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 3, February 24

I started reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time last night. Fina's homeschooling dad is reading through the whole thing, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

We read some free reads over breakfast. (Fina was up at 6:30. This is is going to be a long day!)

I read Genesis 1:20-25 and Fina narrated it.
She did 15 C and D of her math.

We worked on her recitations. She is now ready for her parts in our co-op passage.

We finished reading "St Catherine of Siena" from In God's Garden. We stopped frequently and Fina gave excellent narrations!

We spent a few minutes learning our next nursery Spanish nursery rhyme, "Cinco Lobitos."

Fina worked on her copywork.  I stepped away from her for one minute and she decides to write in half-size. Not very useful, as it led to misformed letters, but whatever!

We read the next chapter, "The Woodpecker's Nest" from Eyes and No Eyes. Fina narrated it. It is very cute.

I read poem #123 "The Canary" from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

We sang our hymn and folksong.
Fina read 6 pages aloud from Frog and Toad, "The Garden."

We listened to Palestrina's O Magnum Mysterium again as our second composer study of that piece. Fina told me a bit about what she heard.

She spent some time crocheting. She also tried to invent a new crochet stitch. A chain but with yarn over twice. It didn't work, but how fun!

Fina spent a few minutes doing some MEP math. We did p 7 #4+5, all of page 8 and #1-2 of page 9.

We got some outside time in the afternoon with some of our friends. It is nice and sunny but the temperature has dropped considerably.

Also, the two dear CM mom-bloggers at Learning How to Live have a giveaway for Riverbend Press's Book of Centuries. I'd love to win one!  They are so lovely!!!

https://learninghowtolive.com/2017/02/24/riverbend-press-giveaway/

Year 1, week 27, day 4, February 21

I am also reading The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards in the hopes to get some ideas for Fina's 20 minute drawing lessons twice a week.

And I started reading Charlotte Mason's Scale How Meditations, edited by Dr Benjamin Bernier. I bought the ebook.

Fina did a lot of drawing, colouring, wood carving etc yesterday as she was sick.  We played monopoly. We read. She listened to the last few chapters of The Orange Fairy Book on Librivox.

She also started doing some MEP math as enrichment. Over the weekend, she did the first 5 pages of level 1.

*****
Today we did a slightly shortened day because Fina is still feeling under the weather.

She listened to our two Palestrina pieces over breakfast.

Today, we started with reading our Gospel reading for Sunday, Matthew 6:24-34. We used our narration jar and I got to narrate.  Fina added some things I was missing.

Fina reviewed her recitations. She practiced her lines for our performance at co-op. She almost has them memorized.

I read the rest of "The Law of the Woods" from Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty. Fina gave an excellent narration.

We did some geography. We learned about the horizon and how the world is a sphere, using Charlotte Mason's Geography, "Our World, Part II." We talked about the horizon.

We read a new poem, #120 "Loving and Liking" by Dorothy Wordsworth in The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

Fina read aloud from Frog and Toad "A Swim."

I have decided to take the plunge and try to do foreign study as part of the schedule. I was inspired when I saw a book (that we also have) in a fellow CMers pics on FaceBook. Pio Peep! Traditional Spanish Nursery Rhymes.  I read the first poem, "Pito, pito, colorito." I asked Fina what it meant and she was able to decipher much of it.  I had her repeat the poem, line by line, and she did. No questions asked. No explanations given. Ha!

She thought the little bird was doing nature study, because he has a pencil crayon that is the same colour of the worm.  How cute!

I set the timer for 20 minutes of drawing. I told Fina she could draw whatever she wanted. She went and found one of our free reads, Mother West Wind Stories to Read Aloud, and she wanted to draw the raccoon on the cover.

We started listening to The Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang on Librivox, while Fina continued painting.

She went on to do some more woodcarving while we continued to listen. She is working on a paddle because she wants to make a giant raft for paddling in the creek this summer. (I have no idea if we can make this happen!)

We were outside for 6 hours this afternoon with our outdoor playgroup. Fina is full of mud and soaked but she had a blast!

Year 1, week 27, day 3, February 17

We re-listened to Palestrina's Tu es Petrus over breakfast.

I read Genesis 1:14-19, continuing on with the creation story, for Fina to narrate.

We learned the upper case cursive Z, and wow, our whole system fell apart here. We played with a few different ones. Fina has settled on this, it looks like an L with a line across the middle of it. (Rather than the one that looks like the lower case z, just bigger)

Here is her whole list of cursive letters.

