A 14 Year Old's Commonplace Book

It is very helpful to read with a commonplace book or reading-diary, in which to put down any striking thought in your author, or your own impression of the work, or of any part of it; but not summaries of facts. Such a diary, carefully kept through life, should be exceedingly interesting as containing the intellectual history of the writer; besides, we never forget the book that we have made extracts from, and of which we have taken the trouble to write a short review.

Formation of Character by Charlotte Mason 

I've written about my son's commonplace book (aka 'Reading Diary' or quotations book) here which he started when he was about 15 years of age. Moozle started keeping hers about 18 months ago when she was about 12 and a half.  As I wrote in the post just linked, I wanted these records of their reading to be something they would initiate, but as with many things, I started the ball rolling so to speak and encouraged them to continue. I listed it as part of their weekly schedule but I basically left it up to them to choose what they wanted to record.
Often they'd read something out to me that they found interesting or amusing and I'd sometimes suggest it would be a good thing to record it. This helped them begin a habit of keeping a diary of favourite passages.
Moozle also keeps a record of scriptures and hymn lyrics in a separate notebook but that's just something she keeps as a sort of devotional diary and isn't a part of her regular lesson work.

Some quotations that have found their way into my 14 year old girl’s Common Place Book lately:

‘Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices.’

‘It is a very silly idea that We has in reading a book you must never ‘skip.’ All sensible people skip freely when they come to a chapter which they find is going to be no use to them.’
(Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis)

She liked this one, being a very fast reader! C.S. Lewis features regularly in her commonplace book. Mere Christianity is scheduled in Ambleside Online year 8 but we used another book for that year so we've added it to Year 9.

‘Lady Penelope looked at Lady Binks with as much regard as Balaam may have cast upon his ass when he discovered its capacity for holding an argument with him.’
(St. Ronan’s Well by Sir Walter Scott)

Moozle has read a number of Sir Walter Scott's books this past year. She has a love/hate relationship with his books but didn't mind this one. Redgauntlet was the best in her opinion.

‘What is worth beginning is worth finishing and what is worth doing is worth doing well.’
(Ourselves by Charlotte Mason)

I'm still reading Ourselves aloud to her. it's been a good book for discussion but I wouldn't say she particularly enjoyed it. She doesn't enjoy green vegetables either but they're a part of her 'eating schedule,' regardless.

‘One of the things I learned during my tenure at Washington is that the civics book picture of government in action is totally inaccurate. The idea that our elected officials take part in a careful decision-making process - monitoring events, reviewing options, responsibly selecting policies - has almost no connection with reality. A more accurate image would be that of a runaway train with the throttle stuck wide open - while the passengers and crew are living it up in the dining car.’
( - William Simon, former U.S. secretary, treasury)

The above quotation is from Uncle Eric Talks About Personal, Career, and Financial Security by Richard J. Maybury. I've scheduled this in place of the Richard Maybury book listed in AO Year 9 for Government & Economics because we already had this book & not the other. It's been a good fit for her this year.

‘I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.'

(From ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost, 1874-1963)

We've enjoyed the poetry selections in The Art of Poetry curriculum from Classical Academic Press, as well as the lessons. I reviewed it here.

‘...the painters always followed the full dinner pail. As soon as they got their chance, the musicians did likewise. They tucked their unpolished cantatas and sonatas under their arms. They left their unpaid bills behind them. They took the road that led to the north. For that was where the pot of gold awaited them at the end of the rainbow of their high C’s and their unlimited hope and ambitions. ‘ (The Arts by Hendrick Willem Van Loon)

Mr. Van Loon can be quite sarcastic at times...

Summer Smorgasborg: Nature Study, Notebooks & Mother Culture

It's summer in our part of the world and it's been pretty intense weather-wise. Bush/nature walks have been non-existent except for the occasional park early in the morning but we have had some nature finds around our garden.
Birdlife has been raucous with a few new visitors some of which I'm still trying to identify. We hear the birds here but getting a good look at them through the trees isn't easy.
I was excited to spot a lyrebird in a tree as I was sitting outside. That's a first for me.

A very brief spell of rain was most welcome - that was one time I got to go out walking:

“That best portion of a good man’s life, 

His little, nameless, unremembered acts 

Of kindness and of love.”

