Easter time!

Hello dear blog followers. It has been a while!

The last few weeks have been busy for us, in a wonderfully marvellous way.

Here are some pics from the Easter Triduum at our parish.

On Holy Thursday, we presented these oils to the parish (that we had received at the Cathedral on Monday)

Good Friday

At the Easter Vigil on Saturday it was pouring rain and we couldn't go outside for the blessing of the fire. So they FaceTimed it in to the projector in the church. We watched while a handful of people were outside with our pastor.

We had two adult baptisms which were incredible. One is the mom of Fina's little friend E and it was just a blessing to be a part of that!

We had a nice Easter Sunday lunch with our MB family/friends!

I'm glad we took time "off" from school to focus on celebrating the Triduum and Easter.

We have been doing lots of free reads, drawing, playing, outside play, piano practice, Bible readings and devotions over the last few weeks.

Easter Sunday. It all melted a few hours later!

Fina drew these instructions for nonna (so that she can keep her fish alive while nonno is visiting us!)

Nature study at the creek with her NEW watercolour set.

Fina and her friends made this island in the sand. They collected all that grass and stuck it on!

We started preparing for Fina's first eucharist. We are missing the first class, so we covered chapters 1 and 2 at home.

On Friday April 21 it was plus 17 celsius, sunny, not at all windy. The kids played in and around the creek, as if it were summer.

And this is Saturday April 22, 0 degrees, feels like -4 celsius. Fina was quite pleased and went outside to play for a bit!

She made a BB8 snowman - she had to use all of the snow in our courtyard, basically!

Welcome to Manitoba, everyone!

We spent the entire weekend at dad's university for their convocation events. Though Fina and I are both sick, we managed pretty well.  How do you like this fancy hat Fina tried on at the grad banquet?

And check out this weather warning (Monday April 24)!!!

So, Fina spent a few hours playing outside in the uncommonly sticky snow!

We are going on a further bit of a hiatus. Fina is having her tonsils and adenoids out on May 4th. This week, my dad, sister and baby niece are coming to visit (to provide distraction during the recovery time!), Fina's homeschooling dad is going away for a conference and a visit with our families. Before we know it, it will be the middle of May!

So stay tuned for some of our adventures in the next little while, and, please say a little prayer for Fina (and for me)!

Year 1, week 34, day 1, April 6

We had a great Manitoba Charlotte Mason Enrichment evening last night. We were 11 moms. We did a discussion on narration and then we spent some time doing a dry-brush of a pussywillow branch. It was really wonderful!

We're continuing to read The Wizard of Oz as our free read. Fina is enjoying it. So far, I find that the movie is surprisingly faithful to the book, which is neat. (Fina has not seen the movie.)

I read Matthew 5:13-16. Fina worked on her recitations. We finished reading Benajmin Franklin by the D'Aulaires and Fina narrated throughout.

We finished Peppa se va a dormir in Spanish.
We read "A Fisherman Robbed" in The Burgess Bird Book. We read about the Osprey and the Bald Eagle.  We watched this very cool video of an Osprey swooping down on fish.

I read poem #179, "The Mouse and the Cake" by Eliza Cook in The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

We did chapter 19 of catechism and read the section about Holy Week as well.

We sang our hymn and folksong.
Fina read aloud from Benjamin Bunny.
We re-read Me on the Map.

And we spent many hours outside at the 6th birthday party of our little friend J. It was a great day!

We've skipped a few days of piano practice. We have had a few late nights and Fina has been sleeping in and I've been wanting to finish by lunch. We will get things back on track!

Year 1, week 33, day 1, March 30

Fina started by practicing her piano. She did a great job. And she started her new piece.  She also gave her pony a lesson. A full lesson. It was quite funny!

I read Matthew 4:18-25 and she narrated.
She finished her unit test for math. Off to subtraction we go!
We reviewed her recitations.
We read "Gyda's Saucy Message" from Viking Tales for narration.

We worked on our spanish. We started our next nursery rhyme, "El patio de mi casa" and we also did the next two pages of Peppa se va a dormir.

She worked on her cursive.

We read the first part of the "A Maker of Thunder" chapter of The Burgess Bird Book. Fina is finally getting into this book.  We read about the Ruffed Grouse. Fascinating! And we watched some video. Incredible!

I read poem #164, "Nonsense," from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.
We did chapter 18 of Fina's catechism. Looking at the 4 evangelists. It was quite neat.

We started our new hymn, "Behold the Wood of the Cross."
Fina read a few pages from Squirrel Nutkin aloud.
We started a new Palestrina piece, from his "Motets for Five Voices." This one sounds "less Vatican-y" she says! And it is more slow. She tried really hard to describe it. It was great!

