Year 1, week 32, day 2, March 24

I read from Sarah, Plain and Tall and Stuart Little over breakfast.
Fina practiced her piano pieces.
I read Genesis 3:1-7 and Fina gave a great narration!
We worked on 17X of her math.
We reviewed Fina's current recitations.
I read "The Two Travelers and Bear" and "The Dog and his Reflection" from Aesop's Fables for narration.
We spent some time with our Spanish work. We sang "De Colores," did pages 5-6 from Peppa se va a dormir and reviewed page 6 of the vocab book (kitchen).
Fina worked on her cursive. Fina needs to work on connecting different letters together. We are just writing random words and hoping to hit connections we need to work on. Today, we happened upon "ot" which is good to work on!

We finished reading Paddle-to-the-Sea! So exciting. We reviewed Paddle's journey on the globe and on a map.  We will watch the NFB film soon! She is going to love it. (I don't think I ever saw it.)

We read poem #155, "The Months," from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

Fina read aloud from Squirrel Nutkin. It is a fair bit above her reading level, but she is wanting to read it. We will get back to Frog and Toad which will be a bit easier!

We sang our hymn and folksong. Fina actually knows all 4 verse of our hymn!

She wants to carve her own Paddle-to-the-Sea. I found a template online and she transferred it to a wood block she has.

Then she spent a while painting. I asked her to do a nature study first, so she painted our little succulent.

And then she painted for another half an hour.

We went outside in the afternoon.

Year 1, week 31, day 2, March 17

Fina started the day by practicing her piano pieces.

I read Genesis 2:10-21 and Fina narrated it.

She did 17C and 17Dp1 of her math.

We reviewed her recitations.

We finished reading "40 Thieves" from The Blue Fairy Book and Fina narrated it throughout.

We reviewed our Spanish nursery rhymes and the family vocab words.

Fina worked on her cursive for 5 minutes.

We read chapter 26 of Paddle-to-the-Sea. He is on a ship crossing the Atlantic, going to France! It is so exciting!

I read poem #149, "The Wind in a Frolic" from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

Fina read aloud from Squirrel Nutkin.

We sang our folksong and hymn.

Fina spent some time drawing, while listening to The Red Fairy Book from Librivox.

And then she spent a good portion of the afternoon woodcarving and drawing! And she worked on her loom knitting after supper.

Year 1, week 30, day 2, March 13

Our clocks changed this weekend and that is never fun! Spring forward means we started our school a bit late this morning, as Fina slept in!

We started with Genesis 2:1-4 and Fina narrated.
I read "The Goatherd and the Goat" and "The Wolf and the Housedog" from Aesop's Fables. Fina narrated both. As I gave the title of the second one, she narrated an old one we had read (who knows when) with wonderful specificity. It was also about a wolf and a dog. I told her this was a different one.

We worked on her recitation. We went through over half of the previous Shakespeare passages. She says she can't remember some of them and that they are hard, but she was able to recite all of them!

We did some math work. 16X and the test for 16.

We reviewed our Spanish nursery rhymes and our song, "De Colores." Fina is doing really well with her Spanish!

She worked on some cursive.

We read chapter 25 from Paddle to the Sea. Paddle gets out to the Gulf of St Lawrence!

We read poems #133 and 138 from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

Fina read "The Dream" from Frog and Toad aloud.

We sang our hymn and folksong.

Fina spent some time working on her crochet.

Then she painted while listening to The Red Fairy Book on Librivox.

This is her canoe on shore.

Because I had a conference call in the afternoon, Fina ended up staying inside and doing hours and hours of woodcarving. And after supper she did some crochet work as well! A great handicraft day!

We haven't been doing a tonne of free reads daily, but Fina's homeschooling dad is still reading aloud to us after dinner: the Bible readings for the day, a portion of the Bible from Biblioteca (we just started Numbers tonight), from a secondary source on Leviticus, and from our next primary source of St Thérèse. He usually reads for 30 minutes or more.

Year 1, week 29, day 4, March 8

Yesterday, we had a day full of riches only! Fina's homeschooling dad was home from work, they are on their reading break. We did a piano lesson. Fina learned p 10 out of the Alfred book.

