OLDER STUDENTS | Charlotte Mason Help

"...we might hope that, instead of shutting up our books when we leave school or college, each of us, under ninety say, would have his days varied and the springs of life renewed by periods of definite study: we should all be students, the working-man as well as the man of leisure." -Charlotte Mason

Ambleside Online's wonderful high school book lists look very intimidating to most people. Now that I have graduated a student and have two more in high school, I'm not afraid anymore. Think about the fears you had when you first decided to home school. Those fears melted away as you learned what to do one step at a time, year by year. It's the same way with the high school years. I want to help you get rid of those fears because I would hate for them to stop you from using these wonderful books with your students. Most Charlotte Mason and classical book list plans, quite frankly, are not as rich and rewarding as Ambleside's. I want to encourage you NOT to settle for second best, so I'm going to give you all the help I can to see you through to the end.

As many of you may already know, Ambleside's book lists (especially yrs 9-12) offer a salad bar approach. You, the parent, must choose what books to use from several options. That's pretty difficult if you've never read them before. I am offering my personal complete book lists for each year and recommendations for those of you who could use some more guidance in this area. My daughters and I together, share our favorites and those that were 'duds'-- and we'll tell you why we think so. We warn you about explicit passages in certain books that you may wish to know about. Now and then, we will suggest supplemental links and material. We'll help you choose poets and poems from that massive anthology AO recommends and provide links. Take what you can use, and discard the rest. We just want you to succeed in this endeavor.

Hopefully, this will ease the way for you. If we don't address your particular question or concern, feel free to ask us over at the curriculum forum or email us. We'll try to help.

Okay? Well then, here we go...

...one step at a time,