We followed the booklist for AmblesideOnline Year 7 with a few changed. AO’s focus is on British history and literature, which is why I also bring in other curricula to expand our worldview. Year 7 focuses on the Middle Ages in literature and history.
I did try to preread or skim all the books last summer but didn’t finish. I’ll include my kids’ opinions as well as my own for the portions I read. My 13-year old twins read everything on their own with the exception of Shakespeare, grammar, and Latin. All in all, not a lot of complaints about this year’s booklist: mainly Birth of Britain, In Freedom’s Cause, Ivanhoe, and the poetry.
Just in case you’re going down the AmblesideOnline (AO) Year 7 booklist, I’ll follow the AO order of listings. Books I added to their schedule are listed in the Free Reads section at the end.
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Spiritual Formation
And the Word Came with Power: My kids liked this book. It’s about a missionary in Philippines.
The Case for Christ: This was a nice introduction to apologetics. There’s also a movie, but we haven’t watched it yet.
Middle Ages in Literature (800-1485)
The Birth of Britain
This is not easy reading! I broke this down into the 4-day reading plan which made it manageable for the kids although my page numbers did not match. I merely drew light pencil lines in my book so they knew where to stop each day.
The kids complained about this book for the entire year. Since these volumes are not easy to find affordably, I’ve purchased Arnold-Forster’s The History of England for next year, which was an alternative to The Birth of Britain. I’ve already read through the portion of history for Y8 to find dictation passages for next year, and it will be a much better fit for us. I’m tempted to have them go back and re-read the portion that covers the Middle Ages, but I’m not going to do that.
Online Readings
These were: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, William Malmesbury’s account of the Battle of Hastings, History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, and The Life of King Alfred by Asser. My kids read these short passages off the computer screen and found them interesting. I like that AO brings in primary sources at this level.
In Freedom’s Cause
My kids found this book difficult to read and didn’t always understand what was going on.
Daughter of Time
We skipped this one for the warning of adult themes and parental prereading recommendation. Maybe when they’re older and I’ve preread it.
Personal Reflections of Joan of Arc
The kids said this was pretty good. The chapters start out long and get shorter towards the end. Their overall schedule had 5 daily readings over a 4-day school week, so I guess chapter length factored into their enjoyment of a serious topic.
Beowulf
We read the recommended translation by Burton Raffel. They had no problems with this epic poem.
The Once and Future King
This story of the origins of King Arthur was fun! I finished all of “The Sword in the Stone” which was Book 1.
Book 2, The Queen of Air and Darkness, is darker. I was concerned while reading all of AO’s cautionary commentary but my kids were not bothered by the book. You will want to read these words of warning before you dive in, though.
Ivanhoe
My kids read this according to the schedule and narrated it every week. But now they are telling me that, at times in the middle portion, they had no clue what was going on! Um…. interesting. Maybe I should have given them this study guide.
The History of English Literature for Boys and Girls
This purchase was a splurge for me, since the library didn’t have it and I prefer to keep them off the computer if I can. It’s used across multiple years and they read Chapters 1-31 this year. These chapters were interesting (and short) and the kids liked it.
Age of Chivalry
We dropped this one because they were getting a lot of overlapping stories with The Island of the Mighty. I was also reading aloud other short books to all four kids that covered King Arthur’s legends.
Poetry: The Middle Ages in Literature
The Oxford Book of English Verse
We suffered through these poems together during Term 1 (weeks 1-12). I did have 12 poems printed out with key translations of old English words in the footnotes, which was helpful. Each child and I read them aloud together. It’s really the only way to hear the poem with all the old English spellings. Some people recommend listening to youtube videos and songs…that just didn’t work for us.
Chaucer for Children: A Golden Key
This book did a great job breaking down Chaucer…for Children. This was worth the purchase from Living Book Press. Next to the old English in the left column was a full translation with correct spellings in the right column. There was a lot of historical information before the poetry and paragraphs of information interspersed with the poems. The kids read this book themselves, with constant reminders to read the column of old English before the translation!
