Our Charlotte Mason Homeschool 7th Grade Plans

(Please note that I have linked to the book lists on the AO website to respect their licensing terms and the hard work they’ve put into such an amazing curriculum that they offer for free. Books that use affiliate links here are not listed on the AO website.)

It is much to be wished that thoughtful mothers would more often keep account of the methods they employ with their children, with some definite note of the success of this or that plan.

CHARLOTTE MASON (HOME EDUCATION)

This week begins our eighth year of homeschooling and marks a few firsts, including the first year I have a Form 3 student, the first year I have a junior higher, the first year I have a teenager, and the first year I don’t have any students in Form 1. I’m both excited and sad, as is the case for pretty much all of our years of homeschooling so far. Knowing that I only have six more years with B in this manner makes me sad, but I’m also excited about the books we’ll be reading and how he has grown since we started this journey seven years ago.

For his seventh-grade year, we’ll again use AmblesideOnline (AO). I opted to go with the more detailed schedule, but I also kept in mind the books omitted on the “lite” schedule in case we fall behind or feel overwhelmed. Honestly, as I was going through the book list and scheduling everything, it really did feel overwhelming, especially with another student in From 2 now. But AO has never let us down, so I trust in the wisdom of the Advisory and know that I can always make changes if we need to.

One significant change this year is that we’ll be in a micro co-op. We met some new friends earlier this year and spent a lot of time with them this summer, going on hikes and a camping trip together. They use AO as well, and we decided that we should do some school together also. So we’ll be doing picture study, handicrafts, and scouting together, which we’re all looking forward to!

I’ve made notes below for most, if not all, of the subjects, how we’re using the AO recommendations, and any changes I’m making. There are some more significant variations in a few subjects, but for the most part, we’re sticking to the curriculum as written. If I have another post that details what our resources are for or how we do a given subject, that’s the “Resources” link in the list below each subject header.

Morning Time

The Lay of the Land
Book of Virtues
Morning Time Resources

Our Morning Time rotation worked extremely well for us last year, so we’re going to continue with mostly the same layout this year:

• Prayer
• Doxology
• Spanish Dailies (we go over the date and weather in Spanish)
• The Ology/Stories of the Saints
• Music
  • Monday/Wednesday: hymn
  • Tuesday/Thursday: folksong
• Reading/Riches
  • Monday: a single reading from The Book of Virtues (we’re still making our way through the section on courage)
  • Tuesday: Picture Study (see below for more details)
  • Wednesday: five minutes from The Lay of the Land until it’s finished, then we’ll go back to the seasonal Dallas Lore Sharp books
  • Thursday: Composer Study (see below for more details)
• Lord’s Prayer
• Benediction

This usually only takes about 20 minutes, which I have found to be just the right length for Morning Time. I did add The Ology, which we’ve started in the past, but I finally felt like the ideas could sink in this past summer, and we’ll continue that into the school year. When we finish that, we’ll switch to Stories of the Saints.

Bible & Spiritual Formation

Reading Schedule for the Book of Common Prayer (BCP)
Spiritual Formation Book List Here
SPCK Bible Atlas
Bible Resources

The AO Advisory made quite a few changes earlier this year to the upper years’ schedules, especially in the spiritual formation category. I struggled to decide between And the Word Came with Power and Bright Valley of Love. I had finally decided on Word since it was the first one listed when I read this post on the forum and decided to go with Bright Valley. I may keep the other book as a free-read option.

I also opted for More Than a Carpenter over The Case for Christ as I think it fits my son’s personality more.

For Bible reading, I decided to combine all of us this year, so we’re doing this part of our day together. Before this, I read the BCP schedule early in the morning, and each kid had their own reading schedule during our lesson time. When I started planning our lessons for this year, I was concerned about how long our day would end up being, and a suggestion on the AO Bible page suddenly popped into my head: “Feel free to substitute; some may prefer to follow along with their church’s reading plan…” As much as I pride myself in being able to pick and choose books and subjects for our homeschool, I haven’t considered doing a different Bible reading schedule since my son was in Year 1, and it did not work well for us. Now that both kids are older, however, I feel like the readings from the BCP are going to be just about perfect for us. I’ve always wanted to have us observe the liturgical year together somehow, and this feels just right. We’ll at least give it a try!