She spent a long time in the morning working on some handicrafts.

This was a pre-existing doll's sleeping bag. 

Fina wanted to machine sew over the three sides with a fancy stitch!

And she is sewing a Moana costume for herself. The red and brown triangles were an existing patch. But she machine sewed all the other little patches to it.

I really must keep the machine out. She would easily sew a few times a week if it wasn't that I had to drag the machine down from the closet upstairs.

She also did some hand sewing on a doll's dress.  She also did some wood carving.

We read a few stories from The Olive Fairy Book as our free read while she worked.

She also did some dry brush painting to send a little note to our Ontario friends.

In the afternoon, we had our playgroup. We had 70km winds and it was a blizzard (but with very little snow). One other family joined us and the kids had a lovely time. We really are polar bear mamas!

Our creek was slushy, kind of frozen in spots, but not in others.

On a peninsula and tiny island in our creek. Yes, that is Fina sitting in 30cm of slush! 

Her boots and pants were soaked!

I have been busy getting my feet wet in my new position as secretary of the board. I don't think it is quite public yet, so I won't say which board it is. But I'm being blessed beyond belief there already!


TODAY

Fina practiced some piano and we learned a new piece, Alfred page 11. We are having short lessons every few days, with practice sessions in between. And by short, I mean less than 10 minutes.

I read from Genesis 1:26-31, day 6 of the creation story. Fina narrated throughout.

She completed 16 C, D and page 1 of E in her math book.

We reviewed Fina's recitations. She ran through all the passages she learned from A.A. Milne's When We Were Very Young.

We read two Aesop's Fables. "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothes" and "The Milkmaid and Her Pail." Fina narrated both.

We continued with our next passage from Pio Peep. "De Colores" which I sang for her and she tried singing along. It is a catchy tune. I can not believe what a good attitude she has towards this whole Spanish thing. I'm so glad that I finally decided to start it in earnest!

She worked on her cursive for a few minutes.

We read chapter 24 from Paddle to the Sea, where we see that Paddle spends the winter with a kind old lady outside of Montréal, along the St Lawrence River. Fina wanted to check some things out on Google Earth, so we did that. We looked at Winnipeg and St Pierre and Toronto, Niagara Falls, the Great Lakes and more.

We read our next poem, #130 "The Boy and the Snake" by Charles and Mary Lamb, from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

We sang our hymn and folksong.

Fina read aloud from Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit.

She spent about an hour painting, while I read some of our Olive Fairy Book free reads aloud to her.

A diamond shaped canoe in our creek. Aren't the summery banks just lovely?

There was a snow day here with the local schools, so Fina spent the afternoon outside playing with her little friend K.

co-op and year 1, week 29, day 2, March 3

Co-op

Fina went on and on during our picture study of  Renoir's "Still Life."  What a change from the little girl who cried the first time she did picture study, because she didn't think she would remember anything about what she saw!

We ran through our Shakespeare passage. The kids laughed and laughed and just loved it.  It was wonderful! (This photo says it all!)

And we started a new handicraft and it was a big hit. Japanese Braiding, Kumihimo. Our friend Elena prepared the do-it-yourself version of the disc - just a round piece of cardboard with 8 notches cut into it and a hole in the centre. The kids really enjoyed it!

a foam disc you can purchase

a simple cardboard disc, you can easily make at home!

The kids also went out to play while the moms had a nice chat together. It was a lovely day!  The kids did notice that we didn't do our nature study. We had gotten too involved in our handicraft (which they love) and we chose to skip it. They really enjoy nature study as well!

********************

Today, over breakfast, we listened to a story from The Red Fairy Book on Librivox.

I read Matthew 2:13-18 and Fina narrated it.
In 15 minutes of math, Fina was able to complete 14 and 15 from the extra activities and the test for lesson 15. Her mistakes were all because of carelessness.

We ran through her recitations and we read the next chapter of How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare, in order to start our next selection from Twelfth Night.

We read the chapter about the Crab in Just So Stories.  Fina had some wonderful insights during this her narrations. "The Eldest Magician is supposed to be God. Because he is creating things. Magicians can't create something out of nothing."

We read through our next Spanish nursery rhyme, "Aquí puso la pajarita el huevo."