Wordsworth

'There are always two ways of understanding other people's words, acts, and motives; and human nature is so contradictory that both ways may be equally right; the difference is in the construction we put upon other people's thoughts...
Of all the causes of unhappiness, perhaps few bring about more distress in the world than the habit, which even good people allow themselves in, of putting an ungentle construction upon the ways and words of the people they live with...
Kindness which is simple thinks none of these things, nor does it put evil constructions upon the thoughts that others may think in the given circumstances.'

Ourselves: Kindness in Construction.

I think, if for no other reason, this is something we need to nip in the bud so that our children don't pick up our habit in this area. Or if we don't have that inclination ourselves, it stills helps to point it out as something to be avoided.

This habit has another bad effect, especially upon young people, who are greatly influenced by the opinion of their fellows. They think So-and-so will laugh at them for doing a certain obliging action, so they refrain from following the good impulses of a good heart. Kindness which is simple thinks none of these things, nor does it put evil constructions upon the thoughts that others may think in the given circumstances.

Moozle's Nature Notebook:

These two book are our mainstays. Australian Nature Studies is used as a reference while Nature Studies in Australia by William Gillies is a book Moozle reads each week.

Lots of these around at the moment: Eastern Water Dragon

Stick Insect (Phasmatodea)

Architecture Notebook & LEGO model of the Eiffel Tower - Moozle did this in the holidays. So good when their 'lessons' extend into their free time just because that's what they love to do.

Christmas bush leaves and flowers ravaged by the native birds and dropped on the sandstone capping on our verandah:

Summer Sunset from upstairs looking out over the bush:

Some cuttings left to grow roots on our laundry window sill: Nodding violet & fuchsia:

A late afternoon trip to the beach for dinner after a stinking hot day:

And this prayer I make,

Knowing that Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead

From joy to joy: for she can so inform

The mind that is within us, so impress

With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e'er prevail against us...

William Wordsworth

Our Natural History book by James Herriot is the second book in this series of memoirs and contains 'Let Sleeping Vets Lie' and 'Vet in Harness.' 

Called out at 2 a.m. on a freezing Yorkshire night to look at a ewe that had given birth earlier in the day, he has to strip off his overcoat & jacket to examine her:

‘There’s another lamb in here,’ I said. ‘It’s laid wrong or it would have been born with its mate this afternoon. ‘ Even as I spoke my fingers had righted the presentation and I drew the little creature gently out and deposited him on the grass. I hadn’t expected him to be alive after his delayed entry but as he made contact with the cold ground his limbs gave a convulsive twitch and almost immediately I felt his ribs heaving under my hand.
For a moment I forgot the knife-like wind in the thrill which I always found in new life, the thrill that was always fresh, warm.

Herriot's memoirs are a delightful  mix of humour, nature study, relationships, and life as a young vet. I've been reading them aloud and they are a lovely way to include some natural history.

Eastern Coast of Australia, Sydney area:

Ambleside Online Year 7 Highlights

Year 7 has finished up for the seventh time in our home, although this was only the second time we've used Ambleside Online for Year 7.  As I usually do, I asked my daughter which books were her favourites from this year's work, but I gave her a limit of ten. These are the books she chose:

I read aloud The Brendan Voyage, The Daughter of Time, and All Creatures Great and Small (which we are only half way through. It’s an omnibus edition and isn't scheduled in AO year 7.) She read the others on her own. The Magna Carta was a book we had that I added in - she really enjoyed this. The Daughter of Time and Fallacy Detective sparked a lot of interest, conversation, and ‘that’s a red herring’ type of comment on a regular basis!

As I mentioned, this is the second time we've done AO Year 7, and when I asked my next child up, Benj, who did Year 7 in 2014, what books were highlights for him. These are the books he chose:

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy
Ivanhoe
Watership Down
The Age of Chivalry
Eric Sloane's Weather Book
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
The Talisman
Hereward the Wake
The Birth of Britain 

They almost have opposite tastes in reading. Ivanhoe, Watership Down, and Eric Sloane's Weather Book were not among Moozle's favourites and she still hasn't read The Talisman because she says she does not like Sir Walter Scott. Actually The Talisman was everyone else's favourite Scott novel.
Moozle loved the science selections but Eric Sloane's Weather Book went above her head at times - it was one of Benj's favourites. He didn't care for The Life of the Spider by Fabre (we have one of the world's deadliest spiders in our area so that probably didn't help) but Moozle got right into it and just about every reading was accompanied by a science journal entry.
However, they both loved The Lord of the Rings trilogy!

