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.' 

 

Nature Study in Australia: Winter

These are some of our recent nature gleanings. On a visit to a local park this very tame rabbit was having breakfast and remained totally oblivious to us and we were able to have an unplanned nature study observing him/her feeding.

 

We've used Nature Studies in Australia by William Gillies this year for studying Natural History in Australia and finished it the other week so now I'm reading The Wilderness by Amy Mack (1922) aloud. It's only 26 pages in length but it fits in nicely with the course from U of N. A free online version is available here.

 

Last week we had a walk down near the creek after quite a bit of rain. We have a waterfall that gives a spectacular display after a good amount of rain and this was the first time that these two had seen it like this. My granddaughter (who's nearly 3 yrs old) pointed to it and called it a shower. 

Here they are having a good splash in a puddle. My grandson (nearly 2 yrs of age) calls any body of water a puddle including the river we visited a couple of months ago.

Miss 15 yrs and I signed up to do the free University of Newcastle's Natural History Illustration course. Hails had already done it about 2 years ago and wanted to do it again so I joined her this time.

This is my rendition of an echidna. We usually see about one a year around our area and I sketched this from a photo as they don't hang around for very long and start to burrow if they sense people are near.

This was this week's lesson was about 'developing good observational skills and accurately recording every detail you see in front of you; looking at both positive & negative spaces, breaking down complex subjects into simplified shapes & depicting a three dimensional object on a two dimensional surface.'

This is my drawing from that:

 

And this is Hails' drawing of a fox and the stages she went through in doing it - yes, she leaves me for dead, but she is very encouraging and likes me drawing (well, trying to) with her. 

A wattle in bloom... a little earlier than usual

Some fungi after all the rain

We've seen some new birds on our birdfeeder or on the camellia trees nearby but haven't been able to identify them yet. Our lyrebird makes an appearance from time to time and today we saw a black cockatoo in a tree just up the road. and we've had our yearly sighting of an echidna.