February 29, a library day

I worked a full day at our local library.  We got a few pages of math done. Fina did a lot of flipping through books, helping at the circulation desk, drawing and listening to Paddington audio books. She was very calm and well behaved. (The library was calm, as we had a snow storm yesterday. I think people didn't go out if they didn't have to. So I shelf read a couple hundred dewey decimal numbers. 350-550. Fun!) She was able to do a few pages of her math work, 3E and 3F.

And she snowshoed her way to "work" and for an hour on her "lunch" break and then home again. She also stayed out for an extra hour playing before supper.

She drew this intricate map.

Listening to A Bear Called Paddington on the comfy couch.

A busy day, but a good day, all told.

Leading up to Feb 29

We have had a great time lately. Not a lot of school work, but certainly a lot of learning.

We finished reading Charlotte's Web. We were glad the ending wasn't as bad as we were fearing!

We have been skating at our outdoor rink. Fun!

On Thursday February 25, we had our third co-op meeting. It was a great day.

As we were about to start picture study, Fina said "Yay. Picture Study. This is going to be fun!" Isn't that great?

We learned about coniferous trees, specifically about Blue Spruce / Norway Spruce trees and cedars.

And we had a great outdoor play time.

They broke a patch of ice to see the rushing water below. So fun!

Horses during our walk on the creek

I asked what her favourite part of picture study was and she said recitation. We know where her loves lie for sure.

On Friday February 26, I made the executive decision to take the day off from school to enjoy the plus 0 weather. Fina and I were outside from 11 til 4 on and around the creek. It was so sunny and warm and beautiful and not at all windy.

We walked and walked and sat and played and built a snowman (a rare occurrence in the dry MB weather).

She loves to gather moss.

We took a long walk to what she has called "Peaseblossom Mountain."  We left the creek and crossed over a few fields and wooded areas to get there. (Our creek winds around a lot and this saved us a great distance.)

We had a little picnic here, out on the vast, open plains of the prairies.
Once we were ready to leave there, I had the idea to get back on the creek instead of walking through the deep snow on the fields. But when we got to the creek, I had absolutely no idea if we should go left or right and felt for a moment that we would be lost.  I said this to her and Fina said "why don't we just follow our footsteps back and go the same way we came." Very smart, Fina. Which we did. And a good thing too, because I later saw (while doing a google maps satellite view) that the creek winds around a bunch of times and the crossing the field path we took was way shorter in the end. Plus we might have gone the wrong way on the creek and we would have been even further away! There were only our footsteps to follow anyway. No one goes out there, unless on a snowmobile.

My daughter has a ridiculous amount of stamina and endurance. She is not afraid of walking great distances. She is not afraid of being out in the middle of nowhere. She LOVES it!

Fina also wanted to record a recitation of everything she knows so far. I fed her the titles in a whispered voice and she did the whole thing in one shot. Take a listen.



On Saturday February 27, we decided to take another trip out to the creek for a few hours. We brought some supplies from home to finish up our snowman.

And we had a great many other adventures. It was more cloudy and windy than the day before, but it was still great. A few friends came to meet us for a while as well.

Fina dug a little hole for herself.

She spent a half an hour carefully picking these rosehips.

We also saw a couple of gaggles of geese, flying home. Our first geese of the season. I guess our winter has been milder - it seems to me that this a bit early for them.

Fina went to a volleyball game with dad late in the afternoon. She came home beaming with a "we won, mom!"

Sunday was a busy day as always. And there was a real snow storm late in the day. We have woken up to a winter wonderland (and frigid temperatures).

Today, February 29, we've been asked to work at the library for the whole day. I will update on that later. I hope to squeeze some school work in there as well.

February 24, AO year 1, week 13

As always, we had a lovely day at our outdoor playgroup. It is so nice to have friends and friends who like to play outside. Just wonderful. We also finally went skating at our outdoor rink after supper. It was our first time this season and Fina was great. She just gets right on there and goes. It is incredible to me. We also got to see a lovely and large moon, on a clear, starry night. We had a great outdoor day!

