November 2, AO year 1, week 8

Well, we spent 1084 hours outside over the last year!  I'm very pleased that we actually got past the 1000 hours mark. I wasn't sure we would be able to get there, but we did!

Our new year started on November 1, with 0 hours outside, due to a chilly, dreary and gray Sunday (boy am I happy I don't live in BC. I would love the mild temperatures, but I don't think I could do gloomy for very long. We have many sunny days here in soon-to-be-frigid Manitoba!) and Fina having a bad cough and cold!

Here we are at week 8 of our first year of homeschooling.  I feel so blessed to have gathered an entire network of homeschoolers around me (seemingly all of a sudden). Some are here in town, others are not so very far away. A year ago, this network was not formed, and yet, here we are.  Let me encourage you. You might not think you will have homeschooling people around you, or parents who share your same ideals and values, but take a good look around and be open.  (Homeschooling or not. I am also so happy to have gathered an entire outdoor playgroup network of people as well. Again, you may think it is hard to find people willing to play outside, especially when you see the park etc empty, all the time. But look hard enough and be open, and you can find like-minded mamas!)
I am so happy!

Fina is pretty sick, but we will do some school work just the same.
We started with our morning prayer. Today is the day we remember all the people in our lives who have died. We remembered nonno Bis and baby Celeste Flavia. We lit a candle and remembered what we could about them (Fina didn't meet either of them, but those are the closest deaths she knows anything about).

On to section 19 of our Math - skip counting by 10s. She is doing well with this concept. We got to 100. There was a big chart that when to 100 and she wanted to test it out to see if it ACTUALLY is 100. So, she counted it patiently, one square at a time. And yes, in fact, it IS 100. It was incredible to watch! (Inquisitive minds want to know. I LOVE it!!!) She did all but the last page of section 19.

I wanted her to finish up the 19F, but she didn't want to, so it is better that we left it there!

We read Exodus 2:1-10 and Fina narrated - the story of Moses being put in the river in a basket. (This was her favourite story when she was a toddler).

We reread some poems from A Child's Garden of Verses." She learned the first stanza of "Night and Day" which is as follows:

When the golden day is done,
Through the closing portal,
Child and garden, flower and sun,
Vanish all things mortal.

She learned it quite quickly. We also read "The Flowers" and "Summer Sun."

On to the cursive letter c.  We can write cat, can, cab, cast, call and caw. She did a great (and stress-free and frustration-free, yay!) job with her letter c.

We read chapter 4 of The Burgess Bird Book, "Chippy, Sweetvoice and Dotty." Shout out of thanks to our friend E and her son S who loaned us their reprint copy of the book!

It is so funny that we seem to have less frustrations and fewer problems with our school work when Fina is sick. She just doesn't have the energy to fuss, I guess!

Sometimes I have trouble gauging (yes, I had to look that spelling up. "Gauging" is the Canadian / British spelling of the American "gaging." Both look strange written out to me, but I pronounce it with a long A) how much she is learning in a day. The good thing is I know she is retaining it, as much of what we learns comes up at the dinner table or other times throughout our days. I feel like we could do more in a day, but that might come at the expense of learning. I am happy with how today went. The flow was pretty good and there was a definite lack of frustration. So that is great. I am sure as we continue, we will be able to accomplish more and more in one day.