First day of school!

Well, I had hoped to give you a summer recap post, but I haven't had a chance yet. I hope to do so. The short version is that we had a lovely Manitoba summer (without mosquitoes and with beautiful weather) and then we left for a visit with the in-law family to Florida (Disneyworld with the cousins was a highlight for Fina). Then we went to visit my family in Ontario for a few weeks and Fina got to enjoy lots of time with her two baby cousins. And now we are back home!

A cool thing: our local library got a flag that was flown on Parliament Hill in June.

In preparation of starting school today, I wanted to get back into a proper morning routine of spending some time in prayer and reading etc. Look what God had in store for me this morning.

- I read the beginning of Mark 1, which is what we will be looking at today in our Bible lesson. It is the story of John the Baptist. Fina will love it!

- The Cloud of Witness p 385, thanksgiving. "What shall I give THEE got all these thousands of benefits? I would I could serve THEE all the days of my life!" (Thomas à Kempis)

- I wanted to read a bit from my fancy new CMPEdition volume 1, CM's Home Education. I just picked it up where I had the bookmark (I have not read from here in a few months). I read the small section on "Hindering the Chidren."

The most fatal way of despising the child falls under the third educational law of the Gospels; it is to overlook and make light of his natural relationship with Almighty God. "Suffer the little children to come unto Me," says the Saviour, as if that were the natural thing for the children to do, the thing they do when they are not hindered by their elders. And perhaps it is not too beautiful a thing to believe in this redeemed world, that, as the babe turns to his mother though he has no power to say her name, as the flowers turn to the sun, so the hearts of the children turn to their Saviour and God with unconscious delight and trust. (CM, vol 1, 15-16)

-this led me to look up, in my fancy old SOTW volume IV, book IV, poem LVII:

“Of such is the Kingdom” (The disciple)

IN the Kingdom are the children; You may read it in their eyes;All the freedom of the Kingdom In their careless humour lies.

Very winsome are the children,— Say, whence comes it, their sweet grace?Small the pains they take for goodness, Scarcely know they Duty’s face.

Frail and faulty little lieges,—
Yet well-pleasing to their King:
Scanty thought they take to serve Him;
Yet the chosen Offering bring;

Ours, the weary long endeavour;
Theirs, the happy entering in:
Ours, to strive and wait and labour;
Theirs, to joy before the King!

“Except ye be as the children,
Have ye in my courts no place:”—
Lord, how meekly would we ponder
The glad secret of their grace!

Not in holy painful living;
Not in tears nor suppliant prayers;
Not in white days free from sinning,—
Not such sanctity is theirs.

What do they to take the Kingdom?
Only this leave they undone—
Suffering Christ the King within them,—
They in nought invade His throne:

On the children’s brows no witness
That themselves do fill their thought;
In the children’s hearts no strivings
That to them be honour brought.

Therefore finds the King an entrance; Freely goes He out and in;Sheds the gladness of His presence; Doth for babes great victories win!

All I can say is "Wow!"

We are using Mason's Alveary by CMI, doing 1A this year. Our schedule looks great! Another new thing is that we are leaving MUS behind and using Richele Baburina's Mathematics: An Instrument for Living Teaching, a CM Living Math. I am very excited to try this out.

I mentioned to Fina last night that I thought it would be a good idea to get dressed before starting school. But she really wanted to stay in her pjs. That is part of why she likes to homeschool, she says! And who wouldn't want to stay in their pjs if they were so comfy as these ones are?

We started our day with morning prayer and our Bible lesson.
Fina wanted to do math next, so we explored the numbers 1, 2 and 3. It went really well.
Recitation will work a little different this year. Each day, we will be reading through a different recitation piece. We started with reciting a hymn today. Fina really enjoyed trying to read in a beautiful way. She almost memorized the first verse. And reading the other verses was great reading practice for her.

We did some sol-fa work, learning Sol and Mi.

We reviewed some cursive writing.
I read a handful of poems.
I read and Fina narrated a portion from one of our current nature lore books, Dallas Lore Sharp's The Fall of the Year. It is quite different than other nature lore things we have read. It is very flowery and poetic, but Fina surpassed my expectations with her narrations.

We learned to sing "A Sailor Went to Sea Sea Sea." It is going to be fun when we add the clapping game to this one. This is a blast from my past!

We continued on with our Pio Peep for our Spanish lesson. I love that Fina is never reluctant to speak words in Spanish.

We went out for our outdoor playgroup and got to spend some time journalling about a spruce tree at a museum before our friends met us. We did no painting or sketching. We observed the tree carefully and Fina dictated her observations and I wrote them in her nature journal. This is really going to work well for us!

Thanks for joining us today!