Early morning sunrise and more!

Fina woke up really early on Monday morning (though the sun is also rising later!) and she saw a lovely sunrise. She ran downstairs to tell us about it. So her and I put on our boots and our coats and ran outside in the chilly air to marvel at God's beauty. We ran out to the north edge of town (which is about 350 metres from our front door!), where we could watch the spectacle from the field, unhindered by any buildings or trees. Fina said "I wish I was quick enough to paint this, but by the time I get out my paints, it will be gone!"

On Monday afternoon, we started our special study on moss (and lichen) at the forest. We're wondering why moss seems to grow on the upper side of the trees. Even with the slightest incline, the moss is on the upper part. It is so interesting!!! There is a lot of moss in our forest, and every day we get to observe and make notes on different types in different spots.

On Thursday, we hit 1000 hours outside. I've mentioned this challenge before. It is to encourage families to spend more time outside (and less time watching tv!). We started counting on April 1. The lovely weather of this last week has really helped! We are getting a proper fall, after the snow of the beginning of the month. I think this is the fastest we've hit our 1000 hours. It is really great for us to keep track of Fina's time outside. It actually encourages me to see those numbers grow.

We've been enjoying brush drawing outside without frozen hands!

It took all of her will not to jump into that lovely rushing water of the creek!

We are enjoying Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. It is fun for the three of us to take parts and do a read through. So much fun.

Fina is really enjoying our historical fiction selection, Jeremy's War 1812. Jeremy becomes a "batboy" for General Brock. It's a great story that really captures one's imagination. We are both enjoying it.

We are also enjoying our biography about Tecumseh. He was a fascinating man. The book is well written, moving between very technical and historical parts, as well as some more "human" stories from his life.

History is really coming together for us this term, for which I am very grateful.

a little glimpse of summer

On Thursday, we had a high of 24 degrees! Fina was thrilled to be outside (from noon til 9 pm!), with shorts, a t-shirt and barefooted. Skipping rope through the park. Squishing her toes in the mud. Doing nature study with its brush drawing while outside! And playing, playing, and playing with her little friends. It was glorious. A break from winter! (You will remember my pics from last week. One week exactly!)

We know it won't last, so we enjoyed it while we had it! We don't have the Chinook in MB, but that is what it seems like. Maybe it was our "Indian Summer." We don't always have it that strongly either.

It is so nice to sit outside and paint. I did three entries myself. I could have sat there all day!
It is true that, in winter, you can observe a lot of things that get "crowded out" in the other seasons. So many things are bare, which brings to the fore the things that aren't bare, or the details you miss when they are overshadowed by vibrant foliage. We've been enjoying that in our nature studies this week. We tend to be pulled in by plant life in all of its forms. We see the birds, but they are harder to paint.

I studied this little tree. There were two of them along the path in our park. It still had full green leaves. I'm not sure what it is, but it is certainly beautiful!

The juncos are busily doing their thing right now. We're not sure what their story is, exactly, but they are flitting around, pecking at the grass, eating in large flocks. They are beautiful!

We are in the final stretch of our current free read, Nesbit's The Enchanted Castle. Fina really enjoys it. For some strange (unknown to me) reason, I find it weird, awkward, and sort of uneven. But I'm really not sure why I am having trouble with this classic! Chacun son goût, I suppose!

A week of firsts!

We started our first Shakespeare play! With salmon and potatoes baking in the oven for supper, we read through Act I Scene i of Much Ado About Nothing. Fina did a great job, reading the parts of the Messenger and the Prince. Fina's homeschooling dad read Leonato, Benedick and others, and I read Beatrice, Hero, Claudio and others. It was really great! I had a serious "moment" while we were reading. It is just so incredible to think that my little one can read Shakespeare!!! I loved it!
We have really enjoyed the Joss Whedon movie version of it. Not at all appropriate for Fina, but fun for adults and for Whedon fans.

We also started up our piano lessons. We're having a great review after way too much time away from them. Fina really enjoys playing, which is so great!

Fina's homeschooling dad just started reading The Hobbit aloud to her. This is her first Tolkien experience ever. (She is a lover of C.S. Lewis. They have read through that series aloud together at least 4 times over the years. It's kind of their "thing.")

I was at the Charlotte Mason Living Retreat in Georgia on the weekend. It was so wonderful to see old friends, to meet many social-media friends I had never met "in real life" and to make so many new friends!

We've had our first couple of snows. It was not easy going to Georgia and then coming back to this! Fina is pleased. I'm needing a bit of time to adjust.

The ski goggles might have been a bit much!

The crab apple tree behind our house has all of its green leaves yet!

This rarely happens here - snow you can use for building!

We are really enjoying our biographies and historical fiction selections for this year. We are studying the 1800s for our history, so we are reading Canadian stories about that time period. Tecumseh by Luella Bruce Creighton (it is on of The Great Canadian Stories on loan to us from our friends), The Broken Blade by William Durbin (about a 13 year old that goes off to be a voyageur in 1800), Jeremy's War 1812 by John Ibbitson. We are also reading a biography about St Thérèse de Lisieux (from the Pauline Encounter the Saints series. Cute little books that are easy to get on Amazon). Am embarrassment of riches in the historical fiction / biography. Which is great, because we had had trouble with that in the past.

Our poet for the term is Wordsworth and we are enjoying those poems. Fina and I are reading E Nesbit's The Enchanted Castle as our read aloud. I'm having trouble getting into it, but she loves it.