She did some crochet work while I finished reading Stuart Little to her.
She spent much of the afternoon and evening outside playing.

Year 1, week 32, day 1, March 23

By the way, my last post was post #200!!!  Thanks for reading!

Yesterday, we had a nice visit with a friend and her 4 year old daughter. Fina was an excellent hostess (she isn't always!) and the girls had a great time together. Before supper, Fina took her homeschooling dad on a walk through town.

This morning, we started with some piano practice.

I read Matthew 4:1-11, Jesus being tempted by the devil. Fina gave one of her best narrations ever!

She worked on 17E2, and 17F of her math book.

We worked on her recitations. She has almost memorized the Parable of the Lost Coin, just by reading it through once a day.

I read "Harald's Battle" from Viking Tales and Fina narrated it.

We read pages 3 and 4 of Peppa se va a dormir and Fina narrated it in English. We also looked at page 6 of our vocabulary book, kitchen words.

She worked on some cursive. She is continuing her list of "things that people think they can't eat outside." A nectary is the little sac of nectar at the back of a flower.

We read "The Mouse and the Shrew" from Eyes and No Eyes.

I read our next poem, "Mary's Lamb" from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse. It is the original "Mary had a little lamb."

We did chapter 17 from our catechism book.

We sang our hymn and folksong.

Fina read aloud a few pages from Squirrel Nutkin.

Fina spent 30 minutes working on her handicrafts, while I started reading from our next two free-reads, Stuart Little by E. B. White and Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patrician MacLachlan.

We listened to our Palestrina selection for this week.

Then she spent a long while working on her painting, while listening to the Librivox recording of The Red Fairy book.

Steps to build a raft.

And she started a new Japanese braiding project. And did some wood carving.

She went out to play in the afternoon.

Year 1, week 31, day 1, March 16

We started our day with some piano practice. No new piece, just a review.

I read from Matthew 3:7-12 and Fina narrated.

She spent some time with 17B of her math. I think we will need to do some extra review of her math facts before we move on to subtraction in lesson 18.

We reviewed Fina's recitations. We read through the Parable of the Lost Coin again.

I read "Harald is King" from Viking Tales and Fina gave excellent narrations throughout.

We reviewed all our Spanish things. We continued on the second page (page 5) of the "la familia/family" pages in our vocab book.

We read "The Robber in the Old Orchard" in the Burgess Bird Book. Mr. Blacksnake tried to eat Skimmer's eggs! Fina gave a great narration here too.

I read poem #148 "The Seagull" from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

We did chapter 16 of our catechism book.

We sang our hymn and folksong.

We listened to our next piece by Palestrina, "Sanctus and Benedictus - Missa Brevis." As a musicologist, I know that it is difficult to describe or narrate the music itself. Fina is now favouring this description "this sounds less Vatican-ish than the first piece." Ha!

We worked on our difference Japanese braiding handicraft. Our good friend who owns a local craft shop found these cardboard wheels for making friendship bracelets.

We watched some YouTube videos, here and here read some instructions and are now making a fancy bracelet.

Fina read a few pages aloud from Squirrel Nutkin.
Fina then spent a long while painting while listening to The Red Fairy Book from Librivox.

And she went out to play in the rain! Rain, in Manitoba, In March! Incredible!

Year 1, week 30, day 1, March 9

Fina listened to a Librivox recording of a chapter from The Red Fairy Book over breakfast.

We did a few minutes of piano practice.

I read Matthew 2:19-23 and Fina narrated.

We did catechism lesson 14.

Fina finished 16E and 16F of her math. Next we will do the test for making 10 and making 9 and then we will move on to lesson 17.

We worked on her recitations. We had just started Twelfth Night V, i, 226 "One face, one voice" this week and she has it almost completely memorized. She is trying hard to "recite" her passages. It is going remarkably well!

I read "Foe's Fear" from Viking Tales. Fina gave great narrations throughout.

We reviewed all our Spanish nursery rhymes and we sang "De Colores" together. She knows the first verse. I sang through all 4 verses for her. She is enjoying it.  I want to start bringing in some vocabulary stuff. I need to get a book first.

She worked on some cursive. I want to have her write "This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard" which is one of her lines from our co-op passage from A Midsummer Night's Dream. She did part of it today.

I read "A Family of Squirrels" from Eyes and No Eyes. Fina gave great narration throughout.

We read two new poems from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse, #131 "The First Tooth" and #132 "Cleanliness."

