Going on hiatus

Fina and I are going away for a bunch of weeks (dad is staying home!) for a couple of family weddings and more. We will be doing lots of reading aloud, lots of Fina reading aloud, some work on our cursive writing, and we plan on doing A LOT of nature study. We are going to southern Ontario and are looking forward to enjoying some of the fall colours we don't see as easily in Manitoba.

There probably won't be any updates on the blog until we get back. So stay tuned and have a wonderful continuation of autumn!

Here is a pic from our thanksgiving wiener / marshmallow roast with our friends J and J

Chilly co-op October 7

We had our 8th Co-op time today. It was VERY cold, even for us Manitobans. It was damp and drizzly, but the kids were troopers.  We were able to cover everything we wanted to. We had to change our nature study from our regular paint-something-you-see to a spoken nature narration. They did a great job explaining what they had found for their nature study.

Afterwards, we built ourselves a nice fire and roasted some marshmallows while the children played.

It was a great day! It is such a blessing to have friends to share these moments with. It is incredible to learn together.

Here are some pics. I didn't get many as my fingers were frozen! We even got a bit of snow.

Fina RUNNING to meet her friends who were arriving

Picture study - a Rembrandt Self-Portrait

some phys ed!

The dying embers of our fire

Thanks for joining us!

Outdoor playgroup and October 6, AO year 1, week 19

A year ago today, we officially started our outdoor playgroup. It started with a few moms and kids getting together to go outside and play, and then, a year ago, we decided to promote it within our community. At our highest days, we have had over a dozen moms and over two dozen kids.

It has really been a wonderful year! It has been an awesome place for Fina to stretch out and grow, to try new things we would NEVER had even thought to try on our own and to spend some quality time, playing freely in nature.  Here are some pics that show her in different environments and seasons. A handful of these pics were not taken at our outdoor playgroup, but for the most part, these are the kinds of things we do. I can not tell you that strong friendships that have been made here. Incredible. Check out this year in review. It's a pretty good year, I'd say. I'm so thankful for homeschooling. It has really allowed us to spend this kind of time out in nature.  (Here is my chance to remind you of the 1000 hours outside website too.)

Sometimes, I just can't believe how blessed my Manitoba life really is.

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We started our school day today with listening to some Schubert over breakfast.

We have been reading from Lang's Pink Fairy Book every day, either in the mornings, or at bedtime, or both. They are many Japanese fairy tales in this collection, and we have been enjoying them.

Fina did some handicraft throughout the morning. Surprisingly, today, she was able to concentrate on her narrations while doing this handicraft. (The handicraft is a surprise hat for her baby cousin, L. So, T, don't let on you know!)

I read Joshua chapter 3, the crossing over the Jordan to the promised land. Fina gave an excellent narration.

From Now We Are Six, I read the two poems "King Hillary and the Beggerman" and "Swing Song."

Fina recited "What country friends is this" perfectly, in time for tomorrow's co-op. And she was able to *nearly* perfectly recite "Out o' tune, sir" as well. We will continue working on that.

We sang our folksong, which she actually participated well in today.

We reviewed direction, north, south, east and west, comparing them to our house. She did great!

I read two nursery rhymes from our Italian book, "L'omin di panpepato" and "La gallinella rossa." She enjoyed them today.

We sang our hymn, "Canticle of the Sun." She participated well in this today as well.

We read the story of Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale" from Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. I knew nothing about this story. I read it in chunks and Fina gave some wonderful narrations from it.  We read the whole thing.

Fina read a few pages of "The Gingerbread Boy" aloud to me. She is doing a great job with her reading.

Fina did 9F from her math, as well as the extra activities for lesson 9. She is ready to take her test for this lesson, adding +9.

Throughout the morning, she finished the hat.

Is she happy or what?

She has now begun on loom knitting a matching scarf for baby L.

It is so cold here, we are both feeling very wimpy about the temperature today. It is plus 6, feels like plus 2. We have a few errands to run this afternoon, and I was planning on going outside to play and to do some nature study. But I think we will bake something warm and yummy instead.  We aren't usually afraid of the temperature, but we are just taking a wimp day today. Do not be afraid, we won't be like this often!

October 5, AO year 1, week 19

This morning we went outside after breakfast and counted 50 worms in our parking lot and 11 on the sidewalk. 61 worms. Such fun!

This was the longest one we found. Probably 25cms.

I read Proverbs 1:8-19 and Fina narrated it.
We did chapter 3 from our catechism book.
We sang through our hymn, "Canticle of the Sun."

I read some of the geography things scheduled for this term. I read the poem "The Sailor Boy's Gossip" from Charlotte Mason's Elementary Geography. And I also read and we worked through "How the Sun shows direction" from Long's Home Geography.  She learned the four points of the compass and where they actually are in our house / town / world. She did a great job with this!

Fina recited "What country friends is this" which she knows perfectly. She learned basically the entire four lines of our new passage, from Twelfth Night. She amazes me at times.

I read the story of "Casabianca" from Fifty Famous Stories. Fina narrated it very well.
We sang our folksong, "My Paddle / Land of the Silver Birch."
From Now We Are Six, I read the poems "The Good Little Girl" and "A Thought."

We learned our last lower case cursive letter, the letter "k." On to the upper case letters.

Here is her whole alphabet.

We read "The Fox and the Stork" and "The Travelers and the Sea" from Aesop's Fables. Fina narrated both very well.

I read the fairy tale "Il lupo e i sette capretti" from our Italian story book.

Fina did lesson 9E from her math.
She read me three pages from Plenty of Fish.

Fina spent the afternoon playing out in the cold with her little friend T. It is only 11 degrees celsius here.

