AO year 1, week 20, December 1

I'm sorry I didn't get this post out yesterday! You will hopefully get two posts today.

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We read Isaiah 11:1-10 (the lion will lie down with the lamb) and Matthew 3:1-12 (John the Baptist) and Fina narrated both of them very well.
We continued on with our math (adding plus 8). Fina did 10B and the 10X.

I read two new poems from Now We Are Six: "Cradle Song" and "Waiting at the Window." We only have a few pages left of this collection. Fina loves them and often requests that I reread previous ones, even from weeks or months ago. She somehow remembers them, by content and by title (which surprises me every time!).

We learned upper case B and C in our cursive. She got to write some fun names of people she loves!

We sang through our current folksong "My Paddle / Land of the Silver Birch." We just sing through it once as a fun thing to do and then move on.

We repeated the first two lines of "What is love" from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. And I read through our mustard seed parable. Charlotte Mason (or her people) say that you can just read the parable once every day and the child will just learn it one day. I'm going to test that out. With Shakespeare and poetry, I always say one line and have Fina repeat that line three times (as suggested by Ken Ludwig in his book How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare) and that has always worked for us. But I thought I'd try this out with the parable. We will see how it goes.

Fina wanted to hammer a nail into a piece of wood with her dad's toy hammer from 40 years ago. It has a wooden handle and a hard plastic head. As she kept hitting her fingers, she thought she'd try to use her oven mitt (from her kitchen set - she still loves playing with that stuff). Somehow, she made it work and got the nail in to her little scrap of wood (which you can't see in the pic!).

I read "The Stag and his Reflection" and "The Peacock" from our Aesop's Fables and Fina gave excellent narrations for both.  I read "Picciola" from Fifty Famous Stories and she narrated that quite well.  It is the story of a wrongfully imprisoned person who befriends a little flower in the prison yard and in the end Napoleon's wife saves him. I'm looking forward to our next picture study, which is of Jacques-Louis David's "Napoleon Crossing the Alps!" She's going to love that!

I also borrowed Millicent Selsam's Tony's Birds from our provincial education library (homeschoolers in Manitoba are fortunate to have access to this library). Fina read a few pages of it aloud. We still haven't finished Selsam's Plenty of Fish, but I have that as an ebook which is a bit trickier for her to read. I highly recommend her Science I Can Read Series of easy reader books. They are wonderful.

We had an adult faith formation session at church in the evening, which was about reclaiming the adult meaning of Christmas. During the 90 minute session, Fina sat quietly colouring in her The Chronicles of Narnia Official Coloring Book a wonderful book, by the way!). Then she drew these two lovely works of art, inspired by pages in the book.  She was really well behaved and even listened in a bit. We had a nice discussion about what we had heard on our 50 minute drive home.

Enjoy!

We know it isn't the white witch saying such a kind thing to her dad!

We are back!

On October 12, Fina and I left for our trip to Ontario. Somehow, in the morning, she managed to do the following:

She did the test for lesson 9 of our math, adding +9.
Fina finished reading "The Gingerbread Boy" also. And we listened to some Zecchino D'Oro.
And she wrote a goodbye note to dad in cursive letters.

We got in more school than I was expecting, seeing as it was seamlessly happening as we just lived our morning. (I can see why some people love unschooling!)

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We returned from our visit in Ontario last week. We had a LOVELY visit with my family. Busy, but lovely.  We had a couple of weddings (two of my sisters), a baptism (my little newborn niece - Fina just LOVED her) and an extended visit from some third cousins visiting from Italy to improve their English.

We didn't get to much official schooling, but we learned and lived so much! Fina read everything she could get her hands on, and her progress over the last few months has been astounding!
We went to see "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" at Stratford. It was great fun.
We made it to a couple of petting zoos, a wonderful aqarium (Ripley's, at the base of the CN Tower. I would highly recommend it!), up on the glass floor of the CN Tower, to Niagara Falls a couple of times, pumpkin picking, pumpkin carving, apple picking, trick-or-treating, she climbed a great many numbers of trees, we ate lots of yummy food, we spent a lot of time just hanging out with our family, Fina got very spoiled by many people in their 20s and 30s who just adore having her around,

Here are some pics of some of the fun things we did.

new baby cousin

photo bombed by a bride and groom

apple picking

Lake Ontario

flower girl

climbing downed trees

"The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" at Stratford, ON

wedding shower

Niagara

reading to her cousin

Sitting on the glass floor up in the CN tower

swimming with the sharks at the Ripley's Aquarium

learning to cook passatini with nonna bis (my grandmother)

Wpg airport, coming home

the joys of finding snow!!!

