Around Christmas 2016

We haven't done much formal schooling around Christmas time, but we have done quite a lot of learning.

We have done a lot of reading lately.  We finished reading The Pink Fairy Book and have started on the Orange Fairy Book by Andrew Lang. Fina LOVES these stories! We read The Ox-Cart Man (again, we had read it years ago). We also read Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin. I highly recommend this one. It is very fun for winter!
Fina has been reading aloud to us (or to her ponies) frequently. Fina finished reading Tony's Birds aloud. Reading a few pages at a time, she got through it. I enjoy Millicent Selsam's early reader books very much.

We did chapter 15 and the Christmas section of our catechism book.

We are getting in A LOT of outdoor play time.  Here are a few snapshots.

She may be a bit dramatic.

snowshoeing in our yard

prairie girl mountaineering (on our parking lot snow pile, with a long skipping rope)

We have got to get her proper skis. These are plastic thrift store skis and they don't do much.

Fina has been enjoying watching this beed feeder. They tend to come for breakfast!

Fina has done a lot of watercolour painting and other art projects. She has been drawing, doing handicrafts, wrapping gifts for Christmas, listening to "Zecchino D'Oro" Christmas music, playing board games, just playing with this and that, and so much more.

We have been reading the Bible after dinner every night for a long while, but we are trying to be more intentional about it. Fina's homeschooling dad backed this version of the bible on Kickstarter a few years ago and it finally made it to print.  He has been reading to us from this Bibliotheca bible every evening since just before Christmas when it arrived and we have even been drawing names to narrate it. Fina enjoys listening to it and she continues to surprise me with her narrations. We started from the beginning and are still in Genesis. Biblioteca is interesting in that it doesn't have chapter and verse markings. And the 5 volumes are "proper" books, printed on nice non-wood paper, with sewed folios and cloth bound cover.

Fina has been wanting to cook and she made French Toast on Christmas morning. It was delicious (it was my first time ever making French toast. Who knows why I waited so long to try it!)

We also made our first tire-sur-la-neige (maple syrup on snow). Fun as always.

Here is the tiny art she did the week before Christmas that she wouldn't let me see. It was part of our Christmas present from her. For dad, she painted a little pig. For me she painted these lovely birds from Tony's Birds. My paper is just a couple of inches tall. She used a fancy thin marker and watercolours.

She got this mini knitting loom for Christmas and is working on knitting a tiny scarf for a pony on it!

My sister-in-law bought Fina all 5 Holling C Holling books for Christmas. Isn't it wonderful when people ask you what to get? I had given her a wishlist on Indigo.ca with all 5 books, telling her to choose a few (enough to get free shipping since we live 2500kms away from each other!) and she so generously purchased all 5! We are all set now for a good, long while!

I sort of pride myself in getting as much as I can used or free online, but the Holling books have eluded me at every used book sale over the last year and a half.  I have been signing out Paddle over and over again from the library. I am thrilled to have my own copy (of all of them)!

MOTHER CULTURE

My friend E, L and I have started a Manitoba Charlotte Mason group on Facebook and are hosting our first event, a gathering / mini-seminar in January. It is going to be great!

I have been waking up VERY early over the last few months, and on the advice of my good friend L, I am embracing it. Rather than uselessly spending my time on Facebook etc., I have decided to do some very focused reading (away from the distractions of other humans being awake in our house!). This is what I started doing in the mornings since just after Christmas:

• reading the readings of the day

• looking up said readings in Charlotte Mason's poetic writings based on the Bible, The Saviour of the World using the Logos app and Art M's linking them to their verses as explained here. (Art blogs at Charlotte Mason Poetry. I met him at the l'HaRMaS retreat and have been following his work since then. He is a busy man with a love of delving deeper into Charlotte Mason's writings.)

