What Some Days in a Girl's Year 7 Week Look Like

Any time I've attempted to set down what we do in a day I've tried to write things up as we do them. I started off quite well most days this week but then got sidetracked. We're using AmblesideOnline Year 7 with some modifications. (I posted this year's plans here). This is what I managed to record of the week:

Monday

Wonder of wonders, I woke up about 7am and went for a walk - the first time I've done this in about two or three weeks.

8am - woke up Moozle (Monday is not her favourite day.) Breakfast and some morning jobs.
We started lessons about 9am:

* Picture Study (John Constable)
* Literature (Watership Down, which she reads herself)
* Devotions, memory work, I read a poem or two
* Read Aloud: The Gift of Music - listened to a piece by Corelli and then Vivaldi - Moozle draws while I read. She's using Draw 50 Buildings & Other Structures as part of her Architecture studies:

* Short cello practice

At about 12.15pm we go to cello lessons. She has an hour and a half's lesson and practices about an hour or more a day as she's preparing for an exam in late October. We use the time in the car to listen to our folksong, hymn & French song.

2.30pm - We had lunch & did our own individual reading. I checked emails, put on some washing, hung some out & brought some in...

When she finished lunch she continued her work - this week she did Geography.
We don't do maths on a Monday or much written work.

I started making dinner around and 4pm Moozle went outside to build "Queen Eleanor's bower," and after dinner she went to ballet. After doing Highland Dancing for many years we had to stop lessons when her teacher changed her hours so since the middle of last year she's been doing ballet, which she also loves. I listened to this Circe podcast while I was making dinner; it was very good:

"On Cultivating Wise Movie-watchers" - When to let kids make their own decisions about movies, why the MPAA ratings aren't useful guidelines, why the philosophies in films are often more important to avoid than things like s*x, violence, and language, movies and filmmakers that will help students learn to watch wisely, & much more.

Tuesday 

I managed to fit a walk in again.

* French (watched half of the video for the week's lesson)
* Read Ivanhoe
* Cello Practice
* Ten Fingers for God - devotional reading on her own
* Devotions, memory work, Plutarch

* Churchill's Birth of Britain - reads this herself. This is her written narration from the book:

* Swimming in the afternoon - we do this in rain, hail & shine, all year - unless there's an electrical storm.

* Maths in the evening after dinner

Wednesday & Thursday - I forgot to write down what we did but it would have included science readings & notebook, French, Latin, Maths, Cello, History, Century Chart, Copywork.
We did a lesson on similes from The Grammar of Poetry and discussed some notable examples from 'My Family & Other Animals.'

 Century chart - free download from here

Friday

Today was the first day of spring here in Australia . We have a tradition of going for a walk on this day to check out what signs of spring we can see so we headed off at 8am.

Freesias in flower

 A male Brush Turkey arranging his nest

Home for breakfast...and then:

Moozle did Copywork, French, and a Literature reading. Oral narration followed, then we both got out our nature notebooks and listened to Vivaldi while we did our entries. Moozle wrote down the 'firsts' of the season and then tried out some crayons & watercolour:

 This was my attempt at drawing the brush turkey & a freesia...

Benj has Fridays off from university and teaches swimming in the morning. After lunch all three of us went to an appointment which took about an hour and then we returned home.

Afternoon work for Moozle:

* Reading on her own & then oral narration afterwards
* We took turns reading a section of Beowulf aloud
* Cello practice
* I read The Wonder Book of Chemistry aloud while she continued her work on "Queen Eleanor's  bower."

The boys took Dad out for dinner & a football game tonight for an early Father's Day gift so Moozle & I watched Ann of Green Gables, the Sequel, together.
In one of the scenes Ann told her class to open up The Oxford Book of Verse, a book we're using this year, and when Marilla & Mrs Lynde were having tea together we noticed that the tea set they were using looked just like ours:

Five weeks into AO year 7 and I'm still juggling our schedule. Cello and musicianship take up quite a bit of time and they're high priority at present which means that some other areas are getting squeezed out or slowed down. That has happened in the past with my older ones as they all studied an instrument.
I don't regret the time spent in nurturing the arts. I've observed that the discipline of music study and the appreciation of beauty that comes with spending time with great art has extended into all areas of our children's lives. It has paid rich dividends later on as adults, not to mention the pleasure they gain and give by being proficient with their instruments.



Linking up with Weekly Wrap-up,  Keeping Company and Finishing Strong.

