Inspiration from Ambleside

Although the main purpose of our overseas trip was for me to return to Scotland, each of us had some specific ideas of what wanted to do and places we wanted to visit while we were in that part of the world. My son was keen to see his favourite football (soccer) team, Chelsea, playing in London and he ended up booking tickets to three different matches, one on Glasgow & two in London. We all went to the Glasgow Celtic game which was on while we were there and it was just how I remembered Scottish football - fanatical & noisy with plenty of police on duty!
The Chelsea game was on at the time we'd planned to be in Ambleside so we dropped him at the station in Carlisle so he could take the train to Stamford Bridge in London for the game and we continued on to the Lakes District.

Obviously, having an interest in Charlotte Mason's ideas and practice was one of my main reasons for wanting to visit the area, but I was also intrigued by a place that appeared to have been a mecca for some very influential, intelligent, and gifted people - Beatrix Potter, William Wordsworth and John Ruskin being notable examples besides Charlotte Mason.

In 1891 Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) started a training institute for governesses, which became the House of Education at Ambleside in 1892. After her death it became known as the Charlotte Mason College and was managed by the county until the 1990’s when it became part of Lancaster University. St. Martin’s College took over its management in the late 1990s (Charlotte Mason/St. Martins College in Ambleside).The site of the Charlotte Mason college in Ambleside is now occupied by the University of Cumbria which was formed in 2007.
In 2017 The University of Cumbria signed an agreement with the Armitt Library and Museum Centre, one of the UK’s rarest small museums. The Armitt is in the same location as the university (to the right of the sign pictured below) and first opened in 1912 as a museum, library and gallery 'devoted to preserving and sharing the cultural heritage of the Lake District.'
Founded in memory of sisters Mary Louisa and Sophia Armitt, Beatrix Potter was one of its early supporters and its greatest benefactor. It is now being established as the national centre for all Charlotte Mason archives.




What was it about this little spot in England? Well, it was obvious as we drove down from the north that the Lakes District is very beautiful and the town of Ambleside itself is very quaint, but there are plenty of delightful little places all over Britain.
Although the second half of the 19th Century was a time of rapid innovation and technological advancement for Britain, Ambleside remained isolated from the general hubbub. It had no electricity until 1930, and it was some distance from the trainline so its comparative tranquillity made it a sought after retreat for intellectuals - artists, writers, and academics. They in turn had ties to numerous other poets, artists & novelists who also spent time in the area.
Surprisingly, there has also always been industry in the Lakes District with quarrying, a gunpowder factory, watermills, and copper mining. Up until the 1970's bobbin mills were operating there also.
We arrived at the end of the peak season and the centre of the town was a busy little place but it was peaceful & quiet in the Armitt. There are lovely little tea shops everywhere and there was a gentle intermittent drizzle of rain - perfect!

The Armitt Library

The Armitt building also hosts a gift shop and sells a wide variety of secondhand books that I thought were very reasonably priced.

The Bridge House, said to have been built on an arch over the Stock (? Stream) Beck so the owner could avoid land tax, was built in the 17th Century:

Moozle pays a visit...

Although samples of Charlotte Mason's students' Nature Notebooks and other material may be viewed online via The Charlotte Mason Digital Collection at Redeemer College, I was so pleased to see and handle some original work at The Armitt. Photographs aren't permitted in the library but I was told I could photograph the samples I looked through so here are some of them. The library has a Charlotte Mason 'sample' box and I looked through this and also a couple of Nature Notebooks (pictured below).

I was asked by a fellow home educator if the nature notebooks looked at all 'like the intensive sort of things we sometimes see in CM curriculum these days' and I would have to say that I thought they were quite simple and seemed to reflect the different personalities and inclinations of the owners. One I looked at was predominantly a journal with more text than actual brush drawing or sketching. Another concentrated more on drawing with less writing but observations were clearly labelled.

Dated 1929

A close up view

Frontispiece of a Nature Notebook

Record of Plants

Moozle expressed her surprise that the notebooks weren't as artistic or professional as she thought they would be. Maybe that's because that's what she often sees when we look at nature notebooks online.
This was a positive aspect for me - seeing what the students of Charlotte Mason's schools actually did rather than 'making them the intensive things we sometimes see.'

Poetry quotations were used as well as diagrams

I think this one was dated ? 1938

These look relaxed and do-able

Amongst the items in the sample box was a  more recent PNEU programme for Years 9 & 10 which was just up my alley as Moozle is finishing year 9 this year. This schedule was included too:

Free or Leisure Reading - this book list reflects a more British audience (except for the O'Dell book):

And so do the novels

Ambleside, United Kingdom

Some websites of interest:

Charlotte Mason College, Ambleside: memories from the 60's

Charlotte Mason Digital Collection (CMDC)

Charlotte Mason - Armitt

Ambleside's History

Images from Ambleside's History

Pictures of Old Ambleside

Bridge House

Highschool Biology with Living Books: Mr Tompkins Inside Himself...