And yet, we have finished all of our cursive letters. On to copywork next! That is going to be fun!

Fina reviewed her recitations. She has nearly the whole poem "The Lamb" memorized now. And has learned the first two of her six lines for our A Midsummer Night's Dream passage that we will be performing at co-op.

We read about "King Alfred" in Our Island Story. We stopped to narrate throughout and Fina gave excellent narrations. This story was a bit easier to relate to, I guess, since it involved less war description and more about cooking!

She did 15 minutes of math and completed 14F. We will do the test for lesson 14 next time.


We read about the Bobolink from The Burgess Bird Book and other blackbirds as well. Fina narrated.

We read our next poem, "Address to a Child during a Boisterous Winter Evening" by Dorothy Wordsworth from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse. Such lovely imagery about the wind. We enjoyed it!

We sang our folksong and hymn.
Fina read "A Lost Button" from Frog and Toad aloud.

We listened to our next piece by Palestrina, "O Magnus Mysterium" a 6-part motet. It was composed for Christmas and we looked up a translation of the Latin lyrics which speak of the babe being born in a manger and the angels singing etc.  We listened attentively and tried to discuss what we heard. It was a great study!

Fina crocheted for 30 minutes while I read to her from The Orange Fairy Book.

Then we did our nature study. We looked at the Bobolink, since we had just read about those birds.

Fina's dry-brush painting of the Bobolink

This is my painting. Try as I might, my beaks always look weird. I hope to improve!

It is still unseasonably warm here (with a high of plus 5 degrees celsius) and Fina was able to spend a few hours outside playing in the slush/snow/puddles with only splash pants and no coat on! Incredible for February. (Not so good for skiing!)

AO year 1, week 26, February 8

We started with reading from Matthew 2:1-6 and Fina narrated it.
She did her 15 minutes of math, completing 14B p 2 and 14C.
She reviewed her recitations.
We finished reading the story of St Benedict from In God's Garden. Fina gave an excellent narration.
We worked on some cursive and learned the upper case W.  Only X, Y and Z to go!

We read "Oscar, the Cat About Town" from James Herriot's Treasury. It is a sweet story and Fina gave an excellent narration of this one as well.

We read our next poem, by Jane Taylor, "Greedy Richard."

We sang our folksong and hymn.
We read "The Wolf and the Shepherd" and "The Farmer and His Sons" from Aesop's Fables. Fina narrated both of them well.
She read "The Kite" from Frog and Toad aloud.

For the first time, we did a big composer study lesson, à la Megan Hoyt's A Touch of the Infinite. Our composer for the term is Palestrina. (We are a bit behind the AO lists, but I wanted to do this composer to match Holbein's art work).  
I read the chapter on Palestrina from Harriette Brower's The World's Great Men of Music: Story-Lives of Great Musicians, free here at gutenberg.  Fina gave a short narration.  We quieted down to sit and listen attentively to the excerpt. (We started with his "Tu es Petrus.")  Then I gave Fina the chance to narrate. She spoke in such a lively manner. It reminded her of the music from the Vatican. It gets soft and loud, fast and slow. She realized there were no instruments, only voices. It was wonderful!
Now, we will add this to our "casual" listening and will do our next piece in a similar way, reviewing a bit about Palestrina himself and then listening carefully to that next piece.  I am already convinced that Fina has connected more with this 4 minute piece than with all of our Brahms and Schubert listening. I'm so glad I bought Megan Hoyt's book. It really gave me the encouragement I needed to do this in a more in-depth way. (Terrible, I am a music history major, but, like in other things relating to homeschooling, I was frozen with the choices. Once I found something that worked for me, it was easy to just dive in!)

Fina spent some time doing some fingerknitting (in place of her crochet).

We spent the sunny, chilly afternoon doing this and that and reading some free reads. Our current reads are Graham Oakley's The Church Mice and The Ring and Church Mice Adrift. We also started reading Thornton W. Burgess' Mother West Wind Stories to Read Aloud.  And we are continuing with our Orange Fairy Book by Andrew Lang.

**********
We have continued on with our new timed schedule and it is working well. I've been doing some Facebook research and have found a few things I need to tweak.

I need to do "drawing" which we haven't done, separate from nature study. Well, we kind of have, with Fina doing her artforkidshub.com stuff. But I want to do dry brush painting of other stuff, not just nature. So I have pulled out another notebook for her to use for this type of stuff. I do have Mona Brooke's Drawing with Children and we may try to do some of that as well.