Here she is with her friends playing on the creek bank.

In a local homeschooling Facebook group, a mom asked us to name a few things we are thankful for in regards to homeschooling. Well, this morning, Fina didn't have to rush to get dressed and eat breakfast. Instead, she was able to stare out the window with mom at the beautiful hoar frost on the trees, play with Lego for a long while, do some of an "I Spy" book, continue to prepare for a party she is hosting for a Pony's birthday, all sorts of imaginative play with mom (many pretend phone calls) and just play on her own using her own imagination. By now, her friends have been at school (and riding a bus to get there) for a long while already.  I am thankful! (I recognize that lots of moms do this with their kids before and after school. I am thankful that I don't have to stress myself out to try to squeeze these things around school time!)

Today we started our day by listening to some Schubert.

We did our Lenten devotional and our catechism session 8.

We sang the Holy together.

We did a timed math of 20 minutes, to see how much she could complete. She did 2E and 2F quickly (and correctly!) because she really wanted to start section 3. I guess the timing works in a way. She had time to also do 3A, 3B and parts of 3C and 3D.

We started our new folksong, "When the Ice Worm Nests Again." Funny and cute. We listened to a couple of versions.

We continued to the next passage in our "learn to recite Shakespeare" book. It is from Twelfth Night, I, v, 266-280. She mostly learned the first two lines. We reviewed one passage from each section of our memorization box. She also memorized Psalm 119:105. So far, she has two short psalm verses that she has memorized.  We read the next poem from When We Were Very Young, "Daffodowndilly."  It is a cute poem and she wants to memorize it next time.

We read "Bruce and the Spider" from Fifty Famous Stories Retold.  She narrated it well.

Fina asked, "are we still doing exams? I thought it was a whole term of exams." I'm glad she could say that without concern. So I explained that we do a term of 12 weeks and then one exam week and then another term of 12 weeks etc. She was happy with that.

We picked up our cursive again.  We fixed Fina's letter r, to make it look better. We noticed we were having trouble when she went to write "br" for "brat." If your r isn't correct on its own, it will not work after a b.

Br is ridiculously difficult to write, even for mom. We will continue practicing it.

We read a bunch of our current free read, Charlotte's Web. We have only two chapters left to read.
Fina also wanted to go out and skate again. She skated for well over an hour.
Dad came out after work and he was shovelling some of the rest of the snow-covered rink. Fina skated the word OPEN into the snow. Fun!

February 22, AO year 1, week 13

I finally got a shelf at our homeschooling spot near the table. No wonder a box and piles around it weren't working well. Look how much stuff I had right here!

We listened to some Schubert this morning.  We are using Spotify now, but I don't appreciate that, in the free version, they interrupt a track to give an ad. Annoying. Fina did some loom knitting while we listened.

We did our lenten devotions. Then we started reviewing our memorization box.  We reviewed one from each section. Fina wanted to learn one of our newer poems, "Independence" from When We Were Very Young. We also read a new one from their, "Market Square."

We reading the readings for this upcoming Sunday. We sang the psalm and read the readings. I had Fina narrate the Gospel reading, Luke 13:1-9, with the parable of the fig tree. She narrated it well.

We sang our new Holy and Memorial Acclamation. She sang along.

I read Chapter 8 "Vortigern and King Constans" and Fina narrated it well to me. We looked at the map of Europe to see where Britain and France and Rome (Italy) are.

We added our first bible verse to our memorization box, Psalm 118:24. "This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." She learned it quickly.

And we started section 2 of our math. Counting to 20. We did 2A, 2C2 and 2D. We will finish up next time.

We took our first look at Jacques-Louis David's Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine at Notre-Dame. I gave info about it, then we looked at it, turned it over and narrated it best she could. Next week, I will have her sketch something of it.

Leading up to February 19

Thursday February 18

Fina is very sick, with a bad flu. She is so drained and tired and just plain exhausted after a few hours.

She painted for a good portion of the day and we wanted to share her creations with you, our faithful followers.

