Year 1, week 31, day 3, March 20

Fina started by practicing her piano pieces.

We read Matthew 3:13-17 and Fina narrated.
We did some math work. 17D2 and 17E1.
We reviewed her recitations.
We continued with the D'Aulaire's Benjamin Franklin. We read from page 18 to 28, narrating throughout.

We reviewed our Spanish nursery rhymes and we read through Bedtime for Peppa in Spanish. Fina was able to understand much of it, just by the pictures and of her knowledge of Italian. Next, we will read a few pages at a time, with Fina repeating in Spanish and narrating in English.

She worked on her cursive for just a few minutes.

We read "Nuts and Nut-Eaters" from Eyes and No Eyes. We learned about catkins and weevils.

I read poem #150, "The Migration of the Grey Squirrels" by William Howitt in The Oxford Book of Children's Verse. It was cute. The squirrels use their tails as sails on the rafts. "Just like Squirrel Nutkin!" Fina shouted!

We sang our hymn and folksong.

Fina then read aloud from the English version of Bedtime for Peppa.  She read the whole book.

She worked on her crochet while I read from The Olive Fairy Book.

We looked at our next Hans Holbein painting, "The Last Supper."

Fina had a lot to say about it. We think that Judas is on the left. He's wearing sandals because her was in charge of the purse!

Then Fina spent 40 minutes painting this, a plan for a bedroom for her pony. This is the pony's bed.

She played outside all afternoon. It was plus 5 celsius and so sunny!

Yup, she is sitting in a freezing puddle!

And she did some loom knitting before bed. She is working on a "surprise" scarf, for my birthday. She keeps saying funny things like "mom, if you could choose your favourite wool, would it be thick and multi-coloured?" and "do you think a scarf would be your favourite gift, hypothetically?"

I had my first meeting as board secretary last night. It was great! A little long, but great!

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 3, March 14

We started our day with Matthew 3:16 and Fina narrated.

We started our next math lesson. Fina did 17A.

We finished our Shakespeare review for recitation and we reviewed our current selections.

We started reading Benjamin Franklin by the D'Aulaires. Fina narrated it throughout. We will pick back up at page 18.

We reviewed all of our Spanish nursery rhymes.

Fina worked on her cursive for a few minutes. Seeing it here, it doesn't look that great. But she was trying hard and really concentrating. Thankfully, cursive is a long term thing!

We read the next chapter from Eyes and No Eyes, "The Skylark and her enemy." Fina narrated.

I read the next poem aloud, #146 "The Spider and the Fly."

We sang our hymn and folksong.

Fina read a few pages from Peter Rabbitt aloud.

We looked at our same painting from last week. Fina looked at it for 3 minutes. Then, I covered it up and she tried to sketch all she could remember.

She did a great job, I thought!

She spent some time practicing her piano pieces.

We had a great time at our outdoor playgroup. It was just warm enough to be comfortable and it was so sunny. The kids had a great time playing with the ice on the creek for hours!

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 3, March 6

On Saturday, Fina and her little friend K played outside for 6 hours. It was pleasantly above 0 degrees celsius and the sun was shining!

On Sunday morning, we were eating breakfast together and Fina wanted me to read our last three poems to fina's homeschooling dad. So I did. She actually has been wanting to include dad in the things she is learning and experiencing, of her own volition, which is great. She has taught him to crochet, to do Japanese braiding, she will show him her dry brush painting work, she has recited things for him and more. I'm glad it is coming spontaneously from her, rather than from me asking her. But the Sunday poetry thing was especially nice. She didn't want to say anything about the poems, she just wanted him to hear them.

We started the morning today with some piano practice. Fina learned a new song, page 3 from Bastien.

I read Matthew 17:1-9, the Transfiguration, and Fina narrated it.

We learned about making 9 and Fina completed 16A and 16B of her math.

We reviewed our current recitation pieces. We reviewed all of her poems from A Child's Garden of Verses and Fina knew almost every word. Her memory is astounding.

I read the chapter on "St Augustine of Hippo" from In God's Garden. Fina gave excellent narrations throughout.

We reviewed our Spanish nursery rhymes and learned a new one "Asserín, Asserán." Fina is enjoying them and doing a great job with them.

We worked on some cursive.

We read chapter 15, "A Swallow - and One Who Isn't" from The Burgess Bird Book.  Fina narrated it throughout.

We read our next poem from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse, #129, "Choosing a Name" by Charles and Mary Lamb. It is a sweet poem about a sibling being born.

We sang our new hymn and folksong.

Fina read "Dragons and Giants" aloud from Frog and Toad.

For our picture study, we looked at Hans Holbein's "Henry VIII." Fina gave a good description of it, even guessing it was a king, though she was not quite as an animated as she was at co-op. Apparently, she thrives on an audience of more than just me!

She spent some time working on her crochet while I read some of our free read aloud.

Fina also did some sewing on Sewy, her machine. Just practicing some skills.

I feel like I need to have the sewing machine out, just like the woodcarving tools. Their constant presence makes them much easier to use!

We are just steeped in the "things" of a CM education right now, which is lovely. Tomorrow we'll do some painting too.

I have also been offered (and accepted) a very prestigious position as the secretary of a board related to Charlotte Mason. God works in mysterious ways. Thanks to my new position, I will be attending a conference in June in the States. A conference I had heard much about, but had decided not to attend this year. The day has been a bit of a whirlwind. I can hardly believe I am part of this board!

It was an incredible 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 4, February 28

Monday

We went to fina's homeschooling dad's university for the day. We went to their library's used book sale and got a bunch of stuff, including a piano book.  Fina painted the afternoon away.

After supper, Fina was looking at the piano book, which just happened to be the beginner book I needed. She asked if she could start her lessons. And so she did! She was so deliberate, trying really hard, without complaint. She enjoyed it so much! (I need to make sure all the lessons remain this way!) I love that homeschooling affords me the possibility to let things happen at their right time. An impromptu first piano lesson, of her own volition, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit in helping me find that book. I had been reluctant, just picking up books as I happened upon them. Fina was open. And God provided the rest. There are just some moments in life that seem perfect. That lesson was one of them.

**********
Tuesday

This morning, Fina washed her hands and was ready to have a piano lesson at 7:30! I told her she should have breakfast first.

After breakfast, we had a piano lesson. We used Alfred 1A, we learned page 8 yesterday and page 9 today.  I'm also going to use the Bastien Performance Primer Level for extra practice as we go along.

And we had a little open piano investigation time. Fina loved it. I feel like I have been waiting for this moment for 20 years!

We continued our school day with our Bible reading, Matthew 4:1-11. Fina narrated it well.

She did 15 minutes of math and was able to complete 15E with time to spare.

She recited her various pieces and we worked on elocution etc with the recitations. She can be very dramatic and we might as well give her the place for that!

We read "King Lear" from Nesbit's Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare. Fina narrated it throughout. Yes, they all die at the end, but we enjoyed it!

We read the next Spanish nursery rhyme, "Almendras y turrón." Fina's pronunciation is very good. Though she can't really roll her Rs. She gets that from her dad!

She worked on her cursive / copywork.

We read the next two poems from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse, "Truth the Best" and "How to Write a Letter" both by Elizabeth Turner.

We sang our hymn and our folksong. Tomorrow, we will be starting a new hymn and folksong.

Fina spent some time working on her single crochet stitch for her handicraft. And she spent some time painting a pony for her "drawing."  We have a separate notebook for this, and she is free to paint what she wishes.

Today was our outdoor playgroup, and Fina was outside playing for more than 6 hours.

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 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 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 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!)

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!)