martian thing and a few times I felt like skipping some parts of the book...I didn't, and preferred the latter part of the book much more than the earlier parts.

The book is scheduled as a free read in Ambleside Online Year 10. I think it’s a good fit there and would appeal to anyone who likes the science fiction genre. I much prefer dystopian fiction but I possibly would have enjoyed this book more if I’d read it when I was going through a science fiction stage in my late teens.


This book is part of my 2018 TBR reading challenge. 

6 Years of Blogging: Then & Now...

Six years ago this month I published my first blog post. I'd always enjoyed writing and had been part of a Charlotte Mason Families Newsletter for a few years where families took turns sending out a newsletter to a whole lot of other families around Australia. (Erin at Seven Little Australians was one of the families we 'met' through this newsletter). I was slow to get into blogging, partly because of time restraints but also because I didn't like the idea of writing to an unknown audience. I like good two way conversations & the immediate feedback that facilitates communication and understanding.
However, over the past six years, I've met some of my readers, have had email conversations with others, or have communicated via blog comments, so I feel like I've got to know some of you more.

So what's different now compared to back then?

In April 2012 all our seven children were still living at home.
Our two eldest had finished their degrees and were working fulltime.
One girl was still studying at University.
I was homeschooling the four youngest who were aged 7 to 17 years.

Since then we've had two weddings, an engagement, and the birth of our first grandchild five months ago. We've also had some difficult things to face including the loss of my Dad after a long neurological illness, and a year later, the sudden death of my brother at age 46 years.
Six children have graduated after being home educated from start to finish. 
Four have moved out of home. For the first time in 29 years, the kids at home each have their own bedroom.
My 13 year old is keeping me busy these days...a few more years of home education with her and then maybe I'll start with the grandchildren.

The most popular posts have been the following:

AmblesideOnline Year 1 Review

AmblesideOnline Year 6

Written Work in a Charlotte Mason Education

Starting Out With Home Education

Ten Things to make Time For

Most of my readers are located in the USA followed closely by those in Australia, then the U.K. New Zealand, Canada and in recent years, South Africa.
Apart from home educators, the most frequent comments I receive are from book bloggers, some of the friendliest people out there in the blogging world.
If you haven't visited these blogs, check them out if you'd like to read some great reviews:

Sharon @Gently Mad Sharon is a musician and couples her book reviews with links to some great classical music videos.

Brian @Babbling Books has interesting insights into the characters presented in the books he reads.

Some homeschooling bloggers I like to visit - these two ladies are 'all-rounders' and I've enjoyed watching their growth in writing over the past few years:

Amy @ HearthRidge Reflections - Amy recently had some of her poetry published

Silvia Cachia - Silvia is articulate & thoughtful in two languages!


My husband bought me a new phone for Christmas and now that I have one that works properly, I've been posting regularly on Instagram & have been enjoying the community there.

So I have some questions for my readers:

What type of content would you like to see in future posts?


Homeschooling a large family
Using AmblesideOnline
Book reviews
Charlotte Mason ideas & practice
Home education generally
Parenting
Nature study
Handicrafts
Curriculum suggestions/reviews
Homeschooling teens/highschool
Chatty & random stuff 

Thank you to everyone who continues to read this blog. If you have been following me from the beginning and have never commented, I'd love to hear from you. Much has changed in my own life since 2012 and I imagine it's been the same for you. Let me know if any particular type of posts are helpful to you.

Now...a day in the park with my granddaughter

January Notes: Nature, Camping, Keeping & Notebooks

We went on a family camping trip in mid-January which was a great nature study opportunity. We only went about three hours north of our home but it's surprising how much difference that short distance makes in the local flora & fauna.

For years I've heard cicadas but I've only found their shed skins so I was surprised to find full-grown cicadas in plentiful supply while we were away. Most of them were dead & I found out later that that was probably due to the run of very hot weather we've had. The one below was about 3" or 9 cm long. For an article about Aussie cicadas see this newspaper piece.
For a website devoted to them see Cicada Mania. For a poetic piece on these maddeningly noisy but fascinating creatures check out 'The Song of Cicadas' by Roderic Quinn.