A New Year and New Paths

We've been slowly getting back into our normal routine after taking holidays over the Christmas break and early January. Moozle is starting back with Term 2 of Ambleside Online Year 6 and Benj has officially graduated and is beginning on a new path.

Today we did some 'formal' nature study with our nature notebooks after a couple of months of being informal and just mostly observing. We identified a new bird in our backyard, the Brown Cuckoo Dove (Macropygia Phasianell), also know as a pheasant pigeon. I snapped a photo but only managed to get his tail before he flew off into the bush. He sounds almost like an owl, 'whoop, whoop.'

The Handsome St. Andrew's Cross Spider

Moozle's Notebook

My notebook

I'm ridiculously happy about my Lebanese eggplant. It's quite difficult to grow anything edible around here between the wallabies and the possums, so everything is in pots on the verandah.
Moozle is growing two corn plants in pots from seeds her Aunty P gave her and they seem to be doing well. I've never used eggplant as the first time I ate it years ago I was violently sick afterwards!  It's taking me years to be game enough to try it again and when I did I was fine. Now I have to find some good recipes...

After five years of using Singapore Maths, we've made the transition to Saxon 76. (I have the old hardback 3rd edition books). I usually start Saxon with the 54 book but I decided to keep on with Singapore for a while longer. I gave her a placement test about a month ago and I was pleasantly surprised that she managed it well as maths, unlike some of her siblings, hasn't been her favourite subject.

French


We started Classical Academic Press French for Children Primer B late last year and have been pleased with it. No surprise, as their Primer A was excellent. (I wrote a review here)
Stay tuned towards the end of January for a review of Primer B and a giveaway!

Moozle thinks she might be an architect (which is an improvement on a 'cat lady' i.e. having a house full of felines and occasionally selling one) and loves this series of DVDs which she watches with her Dad. She even drew up some plans for a granny flat to build for us when we get old!

This week we were reading about the element helium for science and this video my Aunty in Scotland posted recently was very timely!





Benj has enrolled at Campion College and will be studying a Bachelor of Liberal Arts Degree beginning in late February. He's only just turned 17 and in the past we've waited until our kids were 18 before starting university but Campion is a different kettle of fish to the large mainstream institutions. It only has about 200 students and receives no government funding. There was an intersting article recently in The Australian newspaper recently:

'...if our civilisation has a future in Australia, it is connected to Campion College. For Campion has done something that no other institution of higher learning has attempted in Australia. It has dedicated itself entirely to teaching undergraduates about the great tradition, based on the great books, of Western civilisation.

This is not such a novel idea overseas. Campion is Australia’s only liberal arts college but such beasts abound in the US. They include some of the most venerable and distinguished institutions of learning in North America. And they are all based on the same central idea — that the best way to learn the big ideas of Western civilisation is to study its important books and historical figures.'

In the meantime he is doing a Swim Australia Teaching course, building up his night driving hours so he can get his licence, teaching piano, and heading off to a youth camp next week. Plus he will be using his great organising skills to clean up the pantry and the storage under the stairs for me.

Our Reading

Moozle:

Penrod by Booth Tarkington - this is a free read for Ambleside Online Year 6 which she enjoyed.

Silver Brumby Echoing by Elyne Mitchell - another book in a much loved series.

Tales of a Korean Grandmother by Frances Carpenter - written in 1947, these 32 traditional tales provide a peek into Korean culture.

Benj: 

 Lord of the Rings trilogy - his annual re-reading

The Martian by Andy Weir - just be aware there is some language in places, noteably on the first page. The film was very good and according to my eldest boy, the book is great, so he bought it for his younger brother for Christmas.

Older ones in the family read:

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy

The Survivor by Vince Flynn with Kyle Mills - Sadly, Vince Flynn died about three and a half years ago. My husband really enjoyed his novels and as he'd read just about all his others, I bought this one. Sometimes authors who take on another's work do a complete hash but fortunately, this was done in a similar style and my husband enjoyed it.

And finally, for the Aussie mums out there (or any others who may be visiting Australia later in the year) the Mum Heart Conference will be held at Newcastle in June. I was so refreshed when I went along in 2015 so I felt very honoured to be asked to speak at one of the sessions and to run a Charlotte Mason workshop this year. Hope to see some of you there!