Thanks for joining us!

March 13, AO year 1, week 14

On Saturday, it was so warm and sunny (plus 11, I think) and Fina played outside for over 4 hours. She also rode her bike for the first time this year. What a wonderful day! We had to leave early for the city.

Since we went to church last night, this morning we did some school work, since tomorrow is supposed to be hot as well and sunny.

We did chapter 5 of math, adding 1. We did 5A and 5F as well as all the word problems of 5B-E. We will do the test next time.

We did some cursive work. We learned the letter p.

Some days, her cursive is just lovely, and the experience is hassle free. Today was one of those days. (Other days, our cursive time is fraught with angst!)

I read "The Black Douglas" from Fifty Famous Stories Retold and Fina narrated it very well.

We worked through our memorization box. I read a new poem, "Jonathan Jo" from When We Were Very Young.  Fina finished memorizing our first passage from Twelfth Night. She does a great job with it.

It is drizzly and cold this afternoon, but Fina and I went for a walk, (well, she rode her bike while I walked, we bumped into our friend T riding his bike, wandered with him for a bit and came back home. Fina stayed outside and played for another while. She also rode her scooter for the first time this year. Then she played with playdough for a long time. And dad read three chapters of Prince Caspian to her in the evening. (I think it is either their third or fourth time through the Narnia series.)

A good Sunday.

My 100th post!!! Leading up to March 11 2016

Well, this is my hundredth post. If I may say so myself, I'm pretty impressed I have kept up this habit. I think now I should be able to continue without giving up.  I do hope you have found enjoyment and possibly some inspiration in following along with our homeschool lives.  Thanks for reading and sharing with us!


Monday March 7 - After we did our school work, we went out for a 4 hour walk on the creek with dad (who has his reading week break this week). We made it back to "Peaseblossom Mountain." Fina was so happy.

She also made a slingshot with an old piece of bungee (the outdoor playgroup kids have been playing with that piece all winter!) She worked on it for a long while and was able to shoot a piece of bark.

Tuesday March 8, we had our regular outdoor playgroup. We went walking on the (no longer skiable because it is too slushy and mushy) ski trail. We walked about half of it, I'd think. It is VERY hilly. We didn't really want to walk on the creek because it is melting quickly. And the forecast is for double digits on the weekend (celsius!) so I think that may be it for creek walking until next year. Next come the fun-in-the-mud shots!

The kids had a great time on this fallen down tree, from the creek bed down to the creek. 

It is a large tree.

Wednesday March 9. Fina traced a print of a painting dad commissioned and then she painted it with water colours.

We had a nice day in the city. Fina wanted Anna braids (you know, from Frozen)!

Thursday March 10 - Our co-op meeting #4

The kids were more participatory in singing O Canada and reciting the Lord's Prayer (I thought. Fina was, and she usually doesn't like singing out loud.)

We started reading "The Tempest" in Edith Nesbit's Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare.  Thanks to my daughter, one other mom and I got a turn to narrate. Yikes. (I feel like I do better when I'm reading it myself. Though, strike that. I have read things aloud to her and have absolutely no recollection!!!) The kids gave lovely narrations. (The moms struggled a bit. I certainly struggled a lot!)

We looked at Rembrandt's "Doubting Thomas" painting. It was great. (Though the focused looking only lasted 2 minutes, and there was NO silence at all!)

Rembrandt, Doubting Thomas

We skipped handicraft this time and went straight to nature study. The life cycle of a Black Turtle Bean. It was fun.

Fina's dry brush of a bean (in a pot), a sprouted bean and the bean plant.

And the moms had the loveliest moment of refreshment and sharing while the kids ran around. It was great.  And at some point, one mom had the kids do jumping jacks. Quite the adventure.