History & Biography

History Book List Here
Biography Book List Here
History Resources

We’ll be studying the time period from 800 to 1485 this year for history. After reading quite a bit on the AO forums about the differences between Arnold-Forster’s A History of England (which is mentioned in the footnotes of the booklist page) and Churchill’s Birth of Britain, I chose to go with Arnold-Forster. B isn’t a huge history buff, and this year will already be a lot for him, so I thought this would be a better option, as several people mentioned that it’s a lighter read than Churchill. It was also the book used in the PNEU Programmes, which is a selling point. Obviously, Churchill wasn’t an option at the time (1922), but it was at least good enough that Charlotte Mason chose to include it.

I will also add free reads from the various sites mentioned in this post. Our town’s library was torn down this summer, and a new one was built, so we haven’t had access to all of the books in our library system (or a library closer than 20 minutes away or interlibrary loan ?) since May and won’t get access again until August 26th. Because of this, I haven’t been able to check out any supplemental books for this year other than e-books that the library happens to offer or those on Archive, which has been frustrating. I have been keeping a list in the spreadsheet I use to plan each of our terms of potential books, so I plan to load up on them as soon as it re-opens this coming weekend!

Otherwise, I’ll be reading all the assigned books with him. I have spoken with a friend whose daughter just went through AO Year 7 last year, and she shared which books they decided to drop, and I’m keeping that in mind. This year really does feel like a lot, and I want to be cautious about not overloading him. I’m hoping we can do all of the readings because they’re all just so good, but I also need to be realistic.

Literature

Literature Book List Here
Shakespeare Schedule Here

We will follow the AO schedule except for Term 3 for our Shakespeare readings. Because of the footnote included with Measure for Measure, and because C is joining us for Shakespeare this year, I opted to skip that one. I also used Nancy Kelly’s helpful Shakespeare post as a guide for what would’ve been used in Form II in the PNEU Programmes and decided on Julius Caesar instead.

For Beowulf, we are using the Seamus Heaney translation because Seamus Heaney. ☺️ I am also opting for A Taste of Chaucer by Anne Malcomson as several threads on the forums recommended that one over the other option (Haweis), and it’s also available on Archive (printed copies of either were pretty pricey when I searched).

B will read Beowulf, Ivanhoe, and Watership Down on his own, and I will read the rest to him. This is mainly because of various warnings in the footnotes for the other books so I can edit on the fly if I need to.

Poetry

Poetry Selections Here
YouTube Playlist of Term 1 Selections

We’ll be reading poetry as laid out in the AO schedule. For Term 1 and The Oxford Book of English Verse, I found this post on the forum with a link to a YouTube playlist of most of the poems suggested for the term, for which I am very thankful as I was not looking forward to trying my hand at Middle English (and would probably utterly butcher it)!

In Term 2, I plan to try and schedule out their specific poem recommendations over the term (obviously reading Idylls of the King over many days) as I was able to find a book with the majority of them.

For Term 3, I splurged on a Keats Penguin Clothbound Classics, so I’ll spread that out (including The Eve of St. Agnes per the AO recommendation) over the term.

Initially, I did plan to include The Grammar of Poetry, but after reading several threads on the AO forums and taking into consideration time constraints and my son’s personality, I decided to skip that one.

Language Arts

Copywork

Copywork Resources

We’ll continue what we’ve been doing for copywork over the last several years, with B doing a page of copywork every day, starting with his recitation selections and then moving on to passages that he wants to copy (if anything – he usually does not pick anything). I also have the copywork suggestion files from the old AO Yahoo Group, so I’ll dip into those if needed as well. I think he’s also ready to switch from skipping lines on his notebook pages (still wide-rule), so he’ll be making that change as well.

Dictation

Spelling Wisdom Book 1
Post-it Page Markers
Spelling Resources

We’ll also continue our dictation practices with one lesson from Spelling Wisdom per week (visit the “Spelling Resources” link above to see how this looks for us). We will most likely finish Spelling Wisdom Book 1 in Term 1 and then move on to Book 2.

Grammar and Composition

Grammar and Composition Book List and Recommendations Here
Junior Analytical Grammar and Mechanics  (JAG)
Grammar Resources

We will be skipping Our Mother Tongue. I was able to look through a friend’s copy, and because we’ve already been doing the Junior Analytical Grammar books since Year 4, I don’t feel it’s necessary to add this one. We’ll continue with one grammar lesson per week and composition being his written narrations. Last year he was doing two written narrations per week, which we’ll continue into Term 1 and possibly increase to three per week by the end of the year. His written narrations tend to be fairly short, so I think this is something we’ll need to work on before I add any more.