Alfred, Lord Tenysson: Idylls of the King
And….back to suffering. This was hard to read and we did it out loud together during Term 2 (weeks 13-24). Idylls of the King covers legends of Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere. We didn’t get through this book at ALL but made a pretty good effort to read consistently.
John Keats
These poems for Term 3 (weeks 25-26) were definitely manageable and, dare I say, enjoyable after The Oxford Book of English Verse and Idylls of the King.
The Grammar of Poetry
I thought this was a lovely way to learn about the four main meters of poetry and ten tropes. Everything was clearly explained with examples and many famous poems to mark up. I am NOT A FAN of worksheets to file away or recycle at the end of the semester. This is what I did: I tore all of the perforated sheets out of the workbook, put them in page protectors, and in a binder. The kids marked up the sheets with wet erase markers. I wiped them clean after checking the assignment with them.
A few of the assignments ask the student to write their own poetry or to continue a poem in the same manner…My kids were hit or miss on writing their own poetry. We’ll keep working on it in Year 8 with Roar on the Other Side.
This is a Christian textbook with passages from the Bible. I did buy the Teacher’s edition and used the answer key a few times. I don’t think you necessarily have to have it, though.
Grammar
Our Mother Tongue
I really like this grammar book! I worked through most of the questions orally until we got to the sentence diagramming, which they did in their spiral notebooks. The sidebars detailed the origins and development of the English language–fascinating!
My kids surely did complain about the sentence diagramming, and it got pretty tough with the different types of dependent clauses, but we hung in there. We did 18 lessons this first year and plan to continue with it next year.
This is a Christian textbook with passages from the Bible. It came with the answer key which was very handy especially in the sentence diagramming.
Geography: The Middle Ages in Literature
Honestly….AO does not have enough geography for me, so I added in books about the Middle Ages in Asia, Pre-Columbian societies in Central and South America, books about Renaissance Italy, and picture books about the middle ages in Mali. We revisited portions of my geography studies that covered the middle ages: Mali, Japan, Mongolia, Korea, and Italy.
In the fall, we were wrapping up our 4-year trip around the world in country studies, ending on the countries in the Middle East. I scheduled a contemporary read for the 7th graders: The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East (Young Readers’ Edition). I felt it gave a face to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a story that covered the history and current events in the region.
I also lean on the world studies spines presented in My Father’s World, which is a family style curriculum for its middle years for 2nd through 8th grades. We completed Creation to the Greeks with AO Y6, and this year we worked through Rome to the Reformation at the same time as AO Y2 and AO Y7.
The Brendan Voyage
Both boys enjoyed learning about the re-creation of a leather boat that an Irish monk had made in the medieval ages. There is a documentary that we have not watched yet!
How the Heather Looks
This book was pretty good although a few chapters were long.
Citizenship
Ourselves
A slow read through this book that is scheduled over multiple years, pretty enjoyable!
Plutarch
We read two of Plutarch’s lives this year. They’re still not fans but we still do it. Definitely get the version with Anne White’s study guide (there are 10 volumes plus a primer). It makes Plutarch manageable, especially if you’re handing it off for independent reading!
Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?
Great book explaining economics. This could help adults, too.
Science
Oh my goodness…. science is one of my favorite subjects and this nearly broke me this year. Why, oh why, are we learning about six streams of science at the SAME TIME! (Plus the nature study subjects, don’t forget those.) Meteorology, Physics, Chemistry, Botany, Microscopy, and Astronomy. With random experiments sprinkled throughout each of the books. That’s the part that was so difficult, switching topics for experiments every week.
In my planning phase, I tossed out First Studies of Plant Life, we didn’t even start it. After one term, I tossed out Adventures of a Microscope. I let them keep reading Signs and Seasons throughout the term but stopped the field studies.
Next year, we are sticking with one stream of science at one time. (If you’re curious, in Year 8, we are planning to go through Apologia General Science, 2nd edition by Jay Wile.) They can read the AO science biographies and nature lore on the side because they do not require experiments.
You’ll see that the kids had no problems with any of the science books. I just really disliked doing experiments in multiple science topics at the same time, so you’ll also see that I adjusted for that…
The Weather Book
The kids liked this one and I found it very interesting. We did one of the experiments and made a barometer. I wish I had just read it aloud to all the kids during our nature study subject of Weather in Term 2.
