October 9, AO year 1, week 4

Oh my, today wasn't the best. Of course, it was the first time dad was sitting right here, near us, on the computer. Not good!

Realistically, it was fine. We just had a bit more whining and complaining around the cursive time. We need to keep working on that. (Having dad sitting here is kind of like having a video camera on you. You realize that things do not look pretty!)

She did some cursive h. It is a tricky letter and she will do fine. She just needs to concentrate to make it happen.

The we read Genesis 25:27-34. She narrated Esau giving up his birthright for a bowl of lentils and some bread to Jacob fine.

Then we did some poetry. We read "The Looking-Glass River" and "Fairy Bread." She now can recite "Rain," "Singing," "Happy Thought," "The Cow" (almost) and "Time to Rise" (almost). We also started learning "Fairy Bread" to recite, though that one is difficult to recite.

We moved on to Chapter 2 of the Burgess Bird Book, "The Old Orchard Bully - the Sparrow." She was able to narrate that after an entire reading. These stories are quite cute.  They are descriptive (which gets lost in narration), but the story itself is funny and the characters are memorable.  We looked up both the Wren and the Sparrow in our brand new Saskatchewan and Manitoba Nature Guide!  There is a series of field guides put out by Lone Pine. (Thanks to our friend E, for suggesting it to us. I found it to be the cheapest at indigo.ca at the moment.) We also finally bought our Handbook for Nature Study which will last us through all of homeschooling. In CM circles, it is like the Bible for Nature Study.  Nature study, here we come!

And then she did some more math. 14 C and 14 D. She is still getting confused with the teens (not easy), so I've been randomly drilling her on 10, 11, 12 and 13. 14-19 make more sense in English!

That is it for today.

Oh, and the last two nights the aurora borealis was supposed to be visible in our part of the world, but it has been so terribly cloudy that I haven't been able to see it, though I have woken up a couple of times to check it. I had a dream the other night that we were at church and Fina and I saw it and I was excitedly telling Fr D (our pastor) that it was our first time seeing it. Does that count?