Recitation

Ruminating on Recitation Article (read this first!)
Recitation Guidelines and Student Log (updated in 2021)
Recitation Resources
AO Recitation Recommendations for Year 7

AO began offering recitation recommendations last year, which is very helpful! I will also allow him to pick his own (which he usually declines), or I will pick some for him. We will continue our practice of him reading aloud his recitation pieces to me with Old Testament on Mondays, New Testament on Tuesdays, Psalm on Wednesdays, and poem on Thursdays.

Typing

The Good and the Beautiful Typing Curriculum

He will most likely finish Level 2 of the typing curriculum at four lessons per week, and then we’ll move on to Level 3, which is the last book in the series.

Foreign Language (Spanish)

Tierra Tema 3

We started using Tierra last year in Term 2, and it worked so well for us that we’ll continue it this year. I am fortunate that the creator, Kathryn, has asked us to test it for her, so we will be using Tema 3 in Term 1 and then continuing with any more she makes for the rest of the year. If you haven’t tried this curriculum, I highly recommend Tema 1! We enjoyed it so much and learned a lot!

Geography

Geography Book List Here
AO Forum Year 7 Map Resources
Seterra Maps
Geography Resources

Geography, and more specifically, map drills, continue to be challenging for me. I want to be more intentional about the maps we’re doing for drill and matching them with what we’re reading rather than overall continental or country maps, which is what we’ve been doing over the last few years. A few ideas I’ve considered are mapping Brendan’s journey across the North Atlantic, Joan of Arc’s life and travels in France, Columbus in the Caribbean (Kathy Livingston recommended Seterra quizzes for this, which is another option I am going to consider), and areas of England through How the Heather Looks.

If we find that we’re falling behind with readings, I may drop How the Heather Looks in Term 3 and spread Brendan out over the whole year.

Scouting

Scouting for Wild Ones

We started this book last year but didn’t make it through as many sections as I had hoped. We’re actually going to be doing this one in our micro co-op and trading off topics as we go through the year, and I’m excited for my kids to have other kids with whom to do the activities! I’ll share a list in our year-end post of the badges we end up doing.

Citizenship

Citizenship Book List Here
Plutarch Schedule Here
Plutarch Resources
Plutarch Maps

I got B his own copy of Ourselves because my old pink copy is full of underlining, highlighting, and notes. It is my favorite of CM’s volumes, so I’m excited for him to read it and hope he takes what she says to heart.

We will do the AO Plutarch schedule again this year using Anne White’s guides, which I greatly appreciate. And I am very much looking forward to reading Whatever Happened to Penny Candy with him as inflation is a topic my husband and I, both of us being small business owners, discuss often.

For current events, I had initially planned to use Newsela as I appreciated that they were written articles specifically for kids, and I could pick and choose the topics. However, they changed their structure earlier this year, and now there is a paywall that I’m guessing is fairly expensive as I have to be a school administrator and chat with them to even get prices. They do offer four articles free per week, but they select these.

Two other options I’ve considered are World Watch and CNN10, both used by friends, but they are videos, so I don’t care for that aspect. I will probably experiment with Newsela and see how well it works for us. If it doesn’t, and I can ignore my aversion to screens, I will probably go with World Watch. I will have him read/watch two stories per week to start with and then write narrations for them.

Science

Science Book List Here
All Three Terms: Sabbath Mood Homeschool Form 3-4 Biology Living Science Guide
Term 1: Sabbath Mood Homeschool Form 3-4 Chemistry Living Science Guide
Term 2: Sabbath Mood Homeschool Form 3-4 Weather Living Science Guide
Term 3: Sabbath Mood Homeschool Form 3-4 Physics Living Science Guide
Various books from the Sabbath Mood Homeschool living science books lists
Cognitive Surplus Notebooks
Science Resources

This is the subject with the most significant difference between what we’ll do and the AO schedule. Mainly we will do the Sabbath Mood Homeschool (SMH) Form 3-4 schedule and books, and not do Eric Sloane’s Weather Book (we’re doing weather with a different book in Term 2), The Wonder Book of Chemistry (we’ll be doing chemistry with The Mystery of the Periodic Table in Term 1 – this book was assigned in AO Year 6, but we did not do it then for this reason), Adventures with a Microscope (we’ll be doing the microscope experiment options in the SMH guides), First Studies of Plant Life (this will be done in Year 8 with the SMH botany guide), or Signs and Seasons: Understanding the Elements of Classical Astronomy (this book was expensive even used and we’ll be doing the SMH astronomy guide in Year 8, so I decided to skip it).

We will be reading the rest of the books, including the Secrets of the Universe series; however, for those, we’ll be using the SMH physics guide schedule in Term 3.