She worked on some cursive.

We read chapter 23 of Paddle to the Sea and we looked at the map for Lake Ontario etc. Fina was so impressed when she realized she had seen the whirpool where Paddle was spinning through, at Niagara Falls.

We read poem #127 "The Country Mouse and the City Mouse" by Richard Scrafton Sharpe in The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

Fina finished reading "Cookies" from Frog and Toad.
We started our new hymn, "The Cross of Jesus" and our new folksong, in French, "Alouette."

Fina did some crochet work and then continued with her Japanese braiding - such fun! And then she spent a few hours drawing in the afternoon. She wanted to draw from Moana on artforkidshub.com.

Year 1, week 28, day 2, February 23

My Charlotte Mason poetry work is all coming along nicely.  In my morning quiet hours while the house is asleep, I am spending about an hour on it.

- I have been doing 30 minutes of transcription from the manuscripts of volume VII.
Art M. just published three stanzas from a poem we have been working on, "Increase our Faith," at CharlotteMasonPoetry.org  To think that I had a hand in transcribing that from Charlotte Mason's own handwritten notes!

- I have also been spending 30 minutes editing and correcting the current documents of volumes I-VI (in my new role of the "digital editor" for CharlotteMasonPoetry.org). I started going through volume VI.

I read this poem today (from volume VI, Book II, Poem XIX, Matthew 11:28)

**********
At the fair (The Disciple)

EAGER we take our way through noisy mart,
Agog for bargains that shall souls appease,
Shall minister to happiness or ease,
Shall give us courage for our per’lous part,

Or soothe the soreness of our wounded heart!
They cry their tinsel wares nor ever cease;
We buy in hope of joy and wealth’s increase;
Brought home, our sorry bargain, stript of art,

Mocks our desire. But in the fair was One
We would no hear, whose cry was only, “Rest”;
“Why hither, thither, will ye frenzied run?
“Come, buy, but bring no money; cease your quest

For unguent never made beneath the sun;
Come unto Me, and I will give you rest!”

**********
What a wonderful poem. So à propos to our modern life!

I am enjoying this work immensely. All my years of undergrad and MA work in musicology prepared me for this kind of primary source work. It is incredible to be coming back to something like this after all these years! It is keeping me busy, but I feel like I really needed this Mother-Culture. The poetry work as well as having a more intentional reading schedule for myself. I feel that this was really lacking in my life. (FaceBook, blogs, CM schooling research etc really eats up a lot of my free time. But I'm able to hold off on that while I do these other things for the first few hours of my day).



TODAY

We started by listening to some Palestrina over breakfast.

It was snowing (which lasted all of 10 minutes) and Fina just HAD to go outside and put out our containers to catch snow to make tire-sur-la-neige. And to eat some snow flakes.

Needless to say, we had to bring the containers back in and they were empty!

We read Luke 5:1-11, "Fisher's of men," and Fina narrated it.
In her 20 minutes of math, we watched the video lesson for our next lesson (making 10), she did 15A and B and we still had a few minutes left over to do MEP p 7 #1-3.  A very good math day!

We went through Fina's recitations. She has her portion of our passage for our co-op performance pretty much perfected now. There is still an "and" that she keeps adding, but we will fix that up!

We read two Aesop's Fables. She gave an ok-ish narration of "The Three Bullocks and A Lion." She gave a much better narration of "Mercury and the Woodman."

We started our next saint story from Amy Steedman's In God's Garden, "St Catherine of Siena." We read a portion of it and Fina gave an excellent narration of it. In the story, we are told that her house in Siena still exists and is a museum. So we looked it up online. We saw something that looked like St Catherine's head on google and Fina right away remembered that St Thérèse saw it on her pilgrimage to Italy. (I did NOT remember this fact!)

We worked on the next two nursery rhymes in Pio Peep!  Fina is trying her best to pronounce the words, repeating the lines after me.

She did 10 minutes of copywork. We spent some time experimenting with some different sizes of lined paper and settled on one. I used this worksheet generator and just left it blank and printed it. You can also add text and it puts it in for you. The cursive isn't exactly like our cursive, so we will just use blank sheets. But the spacing and the third line for letters that fall below work well for us right now.