Mr Tompkins Inside Himself  by George Gamow & Martynas Ycas
274 pages
Illustrated with black pen drawings
1967 edition

This book has been part of Benj's Science this term. He's also been working through Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov this year, which he really enjoys. He wasn't keen on doing any more Biology but I thought this book by Gamow would be an interesting and slightly different way of approaching the subject. The author contributed to the development of the Big Bang Theory and that belief is reflected in his writing. Working through selected chapters of Apologia Biology prior to reading this book helped to balance things out.

There are ten chapters to the book and he has read through a chapter per week, except Chapter 6, which he skipped. I read through the first six chapters and flicked through the rest and got together a few extra resources for interest's sake, which I include below. Gamow aquired world-wide fame as the author of scientific books and articles written for the layman, and even a cursory reading of this book helped me understand why. Benj has actually enjoyed this book after his initial reluctance, probably because Gamow has a quirky sense of humour and makes many diversions, and, being a physicist, he often diverts in that direction.

Mr. Tompkins is a teller at a city bank who likes to spend his leisure time relaxing with a book or magazine on popular science. Despite his intense interest in cosmology, atoms, and other scientific topics, he frequently nods off in the middle of his reading. As he sleeps, his vivid imagination takes over and leads him into fantastic worlds where his dreams are often strange and grotesque, but help him grasp the meaning of what he's read.


Chapter 1 - Through the Blood Stream

Cell colonies, erythrocytes, amino acids, leucocytes

Truth and beauty in the cell...




Cancer - aggressive cells




Chapter 2 - Muscle Beach

ATP actomysin, myofibrils, nerve gas, muscle fibres - contraction
The history and action of nerve agents (nerve gas).

Contents of video below:

Smooth, Cardiac, and Skeletal Muscles Create Movement 1:18
Sliding Filament Model 4:52
Skeletal Muscles Are Made of Bundles of Protein Fibers 2:40
Actin and Myosin Myofilaments 3:54
Calcium and ATP Cause the Binding and Unbinding 5:05






Chapter 3 - The Heart on the Wrong Side

Situs inversus - causes, symptoms, treatment

Topology

Möbius Strip - Benj watched this video and made one and then gave it to his sister to see what she thought of it.

 Ants on a Mobius Strip by M.C. Escher

Sola & Korob  or Scylla & Charybdis, (from Homer's Odyssey) the choice between two evils. Pg 71

Levo & dextro - this is to do with organic chemistry.


Chapter 4 - Gene's Piece of Mind

Chromosomes
Mutations, deformity & disease - Creation Science

Radiation sickness, alcohol - alcohol is a diuretic as are coffee & tea.
Antioxidants.


Chapter 5 - The Number of the Beast

Benj has covered much of this in Understanding Physics but Gamov adds some humour and spark to this area with Mr Tompkins' adventures.


Molecular biology
Wavelengths, light - physics
X Rays
Trigonometry

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot, is a book of mathematical fiction that Gamow mentions in this chapter. It was written in 1885 and describes a world of two dimensions. It's online at Gutenberg but I don't know anything else about it.

Double helix - James Watson: 'How We Discovered DNA' - a TED video just over 20 minutes long. Watson mentions Gamow in this video and there is a transcript you can click on to decide if it would be suitable for your student. Some mild language.
Towards the end, Watson talks about what fires him up these days - DNA biopsies to detect diseases  such as breast cancer before it becomes cancer; the loss of pieces of gene/molecules and its association with autism. Very interesting ideas.

Origin of Life -  an explanation of what is needed for abiogenseis by Don Batten of Creation Ministries. Includes an animation on protein synthesis.

There's a lot of information in the video below, presented very rapidly, but well done. It's almost 13 minutes long, but I'd suggest stopping around the 9 min 20 sec mark. There's a rude teenage boy joke just after that, but it also gets more technical. You'll cover Nucleic Acid, DNA, RNA & Replication in that time - which was what the chapter was mostly about. I don't remember any evolutionary material in the segment I watched.





Brownian motion (pg 127) - the random movement of particles suspended in a fluid.


Chapter 6 - An Ocean Voyage

Benj skipped this chapter. It's mostly Darwinian evolution although there are a couple of interesting digressions. Benj had already worked through some of the Apologia Biology text which covered a lot of this. The chapters in Mr Tompkins can be read independently of one another without posing a problem.
Would Darwin be a Darwinist today?


Chapter 7 - The Clock Ticks

Biological clocks in animals & humans.
Sleep & health issues;
Circadian rythym - more than you'll ever need to know.


Chapter 8 - The Maniac

Binary numbers, computers


Introduction to number systems and binary:




Nerve synapses - neurotransmitters.
Right and Left brain hemispheres - what's the difference?
Brain function & injury - progresses through the different parts of the brain, their various functions,  and what happens when those parts are injured.


