First week back 2015

The end of our first week back to our homeschooling routine has drawn to a close.

There was a lot of anticipation in the air when we began early Monday morning, with Maestro making his way, solo, into the city for his first day doing his radio course at RTI (Melbourne).  He returned home that evening happy, although a little weary from travel.  The lectures are just as he'd hoped, with their first minor assessment on interviewing done on Tuesday.  So long as he's learning and enjoying a challenge, we're happy for him.  He's already been looking ahead and preparing his notes for next week.

Our routine at home has been somewhat relaxed, especially on the days when Maestro is away studying at his course.  Mariposa and I have enjoyed sitting and discussing, and getting out to do some gardening.  Our plan is to work on the books mostly in the mornings, finishing by 2pm at the latest.  Except for Wednesday, that's been working well so far.

And what are we using for curriculum?  Well, Mariposa is now 13.  We've completed Sonlight through to Eastern Hemisphere, so if we follow that schedule we'd be doing World History again. But there's a twist ... I'm following ideas from Ambleside Online also.  Ambleside Online offer a curriculum outline for free, with books carefully selected to follow the methods of Charlotte Mason.  Where possible, books are available to view online for free.  I'm attracted to what's on offer here because of Mariposa's creative style of learning. The quantity of books are fewer, lessons shorter but still extending thought with the application of constant review, and subjects such as handwriting, grammar and writing composition are still kept in context rather than isolated for their own sake.

So, we're beginning ancient world history, using the final term of AO6 as our reading guide.  This means we have as our spine this term Augustus Caesar's World by Foster (also as per Sonlight 6) and Story of the Romans by Guerber.

Using notebooks for copywork and narrations through all the subjects isn't completely new to us, but now we'll being doing this daily.  We've started off by copying out a couple of poems and a few lines of Shakespeare, then narrations about our history and science readings.  A new nature journal is also taking shape as little treasures are brought back home after a walk around the neighbourhood.

There are some other elements I haven't formally introduced to our routine yet, such as a composer study.  I do have Mendelssohn in mind, especially as we've begun looking at Midsummer Night's Dream. My library will come to my aid in finding more information on him over the next week, I hope, as I've found my written material on him here is limited.

My goal for next week is to have sampled together a better outline of what our week looks like and then make up a better schedule which I can share.  At the moment, it's printed lists from Ambleside Online and pencilled notes I'm taking as we go.