We read chapter 22 of Paddle to the Sea. We were excited because Paddle goes over Niagara Falls. We learned a bit about Lake Erie and the Welland Canal (all places we have visited many times).

I read our next poem, #122 in The Oxford Book of Children's Verse, "The Peacock 'At Home'" by Catherine Ann Dorset.

Fina read "The Letter" from Frog and Toad aloud to me. She is reading with a lot of expression.

We sang our hymn and folksong.

Fina did 20 minutes of drawing. She decided to paint the meadowlark that we read about yesterday in The Burgess Bird Book.

I am really enjoying having two 20 minute slots of drawing on our schedule, plus our nature study afternoon slot. Fina loves to paint and this is giving her more opportunities to paint during the week. And, of course, it isn't as difficult as I thought to take out the supplies etc. It is a WONDERFUL part of our day!

Then I asked Fina to do 20 minutes of crochet. She wanted to spend her time doing other handicrafts, but I was able to get her to do 10 single crochet stitches first. Then she worked on her crochet chain and then on some wood carving. I read some of our free reads while she worked.

Thanks for joining us!

Year 1, week 27, day 2, February 16

Over breakfast, we re-listened to Palestrina's "Tu es Petrus."

Fina also spent a long while preparing her costume for our co-op's upcoming performance of a passage from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

We read John 4:5-42, the story of the Samaritan at the Well. I stopped a few times and Fina gave excellent narrations.
In her 15 minutes of math, she was able to complete 14E.
I read "The Goose and the Golden Egg" as well as "The Astrologer" from Aesop's Fables and she narrated both.  We then started "The Law of the Wood" from Parables from Nature. We stopped at the bottom of page 26. These stories are scheduled over three weeks, so we will just keep reading from it at our literature time slots of 20 minutes until we are done.

We are learning a passage from A Midsummer Night's Dream to perform at our co-op. Fina is playing Hippolyta and will also be speaking the Lion's four lines (the Lion is being played by our youngest member, so she will just act the Lion and Fina will speak the lines).  Fina started learning her 6 lines. We have another week to learn the lines. She will be fine! We also reviewed our other recitations. She almost knows all of "The Lamb."

We learned upper case Y in cursive.

We read chapter 21 from Paddle to the Sea.  We learned about Lake Erie.

Fina wanted to do another chapter from her catechism, and since we are a little behind, we did chapter 9.

We read two new poems, "The Sheep" and "The Comic Adventures of Old Mother Hubbard and Her Dog." They are both cute poems. We are enjoying The Oxford Book of Children's Verse. I was a little leery at the beginning, because we started with the early Medieval poems, but now that we are in the Nineteenth Century, we are cruising along comfortably!

Fina read a few pages from Frog and Toad, "The Story."
We sang our hymn and folksong.
Fina did 20 minutes of her handicraft. She continued with her crocheting. She learned how to make a slipknot.  While she crocheted, I read to her from one of our free reads, Mother West Wind Stories.

She is making tiny scarves for her tiny pony store.

With these scheduling cards, we now have 20 minutes of drawing scheduled twice a week. So I gave her a new notebook where she can paint anything she wants (including drawn narrations). While she painted, we listened to a Librivox recording of "The Clever Cat" from The Orange Fairy Book (another one of our free reads).

We got out in the afternoon for a ski and some play time with friends!

Fina carrying her skis with our fancy new ski straps!

Of her own volition, after supper, Fina wanted to show dad how to tie a slip knot and how to crochet a chain!

AO year 1, week 26, February 7

Today, we continued with our timed schedule. It is working well so far! (It does keep the minutes moving.)

We started the morning with our Bible reading, Genesis 1:6-13.
Fina did 15 minutes of math, completing 14A and page 1 of 14B.
She reviewed all her recitations. We have our co-op this week and she has planned what she wants to recite there.
We read "Snow White and Red Rose" from The Blue Fairy Book. We really enjoyed this story. Fina said "it has nothing to do with Snow White at all!" No, Fina, it does not!

She learned to write the upper case cursive V.

We read chapter 20 of Paddle to the Sea.  We learned about Lake Huron.
We read a new poem from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse #110 by Taylor, "The Gleaner."  Fina really enjoys poetry.