We need more nature lore than what AO schedules, in order to do 20 minutes twice a week. So I have finally found the way to incorporate Arabella Buckley's Eyes and No Eyes series into our work. I have looked to buy it, but for now, we will use the free ebook from archive.org.

And I need to do something about foreign language. I need to bite the bullet and start some French. 10 minutes, three times a week. That isn't impossible. I really want to use this by Cherrydale Press, but I don't want to spend $20 USD. But I want something that is laid out for me. I should just do it!

We are going with dad his university tomorrow to do some painting with acrylics in their drop-in paint area. And on Friday we have our co-op. I will report back after that.

Thanks for coming alongside us!

AO year 1, week 24, January 16

I didn't post Fina's artwork for our church's "Keep Christ in Christmas" event. The kids all bring some art showing something about keeping Christ in Christmas and they have a little pizza party with games to celebrate. The art work is later judged by age category and the winners get a little prize. Well, when Fina was 4.5, this was her entry (she won a $10 gift card to Indigo).

We had written this description: The stars that brought the wise men to Jesus. The cross is to remind us that Jesus loves us (hearts). The music is from the angels. See the little angel at the bottom?

This year, at 7.5 years old, she entered this.

A few notable elements: The hay of the manger (below the manger) spills into the glowing cross.  Those are camels in the top right. Mary is kneeling at the manger and kneeling at the cross. Spot the two doves, representing the Holy Spirit (at each event, I guess.) And the heart of Jesus, bleeding with a crown of thorns, I think? The coloured things around the heart are rays of light with the people that Jesus loves, all different people.  We had gone to a talk at church before Christmas, a faith formation for adults (which Fina sat quietly and coloured through) and the pastor spoke about how without the cross and the resurrection, the birth of Jesus isn't anything special. We sang "Wood of the Cradle, Wood of the Cross" during that evening and we have had many lively discussions about that. Well, this piece of art is the fruit of such thought!

She won her age category again. She will receive her prize on Sunday.



On our way to the city yesterday, Fina spent some time working on her fingerknitting handicraft.

Yesterday, we also got Fina a pair of skis and we went out to ski for half an hour in the dark.

Fina also got a little Betta fish.  She has been wanting to have one to match nonno and nonna.

And yes, the two fish did FaceTime (a long standing dream of Fina's.) You will see our fish, Jim Shore (Jimmy for short) in the upper left hand corner of this screenshot.

This morning, we started with feeding our little fish, Jim Shore aka Jimmy.

And we listened to some Schubert over breakfast.

I read Matthew 2:1-12 and Fina narrated it well.
I read "Market Square Dog" from the James Herriot Treasury. It is a sweet story and Fina narrated it very well.
We reviewed a bunch of Shakespeare passages. Fina knows them all very well. We read aloud together the Parable of the Sower.

We started our next math lesson, lesson 12 (adding doubles) and Fina did lessons 12A and B.  The only two doubles Fina doesn't really know well is 6+6 and 7+7, but she is learning those!

We sang together our folk song.

We read "Grace Darling" from Fifty Famous Stories.  We looked her up on wikipedia and we saw a photo of the monument to her. It is quite a neat story.

Photo Creds

Fina reviewed her upper case cursive letters from A-L and we learned M and N.

We sang our hymn together.
I read poem 75 from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse, "Time," by John Huddlestone Wynne.

Fina read "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" from The Treadwell Primer to me. She is doing a wonderful job.

We did chapter 5 from our catechism book, looking at Ordinary Time.

This afternoon we went to the park for Fina to have a good workout with her skis. We were out for two hours, 1 hour and 45 of which she was on her skis! She LOVED it!

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 23 January 11

We had a very fun outdoor playgroup yesterday afternoon. It was very cold, but sunny and nice. Fina and I were outside for about 4 hours.  Here she is with one of her friends, playing in a little natural fort.

Today, we listened to some Schubert over breakfast.