We sang our hymn and folksong.

Fina read a few pages from Peter Rabbit. She is improving by leaps and bounds!

We listened to Palestrina's "Kyrie" from the Pope Marcellus Mass again. And we talked about the piece a bit more.

Fina spent 20 minutes working on some handicrafts. I asked her to do a few stitches of her crochet, so she did. She also worked on her Japanese braiding. She also wanted to do some woodcarving, so she spent a while doing that.

We listened to some Italian kids' songs by Zecchino D'Oro.

It was very cold today, but Fina got in some outside play time just in our yard.

It was a great day!

Year 1, week 29, day 1, March 1

I have been pretty busy with Charlotte Mason Poetry.  Art M is taking us on a Lenten journey through CM's poetry (and it is my happy task to edit the poems and prepare and post them in various places, including in this Facebook group.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/CharlotteMasonPoetryReaders/

It is very exciting!

Fina practiced some piano before breakfast. Then I read a bit from Mother West Wind Stories to Read Aloud and we also listened to a story from The Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang on Librivox over breakfast.

We read Matthew 5:1-10 and Fina narrated it.
She did 15F in her math. We will do the extra activities for 14 and 15 and the test for 15 next time.

Fina reviewed her recitations. She is ready for co-op for tomorrow.

I read "Olaf's Fight with Havard" from Viking Tales. Fina gave excellent narrations throughout.

Funny incident. She says "Why would they go to Valhalla if they weren't heroes?" WOW! I did not remember that. (When heroes die, they go to Valhalla.)

We learned our next Spanish nursery rhyme "Tortillitas Para Mamà." Fina is enjoying these!

She did a few minutes of cursive.

We read "Spring Flowers" from Eyes and No Eyes and Fina narrated.

We did chapter 20 of our catechism and the lent section on page 161 as well.

Fina read 8 pages of "Cookies" from Frog and Toad.

We listened to our next piece,  the Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass.

Then she spent 20 minutes working on her crochet.

Then she practiced her piano some more. She said "I want to try playing my songs on the low part of the piano and the high part. I can do it anywhere there are three black notes, right?" Smart girl!

We skipped a few things today to speed things up. Fina is still sick and I have a scratchy throat, so we left off the singing and the poetry.

Year 1, week 28, day 1, February 22

Fina started the morning with doing some woodcarving. I also read a chapter from Mother West Wind Stories to her.

We read Matthew 2:7-12 and Fina narrated it - the story of the wise men.

She took the test for lesson 14 and did an excellent job. She made no errors!

She reviewed her recitations. She almost has her passage ready for our co-op performance.

We read "Olaf's Farm" from Viking Tales.  She narrated it - ish!

We read our next nursery rhyme in Spanish from Pio Peep!

She worked on her cursive. Now that we have learned all the letters, we need to work on different letter combinations. I wanted her to write Frog and Toad, but we needed to work a lot on -og and -oa.

We read about Bob-white the quail and the Meadowlark in chapter 14 of The Burgess Bird Book.  We searched for them online, saw some photos and listened to their songs.

We read a new poem, "The Butterfly's Ball by William Roscoe in The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

We did chapter 11 of our catechism book.
We sang our hymn and folksong.
Fina finished reading her story "A Swim" from Frog and Toad.

We took another look at our picture study from last week. Fina decided to draw the anamorphosis of the skull.

Then we did some work on Fina's crochet. She (reluctantly and with a very bad attitude!) learned to do the single stitch. It is a very complicated stitch with many steps. And she did it. But she would not let me see that she was pleased. But she was. It was wonderful! (Aside from the bad attitude!)

She went out to play for a while in the afternoon.

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!

Year 1, week 27, day 1, February 13

Sorry that I didn't post this yesterday!

Did you notice my change in title. Yes, I'm still doing AO, but with enough ADE thrown in that I now feel uncomfortable calling it that way. (For those of you not really IN this world, do not worry. Everything is still ok!!!) So, using the scheduling cards, I'm on a 4 day week. This week, I will only get through three of the four days, so day 4 will be next Monday.

Fina has been working a lot on her handicrafts, outside of school time. She has done A LOT of wood carving. Less crocheting, but she does do some.  Also, the temperatures have risen significantly (we are now hovering around 0 degrees celsius, which, for Manitoba in February, is quite something! Consequently, she has been playing outside a lot, and skiing as well!