Here are her paintings:

"The Rainforest" 

(to use up all the purple paint she had left on her palette.  All that talking about wasting paint works!)

"The Path"

This is a tiny canvas and easel (2.5 inches). Her inspiration for this was her friend SF's painting of a road going through the hillside.

"The Seamstress' Work" 

Mixed Media - buttons are glued on. The two things with white are spools of thread. 

The rest are balls of yarn.

"The Woof Woof"

painted on wood

"The Purple Sunset"

The sky is reflecting in the water

"The Snowy Night"

mixed media - the plastic snowflakes and the shell are glued on

"The Witch"

"The Planets"

Earth and Saturn

Friday February 19

This morning, we listened to some Schubert.   We started our Lenten devotions (we are a bit behind with that!)

We did some math. We finished up 1D and did Test 1. A good review of place values.  I'm so glad we went back and did Primer. I know I have said it a bunch of times. But Alpha lesson 1 doesn't give a lot of practice for place values. The work in Primer really helped her to know what she is doing.

In the extra math activities booklet, she did this and wanted to post a pic of it. (I think she may be getting into this whole blogging thing!)

It is a house.

Then she built other houses and castles (and a big Chartres Cathedral) with her manipulatives.
And then she worked on some handicrafts - she sewed a little pompom snowman as well as did some loom knitting. It is just that kind of day today!

Mom made the hat and sewed the pompon on.

Fina sewed together three pompoms to make the snow man and she stitched the eyes and carrot nose.

After a few days of being stuck inside, feeling under the weather, Fina finally convinced me to let her go out and play in the melting snow of plus 1 degree Celsius. So much fun!

I guess we will start week 13 next week!

February 17, AO year 1, week 13

We started reading our new free read, Charlotte's Web. We have read 3 chapters so far and Fina is liking it. Funnily enough, I have never read it. Dad read it when he was very young.

I read in a FB group about keeping a book of books. So dad gave us a nice Moleskine notebook. He had only used a few pages from it, so he pulled those out. The idea is to keep track of all the chapter books you read (starting with picture books would be too many for a little book like ours, but you could!)

I started with writing her 2015 books. As we finish reading a book in 2016, I will record it.

Fina has been very sick for the last few days, so term 2 will have a bit of a delayed / slower start.

As she was doing this and that this morning, I turned on our Schubert music (from my Spotify playlist). The first piece is Schubert's Trout Quintet. As soon as she heard it, she said "This is nice, mamma. It is pretty!" Yay! (I had to update my last post to include my new spotify playlist. Don't ask!)

We worked through our memory box system, doing one recitation from each section. She finished learning "Brownie" from When We Were Very Young.  And we read the next poem, "Nursery Chairs."

We started our next book in Math, Alpha. We watched the video for lesson 1, place values.  We did 1A-C as well as 2X from the extra book. This is all a review, but it was great.

That is it for today. As I said, a slow start!

Bonus: Fina thought she'd like to make a small decimal street for her pony's math class, to hang on the wall. How cute is this?

Decimal Street

Her tiny math pages on the bottom right

See Decimal Street up on the wall?

Gearing up for AO yr 1, term 2, week 13!

Now that our exam week is done, I'm finishing up  prep for term 2.

I have a few new goals for this term:

• add in folksong (properly)
• add in hymn study (properly)
• have her learn the titles of the pieces (Schubert this term), just like she knows the titles of the paintings
• do nature study, just do it!!!
• start the Baltimore catechism along with our catechism
• do lent stuff
• more intentional with geography
• more intentional with foreign language
• see about Our Island Saints - not really connecting with it
• Our Island Story - doing a recap of who we know, people use timelines etc?
• step it up with our free reads. I thought we'd be through them already (it is fine that we aren't, obviously!) and I have a bunch of "beyond free reads" as I like to call them, that I'd like to read as well. 
• start a one-yard wide timeline à la Laurie Bestvater (see this blog). She also has this accordion style version which I think is cool too.  Or maybe wait til year two to start a timeline at all. I don't know. I have to think about it some more.
• try some different things with our picture study. Celete at joyouslessons does it this way: week 1, show the piece and tell the name, size, media and date (plus any relevant details), quiet looking, cover and narrate, look at it again and discuss with it in front of us; week 2 sketch it (or a detail of it) while looking at it(?).  Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, in For the Children's Sake, says to study it, turn it over and narrate, look at it with interest, checking it again. Then sketch while looking at it. In both cases, the sketch could be of the whole or a detail of a part, whatever she wants to do.