This verse from Ecclesiastes, that Charlotte Mason quotes in Volume 6, is very apt:

'In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.'

Ecclesiastes 11:6

One child may imbibe certain ideas from a book, while a different child won't, but we can't predict what ideas will inspire them. Our job is to provide a wide variety of books the same way we would provide food for a scrumptious smorgasbord. I've been quite surprised at some of the books that have been the trigger for ideas; books that I wouldn't have expected to charm them, but they have. Having children who've had almost opposite reactions to books has made this observation even more apparent to me:

Education is a life. That life is sustained on ideas. Ideas are of spiritual origin...we must sustain a child's inner life with ideas as we sustain his body with food. Probably he will reject nine-tenths of the ideas we offer, as he makes use of only a small proportion of his bodily food, rejecting the rest. He is an eclectic; he may choose this or that; our business is to supply him with due abundance and variety and his to take what he needs...out of a whole big book he may not get more than half a dozen of those ideas upon which his spirit thrives; and they come in unexpected places and unrecognised forms...

A Philosophy of Education, Pg. 109

I don't think a child has to love a book. They might find it difficult, and we may be tempted to drop it, but there needs to be some books that make them work a bit harder, build some more muscle, or they won't grow. It's not a cruel & unusual punishment to require them to persevere.

Many children are fussy eaters but we don't allow them to just eat junk because that's what they like & it will help avoid conflict for us if we just give them what they desire. If a child is sick or is convalescing, we make allowances by giving them the food they desire, within reason, but a well and healthy child doesn't get the same treatment.

A child may not be ready for some of the ideas presented in a book, but they will seize some of them while others may give them a foretaste that could develop at a later time. Smoked salmon, haloumi, and blue vein cheese might be passed over for other better known foods the first or second time around, but then one day they decide to try them and find they are very moreish. The other thing we need to consider is if overall the material is at a suitable level for them. If every book is difficult, perhaps we need to rethink our choice of books or grade level. 

Something I've made a point of doing this last year is to stretch Moozle's reading so that she's just not reading books with lots of action. She is a good reader but doesn't like slow books. A couple of those books I've mentioned towards the end of this post.

Other Highlights From This Year

In my original plans for Moozle's Year 7, I mentioned we were doing Apologia's Anatomy & Physiology. We finished that and then continued with The Way We Work by David Macaulay. Moozle loves Macaulay's illustrations in this book and I was surprised at how in depth the text is.

This section covered lipids and Macaulay used a number of technical terms that she wasn't familiar with. I found a video on lipids to help out. We'll be continuing with this book in Year 8.

A notebook page 

When my children get to about 15 or 16 years of age, I have them do a Senior First Aid course. In the past I've organised this and opened it up to some other families with older children & it's an intensive 2 day course. A few months ago, a homeschooling friend organised a course that ran over 4 weeks, one afternoon per week. Both Moozle and I did the course (a refresher for me) & I thought that spreading it out over a month was a good way to do it. There is so much information and doing it this way was much easier & left more time to let it all soak in.

Another focus this year was on Natural History Illustration which I wrote about here and here.

Handicrafts - the past few months have been devoted to patchwork and quilting. This is her major project.

Cello - this year she's preparing for the AMEB Grade 7 exam and has also had the opportunity to play in church a few times.

On the family front, the role of Aunty has come very naturally & she is a favourite with her little niece. We're all looking forward to the birth of our son and his wife's first child due in October and the wedding of our second daughter in September.

Some of Moozle's reading this year:

The Refugees by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 'Quite a good book but the main character behaved stupidly at times. Conan Doyle tends to make the Frenchmen excitable little wimps, while in books like this the Frenchmen always think the English are calm cool and collected, with no emotions whatsoever.' 4 out of 5

Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore - scheduled in AO Year 8 as a free read. 'It took ages to get into the book, rambled on at times, but it was a good story.' 4 out of 5

An illustrated kindle version is here.

