Trying Out the Figures from Caesar's Augustus World

My only regret is that they didn't have their date on or close by each picture.  Never the less, they still lent themselves to the timeline schedule without too much difficulty per se.

Hannah just preferred to cut and paste directly.

We guessed where they should fit because I wasn't feeling well enough to do the extra leg work to get the accuracy.  I hope we weren't too far out.

And Phebe's page.  She used textas to outline the picture before cutting and pasting.

I'm not sure if we'll do more or not later on, maybe, we'll see.

The Rocks of Honey

Hannah has also finished Watership Down, and enjoyed it immensely, as the same for the other two girls.  So, I needed to find a new read for that space on the schedule.  Here's what I choose for Hannah.

The Rocks of Honey

Sorry guys, but we did dispense with the dust jacket, it was in the way...

Written by Patricia Wrightson and printed in 1960.  She is a distinguished writer for children.   Her books have won many prestigious awards all over the world.

I love the sketch work in it.

This is an Australian book.

It's about an Aboriginal legend, and a hidden stone axe which is believed to be cursed.  Basically it's a treasure hunt.  Barney and his Aboriginal friend with a third child are determined to find the axe.  But of course, there are a string of accidents along the way, which leads them to conclude that the legend is much more than they originally thought, but is it??

Descriptions of the local landscape do not escape the book and there is even a "shivering authentic encounter account of a close encounter of a local spider".

The Golden One

Since we're doing AO for Phebe at the moment, and she polished off Watership Down in a jiffy, I moved her into a new book.

The Golden One

by Katherine O'Brien

Inside at the first chapter. 

"If you like adventure stories, you'll like this one."

The story is based in New Zealand, a close geographical country to Australia.

"Three twelve year olds on holiday near Wellington find a treasure that has been lost for several generations - the Golden One of legend.  But that is only the beginning of their adventures, as thieves try to get hold of it.  And the antique shop owner's assistant is really nasty, the villian - he's a really good baddie."

At present Phebe is about to start chapter 3.

Book Selection for AO 6

Ta da!!

Doesn't it look lovely?

This is our AO 6 Book Box that I went and put all of their initial books into, to get us started with AO for Phebe and Hannah.  I've also got some other little goodies in there as well.....  as backups, as next in line, as substitutes.

Phebe is 11 and Hannah is 9.

This is how I scheduled all the books and what nots:

The AO Box doesn't keep the Bible, Maths, or LA.  They'll be separate, but they are in the daily program as you can see above.  We're keeping their current Bible and LA because they like them, they're half way through the yearly course, and because we can - it's easier this way.  Next year, there will be a bit of a jump to a formal grammar though.  I can see it on the shelf from where I'm sitting, but I'm keeping it a secret until next year.   For Math, both girls are in Saxon 7/6.

But, what IS in the AO Box??

So happy you asked!

{ On a Monday...... }

We shall be spending some time with Guerber's Greeks.  To Greek ourselves, or not to Greek ourselves?  That is the question.  We'll start with it, and see how it goes.

And a character forming book called, Dear Princess.  The chapters are reasonable, not short, but not long either.  I like that they address behaviours required to become a princess.

For literature, we have Rob Roy.  There's no rush, so I envision this book taking the remainder of the year to finish.  That's my goal with this one - to start and finish it.

{ On a Tuesday...... }

Each week they'll read a whole Magic School Bus chapter book.  There are various titles in the set that we have, but it should be enough to keep them busy to the end of the year.

We also have the The Shy Platypus.  I have a few titles in this series, so we'll be able to move into those and other 'Australiana' as the year goes as well.

And of course, a good staple to any homeschooling shelves:  Augustus Caesar's World.  Both girls have already made a good start to this book, so now we shall just continue.

{ On a Wednesday...... }

A couple of chapters from a Synge book.  They've already started on these too, so now we'll just continue.  I love Synge.  Beautiful and easy to read History chapters.  There are 5 books in this series and I highly recommend them for all your littles.

Watership Down makes the list early.  Chloe finished it recently, and loved it.  So it is with the utmost of confidence I schedule it in for the other two girls.

And for architecture I've decided to let the girls have Building.  I can't wait to see how their notebooking goes with it.

Shakespeare and Plutarch..... they'll be in hot pursuit following Chloe with the books that she's using.

I've actually put finding a good set of Plutarch books on my wish list because at some point in time we are going to need to jump a little higher than this, but in the meanwhile this is the perfect starter.

Shakespeare is one of those iffy type of subjects, isn't it?  Not particularly useful to us Christians.  At the moment I have Milton lined up with Paradise Lost directly following this children's version of Shakespeare.

{ On a Thursday...... }

Science has always been an enemy.  At the end of the day I decided these old and obsolete school texts would lend themselves more akin to how I'd like to see Science handled.  We're going to start with Life Processes.

Each chapter is set out in a similar fashion:  Information, illustrations, a summary, and most importantly, not too many questions.

And because of how it's designed it's super easy to use for copywork,  or outlining, or doing notebooking pages on each topic.  

I also scheduled a lovely old collectable - Wild Life in Australia.  It has a lot of photos in the book, even if they are in black and white.

This book will easily carry us through a couple of years.

I LOVE double columns in books.

And A Child's Garden of Verses.  Who can go wrong with that?  Perfect for copywork as well.

{ On a Friday...... }

I would be entirely remiss if I didn't include a good English History.  I did have to toss and turn a little, as Britain and Her Neighbours were predominantly at the top of my list, but I decided to use what we're currently using with Chloe on a Friday.  We can always change it over at a later date, if we so desire.  That's why I've kept The History of England, by Arnold Forster.

I love how the author wrote his book this book.  Before each chapter he gives a timeline of people and events, and there are tons of illustrations and maps throughout.  Highly recommended, it's free online, you know.

For Geography - it appears that AO6 includes walk abouts with Livingstone.  It was providentially fortunate that he was just sitting on my shelf.  So, we may as well.

And what would the week be without Bacon?  Yep, so I decided to have him along for the ride also.

AND..... finally, the notebooks.  They'll also use lined exercise books for their copywork and written compositions, but on the days they read and journal they have their notebooks.

Looks ambitious, doesn't it?  All of AO is entirely ambitious if you ask me.  It's the Robinson Curriculum on very strong steroids.

And..... I haven't forgotten about life skills, hand crafts, sport, and out of doors.  They'll happen naturally, of course.

Having a Week Off

We've all got some degree of school burnout currently happening at my place, so we're taking a week off.

We've done 19 weeks, so yes, time for a little rest.

In the meanwhile, this week I will be preparing to move Phebe and Hannah over to AO { or my idea of a modified version of it }

I've already made a good start selecting what they'll be reading:

I'll do a walk through as soon as I can with all the books that I've decided upon.  I just need to have it all concrete on paper.  I'm nearly there, so yes, look for a new AO post before the end of the week.  :)