We did get in a bit of outdoor playtime as well.  Overall, we had such a wonderfully blessed day!

Friday March 11 - We made it back to Narnia, with our friend SF. Fina and he had such a lovely day together: exploring, playing, pretending, eating, wandering about. It was marvellous! We played outside for 5.5 hours. It was glorious! (I got to sit, basking in the sun and fresh air, catching up on some podcast listening.)

They even have swords and shields! 

Then we crossed back over the river (with the worry that the ice was getting less and less stable with the forecasted 11 degrees celsius in the afternoon) and went to the stick fort.

If you look closely, the long horizontal branches are covered in tree bark pieces that SF helped Fina pick, plus the moss on the stump. They worked long and hard on that. Fina came home with a shopping bag full of treasures.

This was the river, far away from where we crossed, in a sunny and high current spot. But still!

March 4, AO year 1, week 13

On Thursday, we went to dad's school and after lunch a group of 6 moms and 11 kids went to the magical land of Narnia. The kids were with us for about an hour and a half and then Fina and I stayed for another hour or so. It was sunny, not windy and just beautiful!

Mr Beaver's Lodge

On Friday March 4, we started with Math. We watched the video for lesson 4, commutative properties (the things I'm learning), adding 0 to anything. I set the timer for 20 minutes and she was able to complete 4A, B, the word problems for C and all of 4D. We also did the extra page for the lesson, 4X. And we highlighted the math facts we now know on the page of 100 commutative properties for addition up to 9. See how quickly you know stuff? And the half above the diagonal line is the same as everything below it.

One of the questions asked you to make a silly word problem for 6+0=6. Fina could not do it! Too convoluted. It was so funny! She tried and tried but she kept adding too much stuff or trying to subtract, or a number of eggs and this many hatched and dinos and mom dinos and dad dinos. It was a disaster! But kind of fun for me to watch the whole thing just fall apart. We will keep trying with that. (It just shows the difference between decoding and encoding.  She is able to convert word problems into an equation, most of the time. But going the other way? No way!!!)

We read these two from Aesop's Fables: "The Ants and the Grasshopper" and "The Ass Carrying the Image." She narrated them well

We read sections of the book of Ruth. She narrated them satisfactorily. Exposure, right?

We sang a few hymns, as well as "Behold the Lamb of God," which is scheduled at church for this weekend. We have a kind friend who is in the choir and she emails me the list every week after practice. We are so blessed to have friends.

We read the first half of "St Bridget" from Our Island Satins. She narrated it.  The legends surrounding her are kind of neat. I did not know that her friends called dandelions "the little flame of God." They are somehow her flower. Very neat.

Let me quote this lovely passage from that chapter:

She is such a homelike saint this Bridget of the fair green island, and she dwells so close to the heart of the people, that it is their common everyday life which holds the most loving memory of her helpful kindness.  In the first days of early spring her little flame-spiked flowers speak to them from the roadside, and bring her message of joy and hope, teelling of the return of life, the swelling of green buds, the magic of the spring. We call her flower the common dandelion, but to S. Bridget's friends it is 'the little flame of God' or 'the flower of S. Bride.' She herself has many names. Bridge or Bridget, 'Christ's Foster-Mother,' S. Bridget of the Mantle, the Pearl of Ireland.

We went on to do some more cursive. That "br" of the word brat. We did lots of work with it and I think she is getting it. Though it is hard!!! (Even I am learning how to make a b and an r together. Mine were not good.  And I know, brat isn't a good word to practice a million times but it works for us!)

We worked from our memorization box. Fina recited one item from each section, plus reviewed our newer ones. She also learned two more lines from Twelfth Night. (She now has 9 lines of that passage memorized.)  She likes it. She really does. When anyone asks her what her favourite part of school is, she always answers poetry. Which I am tickled about. I have no affinity for poetry.

We also read D'Aulaire's Trolls. We liked it a lot. It is beyond our free-read list.

We did school for about 2.5 hours today, and it went well. A little long, but good. No weeping or gnashing of teeth, which is great!

We had a quick lunch and Fina put the finishing touches on her birthday party for Rarity. She has been counting down to this for weeks.

Fina dressed in purple. When you haven't a purple wig, use a hand towel!