Yikes. A wee bit lofty, but I do want to try to keep these things in mind as we start term 2.

I have a Spotify playlist all ready to go for Schubert. (You can listen along with us, if you'd like!) We had been having trouble with Brahms only because I had made my playlist in applemusic, but we were getting booted off when dad would turn on Beats 1 at work (or we were booting him off!). Either way, we'll give this a try. We really don't need a family subscription (rather than the single person one we currently have) to Beats 1 merely for composer study (which is the only time Fina and I use it)!

I have been keeping a Common Place book for myself. I have a few pages of quotes so far from my current reads (CM's volume VI Ourselves, Karen Andreola's A Pocketful of Pinecones and SSM's For the Children's Sake). I am enjoying doing that.

I have also been keeping up with my scripture writing plan, writing a verse a day as I mentioned here 10 days ago.  I have had to double up on the days a few times, but I am still caught up. I like it and could see continuing on with this and having Fina use it for copywork possibly as well as she gets older.

I'm looking forward to starting term 2 this week. Thanks for joining us!

Exam day 2! Friday February 12, AO year 1, term 1, day 2

Things I learned this time:

• Our Island Saints is also hard for Fina to connect with. I knew this as we went along. Although, when she heard the repeat of the Story of St Alban in week 12 from Our Island Story, she did remember hearing it way back in week 1 in Our Island Saints. So something did stick.  She chose to narrate St Molios, (I'm assuming because it was our most recent saint) and that was hard upon first listening. She gave a very rambly narration that had not that much to do with the story.
• she wasn't very keen on telling me about her favourite character from the free reads. No narration, no exam?
• she had a hard time remembering The Tempest. Of course, with A Midsummer Night's Dream, we've re-looked at it at co-op and she has memorized many passages from it and we have discussed it so much more.
• it was hard for her to remember any of the Aesop Fables. She narrated them well at the time, but she might not be getting the moral of the fable.
• I knew all along that she wasn't really connecting with the Burgess Bird Book. She have a narration of Dear Me, the last bird we looked at, and she did know something. But not to give detailed narrations like for other items.
• UPDATED TO ADD: Never, ever use Evernote again. This is not a glowing endorsement. I lost more than half of today's recorded narrations. Not good at all.

It is interesting to see where her strengths lie. Some of Fina's narrations are just wonderful! She can be so descriptive and so animated at times. At other times, she has a hard time.

During today's exam, she was far less focused, attentive, or co-operative than the first day. It took us two hours to cover less ground. I guess I need to spread the exam out in shorter chunks and on more consecutive days.

Fina didn't want to do the last two questions of the exam: handicraft and yoga. I can watch her do her yoga any time and I just watched her start a new length of finger knitting a few days ago, so I let it go.

Evernote disappointed me today as well. First, I hit a snag when my note itself was too large. So I had to create a second note to continue the work. Then, at the end of our exam, I got a notice saying I was hitting my limit and would have to wait another month for any more uploads. Seriously? I know Fina is verbose, but I did not expect this. I will have to rethink this for next time. Maybe little audio files that I later transcribe is the way to go. Now I have two files with audio clips and photos in each one. What is the point of that?

I guess for the final version, will just keep the transcriptions in a pages document. And the photos will stay on the blog and in our photo library. And I won't bother keeping the audio clips. So much for workflow.

Here are the questions and answers we did today. Again, not in their correct order.

Oh my. I just noticed that a bunch of our audio recordings got deleted (actually half of them) because I had exceeded my limit for the month. Thank you Evernote for not warning me, but for letting me continue to record audio clips and then just not have them appear in my note. This is unfortunate! I'm surprised I got as many as I did, actually. By some miracle some things stayed in my notes.

