Ambleside Online Year 7+8 A Reflection

We have completed AO year 7 and 8 (that is, grade seven and eight) and while I have done a terrible job at documenting the school year, I thought I would write a year end review.

Best Accomplishment of 2020/2021 School Year

The accomplishment I am most proud of this year is that our relationships grew closer. I’m well aware of the prickly nature of relationships between homeschool moms and burgeoning independent teenage sons and I don’t want a wedge in my relationship with either of my sons, especially not in the name of home education.
We keep it a pretty open conversation in our home, with a desire for loving each other through servitude and gentleness. Their father models this well.

We have also invested hours in playing games together. Usually over their lunch break the three of us would play a game together. Azul and Rummykub were the most popular three person games that we played (both games can accommodate four players, but do work well for three players which is what we have during a school day.)

The time invested in our relationships over the years has been so worthwhile, and if I could encourage mothers in one thing it would be that. Find ways to have fun with your children. Laugh with them. Explore with them. Play with them. Be with them. Spend some time considering *your* family needs, dynamic, interests, and abilities. Investing in your relationship with your children shouldn’t be based on what other people do.

Evaluations

Our current state of Pennsylvania requires homeschoolers to have an evaluation at the end of the school year to affirm that learning occurred over the past school year. Having moved from a state that did not require this I did a lot of reading and research about these year end evaluations (we had one done in 2019, then they cancelled this requirement in 2020 due to Covid, so this is just our second time doing evals.) The number one tip I gleaned was to find an evaluator who aligned with your ideas about education. The first evaluator we used in 2019 was nice but she felt her job wasn’t complete without advising me on how to improve my children’s education. She was unfamiliar with AO, semi unfamiliar with Charlotte Mason, and her advise didn’t align with our educational goals.

This years evaluator makes me want to cry with gratitude over the beauty of the whole process. It was EVERYTHING (and more!) that I could have desired. I will share the way our evaluator handled this, and I would encourage mothers to not settle. Keep looking for someone who will elevate the personhood of your children and the ideas that they are encountering.

We spend the year engaging with compelling stories, complicated people, ideas that challenge, disciplines such as not over reading (haha, super hard on my boys!) and narrations … and then we as mother’s compile the work in a tidy portfolio to parade our children’s paperwork as proof of learning. I think it’s garbage and destructive, and I really wrestled with it after my first encounter with evaluations in 2019. But I also feel it is important our children know how to comply with the requirements set out, because as much as we want them to be unique they will have requirements in their work world one day (or if they transfer to public school, or in upper academics.) So knowing how to follow the protocol is also important – just a balance to not put too much significance on the protocol.

If I hadn’t witnessed this with my own eyes I may not have believed it possible, but our year end evaluations was a beautiful ending to a wonderful year.

Our evaluator suggested that the boys compile what they enjoyed and felt was important and worthy of sharing from this past year. He told me privately that if he felt something wasn’t covered adequately he would ask me about it – but he wanted to see what the boys would pull together.

The boys were thrilled and a bit perplexed. They kept telling me things like; “I really loved xyz, but I don’t think that counts as school work he will want to see.” And I would tell them; “You’re a whole person. That interest is a part of you and your development this year, include it if it is important to you.”

I offered two tips for the boys as a framework for them to build their “portfolio” – 1. I told them the state mandated subjects for home education and suggested they attempt to touch on each of those subjects and 2. I told them part of his job was to evaluate growth in learning, so they should try to remember the whole school year and not just recent weeks.

Then I was completely hands off and the boys built their “portfolio” for evaluations. I did sit in on the evaluation, but it was the boys who took charge.

The accomplishments Wesley was most proud of this past year was learning to play the violin and his art.

The evaluations started with Wesley playing one of AO’s folksongs and Judah singing it. Then Judah left and Wesley walked through things he had learned and done. At one point Wesley mentioned a book he had loved (How to Be Your Own Selfish Pig) and the evaluator asked him what he liked about it. Wesley stuttered a bit and said; “Well, I don’t remember exactly what it was about. A woman was writing to us to teach us things. But it was at the beginning of the school year and I don’t remember what she was teaching us. I just know I really liked it.” And the evaluator said; “Isn’t it funny how emotions can stay with us longer than our memory? I am glad you have good feelings about the book.”
That particular boy will always struggle to recount things on his feet when asked directly, but the things he learned from that book are deeply ingrained in him – they’ll just never come out as a neat and tidy book summary. What a gift to have an evaluator that values the whole person over a quantified learning checklist.

Judah was most proud of his writing, his memory work, and his magic tricks. Yes, our evaluator was subjected treated to magic tricks.