Per the SMH schedule, B will be doing biology the entire year and then three other science lessons per week, as outlined above. He will also do these lessons independently as the Form 3-4 SMH guides are written to the student rather than instructor-led, which is how we did it in Form 2. This is a pretty significant change for us, so I am keeping an open mind about how we may need to adapt or change this.

Nature Study

Nature Study Book List and Recommendations Here
Ambling Together Nature Study Guides
Nature Study Resources

We will be following the AO nature study schedule this year. I was excited to find the Ambling Together nature study guides earlier in the year and plan to use those for our nature study time. I haven’t decided yet if we will do the nature lore book she recommends or pick one that is either more local to us or that I already have. I am considering using Arabella Buckley’s Trees and Shrubs since I just got it in a bundle sale, but the book recommended in the nature study guide also looks very good.

I also decided to move Lay of the Land to Morning Time. We have been reading Dallas Lore Sharp’s season books during Morning Time for the last few years, so giving B one less reading and doing this one together made sense. I will not require narrations for this.

Math

RightStart Level G
RightStart Level H
Math Resources

B will continue doing the lessons from RightStart Level G on his own before he moves to Level H, which he will most likely finish in Year 8. H is the last level that RightStart offers, so I will need to start looking into what we’ll do next soon!

Logic

Logic Book List Here

We will be reading these books per the schedule, but if I find that we’re falling behind, I will most likely drop How to Read a Book.

Art

Picture Study

Term 1: Tintoretto
Term 2: José María Velasco?
Term 3: Georges Seurat

Picture study is another subject we’ll be doing with friends in our micro-coop, and we will be following the AO artist study rotation except in Term 2. We studied Monet a few years ago in our old co-op, so I will pick someone else for that term. I’m leaning toward Mexican artist José María Velasco, who made beautiful landscape paintings and lived in the same time period as Monet.

Drawing

Lily and Thistle Nature’s Art Club

I got three months of free membership to Lily and Thistle’s Nature’s Art Club through a bundle sale. This course teaches black-and-white drawing, colored pencil drawing, and watercoloring, so we will try that in Term 1. Admittedly, drawing/painting/art creation has been something we’ve struggled with getting into our schedule in the past, but I’m hoping to be more disciplined about it this year as these lessons are not long at all.

Music

Composer Study

Term 1: Palestrina
Term 2: Ravel?
Term 3: Opera Selections?

We will loosely follow the AO schedule for composers but use the Tillberry Table guides where we can. Palestrina was a Renaissance composer, which matches the timeframe for the AO schedule, and the others will follow that pattern. Heather typically releases them throughout the year, so I’m hoping she offers one for Ravel and an appropriate opera option later this year.

Hymn/Folksong

Hymns
Term 1: The Rock That is Higher Than I & For the Beauty of the Earth
Term 2: Anywhere with Jesus & This is My Father’s World
Term 3: Count Your Blessings & All Creatures of Our God and King

Folksongs
Term 1: Aiken Drum & The Ash Grove
Term 2: The Lion Sleeps Tonight & The Water is Wide
Term 3: A Man’s a Man for A’ That & Simple Gifts
Music Resources

We got into the habit in our former homeschool co-op to only do two hymns and folksongs per term rather than a new one each month, and it’s a practice I’ve continued even after the co-op ended. We’ll continue using the Hymns and Folksongs YouTube channel to sing along and learn these, as that has worked so, so well for us in the last few years. I’m also a Patron, which gives me access to MP3s of the songs (which we had to our school year playlist in Plex) and printables with the lyrics, which gives me one less thing to do.

Health and Physical Education

We finally got around to taking an archery intro class together as a family this summer, and we really enjoyed it, so we’ll be doing a series of classes together later this fall when the next round at a local archery shop begins. When we finish that, we plan to get our own gear and visit a range at least twice per month.

I have also found a more local JOAD club for B if he decides he wants to start pursuing archery competitively.

Handicrafts

Survivor Kid
Sewing School 2

We did not finish Survivor Kid last year, so we’ll keep reading that this year until we finish. And in our micro co-op, the other mom is much more skilled in the sewing machine than I am, so she will be helping us make things with that. We won’t necessarily be using Sewing School 2 for that, but I plan to get it so the kids can work on any other projects that might interest them with their new machine sewing skills.

Free Reading

Free Reads Book List Here

I really want to read How to Be Your Own Selfish Pig with B, but I’m not sure how to work that into things, so I’ll have to ponder that. He has also read a few of the books on this list already, but most are new to both of us. I’ll post a list at the end of the year of the books we read.

So there’s our Year 7! I’m excited!

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