skating and skiing!

This week, we learned about rhythm in our Sol-fa lesson. Fina wrote out the rhythm for the poem "Peas Porridge Hot." The Zs are to represent quarter rests.

We have taken up our piano lessons in earnest and things are going very well.

Skiing

and

Skating! 

Zoom in and look at the love in those closed eyes! 

We don't have trouble getting out to play in all kinds of weather, but we haven't gotten our act together for picking up with our nature journalling.  It is too cold to take my hands out of my mitts to write our entries. I need to figure something out. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated

We are making our way through Mapmaking with Children by David Sobel as part of our geography lessons. We have been doing the hands-on activities of building models, making maps and creating treasure hunts. Fina has taken to this and made a treasure hunt for me, writing down clues and having me follow them, as well as drawing a map with me having to follow the arrows on the map to follow the path to the treasure.

Fina took some scraps and sewed a blanket, a pillow and a mattress for Alfred. And she has been picking up her knitting and her crochet regularly throughout the week.

Not that serendipity is a driving force in my life or anything, but it is lovely when it happens. This morning we were reading in Calico Captive about a May Day celebration, where the habitants put up the may pole and tells about all the festivities surrounding the holiday. And then, during our history lesson from Brown's The Story of Canada, we read about the feudal system equivalent brought about in New France, with the seigneurs, the habitants and the very May Day celebration. You can't plan things to work out like this!

starting term 2

We had a great first day on Monday. We've finally gotten around to doing some mapping. We started by building a model (with wooden blocks) of Fina's room and hid a bunny on the model and hid another of the same little bunny in the corresponding place in her room. Then she hid the bunny for me to find etc. It was fun!

We already finished Because of Winn-Dixie. We loved it. Such a sad and sweet story. We now started Kate DiCamillo's The Magician's Elephant. We are about halfway through it and it is such a great story as well!
We also started reading the D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. Fina loves it, of course!

It is freezing cold here. There were some beautiful sun dogs to be seen on Monday. I was going to take Fina skiing, but I just could not bring myself to do it. So we stayed in!

We started up our piano lessons on Tuesday. It went really well!

On Wednesday, the weather started warming up and Fina spent a bunch of hours outside skating, and then playing in the snow, with her little friend.

On Thursday we had a very time outside in the (warmish) afternoon with a dozen or so friends at the museum and on the frozen creek. Fina was glad to see (some of) her friends again!

And on Friday it was above zero celsius and we went for a lovely walk on the slushy creek.

Fina is continuing to enjoy The Wanderings of Odysseus. With the start of the second term, we started with our new artist (Constable) and composer (Handel, we are listening to his Messiah). Fina painted, worked on her math, started new recitations of two Bible passages, a hymn and a poem, started with a new hymn for singing and a new folksong.

On the weekend, Fina skied and skated and had lots of fun outside.

Here she is with a little group of friends, climbing the bank of our creek. 

It is like a mountain to these prairie kids!

And this morning, before school, she finished stuffing and sewing this little pig. Isn't he cute?

Christmas break!

We had a lovely trip over Christmas to visit both sets of grandparents in Ontario.

After we finished her Tale of Despereaux, we read Kate DiCamillo's The Tiger Rising. It was a bit mature for Fina, in its themes, and given the chance, I would have waited a few years before reading it.

We read Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson and the final chapters with Francis of Assisi were so incredibly moving. I wasn't expecting it.

Fina's homeschooling dad read DiCamillo's The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane outloud to all of us at his parents' house. Fina's cousins and aunt really enjoyed it. The adults were crying at the end.

Here are some pics from our travels.

She got to skate in a brand new, state-of-the-art outdoor rink in Ottawa.

And she built this fort with nice, non MB sticky snow!

And in Hamilton, she got in lots of outdoor snow time with her little cousin.

sledding with her baby cousin!

And she got to feed lettuce to nonna's bird. She loved it!

We have been home for a few days now and are looking forward to starting back to school this week.

Fina painted this detail from a book on Egypt.

Neat, right?!?!

Happy new year, dear followers!