Linking up at Weekly Wrap-up
&
Keeping Company

A Week in Review

We're winding down prior to Christmas and holidays. Benj has finished his Liberal Arts course and has his graduation ceremony tomorrow.
Last weekend he was involved in a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night as part of this course. He got to choose a role and decided to play Valentine, Duke Orsino's servant, mostly because there weren't too many lines! Acting isn't something he enjoys too much so it was a bit out of his comfort zone but he performed his part well.
He spent half the day yesterday trying out keyboards at the music shop. He finished 8th grade piano and passed the exam with Honours so he gets to choose an instrument. We've done that for all our children although our violinist daughter ended up with her choice of a violin before she finished her studies because she needed a good quality violin for the higher grades.

Moozle is finishing up part way through her term of work and we'll just pick up where we left off in January. She had her orchestra audition last week and was given the choice to either move up to the Symphony - she's just old enough, or stay in the Strings & Sinfonia and have the role of lead cellist. She chose the latter, which surprised me, as she tends to want to grow up too quickly being the youngest of seven.

Last week my sister-in-law and I went to a live performance of Handel's Messiah which was excellent. We had a huge storm come over and in the middle of one of the tenor's solos, a great crash of thunder overhead caused us all to gasp and jump - not the tenor. He didn't miss a beat. We were impressed with both him and the storm. It was a very fitting accompaniment to such majestic music.

About a year ago I read The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis and it was one of the hardest books I've tackled. This week I found this and thought it would be a good way to 'read' the book again. It's one of those books that needs to be read and re-read to appreciate its depths:





We'll be visiting family in Northern NSW and Queensland during the Christmas break and finding this book was timely as it's set in the Tweed Valley are where we will be spending some time.

Pastures of the Blue Crane by H. F. Brinsmead (1964) is an enjoyable 'coming of age' story which is suitable for around ages 15 and up. Ryl is a 16 year old girl whose mother had died years before and  has had virtually no contact with her father, except for one letter a year. From a very young age she was put into a variety of homes for children and then into boarding school. When her father dies suddenly she is called into his solictor's office where she meets her grandfather for the first time. He and his son had had a disagreement when Ryl was an infant and had not spoken to each other since. Ryl had no idea that he existed. The two had been left a run down old farm and ended up moving from Melbourne to the Northern NSW coast. Now they had to get to know each othe which was not an easy task as both of them are hostile and stubborn.
The descriptions of the area and the journey of the two as they learn to care and rely on each other makes for an interesting read. There is an unlikely twist to the story but I appreciated the way the author explored the growth of two misanthropic characters in their relationship with each other and the issue of race relationships. The author touches on the 'Kanakas' or 'Blackbirds' and the White Australia Policy.

Linking up at Weekly Wrap-up

Weekly Review

We've just finished an exam week but as our scanner is defunct I'm not able to post any examples at present.
Instead, here are some places of interest and other links I hope you will find useful.

The High Quality Global University which costs next to nothing. Very interesting...our eldest daughter is nearly 28 years old and has just finished paying off her HECs debt from her degree. When my husband went through university in the 1980's, the universities in Australia had no tuition costs. It's a very different situation for our children now so we were very interested to read this article.

Their website is here.

Enjoying this audio:

David Clarke also narrates some other great books. See his page at Librivox.
There are some books that really need a British narrator (or someone who can make themselves sound British) - Sherlock Holmes is one of these, of course.
Ruth Golding is another British narrator and she has a list of other Librivox narrators she recommends on her blog.

I enjoyed listening to this Podcast during the week. Folksongs have always been a part of my life, growing up and afterwards. Some good thoughts here:

Moozle has been paper crafting and making Christmas presents (and much mess...)
This is a video she's used, one of the 'Sweet Bio Design' series on YouTube that she enjoys. It's in Italian but has English subtitles:





This is another she used for ideas...mostly for the actual box and then added her own decorations.





I've started putting together a page with all of the Australian/Asia Pacific living books we've used. It will take a little while but it's here in its beginning stages: Towards an Australian Charlotte Mason Curriculum.



Linking up at Weekly Wrap-up

Looking Back on the Week

This week I listened to an interesting Schole Sister's podcast on leading our children through encounters with viewpoints with which we don’t agree. This is definitely something I've had to grow into over time. When my children were little my concern was mostly about shielding them from  potentially harmful ideas and situations, but as the conversation on this podcast pointed out, there's a difference between innocence and naiveté, and it's important to prepare our children for these opposing viewpoints.