The Life of the Spider
Great living book about different spiders. It made us realize how unique and cool they are, but it didn’t make them feel less scared of them!
Secrets of the Universe
This is a set of five elementary physics books. Each one is short but concentrated on one topic. We ended up focusing our science experiments here and followed the ones detailed in this series. This was a good introduction to basic concepts in fluid mechanics, mechanics, properties of light, thermodynamics, and relativity and quantum mechanics.
The Wonderbook of Chemistry
The kids enjoyed this read of chemistry stories. No experiments required here.
First Studies of Plant Life
I’m moving this into the family read-aloud category next year for the first 18 weeks. There is no need to drag out botany across two years. I plan to do experiments with my 3rd and 5th grader from Apologia Young Explorers Botany at the same time.
Adventures with a Microscope
This is used across multiple years. They are interesting. I’m just going to revisit these microscope studies when we do high school biology and do one per week at that time.
Signs and Seasons
I’m also moving this into the family read-aloud category next year for the second 18 weeks. (Otherwise, it’s scheduled across three years, Y7-9). I plan to do experiments with my 3rd and 5th grader from Apologia Young Explorers Astronomy at the same time. We might do a few of the field experiments from the back of the Signs and Seasons book.
The lowest price I found was on christianbook.com. This is a Christian textbook.
The Great Astronomers
These are biographies of famous western astronomers in chronological order. I’m fine with keeping the readings as they are scheduled across Years 7-10 because they are lined up to match the history..
The Lay of the Land
This is a book of nature lore which my kids enjoyed. They are probably used to reading this type of book by now. I feel like there is something like this every year in the AmblesideOnline curriculum.
Other
How to Read a Book
A slow read across multiple years, but interesting concepts in how to read a book!
Fallacy Detective
The chapters were short and interesting. The questions at the end were helpful for a gradual and cumulative review of previous fallacies. I did all the questions orally with each twin; thankfully, the answers are in the back! We learned so much about logical fallacies.
The Story of Painting
This was an interesting read and reviewed our history a bit to start with ancient art. I did most of the reading aloud to all the kids, but towards Chapter 3, it became much more involved with the art explanations. I let the 13-year olds read it alone at this point.
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
I skipped this for all the content considerations. I will probably add it to their high school schedule.
Keep Going with Latin
We are still chugging through this book. We had to drop to one lesson per week, split into two sessions. This and the first book, Getting Started with Latin, are a very light and easy introduction to Latin. If you’re looking for a rigorous program, it’s not this one. That said, I’m satisfied with the level of Latin presented here for us, so we’re not aiming to do anything harder.
Shakespeare
We made it through two plays this year. I do have us read it aloud. They do complain, but the complaining is lessening every year as the reading aloud gets easier. I try to get multiple copies of each play at homeschool used book sales or at bookoutlet.com.
Free Reading: The Middle Ages in Literature
The Island of the Mighty
I enjoy Padraic Colum’s writing and added this book of Celtic mythology to the twins’ reading schedule. The last portion covers the legends of King Arthur which is why I took out Age of Chivalry.
Aside from all the extra historical fiction reads that we read and I’ve blogged about (listed in the next section), one of my twins read these two from the Free Reads list. The other twin didn’t find them interesting enough.
My husband read the Lord of the Rings series to my kids. Not even at my suggestion, he just wanted to! We had a Lord of the Rings themed year in 2024.
These were ones we tried and unable to complete (too boring, too hard). I even tried to read two of these aloud but it was a no-go for us.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
- Knight’s Fee
- The White Company
- Alhambra: Talkes and Sketches of the Moors and Spaniards
- The Talisman
Related to “The Middle Ages in Literature”
- Review of Medieval History in AO Year 2
- Review of My Father’s World: Rome to the Reformation (Ancient Rome and Medieval History)
- Middle Ages in Asia
- Pre-Columbian societies in Central and South America
- Chapter books about Renaissance Italy
- Middle Ages in Mali
- Mali Country Study
- Japan Country Study
- Mongolia Country Study
- Korea Country Study
- Italy Country Study