Fina read a whole story from Frog and Toad, "Tomorrow." She is reading so well!
We sang our folksong and hymn.
We did some nature study. Fina wanted to paint her "favourite" bird from memory. We always thought it was a chickadee, but it isn't. It has dots or spots on its tail. (We have looked through our field guides, but have never found exactly what she is looking for).

Our lesson was scheduled for 20 minutes, but Fina just could not stop! So she also painted this picture of her and her friends building a canoe.

And we did 15 minutes of crochet work.

In the afternoon, we had our outdoor playgroup. It was VERY cold out, but sunny and not too windy. Fina and her friends skied and played all afternoon. It was great!

AO year 1, week 25, February 1

We started with reading genesis 1:1-5 and Fina narrated it very well. (I'm trying something new for our Bible. On Mondays, we read our Bible readings for the following Sunday. The next day, we will do the AO reading for the week. And the other days, we will alternate between Genesis and Matthew, as per Charlotte Mason's PNEU schedule for Form I year A).

I read chapter 19 from Paddle to the Sea, the forest fire. Fina enjoyed it and her narration was evidence that she connected with it this time!

I read "The Cat, the Cock and the Young Mouse" from Aesop's Fables and Fina gave a very detailed narration of it.

We did our lesson 6 from our catechism book, based on the 10 Commandments.

She reviewed some cursive and learned the letter R.

She recited a bunch of things for me and we continued working on "My father had a daughter" from Twelfth Night.

Fina dad 13A and B of her math.

We started our new artist, Hans Holbein the Younger. We looked at "Portrait of a Young Man." Fina did such a great job with it!

We sang our folksong "Farewell to Nova Scotia" and we started our hymn "Be Thou My Vision."

Fina read "Down the Hill" from Frog and Toad aloud to me. She is reading wonderfully.

Then I read a few more stories from Frog and Toad to Fina. They are such cute and funny stories.

We read the story of "St Ursula" from Amy Steedman's In God's Garden. Fina says "aren't there Ursuline nuns?" Yes, Fina! Yes there are! Really?!?! I'm not sure how she knows this stuff, or how she makes these connections?

AO year 1, week 23, January 13

Look at the lovely painting Fina worked on yesterday afternoon.

This morning, we listened to some Schubert over breakfast.

I read a chapter from The Orange Fairy Book to Fina, while cuddled under the nice, warm blankets on the cozy couch. This is one major plus about homeschooling!  I found this book on Librivox and we have listened to a couple of chapters of it that way, but I must say I didn't enjoy it as much. (It could have to do with the reader, or it could just be that I'm not paying as much attention.)  Related to this, I came across this CM quote in the last few weeks and I was reminded of it today.

CM vol II 106
Charlotte Mason in volume II, p 106, is quoting Felix Adler:

"My first counsel is, Tell the story. Do not give it to the child to read. The child, as it listens to the Märchen [the fairy tales], looks up with wide-opened eyes to the face of the person who tells the story, and thrills responsive to the touch of the earlier life of the race, which thus falls upon its own." That is, our author feels, and rightly so, that traditions should be orally delivered. This is well worth noting. 

"Looks up with wide-opened eyes to the face of the person who tells the story." I am not a wonderful story teller, like some parents are, but I can see that this does make a difference!


I read John 1:29-34 and Fina sort of narrated (ha!)
She took her math test for lesson 11 and was able to answering all the questions correctly.
We sang our hymn, "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" and then Fina wanted to sing it in a round (which doesn't work, in case you are wondering!) So we sang "Row, row, row your boat" in a round. She couldn't quite hold the tune, so (thank you, technology) we recorded ourselves singing it on GarageBand and then played that and sang the round against it. It was quite fun!

We read chapter 18 of Paddle to the Sea. Fina narrated it. We looked at Lake Michigan again on the map and saw Paddles' journey.

I read "The Bear and the Bees" from Aesop's Fables. Fina narrated it well.

We read poem 74 from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse, "An Epitaph for a Dormouse." It was cute. We always reread the last few poems as well.