As part of the state requirement Judah did a standardized test and he scored quite well. Here’s what I love: our evaluator glanced at the scores to ensure it was completed, but gave little to no feedback on a standardized test. Yet in watching the magic trick he inquired about the work put into it, praised the work and creativity (Judah combined some things to make it his own trick), and pointed out how the work put into learning the magic trick is something that can applied to problem solving in other areas of life.

As the boys talked about the books they loved from their year of reading our evaluator knew enough about either the books themselves or the subject matter in general to ask thoughtful and provoking questions.

What I have described  above (albeit, incomplete in the scope of the full evaluation) may not be a good fit for every family. But if you feel a bit uncomfortable each year pulling together the highlights of your children’s school work as if you are parading them (…and yourself…) in front of a person who sees a years worth of education in the PAPERWORK you set before them – pray that the Lord will bring someone who sees the PERSON that sits next to them, and keep looking for the right fit for your family! (Side note: our evaluator was homeschooled in the state of PA. He meets the states standards for an evaluator, but more than that, he understands the boys side of being the one evaluated.)

Organization and Scheduling the School Year

My goal for a few years now has been to slowly transition the boys into taking ownership of their schedules as it is an essential skill they will need once at college level. While it has been something that has been worked on intentionally and slowly for awhile, it very rapidly grew wings and they totally owned their schedules this year. I was a bit surprised by it, but pleased.

I printed the 36 week schedules from AO for each of their years and had them in their own binder. The year started much like other years where I had a printed schedule I had made that I filled out each week with the daily reading schedule based off of the master list from AO. But somewhere in there things shifted and the boys asked to do it themselves, then they asked if they could eliminate entirely the process of writing out the daily requirements and just work off the 36 week schedule and complete the work laid out there. And that’s where we are. Slowly removing the need for a mother in their education. (haha, I say that slightly kidding and slightly not. It’s weird but GOOD that they don’t need me managing things quite so closely. I was obviously there for oral narrations and ensuring completion and additional resources as needed.)

Math

I was determined we weren’t going to be one of those families that switch math programs every year … but here we are … a new math program. We started the year with Saxon Math, which they’d enjoyed and been enthusiastic about continuing. But I had started reading more about using Life of Fred for higher level math and decided to try it out and we are all impressed. The boys love it and, for the foreseeable future, that is what we will be using.

Outside Help

When the boys hit grade 7, so Judah in 2019 and Wesley in 2020, I told them that the art of writing was something we were going to focus on and they could choose between me being their teacher or I could put them in a writing class – the one thing they were to consider was that it *could not* negatively effect our relationship if I was going to be responsible for reading and correcting and challenging their writing. Judah opted for a writing class at a local co-op. He started in grade 7 and continued it again this year in grade 8. He loves it and we have been thrilled to watch his writing develop under a caring teacher.

Wesley opted to do it at home with me this year for grade 7. Following the AO recommendation we started with Our Mother Tongue: An Introductory Guide to English Grammar by Nancy Wilson and I pretty quickly realized my son wasn’t ready for it. Of course I could have pushed through, and there certainly are lessons to be learned in diligently just applying oneself and watching the hard work pay off. But I opted to pause all formal grammar (keep in mind, reading excellent books is its own lesson in grammar!)

It was the BEST decision to refrain from grammar. Wesley had a year of massive development and growth in other areas and just last week he told me he is so excited to be going to a writing class this coming fall (he is signed up for the one his brother did. Judah will continue it, but in the high school level.)

The conversation was actually more of a chiding from him where he told me he wished I wasn’t “so laid back” and that he wished I had pushed him to write because he wants to develop as a writer and he thinks he would have if I had pushed him. And he was aghast when I told him I hadn’t thought he was ready, until I pointed out things he does that his older brother does not do because they are different people with different minds and different abilities and it makes zero sense that they would both be ready at the same age to do the exact same thing when they had a Creator God create them uniquely. I reminded him my “so laid back-ness” was very intentional and very watchful of his development, and that he was signed up for the writing class this fall because I see that he is ready to thrive in it.

At the same co-op Judah did writing at Wesley attended for art lessons. Both boys have grown immensely in their skills and love of their craft under their talented and caring teachers.

In addition to that co-op we hired a man to come and talk about science with our boys once a week. (Actually, the same man who did their evaluations.) He taught them how to use a microscope and prepare their own slides, had them buy and then study Planaria worms, and how to build a battery. Those are the things I can define. They did so much more than that and our boys will be reaping the benefits of those hours spent for the rest of their life.
Our only desire for their once a week meeting was that our boys would be comfortable conversing about scientific things. There was no agenda, no checklist, no testing, no formal structure.