Floury Baker Cicada

Moozle's Nature Notebook

Anatomy & Physiology

Moozle just had her 13th birthday, while we were camping, actually, & I'd been holding off starting a Commonplace Book with her until now. I'd been allowing her to choose some of her own copywork material in the past year or so and lately she'd begun reading out passages in books that caught her attention so I thought now would be an opportune time. She chose a notebook and made a title for the front.

She's acquiring the habit of commonplacing without me reminding her...

My Diary of Firsts - I also record walks, camping etc here:

Happy campers - it rained overnight on the second day, hence all the towels & clothes hanging up around the place.

Not to mention a tent fail. It hadn't been used in a while & when Moozle & Benj set it up they discovered that it didn't have a fly so they got a little wet during the night & the whole thing drooped:

 Wet weather coming in

Goanna - a good three feet in length. I took this photo from a distance with my phone.  

On the first night a fellow camper mentioned to my husband that he'd seen a large snake on the path to the bathrooms so when I woke up in the middle of the night needing to visit the loo, I got my husband to accompany me just in case I met the creature. We decided that as we were up that we might as well go for a walk along the beach, about five minutes away. So in the early hours of the morning we were looking up at the spectacular Milky Way and listening to the sounds of the sea. Living in suburbia you just don't see the sky like that and even where we were camping just over the ridge, the trees obscured a good part of the sky. We also had a great view of bioluminescence as the waves were crashing in onto the beach.

This is the path we walked down on our night visit to the beach. The beach is just past the bushes & down a hill. I'm happy to say we didn't come across any snakes!

On the second night we all had an evening walk along the beach and found hundreds of crabs as it became dark, scuttling around as we shone a torch on them.

Science Notebooks

'...there is the danger that their representation of facts may become more to them than the facts themselves, that the show of things may occupy their whole minds.'

Charlotte Mason

I read this in Charlotte Mason's Formation of Character last week. Moozle had done two science experiments and decided that she'd like to redo them and make a video. It took quite some time and when her Dad saw them that night he observed that it looked like the science was an aside to the video production. Which was true, but she'd already done the experiment & written it up. However, I can understand Mason's concern that the show of things can take over and fill their minds, with the facts themselves getting lost in the process.

I posted the videos on my Instagram account which I've had for a little while but haven't used much. My old phone made it difficult for me but now I've got a decent one I've started to post there. 

This is one of the experiments she did on the video:

This was an experiment Moozle illustrated after reading about it in The Wonder Book of Chemistry

Anatomy & Physiology

And this is from 'Secrets of the Universe' (see the Science schedule for Year 7 at AmblesideOnline)

As you can see, she has been getting good use out of the watercolour set she received at Christmas. When she's done one of her more artistic notebook entries, I have her explain the concept she's illustrated to make sure she has a good understanding of it, even though she hasn't included a lot of detail in the entry.

Peace

The steadfast coursing of the stars,
The waves that ripple to the shore,
The vigorous trees which year by year
Spread upwards more and more;

The jewel forming in the mine,
The snow that falls so soft and light,
The rising and the setting sun,
The growing glooms of night;

All natural things both live and move
In natural peace that is their own;
Only in our disordered life
Almost is she unknown.

She is not rest, nor sleep, nor death;
Order and motion ever stand
To carry out her firm behests
As guards at her right hand.

And something of her living force
Fashions the lips when Christians say
To Him Whose strength sustains the world,
'Give us Thy Peace, we pray!'

by Bessie Rayner Parkes (1829-1925)


* Bessie Rayner Parkes was Hilaire Belloc's mother. Belloc, a prolific author, who was a friend of Chesterton, is famous for his Cautionary Tales for Children.

 
 
A visitor to our backyard later in the month: a Black (or Swamp) Wallaby