Fina reviewed her recitations. She learned lines 2 and 3 from our current passage from Twelfth Night. She is quicker at this than she thinks. We also reread aloud the Parable of the Sower.

She worked on her cursive K and L.

We sang our folksong, "She's Like the Swallow." Fina is really participating much more with the singing, which pleases me a great deal.

I read "Waiting" from the AO paraphrase of Parables of Nature. I have a hard time connecting with these stories. But this one was a bit easier to get into than some of the others.

Fina read "Chicken Little" from the Treadwell Primer aloud to me. She is doing such a great job with these!

Fina spent a long time in the afternoon working on her finger knitting and her wood working.  The temperature is extremely low and though we went for a quick walk, she did not want to stay out to play. You know it is REALLY cold when Fina doesn't want to stay out and play for a half an hour at least.

We continue to read the Bible together before or after dinner as well as the autobiography of St Thérèse. We are really enjoying this time together.

After supper, Fina and I painted with some new supplies we received in the mail (another late Christmas gift to ourselves).

This is mine. These birds come to our window bird feeder all the time, 

but I painted it based on the painting in the field guide.

This is Fina's copy of mine

Fina wanted to paint some objects she had brought in the house

This was our first time really painting fauna (we have mainly stuck to flora). I think we did ok!


I would like to read "St Hugh of Lincoln" from Our Island Saints to finish up week 23. I am hoping to squeeze it in over the weekend.

One more week and then we will be doing our second set of exams. Very fun!

AO year 1, week 22, December 12

We have had a busy few days, with a Christmas banquet and a Christmas dinner with friends. Fina did a bit of finger knitting for a ribbon on a gift.

We started the day by reading one story from The Pink Fairy, our current free read. Dad has also been reading A Bear Called Paddington to Fina as her bedtime free read.

I read Matthew 1:18-24 and Fina narrated it. It is our gospel reading for this Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Advent.

We did the Liturgical Year section of our catechism book, including the Advent section (pages 151-156).

Fina read aloud the Parable of the Mustard Seed. Because she isn't such a strong reader yet, I think it is hard for her to memorize it this way. I will continue trying this method for the rest of the week and, if she still doesn't know it, we will do our regular "repeat one line three times" til you know it and then move on to the next line. It works well for Shakespeare.

Fina also recited "What is Love?" and "Out o' tune, sir" from Twelfth Night.

Fina did the first two pages of the Unit Exam #1 for Math. Two more pages to go. It reviews the first 10 lessons. She wanted the timer on, so I gave her 10 minutes. She was done in 7 minutes, so she used her remaining 3 minutes to catch up on some of her countdown-to-Christmas lego. (We have been busy these last few days and fell behind with it).

We read chapter 17 of Paddle to the Sea and Fina narrated it. I like how they equate Lake Michigan to a squash with leaves. It does kind of look like that, right?

We sang our folksong again, "My Paddle / Land of the Silver Birch."  Fina is singing along now, most of the time, which is great.

I read the story of "Maximillian and the Gooseherd" from Fifty Famous Stories. It was a funny story of a king who wasn't really able to care for some geese while the little gooseherd boy ran to fetch the King's book.  Fina gave a great narration.

I read "The Monkey and the Cat" from Aesop's Fables. Silly monkey, tricks the cat to scoop the chestnuts out of the fire by flattering her and then eats all the chestnuts and leaves nothing for the cat. Fina narrated it.

I read poems 45-47 from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse. Some are by Isaac Watts. We are still in the early section, but these poems are great fun! I think I did the right thing by skipping the first few chapters.

Fina reviewed her uppercase cursive letters, from A-G, and we learned the letter H. She is flying through these cursive letters!

We listened to some Schubert while Fina worked on her cursive.

Fina read four pages from Tony's Birds aloud to me. She laughed and laughed as Tony figured out that the bird was a Bluejay.

We sang "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" together.

Fina then did an episode of cosmic kids yoga. We hadn't done one in months, so it was good for her to get back into it.

Late in the afternoon, Fina went out to play for a few hours in the dark, freezing cold. She loved it!
At one point I saw her hanging from the top of a 1 metre snow pile, using sticks as climbing hooks and hanging from them in the snow, as if she were climbing the Alps, I guess! Fun!