leading up to July 19

I meant to say that on July 7, I sent in our notification of intent to homeschool form to our provincial governmental homeschooling office. 7 minutes later I received a response, which was simply "Thank you."  That was easy! Exciting times!!! (On July 17, I received my official welcome email. Our number is in the mail!)

Fina took part in our local town festival. She rode her bike in the parade. She jumped a frog, "Hoppy," who hopped 4 feet in 3 hops. She spent a lot of time outside, running around with her friends. Great fun!

She even held Hoppy the whole time leading up to her jump. She did a great job!

She also "labelled" this frog, all herself. We need to do some classification work, I think. You'd think I would have taken this opportunity to do a little study on frogs, with proper labelling etc. I did not. And do you know what? I am ok with that!!!  😉

These last few weeks, Fina has done a lot of reading. We signed out a bunch of easy readers from the library, plus some other things we had here at home. She is absolutely loving it! Though she will admit after a bit that it is hard work and that she should stop. Which is great! I don't want her to be overtired. It is hard work for the brain to do for sure. But so rewarding.

We read Chapter 13 of Paddle-to-the-Sea, and chapters 14, 16 and 17 of our catechism program.

We have been reading Among the Meadow People by Clara Dillingham Pierson. In CM circles, this type of work is considered nature lore. Stories about characters that help with nature study. Fina is quite enjoying the sweet stories of these little critters. Our good friend L loaned us this book. We have the others in the series as ebooks.

She has done a lot of free play with blocks, this Ikea wooden board game, Camelot etc.

What I like about this two-player game is that there are no dice or anything, you just go!

We have also been spending a lot of time outside. For some strange reason, though southern MB has had A LOT of rain lately, the mosquitoes seemed to have disappeared. They come out only at dusk or in heavily treed areas. But out on the lawn, on the sidewalk, in the open, we are fine. Incredible! I am so thankful!!!

Fina flying a kite

On July 16, we read Lamb's retelling of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Many people say they prefer Lamb to Nesbitt, but for this play at least, I preferred Nesbitt.  Such a wide feast of opportunities. It is a good problem to have for sure! At any rate, we read it in preparation for the next day's fun thing!

On July 17, we got to see this performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream as part of the Winnipeg Fringe Festival. The Knavish Hedgehogs performers are a group of Winnipeg young people, many of whom were homeschooled. They are awesome! It was an incredible performance. I just loved watching Fina's face light up each time they hit a passage we knew. Such joy! And she laughed and laughed and laughed in all the right places. For this alone, homeschooling is worth it. Who would have thought that we could share this with a 7 year old?  Just incredible!

Here she is, just before the start of the performance.

We finished up reading A.A. Milne's book of poetry When We Were Very Young and we started his Now We Are Six.

Today is our outdoor playgroup. It is going to be ridiculously hot out there. I guess this is what is keeping the mosquitoes under control. If you live anywhere near us, be sure to drink lots of liquids and look for shade!

In Celsius, of course!

Thanks for reading!

lead up to July 7

Last week, Fina decided she wanted to take a week "off" from school.  Ha! And this week has been busy with this and that, outdoor playgroup, a long beach day and our local town festival starts today.

Since we have been home, we have been taking advantage of the relatively mosquito-free outdoors! Here are just a few pics.

Swimming in the ditches and culverts, like a good rural kid!

We've had quite a few beach days already. Fina is that pink blob in the middle of the water.

Look at that canola!

On Canada Day, July 1, my sister gave birth to a lovely baby girl, LE. Fina just LOVES her from a distance. "She is so cute. I wish I could hold her. I can't wait to see her. Look at her nose and tiny chin!" I know, family at a distance kind of sucks.

Since we have been home, we have been doing lots of bike riding and playing around town. The mosquitoes are only starting to hit now, so once our town festival is done etc., we will be taking advantage and getting back to some indoor school work.  Fina has also done a lot of drawing, painting, colouring, crafting.

Over the last few months, we have been doing a lot of reading aloud. Fina has also been doing a lot of reading. We will pick up our BOB books again, though I suspect she will start really flying through them now.  Fina has been reading anything she can get her hands on: signs, words on boxes, and she has read through a bunch of easy readers from the library.  "Mommy, it is really hard work to read! You really have to think about the words."

That is it for now!

Catch up of the last few months!

We are back! We have been back for a while, actually.

At the end of April, just before our vacation to visit our families out of province (in Ontario), we had Fina's 7th birthday party. This was her first party with friends and it was a lovely time. We had some snacks and muffins at our park and a bunch of her friends came. It was a wonderful time of free play.

Here are just a few of them, running around.

While we were away, visiting our families, we had many great outdoor experiences. Here are just a few of them.

My parents took us to this lovely park where Fina waded in this creek and climbed this hill. She was ecstatic! "Mom, I just climbed a mountain!" Poor prairie girl!

We got to see a swan on her nest.

Fina climbed this lovely magnolia tree.

Princess Leia fashioned this swing for Chewbacca.

Fina did some gardening.

We took a quick mini-break to Montreal.

Fina climbed along this entire temporary art exhibit 

for many blocks down St Catherine street.

We climbed up a real mountain (you know, comparatively!), Mount Royal. We went up to a lovely lookout, 300 steps up. 

Fina is in the green shirt. I was tired, about 2/3 of the way up, so I sat at a bench while Fina ran up to the top and back a few times.  The two ladies in front of her were too slow, so after a bit she passed by them, saying "excuse me."  Ha!

Because I was tired, she offered to carry our bags up the final flight. 

"Mom, you have been carrying these heavy bags all day!"

The view of Montreal from the lookout.

A group going core training at the lookout. Fina joined in from a distance!

Also in Montreal, we happened upon this large reprint of Rembrandt's Prodigal Son. Wow, were we ever excited!

Visiting grandparents. Fina made herself a nice store, complete with clothesline. She played for hours in that store.

Visiting the other grandparents, Fina got to swim in Lake Ontario!

It is so cold. I couldn't keep my feet in for more than 15 seconds and they would hurt. 

She would not be deterred!

And she swam in Lake Erie.  To actually swim in waves!

Port Dover, Lake Erie

We visited various gardens. The RBG in Burlington has a lovely "Imagination Garden" under a huge willow tree with building materials to build fairy houses. Fina's dream come true!

Fina got to have a one-hour horse riding lesson (courtesy of my brother's friend who owns this lovely ranch). She brushed the horse, learned to ride it (going forward, backwards, "whoa" to stop, and "steering" it. It was incredible!

A lovely park on the Niagara escarpment.

Fina did lots of bike riding. Here is my little prairie girl riding up rather steep hills. She had to get off and walk her bike only up the last 10 meters.

Fina also got to ride Jenny, an elephant!

Incredible!

Look at how cute and small the baby elephant is!

During our time in Ontario, we rode many trains, buses, planes and ate many ice creams! It was a great visit!

She lost two teeth while we were away and a third once we returned home. She has lost 5 baby teeth in total.

I will start another post with what has been going on since we have been home! Thanks for reading. We've missed you, blog followers!!!