Moozle has been reading the Tom Swift Jr. books by Victor Appleton II. They're out of print but you can read about them here and they're available secondhand.  They're also online at Gutenberg.
A young person's introduction to science fiction, rather than being great literature, this series is interesting for children who have a science bent as Tom dreams up some very interesting inventions. In fact, one of the books, 'Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle,' inspired the physicist and inventor, Jack Cover:

Cover named his invention from a story by the science-fiction writer Victor Appleton that he had loved as a child, called “Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle”, about a boy who invented a rifle that fired bolts of electricity. The acronym TSER however was too much of a mouthful; so Cover added an “a” and the Taser was born.

The Independent, 2009 

A few months ago she lapped up G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown books so I decided that this one, by the creator of Winnie the Pooh, would be a good follow up now that she's caught the 'crime bug.'

The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne was published in 1922 and the author dedicated the book to his father: 

Like all really nice people, you have a weakness for detective
   stories, and feel that there are not enough of them. So, after
   all that you have done for me, the least that I can do for you
   is to write you one. Here it is: with more gratitude and
   affection than I can well put down here.

I stumbled upon it at the library about ten years ago and then found it online and downloaded it onto kindle for free but the only free version I've found when I had a look recently was at Gutenberg.

It's a good introduction to the genre for a young person who isn't ready for writers such as Agatha Christie but who enjoys a bit of mystery and detection.

A poetic narration on The Hobbit:

Benj is busy preparing for possibly his last piano exam which takes place next week. Between this and his two days a week at Augustine Academy, and one half day at his part-time job, he's only been joining us for Devotions, Shakespeare's King Lear and Plutarch's Life of Marcus Cato the Censor.

Aussie Folksongs - this is one we've been listening to. The song is based on the 1897 poem, 'The Lights of Cobb & Co' by Henry Lawson. The poem and some information about Cobb & Co are on this blog and also here.





This is one of a series of CD's that introduces the music and lives of some of the great composers. We've listened to the Classical Kids series (Beethoven Lives Upstairs etc) in the past, which are ok for younger children, but this series is better if older children are also listening in. The story is told in the third person, sticks to the facts, and contains a good selection of the artist's music.

Linking up with Weekly Wrap-up.

A Fortnight's Review

It's the 'official' school holidays here, not that we follow them, but we tend to end up changing our usual schedule because we don't have our regular weekly activities. Last week Moozle and I taught a group of ten children how to weave using a hula hoop as a loom in kid's holiday programme our church runs twice a year. Benj volunteered as one of the leaders and helped to run games & activities. At other times he's been rostered on First Aid as he has his Senior First Aid Certificate.

The ten children in our workshop were aged around 6 to 10 years of age; about equal numbers of boys and girls. None of them had ever done anything like this and had no idea what they were in for. One little boy wasn't impressed at first. The workshop he volunteered for was cancelled so he got put into ours. "I can't do this...this is boring!" Not a great start, but I kept telling him he'd actually enjoy it once he got the hang of it. The workshop was about an hour and a half long and Moozle & I had already put the warp on the looms (and spent a couple of days cutting up old t-shirts...) so we just had to teach them how to weave. About 10 minutes before the end of the class I told them we'd have to start looking at finishing the weaving and getting it off the looms. The kids didn't want to stop - including the reluctant boy! They kept saying, "Just one more colour..." so their weaving would be bigger. I took some photos once they got the hang of it and they were all thrilled with their finished work.

There are oodles of links on Pinterest and tutorials on youtube on how to weave on a hula hoop.
Update: a video link is here (they use a fancier sort of hula hoop in this one but we just had the normal cheap version) & here.
 

Our Reading

Benj:

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis - I wrote about this book here.
He's also continuing with The Root of the Righteous by A.W. Tozer which I finished recently.

Moozle:  

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin - this is a well-written mystery story that Moozle really enjoyed. A good puzzle with twists that keeps you guessing until the end. A Newbery Medal winner, 1979.

Me:

Stalin: Russia's Man of Steel by Albert Marrin. A good biography for ages 13 years and up. Some thoughts on it here.

A Decline in Prophets by Sulari Gentill - this is the second book in this murder series. I wrote about the first one here.
Set in Australia during the 1930's, this book picks up in pace from the first one, as I predicted, and launches almost immediately into the action. The very likeable main characters from the first book turn up again and find themselves caught up in a crime scene on board a cruise ship. Again, the author weaves crime and mystery with historical events and some notable people of the time and creates a very interesting and unusual story. A great way to learn about some not so well known parts of Australia's history.

