Back to school!

We started back to school last week!

"How do we make our nature walk and journalling time shorter?" asked nobody ever! We had our first nature walk this week, on Monday (I couldn't get myself organized enough to actually take Fina on a nature ramble last week. She got in hours and hours of outdoor play, but either with her friends or with me, but without any journalling).

We went down to the creek and I asked her to wander a bit to find something that would catch her fancy.  Fina found a tiny clam (she loves clams!) and painstaking painted one half of its shell, from the convex side and from the concave side. And look at what she had me write!

This first photo shows three 3 images - the first is Fina's painting of the outer side of the shell, the second shows the painting of the inside of it. The blue splotch was Fina trying to trace the clam with paint -- the paint ran, she worked furiously to try to contain it, and then to wash the paint out of the paper etc. She was a bit upset as this was her new journal, but she did not get frustrated (which completely surprised me. I expected her to cry!) and decided it would be a lovely colour for a background and traced her shell in pencil. She really wanted to depict the actual size of the shell. I told her that next time she could draw just the outline with a really fine brush (without tracing, but free hand.)

We were out for 2 hours that afternoon. We had a lovely ramble and a detailed observation time, with lots of discussion and enjoyment and gazing at God's splendour, focusing on a tiny clam shell that is only1cm in diameter.

And on Thursday, she did these brush drawings during our nature time, with ample written narrative as well. (It was freezing cold, windy with such a terribly cold northerly wind blowing on us. But Fina would not be deterred. Good thing, because I would not have chosen to stay out there to journal.)

We got a new sloyd book this year and we are really giving it a go!

I'll have to get a pic of Fina cutting her folds with an exact-o knife. She just loves it!

One of our poets for the term is William Wordsworth. We read his "There was a Boy" poem on Thursday.

I didn't really know what this poem was about, but after we read it she told me that she thought the boy was maybe actually the sun, or maybe even God. Because she figured the boy wasn't human. How on earth did she get that? But she did!!! Incredible. She said it was because how he had his hands held, with fingers interwoven, and shouting across the Vale, and being received into the Lake. The sun could do all of that! We had this interesting discussion about this poem.

A little group of us have started a mom's study group to read volume 1 of Charlotte Mason's Home Education series. There were 8 of us at our first meeting. Such a blessing to have an actual, in real life, local group. This is something we've been praying and hoping for for a long time!

I'll leave you with this cuteness: Fina and her little friend built this house at outdoor playgroup this week.