Monday

We started our school day by reading Matthew 5:38-48 (the reading for Sunday). Shall I just gloss over the fact that, though I said "this is for narration" before I started reading, Fina cried that she did not know it was for narration after I was done?  I told her that she should always assume that everything is for narration. She informed me that I should always just tell her that this is for narration, for everything we do (even if sometimes it isn't for narration, like a free read). She says she would rather think it is for narration, even if it isn't. Needless to say, I did not get a narration about this passage. Ha!

She did 15 minutes of math, 14D (more practice of adding doubles plus one, and 8s and 9s).

She recited a few passages for me. She wanted to learn "The Lamb" by William Blake that we had read a few times last week.

Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee Gave thee life & bid thee feed. By the stream & o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice! Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee  

Little Lamb I'll tell thee, Little Lamb I'll tell thee!He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb: He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child: I a child & thou a lamb, We are called by his name. Little Lamb God bless thee. Little Lamb God bless thee.

Well, lo and behold, she already basically knew the first stanza!  This kid is incredible!

We read the next story from Viking Tales. She gave a good narration

Fina worked on the letter X in cursive.

We started a new nature lore book, on the recommendation of the "A Delectable Education" podcast ladies, Arabella Buckley's Eyes and No Eyes series. We started with the first book, Wild Life in Woods and Fields. We read the first chapter, "Spiders on the common" and Fina narrated it. I'm looking forward to reading more from this book.

We read our next poem, #112 from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse, "The Star," which actually is "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" with its many original stanzas.

We did our next catechism chapter, chapter 8.

We sang our hymn and folksong.
Fina read "Spring" from Frog and Toad aloud to me. She is doing great.

We did our picture study, Hans Holbein the Younger's "The Ambassadors."  What an interesting painting with this anamorphic skull on the bottom. I had never heard of this technique, anamorphosis, but da Vinci used it too.  So cool!

See that white blob?  If you hold up some sort of apparatus to it, like a cylindrical mirror, it is actually this skull.

Cool, right? 500 years ago!

In the afternoon, we went out to the Museum.  We BOTH went out skiing.  I did not ski as much as Fina did, of course. Our good friend L took her son T and Fina out along the whole 3 or 4 km ski trail. She LOVED the hills!

What a lovely sight - a sled full of skis!

And just before supper, Fina went to the outdoor rink to skate with dad for an hour.  When it is above 0 celsius, it is easy to spend hours and hours outside!

(As it is now Tuesday morning, I can already tell you that I am sore from skiing. But I will ski again today at our outdoor playgroup!)

AO year 1, week 26, February 6

We finished up Racketty-Packetty House this weekend. It is a very sweet story. I had never heard of it, but we both enjoyed it immensely. I would highly recommend it.

I've added a couple more things to my reading list.  Gene Stratton-Porter's The Girl of the Limberlost which I have heard mentioned many times.  And Susan Wise Bauer's The Well-Educated Mind. I heard her speak on an episode of the Read-Aloud Revival podcast. In it, she gives lists of good things for adults / parents to read. I borrowed it from the library, so I will just give it a quick read before returning it.

*****

Today, we started with some bible readings. We read John 2:1-11, the wedding at Cana, and Fina gave a great narration of it.

We did 15 minutes of math. She finished up 13F and did the test for 13. She even had a few minutes left over to start the extra page from the activity book for lesson 13.

Fina reviewed her recitation. She pretty much finished up "My father had a daughter loved a man" from Twelfth Night.

We started a new history book, Viking Tales. We read the first chapter, "The Baby" and Fina gave a great narration. She really wanted to keep reading. She was so excited! (But we didn't! I held on!)

We read the first half of the story of St Benedict from In God's Garden. She narrated it. We will continue next time.

She learned the cursive upper case U.

We read chapter 12 from The Burgess Bird Book, about the cowbird and the oriole. She was more engaged with this chapter. We enjoyed looking at photos of these birds and watching a video and hearing their song.

We did chapter 7 of our catechism. We sang our hymn and folksong.
Fina read the rest of the Frog and Toad Alone story aloud to me. She is doing a great job!

We looked at our same picture study from last week and she did this drawing.

I re-read the last poem we did, "My Mother," from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse and I read the next two poems aloud. 106 "Meddlesome Matty" and 107 "The Pin."

Fina spent 10 minutes crocheting.  Look at these nice, even chains!

In the afternoon, Fina got in a short ski in all our new powdery snow. She skied right from home to the ski trail (which wasn't groomed since the snow, but the tracks were still usable).

*****

Today, we sort of started our new schedule. Using the scheduling cards as suggested by the ladies at "A Delectable Education" podcast.  It worked well. Here is a pic of our schedule at the moment.  It did help us keep our day moving. Here is my slightly tweaked schedule. We will see how this works.