The boys also participated in Karate this year, which has been phenomenal for them.

And then after Wesley picked up a violin in February and decided he would learn how to play we put him in lessons for a couple months to give him some practical guidelines and foundation. He may or may not continue with formal lessons, but I think he will continue teaching and challenging himself in the world of music. Judah has been learning guitar under Paul’s tutelage.

Handicrafts

Both boys have continued with developing their skills with power tools and woodworking over this past year. For Christmas we (… entirely Paul’s idea …) bought them a mini forge and they have played around with it a bit.

They have plans for building instruments and knives over the summer based on skills they have been learning, so we will see how that all comes together!

Judah has a developing interest in hot peppers and last year he dehydrated tons of them and made his own hot pepper powder. He has many more varieties of hot peppers growing from seed this year so we are excited to see how they develop! Not to be left out of the gardening, Wesley decided this year he wanted to take ownership of watermelon plants, so we have three varieties of melons growing under his care.

Feast for the Famous

Admittedly, I keep wondering if they will outgrow this but they continue to anticipate it and enjoy the execution of it. I shared about term one in a full post that you can read about here, and due to time constraints we ended up combining term two and three into a single feast. You can see the menu they made up for that above. The boys do most of the work for the food, so it is both a super fun connection between their books and the food AND they are growing in their kitchen skills!

Below is the head of lettuce in the bed of salad, representing the beheaded King Charles. We happened to have candy eyes, which just added to the presentation. haha.

Favorite Books

I follow the recommendations laid out in AO with minimal substitutions (as in, I might have a copy of a book I think will substitute just fine for a pricey book, but I stick to the list as it is presented for the most part and honor the hard work that went into building the list.) The boys have books they struggle with and books they take to – but here is the amazing blessing that has resulted in sticking with the hard books: they know it is worthwhile. When they read a book they don’t love what I hear from them now is; “I don’t like it yet.” or “It is still a bit hard to understand, but I know I’ll get it soon.” The perseverance they have learned through the younger years is remarkable. It truly is the little moments that create the greater whole.

Favorites from year 8: Judah has really enjoyed just about every book from year 8. He’s been asked numerous times about his favorite and it always changes!

Favorites from year 7: Wesley really enjoyed Watership Down, but I don’t think there were any that he disliked.

What We Didn’t Do

I obviously am incapable of doing everything and there were things that we didn’t do. I do try to be intentional about what we aren’t doing – so rather than feeling bad about what I’m not getting done I evaluate (again!) if I can fit it in, and if not I just let it go. Not because I am trying to be negligent, but because I CANNOT do everything, and it doesn’t serve anyone for me to feel guilty or bad about it.

I tell my boys often that I WILL fail them. I will miss things, not put enough of an emphasis on things, over emphasize things that maybe I shouldn’t, etc. But they have a God who will never fail them, and they are learning to love learning, and we are growing together. My job is to be a diligent steward in this season, and I pray that I am. But I hold no illusions that I will provide everything they will need for their future – so while it is a balance to be diligent and work hard, it is also freeing to just let go of what we can’t do in a particular season.

All that said, we did not do a foreign language this year. Judah has played with Gaelic and Wesley will tell you he learned the language of music, and I am pleased that both of them extended themselves in that way, but there was no formal language study attempted.
We were going to read Ourselves by Charlotte Mason together (following the schedule for each year) and I think we completed about 2/3 of it, so each of them are lacking in it.
I already mentioned it, but Wesley did not get a formal writing program in this year.
No Latin was done.
We have kept timeline books for years, but have never done a book of centuries.

I am sure there are many more things, but that is what comes to mind immediately.

In Conclusion

I am SO THANKFUL for the women that have worked so diligently to bless us with the beauty that is amblesideonline! I appreciate so much the countless hours that has gone in to building the website, the reading lists, the experience gleaned, and the wisdom they so freely share.

This was a good year, and I am thankful to have had this opportunity to educate the boys at home. I don’t say good and mean easy and without struggle, but good because it was good despite the hard. It is a worthy and worthwhile endeavor to raise your children in the way the Lord directs your family to do it- for some that is at home, for others it is in a school setting. I am thankful for this season we have to educate our sons at home. Next year I will have a high school student! I have done some reading on Ambleside Online regarding grade 9, but plan to tackle it like it’s my full time job in a couple of weeks and truly get a handle on what it is we will be doing this coming school year. I think we will start again in August as it is delightful to be finished in May!

Thanks for reading through and if you would like to see previous year plans and reviews you can read about them here.