Chapter 9 - Brainy Stuff

Computers and brains; quite a bit of evolutionary content in this chapter.
brain vs computer


Chapter 10 - The Lake of Dreams

Mr Tompkins talks with his son, Wilfred, who is a scientist, about biology - past, present and future.

Entropy
Vis vitalis - 'an organising force of life, which opposes the tendency to disorder of inorganic materials.'
According to this article, in 1950 vis vitalis 'was sanctioned by Stalin and led the Soviet biological sciences into a blind alley.'


Other resources:

Why I Teach my Kids Evolution

If only Charles Darwin could see his descendant now - Faith reanimated through intellectual pursuit.

A Condensed Year 9 & 10 with a Weekly Schedule

This is a term of work for Benj with an outline of his weekly schedule. He's 15 years old and will be starting Ambleside Online Year 11 at the beginning of next year by which time he'll have turned 16. This term has a selection of some books from AO Years 9 & 10 plus others I've added, and covers the time period around the 1700's to 1800's.

History

The Age of Revolution - Volume III

The Great Democracies - Volume IV by Winston S. Churchill

2 chapters per week with the aim of finishing both books by the end of the year. Benj said that he'd like to finish these books as he enjoys Churchill's writing. Reading lots of historical fiction by authors such as G.A. Henty when they were younger has made it much easier for my children to ease into Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples later on.

Biography

Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars by Albert Marrin - A chapter per week.

Geography

Buccaneer Explorer (William Dampier 1652-1715) This book was started in the third term of Year 8 and will continue until the end of the year. About 8 to 10 pages per week.

Literature

The Strange Case of Dr Jeckyll & Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Shakespeare - Hamlet. We listen to an Arkangel audio and follow along with the text once a week.

Science

Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov

There are three volumes in this book. Benj has finished Volume 1, Motion Sound & Heat and should be finished Volume 2, Light, Magnetism & Electricity by the end of this year. He does about a chapter a week, depending on their length. He really enjoys this book, probably because Maths is one of his favourite subjects.

Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif

Benj has finished the first three chapters. Some of the chapters are quite long and I don't want him to rush through the book in order to squeeze in the six chapters scheduled in Year 10 so he just reads a section each per week.

Mr Tomkins Inside Himself: Adventures in the New Biology by George Gamow & Martynas Ycas

A chapter per week.

I'd been looking for a book on Biology that I thought would interest Benj (Biology not being a subject he's all that interested in) and saw that Nebby had mentioned this book. Gamow is probably more widely known for his books on physics but he has an ability to present complex scientific subjects within an understandable and engaging narrative.

Mr. Tompkins is an ordinary middle-aged man who works in a bank but whose lively interest in science apparently occupies all his spare time, waking and dreaming...his dreams somehow fit the facts he has read about in books and magazines on popular science, thus helping him to grasp the difficult concepts through his own experiences.

I've been skim reading it ahead of Benj and have found it quite interesting. Benj said Mr Tompkin's adventures reminded him a little of The Magic School Bus books he loved when he was little. There is some evolutionary content, notably in Chapter 6, where Mr Tompkins meets Charles Darwin. I'll be adding some additional resources such as videos & articles so if you're interested, let me know and I'll post what we're doing and give some more information about the book.

Keeping

Science Notebook

Commonplace Book

Nature Notebook

Latin Notebook

Timeline/Book of Centuries

Plutarch's Lives - Themistocles. I read this to Benj & Moozle weekly using Anne White's study guide.

Straight Talk by Barry Chant

Unfortunately, the corny cover doesn't do this book justice. It was published in 1977 but deals with issues that are still relevant today in a realistic and biblical manner. I've seen various books of more recent publication that address the same issues but I've been uncomfortable with their treatment of the subject. We've heard the author speak at different times and our teenage boys were part of a question and answer forum he addressed and they were impressed with his ability to communicate truth in a winsome manner on a range of hot topics.

 

How to Read a Book by Adler & Van Doren

I've had this book for ages and never got around to reading it so I started reading it aloud to Benj this year. We're up to Chapter 6 and I read a short section per week.

Ourselves by Charlotte Mason

A Fortunate Life by Albert Facey - I've been reading this aloud for a couple of months

Grammar & Composition

Continuing with Jensen's Format Writing (scroll down page)

Easy Grammar Ultimate Series: Grade 10 

Oral & written narrations

Maths

Saxon Advanced Maths with Art Reeds DVDs. Benj started this in August and it will probably take him through to the end of next year.

Other books from the time period being covered that I've assigned to be read freely:

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

The Hornblower books by C.S. Forester - he's already read a number of these already.

Robbery Under Arms by Rolfe Boldrewood

Linking to Weekly Wrap-up