finishing up term 1

A snapshot of our days this week.

Playing in the not-quite-yet-frozen creek.

One of Fina's handicrafts. She loom knitted herself a neck warmer / ear warmer.

She was working on her chalk pastels and wanted to draw this as a non-lesson, free drawing. It is really lovely in person.

When it is a million below with very high winds, you do what you have got to do to go skiing!

Skiing with friends on a much milder day.

Fina is really enjoying solfège. She has got sol-mi-la down really well!
We finished up with our picture study of six of Vermeer's paintings. We really like the ones we have studied! (Thanks to online recommendations, I rigged up this ribbon and glue gunned clothespegs to it and, voilà!)

We studied Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and it was a great piece to listen to and talk about.

She has enjoyed the books we are reading and continues to give great narrations. Her Bible narrations, especially, are great this term. We are reading about the plagues in Exodus and have had some lively discussions about those.

We are finishing up Kate DiCamillo's The Tale of Despereaux and we just love it. She is such an engaging author!

Next week? Exams!

lovely autumn days

We have added in a few free reads to our day. We are reading Bulla's A Lion to Guard Us as our historical fiction and A Cricket in Times Square by George Selden before bed. We are only a few pages in, but Fina is enjoying both of them. We are also reading Aliki's William Penn as our current biography. It is a picture book, but she likes it. My library is low in biographies, so I will have to be on the look out. This is in addition to our after supper Bible readings etc that we do with Fina's homeschooling dad.

For reading, we are slowly working through Clyde Robert Bulla's The Chalk Box Kid as well as reading some poetry.

Our CM math is going well so far. It is is such a different way of approaching math. Fina is really enjoying it. And the treat of writing a sum or two in our math journal is really seen as a treat for her, Compared to the drudgery of doing pages of math before. I hope we continue in this positive experience of math. I'm glad I am trying it out, for sure.

2+2+2+2=8 (or 4 times 2)

We looked at our first painting on Monday, Vermeer's "The Little Street." Our picture study went well. Fina noticed many details, like his autograph on the bottom left, the lady sewing with no face, and the chimneys.

Our singing is going well. On different days we have a solfa lesson, a folk song, a hymn and a foreign language song, as well as a few songs for our physical education. She is participating much more this term in terms of singing along loudly, so that's great.

We are enjoying our poetry time. We are using a compilation, and the poems are cute and sweet. Fina always asks to hear "just one more" poem.

We had a lovely nature walk on Monday afternoon.

Our little maple tree that we planted in the maple forest at the Museum.

at the creek

On Tuesday, we had our outdoor playgroup on Tuesday and it was a lovely, sunny day!

Fina collected sap from various spruce trees

A feast fit for a king. 

She was eating those "spiky plants" pictured in the left milkweed pods. 

On Wednesday, we did our drawing lesson of the same skunk, this time in dry-brush. Fina says that she prefers the look of the chalk, but the technique of brush-drawing.

Here are some pics from our nature rambles this week.

She made a bed with prairie grasses

It's not quite southern Ontario, 

but we do have some lovely colours here in Manitoba as well

Isn't it lovely?

Year 1, week 33, day 3, April 3

I read some Skylark while Fina ate her breakfast. Then she practiced her piano.

I read Matthew 5:1-12, the Beatitudes.
Fina worked on some cursive. I bought this 11x15" magnetic chalk board for $4 at Dollarama. It has two (useless for our purpose) easel legs and can be wall mounted.

This is for you, Elena.

So she did her cursive on her chalk board. It seemed to go better.

She did 18B of her math, subtraction.

We worked on her recitation. We tried reciting our most recent hymn, spoken not sung (as per Charlotte Mason's suggestions). It was an interesting experience.
We also started working on reciting "The Owl and the Pussy-cat" by Edward Lear.

I read "The Sea Fight" from Viking Tales.

We worked on our Spanish. We reviewed everything in Pio Peep, we reviewed all our vocab pages and we reviewed all of Peppa se va a dormir plus our new pages, 19-20.

We finished "A Maker of Thunder and a Friend in Black" from The Burgess Bird Book.  We looked up the grackle. Such beautiful colours.

I read "Mr and Mrs Spikky Sparrow" by Edward Lear, another nonsense poem in The Oxford Book of Children's Verse. It was funny.

We sang our hymn and folksong.

Fina read a few pages from Benjamin Bunny aloud.

We looked at our next painting by Hans Holbein, "The Oberried Altarpiece."

We looked at the two middle portions. On our print, they were the other way around, however. And Fina wondered why the Three Wise Men came to the left of the Nativity portion. It was a great picture study!

The weather is BEAUTIFUL here, so we spent the afternoon outside!

Year 1, week 32, day 3, March 27

I read some Stuart Little over breakfast.
Fina practiced her piano.

I read Matthew 4:12-17 for narration.
Fina did the math test for lesson 17. We will do the unit test next time and then we move on to subtraction!

Fina reviewed her recitations.

We continued with our Benjamin Franklin. We read from p 30-42 and Fina narrated throughout.

We reviewed our Spanish nursery rhymes, we moved on to the second page of the "kitchen" vocab words (page 7) and we continued with pages 9+10 of Peppa se va a dormir.

Fina worked on her cursive for a few minutes.

We read chapters 17 "More Robbers" and 18 "Some homes in the green forest" from The Burgess Bird Book.  We looked up the Blue Jay, the Crow, the Ovenbird and the Redtail Hawk and saw photos and listened to their calls.

We read poem #159 "Good Night and Good Morning" from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

We sang our hymn and folksong.

Fina read aloud from Squirrel Nutkin.

We took a second look at Holbein's The Last Supper. Fina drew this.

"These guys [with the halos] love what Jesus is saying, are listening to him. The one on the right is looking into the crowd.  I sort of drew the continuation of what is going to happen. Crown of thorns. Jesus resurrected."

In the afternoon, we went to our local provincial park with our friends J and J. The girls had fun playing in the ice, slush and puddles!

On our way home, we stopped by the local bison farm.

Tomorrow, we have an all-day outdoor playgroup. The public school kids are on their spring break, so we will have some of the "older" crowd with us, which is always great fun!

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 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 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 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 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 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!)