October 4, AO year 1, week 19

I am reading through Charlotte Mason's Volume VI A Philosophy of Education. I had read more than half of it as an e-book. Then my friend L loaned me her copy and I started from the beginning. L then found me 5 of the 6 volumes at the used book sale, you will remember, and I continued reading from where I had left off.  As I found a quote that caught my attention yesterday, I added it to my Commonplace Book.  Here is the quote:

We forget that it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live, -- whether it be spoken in the way of some truth of religion, poem, picture, scientific discovery, or literary expression; by these things men live and in all such is the life of the spirit. The spiritual life requires the food of ideas for its daily bread.

As I flipped through my Commonplace Book, I saw that I had already quoted this passage the first time I read it. It must really be important to me, for some reason. I think it is because it equates "word" with all creative output, poem, picture, science, literature. I thought that was kind of neat, though funny.

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This morning, Fina came to cuddle in bed with me and we read two stories from Lang's Pink Fairy Book, one of our current free reads.
Over breakfast, Fina requested to listen to some "Zecchino D'Oro," so we did.
We sang our hymn, "Canticle of the Sun."
I read the story of Jonah and the whale (Jonah 1:1-2:10) and Fina narrated it in chunks and did a good job with it.  She asked if a big fish ACTUALLY swallowed Jonah. I told her she should ask her friend, uncle C (a Biblical Studies scholar, who is a professor colleague of dad's).

Fina recited all of our Shakespeare passages. She did a great job. I recited some of them that I could remember!  We started our new passage, from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night Act II, Scene iii, lines 113-115, spoken by Sir Toby Belch:

Out 'o tune, sir? Ye lie.
Art any more than a steward?
Dos thou think, because thou art virtuous,
there shall be no more cakes and ale?

She learned the first line and part of the second line of the passage.

I read "The Little Black Hen" and "The Friend" from Now We Are Six. I reread three of the previous poems.

We sang "My Paddle," the first part of our folksong. And then I sang the first verse of "Land of the Silver Birch." Our folksong melds these two together.

I read "The Armadilloes" from Just So Stories by Kipling. Fina narrated it in chunks. It is a cute story.

Fina did 9B, 9C and 9D of her math, adding +9. She gets it, which is great!

We did our picture study, looking at Jacques-Louis David's "Death of Socrates."

Fina was very insightful. She saw the handcuffs, thought they were in jail, that people were crying, and someone was giving him water and he wasn't sad - he was going to take it and drink it. And she saw the people outside of the room in the background.  To think, the first time we did picture study, she freaked out because she couldn't remember anything!

She learned the cursive letter "q".

And she read a couple of pages of Plenty of Fish aloud to me.

This afternoon, we had our outdoor playgroup. The kids had a wonderful time!

October 3, AO year 1, week 18

Now I know why people don't easily allow for subscribing to blogs (and many of the emails I get for blogs I am subscribed to don't include the whole post, just a snippet with "read the rest by clicking here.").  Because when you read my blog entirely from the email you get, it doesn't register as a "view" on my blog stats. So, now, though more of you are actually reading my blog regularly, my blog stats show that no one has read my last few posts. What a conundrum!  I know that the big bloggers use fancy software (or something) to promote their posts to their subscribers. And they post on FB, etc as well. Maybe Blogger was just trying to look out for us small bloggers by not making that "subscribe to me by email" button so easily accessible.

At any rate, if you are reading this, stop by my blog and drop me a comment every once in a while. Even if it is just to say hello!

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On Saturday we went to the forest and meadow to gather some items to paint. And we painted on the ski bridge.

This is what Fina painted. 

White sweet-clover, "melilotus alba." 

It does smell like vanilla.

We spent some time sitting and playing in the meadow.  And we finished reading Little House in the Big Woods.

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This morning, Fina started with listening to some Schubert over breakfast.
Fina recited her "What country friends is this." She really has it now. We could start our next Shakespeare passage.

I read "Down by the Pond" from Now We Are Six. We also listened to the last bunch of poems as read by Peter Denis on audiobook.

I read Joshua 1:10-18 and Fina gave a great narration of it.
We sang "My Paddle."
I read George Washington and his Hatchet" from Fifty Famous Stories Retold and Fina gave an absolutely excellent narration.  We also read "Doctor Goldsmith" from there and, again, her narration was superb. I was impressed.
We sang our hymn "Canticle of the Sun." Fina actually sang the whole refrain and first verse by herself. Which is a feat, in and of itself.
I read two Aesop's Fables to her, "The Lion, the Bear and the Fox" and "Hares and Frogs" and her narrations were wonderful.
She did a bit of a cursive work.
We went on to our next math lesson, adding +9 and she got it quite easily. She did 9A and a bit of 9B.
We did chapter two from our catechism book. There was a bible passage in there that I read, and, on the fly, I asked her to narrate it when I was done. Her response? "Mom, I didn't know I was going to have to narrate. I wasn't really listening."  Aha!!! CM is right!!! I learned a huge lesson from that myself.
She read a couple of pages from Plenty of Fish and continues to enjoy reading aloud to me.

We went to play on the museum grounds for the afternoon. I had brought our nature journalling supplies, but we ended up having some friends join us, so Fina didn't end up doing her nature study, which is fine. Her friend S did paint a leaf.  But they played and played and had a marvellous time. We certainly enjoyed the mild weather today!

I painted these two specimens plus a landscape, while listening to A Delectable Education podcast. I listened to the two episodes interviewing John Muir Laws, here and here, which were certainly apropros as I was doing nature journalling myself at the time. It was a GLORIOUS way to spend an afternoon!

The yellow leaves are from the tree on the left. A Manitoba Maple, I think. 

And on the right is the Red Osier Dogwood.