AO year 1, week 24, January 16

I didn't post Fina's artwork for our church's "Keep Christ in Christmas" event. The kids all bring some art showing something about keeping Christ in Christmas and they have a little pizza party with games to celebrate. The art work is later judged by age category and the winners get a little prize. Well, when Fina was 4.5, this was her entry (she won a $10 gift card to Indigo).

We had written this description: The stars that brought the wise men to Jesus. The cross is to remind us that Jesus loves us (hearts). The music is from the angels. See the little angel at the bottom?

This year, at 7.5 years old, she entered this.

A few notable elements: The hay of the manger (below the manger) spills into the glowing cross.  Those are camels in the top right. Mary is kneeling at the manger and kneeling at the cross. Spot the two doves, representing the Holy Spirit (at each event, I guess.) And the heart of Jesus, bleeding with a crown of thorns, I think? The coloured things around the heart are rays of light with the people that Jesus loves, all different people.  We had gone to a talk at church before Christmas, a faith formation for adults (which Fina sat quietly and coloured through) and the pastor spoke about how without the cross and the resurrection, the birth of Jesus isn't anything special. We sang "Wood of the Cradle, Wood of the Cross" during that evening and we have had many lively discussions about that. Well, this piece of art is the fruit of such thought!

She won her age category again. She will receive her prize on Sunday.



On our way to the city yesterday, Fina spent some time working on her fingerknitting handicraft.

Yesterday, we also got Fina a pair of skis and we went out to ski for half an hour in the dark.

Fina also got a little Betta fish.  She has been wanting to have one to match nonno and nonna.

And yes, the two fish did FaceTime (a long standing dream of Fina's.) You will see our fish, Jim Shore (Jimmy for short) in the upper left hand corner of this screenshot.

This morning, we started with feeding our little fish, Jim Shore aka Jimmy.

And we listened to some Schubert over breakfast.

I read Matthew 2:1-12 and Fina narrated it well.
I read "Market Square Dog" from the James Herriot Treasury. It is a sweet story and Fina narrated it very well.
We reviewed a bunch of Shakespeare passages. Fina knows them all very well. We read aloud together the Parable of the Sower.

We started our next math lesson, lesson 12 (adding doubles) and Fina did lessons 12A and B.  The only two doubles Fina doesn't really know well is 6+6 and 7+7, but she is learning those!

We sang together our folk song.

We read "Grace Darling" from Fifty Famous Stories.  We looked her up on wikipedia and we saw a photo of the monument to her. It is quite a neat story.

Photo Creds

Fina reviewed her upper case cursive letters from A-L and we learned M and N.

We sang our hymn together.
I read poem 75 from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse, "Time," by John Huddlestone Wynne.

Fina read "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" from The Treadwell Primer to me. She is doing a wonderful job.

We did chapter 5 from our catechism book, looking at Ordinary Time.

This afternoon we went to the park for Fina to have a good workout with her skis. We were out for two hours, 1 hour and 45 of which she was on her skis! She LOVED it!