Other bits & pieces:


I've been using Singapore Maths for a few years now with Moozle and while I think it's very good at showing the 'why' behind some of the maths, I don't think it's a thorough as some of the maths I've used with her older siblings. I was going through some books I'd packed away and found some unused "Key to..." workbooks so I started using them plus I'm going back to an A Beka text I used in the past as it covers things like clocks!! Most of the clocks at our place are digital and I was shocked recently when I realised that she had difficulty telling the time on a normal clock. She'll still do Singapore until we've finished the books I've already bought and then we may shift to Saxon for high school.

My husband and I have very different tastes in movies but we watched this together and both thought it was very good. Set at the time of the building of the Berlin Wall, it is based on real events and  raises some thoughtful questions regarding moral codes and law. See History vs Hollywood for more details.

Linking up at Weekly Wrap-up

Weekly Review & Caffeine Withdrawals

This is my second week of no caffeine. I don't drink a great deal of coffee, although my consumption has increased in the past year or two, but my tea intake is embarrassing. My dentist asked me how much tea I drank per day and I couldn't tell him because one cup just flows into the next. I leave half drunk cups of tea all over the place. So just to say I could do it, I went cold turkey on caffeine, which I've done before but not for quite awhile.

Day 1 & 2 - not too bad. I didn't really have headaches, just a dopey feeling and I felt like going to bed earlier than I usually do.
Day 3 & 4 - as soon as I lay down to go to sleep I started getting pains in my lower back and all over my legs. Not cramps, flu-like aches but they were so bad I ended up having some Nurofen so I could get some sleep. I couldn't believe it!
Day 5 - still some leg aches but nothing like the previous couple of days.
Day 10 - my family thinks I should end my caffeine fast because I was easier to live with when I was on it. 

I've been drinking herbal tea - peppermint mostly, which I thought was wonderful for the first couple of days, but I'm really over it now and would love a real cup of tea...

 'On Tea'

 In vino Veritas. In Aqua satietas. In … What is the Latin for Tea? What! Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have let the vulgar stuff alone.

Hilaire Belloc 

We've just finished the fourth week of Ambleside Online Year 6. It's the second time for us to cover this particular year. Benj did a beefed up version a few years ago and it's a great year with wonderful books. Moozle is basically following the schedule as is, with a couple of Australian substitutions. This is what she did this week:

 

We're continuing with History of Australia by Clark, Hooper & Ferrier. We started this in Year 4 and have enjoyed it.

Grammar-Land by M.L. Nesbitt - this book has 17 chapters so we're using it for 17 weeks and then going back to Easy Grammar Plus. Between French & Latin, we've been covering quite a lot of grammar. Easy Grammar Plus is very good but it stays on a concept (eg prepositions) for ages and I wanted to give her a quick, broad overview, which this book does. I have a store of various grammar resources that I've gathered over time. Some of my children have done well with some of them and not others. I thought of using Winston Grammar for Moozle, mostly because I really only used it with one child and feel bad that I haven't made better use of it, but she seems to be doing fine with what she's been doing since we started formal grammar in Year 4. A homeschooler has provided free worksheets to use with the book, bless her.

We have some lovely ancient copies of William J. Long's books and all my children have loved them, as well as books by Ernest Thompson Seton. This one is a 1902 edition that I found for a couple of dollars and we're keeping this on the schedule even though the animals written about in the book are native to the Northern Hemisphere. A couple have been introduced to Australia so they are familiar and I'll be adding in some Australian Natural History titles later.

I've added in videos on the periodic table that Benj used. They fit in nicely with The Elements by Theodore Gray and The Mystery of the Periodic Table by Benjamin Wiker and Jeanne Bendick. The 'Gold' (Au) video below was very interesting:





A written narration on Never Give In: The Extraordinary Character of Winston Churchill by Stephen Mansfield:

 

We use Seterra for geography practice. There's a language option that Moozle found today so she did the map practice in French and said it was easier than doing it in English??

We downloaded the programme; it's very easy to use and fun to compete with each other to see who gets the highest score. 

Typing - I've just started Moozle with Rapid Typing, which we downloaded for free and have been using for ages. It uses extracts from decent books such as Pinocchio for practice. Some of the programmes we looked at were fluffy but this does the job and does it well.