***********************************************

We started with a prayer. Next time I will pray over the technology as well!

This is how she narrated part of her day.

Tell about Gideon and his three hundred.

I lost this recording to a lack of space in Evernote which was unreported to me. It wasn't the best narration, but there was something about God reducing the number of soldiers by those who drank water like dogs and those who drank water with their hands. Then Gideon told them to go around the city with candles in jars and trumpets and to do what he did.
I am not about to ask Fina to re-narrate, so my memory will have to do. Gah!

Tell a fairy tale you remember from this term from The Blue Fairy Book.

Fina gave me a lovely and lengthy narration (I believe it was over 6 minutes long) of "Toads and Diamonds." It has also been lost. Double gah!

Tell me about one of your favourite Aesop Fables (and the moral).

Unfortunately, this was one of her weaker narrations, but Evernote caught them both.
First, she narrated "The Wolf and the Kid"

Once there was a kid and he (and he) and the kid went to a rock and then a wolf came and the little goat danced. Are kids and goats the same thing? The wolf said, what did he say? I'm trying to see what happens now. The wolf said "now I'll eat you." "Don't eat me, please don't eat me, Mr Wolf." He starts to get him but then two dogs found the wolf and chased him away and rescued the poor little goat.

Then, she wanted to narrate "The Boy and the Filberts"

There was a person, was it a dad or a mom? There was a dad or a mom who had a boy and said that he was so well behaved that he could get some filberts. So, he reached into a jar and he got a big handful of filberts, but he couldn't get his hand out. Whoever it was, yeah it was the mom, said to him "drop some." But he kept trying but he never got it and then he [big yawn] and then he. You should never take too many because your hand will get stuck.

Who was your favourite character from your free reads and why? Tell me a little bit about the character.

Fina told me about the episode where Captain Hook gets thrown to the crocodile in Peter Pan. Yes, I lost that one as well.

Tell about Horatius at the Bridge or Androcles and the Lion.

First, Fina decided she would tell me a random bonus narration, let's call it a creative piece, sort of a retelling about the fable. Why couldn't Evernote lose this one?

There was a bear, no I mean there was a mom. And she had a little boy and he was being so good that she said, "I think you should have some Filberts." So he went and put his hand in the jar, and bla bla bla and he put his hand in the jar, and after he put his hand in the jar, he took too many. He could have asked for a second helping. But he just was greedy instead of asking "could I have some more?" So his hand was stuck and they couldn't get it out. There wasn't a way.  They kept pulling, but he never got it. Even the mom said "drop a few. You can take some more. But just drop a few." But the boy wouldn't listen. He never ever got it. You should never take bla bla bla anymore to be greedy bla bla bla. The end.
[Oh my.]

Then, Androcles and the Lion.

She gave me a great narration of this one too. I can not believe I don't have it. It was one of her best narrations and I was so surprised she remembered so much of it. She told it in a wonderful way. She really can turn a phrase and tell a story. Sad. You will have to trust me on it.


Hudson

There was a guy named Henry Hudson and he was going to China. But I don't remember what he was going to China for. And he saw that there was another way to get there, but it wasn't right. He thought that there was another way to get to China then going all the way around. He thought that would be faster by going over the top. Thinking that the sun could melt the ice? Why would he think that?  But when they got there, it was much too icy for them to cross [long pause]. So he thought that that would be ok. He thought that maybe he went the wrong way for the pass that people talked about. But they got to another place that had Indians and pirates who stole all their things and then this guy named, what was his name? Something? He was bad. A French name. He said "let's throw the captain and his son overboard." And then they put him in the boat and they let him go but the ship turned away. And there wasn't even a mast or anything. And the boat couldn't move. Because there were no rows. Why were there no rows? You know, paddles? Why? So that the sea could take them wherever. One of the guys brought his books, which he loved a lot. Am I getting mixed up with Shakespeare [the Tempest]. So then what's his name could be the captain. They needed to eat moss on the island and the guy, what's his name, said that eating moss was worse than eating dry wood. They gave them lemon juice so they wouldn't get scurvy. Is lemon juice fruit? Is lemon fruit? But it's sour!