The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper - set during the American Revolutionary War and written by an author who lived around that time period. This was Moozle's first book by Cooper and she didn't mind it, but I think she'll appreciate some of his other books a bit more later on. 3 out of 5

Midwinter by John Buchan - a little different to his Richard Hannay series. Midwinter is a tale of the  Jacobite rising set in 1745. John Buchan always gets a good rap in our house. 4½ out of 5:

'The Jacobite army marches on into England and Alastair Maclean, close confident of Charles Edward Stewart, embarks on a secret mission to raise support for the cause in the west. He soon begins to suspect someone close to the Prince is passing information to the Government, but just as he closes in on the traitor his own life is put in danger.'

The Black Stallion series by Walter Farley - this is a series that Moozle has enjoyed for a few years now and she added a couple more to her collection recently. 4½ out of 5.  

I've been thinking about the next year's work and my plan is to cover AO Years 8 & 9 over eighteen months. I have a couple of reasons for this. One is that the school year here in Australia goes from February to December with a fairly long break over Christmas. We've never followed the school terms but I'm finding more and more that our outside activities do. Just about everything shuts down for the school holidays and the Christmas break and we often end up catching up with people during the official school holidays. There's also much less traffic at those times so it's easier to get out and about.

The other reason is so that Moozle isn't straddling two years - she started Year 7 in the middle of last year. At the end of next year she will have completed Year 9 and then she'll start Year 10 at the beginning of the next year...if that makes sense!  Anyhow, that's the plan & I'm looking at the AO schedule here - starting at Week 25, which will take us through to the end of the year and then continuing with this next year. So instead of doing AO Years 7, 8, & 9 in two years, we'll be doing Years 8 & 9 in one and a half years. Clear as mud?

Edited to add our weekly schedule. This is what I've done for many years - give the schedule out at the beginning of the week and let them decide which books to do each day. I check each day to see what's been done and if I find they've gotten a bit lax, I'll give them a list of things I'd like completed. Each of my children has had a preference for certain subjects so I make sure they haven't left things out and if they have, get them to attend to it the first thing the next day. 
They have all tended to like doing a book chapter in one hit & not spreading it out over a week - even the longer reads such as Churchill's Histories.

My original plan for Moozle's Year 7 - I made some modifications especially with Devotional reading and Science. 

Highlights from Term 1

Australian content

Apart from what I mentioned in my original plans, Moozle read & re-read some Australian titles this year. Many of the books I want to use I've either used in earlier years or plan to use later on when she's a little older. I picked up a couple of Nan Chauncy books we didn't have, Tiger in the Bush & Tangara and she read those but they were easy for her. 
The Silver Brumby series are some she re-read and enjoyed doing so. They are excellent reading.

I have a page at the top of this blog where I record some of the Australian titles we've read.

My Homeschool has some options for Australian families that includes assistance for those needing to register with the government.

Year 7 AmblesideOnline: highights from Term 1

We've finished the first term of Ambleside Online Year 7 and here are some highlights and thoughts about some of what we've done. To see my original plans and some book substitutes see this post.

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

This is the first time we've used Folger Theatre audios for Shakespeare. We've used Naxos and Arkangel recordings in the past which were very good, but as I buy most things like this from BookDepository and they didn't have the audios I usually order, I decided to try out Folger, which also happened to be discounted.
As you might expect, they are very well done, but it was weird hearing Shakespearean actors speaking with American accents! They also don't have an outline showing which scenes start when - so if you happen to stop half way through a scene, for example, you have to mess around fast forwarding until you get to the right spot. However, nothing I can't work with.

Nature Study

I haven't been as intentional about this as I usually am due to circumstances but Moozle likes to go outside and feed the birds and I have some herbs and cucumbers doing nicely up on our verandah.
We found this 'fiddler beetle' yesterday and if you look at its back you can make out the shape of a fiddle/violin.

We had a couple of packets of seeds and to check to see if they were still viable, we put them in ziploc bags with a damp paper towel. We also grew a couple of bean seeds to watch their growth.