We are working on some housekeeping habits here. I offered Fina the choice between taking the dry clothes off the racks or making the beds. She wanted to do both. And she organized her pj drawer. (We did a craft yesterday about an "Act of Kindness beads" which just so happens to be affiliated with St Therese de Lisieux, whose autobiography we are currently reading as a family). Fina pulled it out and thought she could count these 4 jobs as part of her 10 beads for the day. (And she wants to keep track on a calendar, for every day she does all 10 acts of kindness, she wants a check mark. And if she goes one week with all her check marks, she'd like to do something special. Funny, I never really used rewards with Fina, but they are working well with her today! Very motivated and "with a cheerful heart.") Win-win, I say! Thankfully she did her jobs quickly and efficiently and we were able to get on with our school work in a timely fashion.

I read Luke 1:26-38 and Fina gave a very good narration.
We sang through our folk song, "She's Like the Swallow."

I read the story of Antonio Canova from Fifty Famous Stories. Fina loved the story and gave a wonderful narration.

We read poem 52 from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse, "Upon Boys Diverting Themselves in the River" by Thomas Foxton.

Fina recited the Parable of the Mustard Seed.
She did 11E of her math book.
Fina wanted to have "recess" to play a bit while listening to Schubert. So she did. We don't really do recess as a normal thing, but every once in a while she gets wistful for it (though she never went to public school.)
She reviewed her uppercase cursive letters and learned the letter K.

She read a few pages aloud to me (from a Berenstain Bear's bible story book).
We did chapter 4 of her catechism.
She recited a bunch of Shakespeare passages to me. I read through her new passage to learn to recite, from Twelfth Night, Act II, scene iv, starting at 105.

VIOLA
My father had a daughter loved a man
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship. 

ORSINO
And what’s her history? 

VIOLA
A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' th’ bud,
Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
… 

ORSINO
But died thy sister of her love, my boy? 

VIOLA
I am all the daughters of my father’s house,
And all the brothers too—and yet I know not.

That is going to be a tricky one. It is quite lengthy!

We started a new hymn, "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty." Fina read through the entire first verse, singing it herself.

Fina also wanted to paint and this is her painting.

It is a gift for dad.

That is it for today. Join us tomorrow!

AO year 1, week 22, December 15

We read another bunch of chapters from Olga da Polga and we are quite enjoying them.

We listened to some Schubert this morning over breakfast.

We started with reading about the Knights of the Round Table from Our Island Story. Fina have a great narration.

We looked again at our picture study from last week, "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" by Jacques-Louis David. Fina looked at it for a few minutes in "silence" and then I turned it over and she drew this from memory.

I had her review her recitations. And guess what? She was able to do the whole Parable of the Mustard Seed on her own, without prompting. Maybe the "read it a bunch of times together" system really does work! I was completely floored!

She learned the cursive J.  I do like her cursive a lot.

We read another poem from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse, entitled "Cradle Hymn," a lovely poem about a child and about baby Jesus.

We sang "She's Like the Swallow," our current folksong. Fina knows the first verse.

We did a bit of 11B and 11C of our math, and all of lesson 11D. It is mainly review, which is good.

Fina read pages 42-45 of Tony's Birds aloud to me.

Then she did some drawing / painting / nature study (we'll call it) from the bird that Tony was seeing in the story.  Two tiny, lovely little paintings. I didn't get a proper photo of them and she has put them away "sorry, mom, I'm saving them for Christmas" but I can show you this photo of her while she was painting. We listened to some more Schubert while she painted and I prepared lunch.

We finished our week in three days, somehow, which is great, because I want to start week 23 right away and try to get in another good bit of school before Christmas.

We went out to play with our good friends J and J in the afternoon.  A wonderful day!

AO year 1, week 22, December 14

Yesterday evening, we read Blossom Comes Home by James Herriot and Fina narrated throughout.

We started reading Olga da Polga by Michael Bond (who authored Paddington). It is a cute story about a guinea pig.

We have also continued reading from The Pink Fairy Book, our other free read.

This morning, we listened to some Schubert over breakfast.

We started our new folksong, "She's Like the Swallow." It is a Canadian folksong (from Newfoundland). I had never actually heard it before, though I remember there being a piano piece based on it in one of my piano books. The lyrics are terrible. I think we'll stick to verses 1-3 and forget about the betrayal and the girl dying. All the youtube videos I found of it were very slow and dreary (no wonder!) and Fina didn't like them. So we just sing it ourselves at a nice pace!  I got the song from this lovely collection of folksongs which I borrowed from the library, The Penguin Book of Canadian Folksongs, edited by Edith Fowke. It has the melody and the lyrics.