The Tempest

This wasn't a great narration. She couldn't remember much. She said more about it in Hudson than she did here. [Lost by Evernote]

So I gave her the option to narrate her favourite, A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Which was also lost. She narrated a lively tale, keeping the four human lovers straight, and bringing in Oberon, Titania and Puck. She gave the whole description of Puck, which she has given at Co-op and other times. Tipping the ale over their chins etc. It was a fabulous narration! Lost in the ether.

The Lord's Prayer and the Apostle's Creed

She was able to recite these without incident. Evernote caught them, which is useless for me. No need to transcribe those!

Which Saint did you most enjoy reading about? Tell me what you remember.

There was a guy named St Molios. And he had, and he was a guy, St Molios, and he and one night he was in the church yard but he saw a lot of angels carrying lanterns and, no, I mean carrying incense and they were singing. I don't remember what they were singing though. They were singing something. And they were in the church yard. What were they doing? They were in the church yard, putting incense on the people's graves who died. The people's graves who died were in the church yard, that's why. And St Molios was there to see them, because he thought that often dead people were sad. And he would go bless them? What was he doing, blessing them? And praying for them? So, he did that every day in the church yard. And every evening he went with the incense and every night he saw those same angels carrying incense and also lantern. And he might see them pass by with their lanterns. Who stole all his money and he said "quack, quack, quack, when shall I get my money back?" [Mom stopped the recording. Fina was just being silly. That is from a fairy tale.]

[I'm thinking she chose this one because it was the last one we read, though she didn't get much out of it the first time we read it either. A bunch of this is made up really.]

Find Italy and Switzerland on the globe. Or Find Lake Superior.
She was able to do all three things.

Tell about one of your favourite birds from The Burgess Bird Book.  

I had to prompt her with the names of all the birds, because she didn't remember. She gave an ok narration about "Dear me the Phoebe" which I also lost. She said he built his nest under the bridge, and Peter Rabbit had to lean over the bridge to see it. And he had a wife and babies. She said a lot more that I do not remember. Not the best narration, but fine.

Math
She did the Math pages I had reserved for the exam period and did them well. Though she is writing her 9s and her 3 backwards, all of a sudden.

Cursive - Write your name in your best hand.

Who was our painter this term? Describe as well as you can your favourite picture from this term's picture study.

My favourite picture study from Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot was "The Letter."
There is a lady and she is holding a letter in her hand. And she looks happy and sad. She looks very thoughtful. It is a girl sitting on a chair and she is reading a letter. And she's looking at a letter. And she has it in her hands. And she is wearing a green dress. She was in her house, but in a very dark spot.

We had a little discussion about his other paintings, go ahead and take a listen to the whole thing. She does remember (almost) all the paintings. [Sorry for the noise at the end.]



Well, technical difficulties and slightly bad attitudes aside, our exams went very well over all.
I learned a lot from them and I hope to be able to improve our situation this upcoming term!

She made this snowman with her MUS blocks.

In the afternoon, we watched the second in the series of the BBC Shakespeare Animated Tales, The Tempest, as a post-exam treat. She enjoyed it. And she got to go to another women's basketball game at dad's school, just the two of them.

Thank you for joining us for our first term. Next week, we will start term two. Mom has a bit of prep to do!

Leading up to February 11

On Wednesday, after school, Fina got out to play with her good friend K. They played from 4-8pm, without eating or anything.  A few bathroom and water breaks and that was it.

It was cold-ish day (a high of -19 C), but Fina got in quite a few hours outside, which is great!

On Thursday, we went to Kids College at dad's university. Fina has made a couple of new friends there and she is very pleased. It is wonderful to see the circle of friends growing.

In the afternoon, we went out to play again on the frozen river and in the forest there. We brought along our friend SF and explored some lovely forests along the frozen Rat River. It was a marvellous time.

Then we came in to the school to do some acrylic painting.

Here is her completed painting of David Bowie.