African Daisy

Beowulf

We've been taking turns reading sections of this book aloud each week - much better than just reading it silently. This passage jumped out to me because it shows that the tendency to overlook a person of substance and character for another who perhaps has charisma, but is mostly bluff, is nothing new:

'He had been poorly regarded for a long time, was taken by the Geats for less than he was worth; and their lord too had never much esteemed him in the mead-hall. They firmly believed that he lacked force, that the prince was a weakling; but presently every affront to his deserving was reversed.'

Wonderbook of Chemistry - experiments with air. Going well with this book & it continues for the remainder of Year 7. I started off reading it aloud but after a few lessons Moozle continued on her own.

Ten Fingers for God - a wondefrul biography of Dr. Paul Brand that I scheduled in place of one of the AO devotional books. Moozle read this on her own and enjoyed it very much.

The Brendan Voyage - this book continues until the end of Term 2 and it's a great read. I'm reading it aloud (there are a few profanities scattered throughout the book) & it's one of Moozle's favourites.

Churchill's Birth of Britain - I've used Churchill's series on British history with all seven of my children and I think because they read so much historical fiction by authors such as Rosemary Sutcliff, G.A. Henty, Cynthia Harnett, Barbara Willard & Henry Treece prior to coming to his books, they had no trouble grasping the detail presented by Churchill, or at least they had a fair amount of background knowledge not to feel swamped.

The Weather Book - this has not been a favourite, which surprised me as Moozle enjoys science and her next brother up really liked this book. She has engaged much more with the Wonderbook of Chemistry & The Secrets of the Universe series but I'm pressing on with this as I think it's an excellent book. I've learnt not to discard a book if it seems too hard and have found that pushing through a difficult read does have its reward.

Latin

We started Latin Alive! 1 published by Classical Academic Press a couple of months ago and it's been timely and a great fit. I wrote about it here.

French

Continuing with French for Children B, also by Classical Academic Press. I'm hoping the next book in the series is printed by the time we've finished this one!

Architecture

I posted the books we're using in the AO Year 7 link at the top of this page. We're not rushing this and will probably extend this study into the next year or two but it's been going well and this little book that we're using is fantastic!

The Fallacy Detective - fun & interesting!

The Grammar of Poetry

We're sailing through this nicely at present. I remember it covers some more challenging concepts later on, but Moozle has always enjoyed composition and poetry so I'm not expecting any problems & can slow things down if I think we need to.

Other highlights from this term:

A Grade 6 Cello exam took place about two weeks ago and Moozle passed with an 'A' so she was super happy. It took a lot of work and that squeezed out some other things for a while.

Our eldest daughter & her husband had their first child, our first grandchild, and made two aunties and four uncles out of our other children. Christmas is going to be fun!

Beauty, Wonder, Keeping, Remembering...

A new find on our nature walk:

Cassinia denticulata

Beauty & Wonder...first time Uncle & Aunty

Anatomy & Physiology

Architecture

 


Old Man Banksia Tree

Nature Notebook

Outside work 

A Latin lesson 

First rose of the season

Physics experiments

The Wonder Book of Chemistry by Jean Henri Fabre - Experiments with the Breath

The Grammar of Poetry - we've been looking at metaphors. This page has fifteen Biblical metaphors.


A drawing narration from a chapter of The Once & Future King - Morgan le Fay's Castle Chariot which was made of food:

'It rose from its lake of milk in a mystic light of its own - in a greasy, buttery glow...'

Handiwork

Moozle continues with scrapbooking, stamping and cardmaking. She made a photo album for her older sister's baby but I forgot to get a photo - she gets ideas from Jennifer McGuire Ink & Sweet Bio Design. Today she made a whole stack of various cards - birthday, Christmas, Get Well etc and yesterday she made this desk calendar:

Picture Study

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) is the artist we're currently studying. I didn't know anything about him and would have overlooked his work completely but I saw he was on the Ambleside Online artist's rotation and so decided to have a look at his work. A German Romantic artist, his work is atmospheric and moody, and we're enjoying spending some time studying his lovely art. We're doing some of the pictures AO recommends and adding in others we like:

 Wanderer Above the Mist, 1817-1818

 Cross in the Mountains, (detail) 1808

The Monk by the Sea, 1808-1810

On Board a Sailing Ship, 1819

Woman at the Window, 1822

Chalk Cliffs on Rugen, 1818-19

Morning, 1820-21

Linking up at Keeping Company