October 19, AO year 1, week 6

Well here we are at week 6, the last week in the first half of the first term of the rest of her life!

We prayed our morning prayer together. We started with our cursive. She is really enjoying it right now. We have learned that sentences start with an upper case and end with punctuation. We have learned the period and the question mark. We have written our first sentence "Sam sat." and our first question "Sam sat?" I wanted Fina to practice all her cursive letters, so I wrote them in upper case print for her to "translate" into cursive, and she asked me if she could write a word that used all the letters we know so far.  Well, I couldn't find one that uses all, but I did find one that uses all but "s" and "x" -- Samantha! Very exciting, for she had a little friend Samantha who used to live across the street.

"Why the Sea is Salt" from The Blue Fairy Book. She narrated it back quite well, after one reading, straight through without stopping.

Math. 15F, 16A and 16B. She is "getting it" much better now. At least we aren't getting frustrated any more. We will continue to work on 0-20.  She is very quick at knowing her doubles, 1+1=2, 2+2=4, 3+3=6, 4+4=8 and 5+5=10. So that is great!  She doesn't always need to use the manipulatives, so that is great as well.

Poetry: Fina recited all her poems to me. We re-read "The Unseen Playmate" and read for the first time "My Ship and I." She loves poetry. She really does.

We spent a few minutes doing our artist study.  We looked and talked about our painting, "A View near Volterra" and then I covered it up and she told me all she could remember. She did very well with this today.  Neither of us could remember the horse rider's coat colour (blue). When we looked at the painting again, around the bend on the path there is what mom thinks is another human, and what Fina thinks is a bear. "The horse and rider are going to be surprised when they turn the corner and hear a loud rrrooooaaaarrrr!" she says.

Art influences writing (see the continuation of Fina's story).

She has finally asked to write more of her story. Here is the continuation from last time (which was a few weeks ago). I'm repeating chapter 2 in its entirety, to refresh your memories.

*****CHAPTER 2

But Squirrel Nutkin said “where is our baseball bat and our baseball ball?”  And Jeremy Fisher said “you’re right.” And they looked together. And there was no sign of the baseball bat and the baseball ball. So they said “why don’t we just go inside?”  On the way inside, they saw a snail and they said “ hi, little snail, do you want to come live with us?” The snail nodded and said “yes, please, I’ve been looking for a home, but you better put me in a cage because maybe I’ll make slimy marks.” 

They made the cage out of hay, but then they forgot to put a window. So they cut open a space and put a glass window in it. Then the snail said “ouch” and then they looked. The snail had pricked himself on the hay. So they made it out of some flat wood instead. The snail said “thank you Jeremy Fisher and Squirrel Nutkin.”

Then Squirrel Nutkin and Jemima Puddleduck said “there is no sign of your baseball bat and baseball ball.” So JF said “shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” They all see a sign that says “Free baseball and baseball bat here.” [here starts the new part].  Then they wanted to get one so they asked “how much does it cost” to each other. They realized it was one penny and they went inside to get one penny. “OK” said Jemima Puddled and “ok” they all said. So they went inside and they bought it. And then Jemima Puddleduck said “shhhhhhhhhh” because there was a bear. And then, when they turned the corner, what they saw was “rooooaaaarrrr.” Because there had been a bear. And they ran home. But the bear blew down their house. But the snail’s cage was still there. Jemima Puddleduck said “never mind. We’ll make a new house.” So they made a new house out of twigs.

*****

And, look. Happy math!  We had seen a pic of a child's volcano made out of MUS manipulatives. So, she wanted to make her own (as I wrote up this blog). It is very tricky, as the blocks don't really click together like Lego. (and it's a wee bit lopsided. No matter!)

That is it for this morning.
Today is election day here in Canada, so we will be heading out to vote together later on. Fina knows the green (we know our local candidate) and the red (Justin Trudeau) and the blue (Stephen Harper is our prime minister). No interest in the orange, I'm not sure why, she just doesn't have anything to connect herself to them.

Fina also wants to go to the park and work on some of her acrylic painting. This might be the last time before the winter hits that we can actually do this outside!

Thanks for starting week 6 with us. Tomorrow we have our outdoor playgroup, so no schooling for us. We are looking forward to it.

UPDATE:

We did get to paint at the park. It was such a lovely day. We were glad to spend a few hours outside at the park.  And a friend and her mom joined us for a few hours as well.
If you know Fina, you know she is ALWAYS hosting birthday parties for her stuffed animals. This became a happy birthday painting for Acorn, her stuffy chipmunk.

Yes, she is holding a painter's palette.  Too funny!

And we did get out to cast our votes in our federal election.

Very serious business. Well and the sun made it difficult to smile, I guess.

Fina had a keen interest in politics this year (hopefully she will continue with this when she is older). She knows who is the leader of which party, the colours (red, blue, green. For some unknown reason, she had no interest in orange), she knows that Harper was the current Prime Minister. She watched part of two debates (the leaders' debate as well as our local candidates') and was very excited about the whole thing.  She asked one of our friends (the mom of one of her little friends) how she was going to vote. The kindly mom took her into her confidence and told her. Later, F to me "why is it so private? Why can't you tell your friends how you will vote?" I brought her to the little booth with me ("why do you have to hide behind here to vote?") and picked her up so she could see my ballot going into the box.  I believe she will be quite pleased this morning to know that Trudeau and the "reds" won in Canada (though she would have voted green! Not only because we know our local candidate, but also because she is a fan of nature)!