Fina completed her unit exam in math. She did a great job. We also started our next lesson, lesson 11 about shapes and skip counting by 2s. Both these things are review from last year and she flew through lesson 11A.

I read Luke 1:5-20, 57-66 (the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth and John) and Fina narrated it very well.

We sang our hymn, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel."

I read the story of "The Vain Jackdaw and the Borrowed Feathers" from Aesop's Fables and Fina narrated it.

We worked on our recitation. Fina now knows the "What is love?" speech from Twelfth Night.  I read chapter 17 from How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare, the chapter pertaining to this passage.
We continued to work on the Parable of the Mustard Seed.

Fina reviewed her upper case cursive letters and we learned the letter I.

Her cursive is really good. We will continue to work on doing our best at all times. But she has a nice hand, I think. Certainly better than mine!

We read a poem from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.  We still haven't found one to memorize. But we are enjoying reading them. I usually reread the previous day's poems and then one (or more) new one.

Fina read pages 36-40 of Tony's Birds aloud to me. She is doing a great job!

We read chapter 10 of The Burgess Bird Book, about Redwing the Blackbird and Yellow Wing the Flicker (who is of the wood pecker family). We found both the birds online and listened to their calls.
I asked Fina if she wanted to paint one of the birds, but she is reluctant to pull out her watercolours. I am not concerned. I don't want to force her right now, so I'll let it be for a bit. She loves nature study. I think she is worried about painting an animal (we've mostly done flora this far), though this would be straight out of a field guide.

Fina did some Lego and played the afternoon away.

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!

AO year 1, week 21, December 5

We got this suction-cup-to-the-window bird feeder (thanks to my good friend L who gave me the heads up, free shipping and all), filled it with black oil sunflower seeds and stuck it to our back door. The perfect place for Fina to create a little Birdwatching Studio.

She wasn't sad. The pic is to show her sign. "Birdwatching only" 

She spent a long time on Sunday setting up her studio, complete with pencils, pencil crayons, sketch books, loose papers and all her field guides. We have the bird feeder in the perfect spot, because we can open the other French door and just stick our hand out to fill it. Fina sat there, quiet and still, for over a half an hour this morning, waiting to spot something, but no birds came. I believe that conventional wisdom suggests it can take a few days for the birds to come. We hope to see some soon.

We read the last three poems from Now We Are Six by A. A. Milne. All three were very cute. We are a bit sad to leave this poetry, but we are moving on to The Oxford Book of Children's Verse, edited by Iona and Peter Opie. I found this 1973 edition at a used book sale, so we are using that one.

Fina has been wanting to time her math lesson. In 10 minutes, she was able to complete one lesson, lesson 10D today.

I read "How Napoleon Crossed the Alps" from Fifty Famous Stories. A short story. Fina gave an excellent narration and recognized that we heard about his wife in "Picciola" from the same book just last week.  We looked at the map and the globe to see where the Alps are and how Napoleon crossed from France to Italy over them.  I showed Fina some photos of the Alps, which led to us looking at people taking pics of themselves on the peaks, which led us to watching a video of a group of people who climbed up the Alps. Fina said "one day, SF and I are going to climb up the Alps. We would love that. Is there anywhere in Manitoba where we can practice climbing up rocky mountains like that?"  Poor kid! No, we live in the Prairies!

We sang our Advent hymn. Fina learned the cursive letter E.

Fina worked on her recitations. She now knows the first 3 lines of "What is love?" from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

And we did our next picture study, Jacques-Louis David's "Napoleon Crossing the Alps at the St Bernard Pass."

"This is Napoleon? The same Napoleon?" she says. How fun! She did a great job, seeing many details and really enjoying seeing the scene with the soldiers, the cannons and the horses.

Fina finished reading Plenty of Fish to me and we read another few pages of Tony's Birds. It is astounding at how she can read!

We listened to some Schubert over lunch (we have been neglecting our composer study since we returned home).

We spent the afternoon visiting a good friend of ours, and then Fina stayed out playing for quite a few hours.  We have snow now (and much more on the way this week, it seems) so she tried out her $3 thrift store plastic skis and her snow shoes from last year as well.

Fina also received some lovely gifts and $20 from a kind colleague of dad's. Fina had painted a painting for her office, entitled "Sparkly Cat." Wow, money for her art. Incredible!  I can't seem to find a photo of it, but I will get one and post it here when I am able. Again I say incredible. Fina said she will use her money for art supplies or towards a wood carving set that she wants.  Look out world!