A Mother’s Journal

Come into the garden with me…

and let’s talk about Ambleside Online. 

Will I be using it?

Yes, I will be using Ambleside Online.

And that was the answer to the first question in my mind.

The second question required just as much thought, if not more, to find an answer to.

What year of AO will I place Michaela in?

I had to look at several factors:

• This past year was Michaela’s first year homeschooling and thus it was a big transition year for us.  We did a ton of fun field trips and nature studies.  We did lots and lots of playing.  I wanted it to be a gentle transition year for her so that she’d want to homeschool again the next year.  The point here?  I don’t want to turn around and put her into something this year that totally overwhelms us both.
• While I believe that her education was acceptable in public school, and that her education was acceptable this past year at home, I am keenly aware that she is not used to narration, just as she is not used to a steady diet of challenging classics and “living books.”  Last year was our transition year into homeschool.  This next year will be our transition year into Ambleside Online.
• She technically is entering 6th grade.  She will be doing 7th grade math.  But her reading level — and this is key — is right at grade level.  That’s all.  So I need to be careful not to place her in a year with books that are too demanding.  I have no doubts that Year 5, and even 4, will challenge us. 
• Ambleside Online says right in their FAQ section, about one-third of the way through the page, in the section At which Year/level should I place my child?, “An Ambleside Online ‘Year’ does not mean ‘Grade’ as it would in public school.”

So those are the facts.  Yesterday, armed with the facts, and the booklists for years, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, I went to The Homeschool Gathering Place to start looking at books and trying to decide for myself, which year do I choose?

I think handling the actual books, looking at the content, and imagining yourself assigning reading from them is a good way to get a feel for which year to use.  I also think that having the child read from some of the books will give you an idea if they are able to do the reading on their own throughout the year.  This latter suggestion has been mentioned in the support group as well.

Pulling books from the shelves for various years and leafing through them, I got a sense that Year 5 would be a good start for us.  Year 4 and even 3 have some wonderful books as well, and I’m sure they are even challenging, but I wouldn’t want to put Michaela so far back that she felt bored or demoted.   And as I mentioned, she’s a grade-level reader, so I want us to go forward, not backward!

Probably what tipped the scale for me was a statement on the Year 6 Booklist about year 6 being the transition year between childhood education and the education of the upper years, and as such the subject matter being more mature.

Year 5 it will be.

The third step was to start buying books. 

Note: The two books in the foreground don’t have anything to do with Ambleside.  They are just a couple I picked up while out.  Ken, I found a used copy of Spelling Power!  I like the way it looks.  Joseph and I are excited to finish out the summer with it, and I hope Joseph will continue to use it even after he’s been handed his diploma. 

Be still my heart, I bought a new copy of Lessons at Blackberry Inn!  It’s the sequel to Pocketful of Pinecones.  I started reading it this morning.  I found a used copy of Handbook of Nature Study.  I went ahead and bought the Christian Liberty Nature Reader Book 5. 

I also found a beautiful copy of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, which I am going to have Michaela read aloud to me, so that we can work on her reading skills the rest of the summer.  We will begin to practice narration.

As for buying the books, I love nothing more than a beautifully bound, hardback book that I can hold and smell and love.  Do you love the smell of a book?  I love books.  Hopefully I can find many of them used to save us some money. 

Now that I’ve chosen what year we’ll be using and started accumulating the books, I will print off the Weekly Lesson plans for Year 5.  I will start thinking about how to best set up our daily schedules, looking at what days work best for us as far as the weekly lessons and how we’ll set up our school days. 

I will continue to read the Home Education Series and the Ambleside’s FAQ, making notes for myself in my homemade CM notebook.  I’m enjoying reading the daily digest from the Ambleside Online Support Group and getting to know the people there.

One last thing. We’ve got some chapter books that we’ve accumulated through the years that aren’t that great.  I’ll be weeding out to make room for better books.  I won’t be getting rid of too many books, mind you, but some!

I’ll close with a quote on really paying attention to our children, understanding what they mean and how they learn and how best to guide them to be useful men and women.

Nothing is trivial that concerns a child; his foolish-seeming words and ways are pregnant with meaning for the wise. It is in the infinitely little we must study in the infinitely great; and the vast possibilities, and the right direction of education, are indicated in the open book of the little child’s thoughts. ~Charlotte Mason, Home Education, Volume I 

Happy Thursday!
Lynn