Benj is busy with his Liberal Arts Certificate and fits in with us when time permits. (We do Plutarch & Shakespeare with him each week.) We've had some good discussions about what he's been reading and learning. One of our discussions related to the topic discussed on this Circe podcast which I recommend as it's not something I've heard addressed very often: On Being Discerning Cultural Consumers. (I wrote a little more about it in a previous post) 

He's reading and doing some performing of Romeo and Juliet as part of his course but he joins us for King Lear once a week. I found a version of this play on YouTube. I've previewed the first six videos and they've been fine so I plan to use at least some of it. It has a good cast: Lawrence Olivier as King Lear, John Hurt as the Fool, and Diana Rigg as Regan:

Hymn Study - we've been listening to this version of The King of Love my Shepherd Is.
Lovely:






Benj & I are reading The Root of the Righteous by A.W. Tozer

'One marked difference between the faith of our fathers as conceived by the fathers and the same faith as understood and lived by their children is that the fathers were concerned with the root of the matter, while their present-day descendants seem concerned only with the fruit.'

I finished a couple of books and added others to my reading pile:

The Road From Home - important if only for the fact that it is an event that has almost been forgotten. Used in the Sonlight Year 10 curriculum.

The Metamorphosis - I've seen this in a lot of highschool lists; also used in Sonlight.

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy - I'm only a few chapters in but I love it already.

 We had a kettle: we let it leak:
Our not repairing it made it worse.
We haven’t had any tea for a week. . . .
The bottom is out of the Universe! 

Rudyard Kipling

Linking up with Weekly Wrap-up

Weekly Review - the start of a new year

This was Moozle's first week of Ambleside Online Year 6 and a good week it was. A highlight for her, especially after visiting Hobbiton in New Zealand earlier this year, was the first chapter of The Hobbit, which I'm reading aloud to her. This is the first time I've actually read the book - I know, one of the few persons on the planet - everyone else in the family has read the book and seen the movie. I decided to wait and enjoy it this year with my daughter knowing it was coming up in Year 6 Literature.

Benj is halfway through his Liberal Arts Certificate (two days per week) and continues to fit in some of the Ambleside Online Year 11 & 12 selections along with piano practice, work one afternoon a week and a piano student once a week.

We've started a new composer, Gabriel Faure and a new artist, James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
I've made a YouTube playlist for Faure with the selections we'll be listening to this term. Lovely music!

Shakespeare


King Lear is our play this term, using the Naxos version below, that so far sounds very good. We've used a few Naxos Shakespeare productions and have been very pleased with them.

Plutarch


Marcus Porcius Cato (234 BC-149 BC) - Marcus Cato the Censor, also known by a few other names,
using Anne White's Guide. We've done two lives without the complete guides (Demetrius & Themistocles) as I started them and didn't realise until we were halfway through that they were still unfinished. I made sure to check this time!

Poetry

This term Moozle is savouring the poetry of A.B. (Banjo) Paterson, who penned Waltzing Matilda and is one of Australia's best known & most loved poets. Benj's is doing poetry as part of his course.

Hymn Study


I'll be adding to this later but here is what we have so far.

Folksongs

This is a playlist of Australian folksongs I'm considering. I haven't listened to them all yet so not sure how suitable they will be for an 11 year old. Here are some of the Scottish folksongs we listen to - part of my passing on a cultural inheritance to my offspring.

Reading 


Benj - finished Uncle Tungsten and The God Who is There by Francis Schaeffer. He's started reading Don Quixote. I bought the cheapest version I could find as it's not high on the list of my 'most wanted.'  (Apologies to my friend, Silvia!) I asked Benj what he thought of it and he said, "It's pretty stupid, but it's meant to be. It's a satire..." Anyhow, he's studying it this semester so it will be interesting to see what he has to say later on.

Moozle - the book devourer extraordinaire, has been on a G.A. Henty splurge, yet again. She read a couple of the books he wrote about Afghanistan while she was reading Kim for Year 5. They help in understanding some of the circumstances of The Great Game: 

Herat and Cabul, A Story of the First Afghan War and  
For Name and Fame: To Cabul with Roberts (Through Afghan Passes) 
We've managed to find them via Amazon, free for Kindle, so I've linked to what was there at the time I looked, but check first as I've noticed that the availability of free titles changes from time to time.
She also read A Final Reckoning: A Tale of Bush Life in Australia.