• reading the day's poetic verses and Bible verses in Edith Gells The Cloud of Witness.  Riverbend Press has put out a lovely reprint of it, but I'm currently using this free one online. Fina's homeschooling dad has ordered an old one for me as a late Christmas present from Abebooks.  I'm using Art M's calendar to follow along.  They have a facebook page set up for the Riverbend Press reprit here, and there you can find the link to the calendar.

• Fina's homeschooling dad and I have decided to read some writings of the doctors of the Church. (I'm not sure what took me so long to come to something like this. It isn't like I don't enjoy this type of reading. I just haven't been intentional about it. There was a lot of twaddle in my last few decades.) 

I would like to read Catherine of Siena's major treatise The Dialogue of Divine Providence and he is reading Thérèse de Lisieux's The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Two of the four women doctors of the Church.  The translations (from Italian and French respectively) that I have linked to above seem to be the best critical editions in English. 

I actually started reading Thérèse de Lisieux's work today and I'm hoping to read Catherine's as well. Both at the same time. We shall see!  I am also toying with the idea of simultaneously reading Catherine in Italian. This critical edition by Giuliana Cavallini (on whose work my English translation is from) is available online for some unknown reason (it is from the 1995) at the Italian website for "Centro Studi Cateriniani." 

Tonight, Fina's homeschooling dad thought to start Thérèse's autobiography aloud. Fina loved it and asked for him to read more. The beginning at least is written in a very conversational style, recounting stories of her childhood memories and was certainly understandable by Fina. What a life we have! 

• reading Charlotte Mason's works. I am currently reading volume II, Parents and Children. Both Fina's homeschooling dad and I are taking part in the Idyll Challenge, reading the 6 volumes over two years and each joining in a monthly video conference with a group of women (and he, with a group of men) to discuss the readings. We joined it in their fifth month. Art M had the idea to start it for men, and right away a sister group was started.  I am so thankful I was invited to take part it in this challenge when I was at the L'HaRMaS retreat in Ontario in the fall.

• other reading. I just am finishing up Megan Hoyt's A Touch of the Infinite: Studies in Music Appreciation with Charlotte Mason.  I had the pleasure of meeting her at l'HaRMaS as well.  A lovely woman and a wonderful book! I highly recommend it.  She talks of things practical, theoretical and philosophical. Her writing style is lovely.  I am following many trails she has put me on to see how I can improve our music studies. (She also wrote this lovely picture book which I bought at l'HaRMaS, Hildegard's Gift. Fina and I have enjoyed it and read through it a few times. The illustrations are wonderful and Fina has been inspired to imitate the drawing style.) I'm not sure what I will move on to next. Possibly Anne White's Minds More Awake: The Vision of Charlotte Mason which I have as an ebook. I also met Anne at l'HaRMaS. She is the sole Canadian on the AO advisory.

• typing. Amblesideonline has a section of their forum dedicated to transcribing various Charlotte Mason or Charlotte Mason related works that are within the public domain so that they can be compiled and edited etc. I have done a few paragraphs of typing. I don't mind typing, when I have the time. And I feel like I'm giving something back to this wonderful CM world.

• common place journal entries. All of the above items are fair game. I have made more entries in just these past three days than I had made in the last long while!

All this I have done this week, in the stillness, quiet, calm and dark hours of the early morning, to the light of a candle, with a nice cup of tea, sometimes a breakfast-y snack, sitting on the couch, just savouring and enjoying the new day that God has given me.

To those of you who know my daughter, she is pretty "present" when she is awake. Yes, she will play on her own, but one knows she is here when she is here! I love her and I love interacting with her, and with Fina's homeschooling dad. But these quiet times are such a blessing to me. I feel so much better starting my day in this way.

I have tried to read in the past, but it is difficult with the distractions around me. Others can tune them out, but I can't really. So this is working wonderfully for me. I hope to be able to keep it up! I already can see the fruits.

I am planning to start our schooling back in earnest next week. Three weeks off is quite a nice break!