We are on week 17

of Ambleside Online - with some adaptations - so we have just passed the half way stage.
We have lost a couple of weeks of late, through family happenings, and life in general, and I am keen to get caught up. However, now is as good a time as any for a mid term review (not a good word in UK Home Education circles, at the moment!) so here I go.

Bible - H is now doing 'Genesis - Finding Our Roots' - and it is a fabulous book! I suspect it may take rather longer than planned, but she is really learning to dig in the Word and study, so that's OK by me. Boo, using our old family Children's Bible, is narrating her way through some Old Testament themes. She has finished the Exodus, and is now working on Samuel.

Galore Park (Boo's English, and we are waiting for Math, and H's English, Math, Latin and French) is brilliant. Everyone is doing well with this, though H is as ever falling further and further behind as the year goes on. So from now, I have to do some shoulder sitting. She is capable of keeping up the pace, but her mind wanders very easily.

Ambleside Online is a wonderful curriculum. My main complaint is that there we are a bit left to our own devices on the Artist and Music, and while that was fine when the children were younger, and I actually took Art Appreciation A level myself, I struggle to find the right things to discuss in, for expample, a Caspar David Friedrich painting. I did obtain a book from the library, but it hasn't helped an awful lot. The same goes for Lizst - and of course with the pressure of curriculum and life, the tendency is to let it slide.

History and history supplemental reading, the latter changed by me most of the time to reflect our English heritage, is a sure fire winner. Absolute shelfloads of books have been read. Boo read the biography of Abigail Adams and loved it. She is now into Victorians, and I am looking into a field trip - anyone have suggestions?

H is completing 20th Century and using SOTW. While the quality of this series goes without saying, I am very disappointed in the anti British slant, and will not be using it again. I am glad H goes on to Churchill next year, and will be looking for alternatives for Boo's next year, as she finishes Our Island Story this year. H has also read a mountain of supplementals, including 'Warhorse' and the 'Flambards' trilogy.

Science - Apologia Astronomy is great, though it is taking rather a long time. I was going to go on with starting H on the General Science next year, but it is now between that and Galore Park.

Our nature notebooks are woefully neglected - can only resolve yet again to turn over a new leaf (ha ha!)

We are so *busy* about farm garden and kitchen, that I feel sadly lacking in any actual *teaching* around farm, garden and kitchen! That needs to be rectified.

We are thinking of moving to year round schooling, taking breaks as needed. As we are currently trying to develop more income streams for the family, in an attempt to bring the family vision of farming to reality, I thought it might offer more flexibility. Though I shall mourn my long summer break, which was one of the reasons I originally thought about home educating - I was horrified at the cut back to the long school hols!

I recently purchase the excellent 'Home Work' and 'Living and Learning on One Income' from The Old Schoolhouse - and it struck me that the successful homeschooling home business families in the former, almost all schooled year round, taking breaks as and when to fit in with the business.

Does anyone else school year round? Any thoughts or opinions to offer?

Exam Week

Oh joy, exam week.
We've never done exam week before, and so far, I've got to say, it's not going down too well.
H couldn't remember a thing about the American Civil War, and thought the Russian Revolution had something to do with Alexander the Great!!
Boo's idea of telling about her favourite character from Bible consisted of 'I like Moses best because he led the people out of Israel.' Still at least she finished well within the time limit!
So now I have to devise some exam papers for languages, math, geography etc.
Lets hope things look up.....

As I was saying, on Amble Ramble ....

I have two daughters, one in Year 4 and one in Year 6. We have dabbled in Ambleside for years, but this is our first year of trying to do the 'whole thing' as it were.
We are just completing Term 1.
The major change I have made is with History - we have always done history together, and as a result, done lots of fun activities, and projects, connected with 'our period'. And that is what I'm missing.
I adapted Year 6 a bit, as being in the UK, I needed more time to do 20th Century, so basically we're doing the 1st World War era in term one, the Second World War era in Term 2, then back to the ancients in Term 3.

We finished last year with the English Civil War, so I had my older daughter read through the remainder of Our Island Story in the summer, so that she filled in some of the gaps.

So we have one currently doing WW1, and one doing George III and American Independence.
By a great stroke of good fortune, the American Museum in Britain had an exhibition about the Titanic, which was interesting for one, and at the same time, we could go and look at the exhibits around the time of the Declaration of Independence .. but that was just luck!

What I'm driving at is that I feel as if we are gaining less than we did in the days of our English Civil War Diaries (one was a Royalist and one was a Roundhead!) or our Roman bread and mosaic making ... but is it inevitable? Next year, older daughter, who is actually a year behind after a rotten start at school, will start HEO and her history will be Churchill's History of the English Speaking People, and I absolutely think that's the right way to go. In order to get younger daughter on the same period, I would have to go back to year 2, and she would miss so much, next year she will get to do the Victorians! How fabulous is that!

No, I've talked myself out of it. I'm going to have to soldier on with two eras at a time. Maybe I could think of themes .. we could look at housing, for example, or food ... and compare medieval with victorian?

Before Advent

Before Advent comes, we are trying to finish off the main body of the term's academics. We are using Ambleside Online, H is doing Year 6, and Boo, Year 4.
Poets are done - though I have to say we haven't dwelt on H's long enough for my liking, Robert Frost is one of my all time favourites, and we shall be revisiting, at the very least, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening, my very favourite, before December is out!
We haven't done as much as we should on either Botticelli or Bach, I fear.
Reading is pretty much up to date, H has a much altered reading list featuring the early years of the twentieth century, up to and including WW1.
Boo finished off her Civil War study with Children of the New Forest, and is now well into the Plague if you see what I mean.
I'm not enjoying the scramble to 'get done' but I will enjoy the Jesse Tree, Bartholmew's Passage, Gingerbread, and all the other Advent rituals coming up, so it's worth it!