My reading - Finished recently: The Painted Veil (loved the writing); A Good Man is Hard to Find (not your average cup of tea, and definitely not for everyone); The Five Red Herrings - a Dorothy Sayers' mystery - say no more. She is more than your average mystery writer.

Started recently: The Double Helix by James Watson. This was one of my opshop finds. I've wanted to read it for awhile so I was so pleased to pick it up for $3.

The Road from Home by David Kherdian - I read this years ago but wanted to re-read it as it's a Newbery Honor Book and covers a portion of history we don't hear much about. It's based on the true story of an Armenian girl whose family were caught up in the Turkish governments systematic destruction of its Armenian population in the early days of WWI. From memory, I think it was written for a young adult audience.

Weekly Review

Music Appreciation

If you haven't ever listened to the dulcet tones of Peter Ustinov, you're in for a treat. We bought a CD 'Peter Ustinov Reads the Orchestra' a long time ago and I haven't ever come across it anywhere else.  When I discovered that someone had put it on YouTube, I thought I'd share it here. It's about 30 minutes long and is a wonderful narration on the instruments of the orchestra. I prefer just to listen to the audio but the video is quite nicely done and it's ideal for young children.





Art Appreciation/Picture Study

Earlier this year we visited the art gallery and I found some art books published by Phaidon that I thought would be ideal to use for Picture Study - a good variety of paintings from the artist with  lovely, good-sized colour reproductions. They didn't have any books on artists I wanted to study but I took a photo of the book and searched when I got home and found Book Depository has a good selection of them for the same price.

Reading/Audio Books

I didn't realise Moozle hadn't read The Phantom Tollbooth before, so she started reading it today. Quirky and fun, written in 1961, it's recommended for ages 8 to 12 years, but it's one of those books that appeals to all ages, adults included.

Moozle's been reading Kim by Rudyard Kipling (Ambleside Online Year 5) so I put together some background information/history/general interest related to India during British rule to help with understanding and appreciating Kipling's book.

We enjoyed listening to The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard while we were out and about in the car. It's a good choice for car listening as the chapters are almost a short story in themselves, so if one child isn't there, we can just continue and the missing person doesn't lose the plot and and can join in with the next chapter. I wrote about it here.

Shakespeare 

After Macbeth and Hamlet everyone was ready for a comedy. I chose The Comedy of Errors because I found the Arkangel audio recording at our library. It's Shakespeare's shortest play and the full text is here.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas is a book I bought a couple of years ago and its 624 pages have sat on the bookshelf unread - until this week. I was pushed to start it after both reading Ruth's inspiring review at A Great Book Study, and hearing how much a friend at church enjoyed it also.

The Martian by Andy Weir, was recommended to my husband and me by our son, Mr T (he's in his mid-twenties) but before we could get a hold of the book we watched the DVD. There aren't many movies my husband and I both like - our tastes are so different - but we did enjoy this one. Basically, a group of astronauts get caught in a violent storm on Mars and in the chaos, one of them is believed to have been killed. The others make the difficult decision to leave the planet, believing there was no hope of the missing man's survival. Well, he does survive, and has to work out a way to contact NASA and use his wits to keep alive until he can be rescued. Some language but considering his situation, it's not inappropriate! The first couple of sentences in the book contain expletives, but that's not the overall tone of the book. It's a great story, the movie (M rating in Australia) was excellent, and I loved the music! (e.g. Starman by David Bowie).

Poetry

Benj, Moozle and I went to our homeschool park day this afternoon and on the way home we dropped in to see Zana who is house sitting for a few weeks. Somehow we got into a conversation (probably related to food and what we were going to have for dinner) that recalled a poem all the kids learnt when they were young. There's something very gratifying about these shared memories:

There Once Was a Puffin

Oh, there once was a Puffin
Just the shape of a muffin,
And he lived on an island
In the bright blue sea!

He ate little fishes,
That were most delicious,
And he had them for supper
And he had them for tea.

But this poor little Puffin,
He couldn’t play nothin’,
For he hadn’t anybody
To play with at all.

So he sat on his island,
And he cried for awhile, and
He felt very lonely,
And he felt very small.

Then along came the fishes,
And they said, “If you wishes,
You can have us for playmates,
Instead of for tea!”

So they now play together,
In all sorts of weather,
And the Puffin eats pancakes,
Like you and like me.

by Florence Page Jaques

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