Year 1, week 33, day 2, March 31

For those of you who are wondering, here is a photo of what our current Spanish vocab book looks like (the Berlitz First 1000 words in Spanish one).

Fina listened to some of The Red Fairy Book on Librivox over breakfast.
Then she practiced her piano pieces.

I read Genesis 4:1-16, Cain and Abel. Fina says "see! Even Cain had original sin." It was quite the moment.

We started on subtraction today. Fina did 18A.

We reviewed her recitations.

I read "The Hare and the Tortoise" and "The Fox and the Crow" from Aesop's Fables.

We read pages 15-18 of Peppa se va a dormir. Fina's Spanish comprehension is above and beyond what I imagined. This kid is really something. (It makes me feel a lot better about my guilt for her lack of fluency in any other language other than English. I guess it DID all stick with her. Spanish, Italian, even French.)
We reviewed all our nursery rhymes and even looked at two new vocab pages, "En la sala," about the living room. There were all kinds of things Fina knows nothing about. VCRs, walkmen, CD players. Words that are useless to her!

I read poem #165, "The Owl and the Pussycat" by Edward Lear from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse. We listened to Stravinsky's rendition of this poem, which I remembered from undergrad. Very cool!

We sang our hymn and started our new folk song, "The Red River Valley." Seeing as we live in it, I thought it would be a good choice.

Fina worked on some cursive.

She likes the top blue one the best.

Fina finished reading Squirrel Nutkin. And she started Benjamin Bunny.

She spent the rest of the day playing outside with her friends. It's nice to have the public school kids home and outside!

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 4, March 29

We had our outdoor playgroup yesterday. The kids had so much fun. We had a pretty large group. Fina went through three changes of clothes. Good thing for friends who are willing to loan!  There was SO MUCH WATER! 

We were out from 11 til 4:30 and then she came home and continued to play outside with a neighbourhood friend (the public school kids are on spring break) until 8:25. This weather is just wonderful!

This morning, I read two chapters of Stuart Little over breakfast. Fina then practiced a bit of piano.

I read Genesis 3:8-24, stopping three times for narration. This was one of her best narrations ever. Something is really clicking. I'm glad her Bible narrations are so good! We had a big discussion about the passage.

She worked on the test for unit 2 in her math work.

"These are the neatest numbers I've ever written in my whole life!"

We reviewed her recitations.

I read "The Cat that walked by Himself" from Kipling's Just So Stories to Fina for narration. She was taken by it!

We worked on our Spanish, reviewing page 7 of our vocab book, learning our next nursery rhyme "El patio de mi casa" and reading pages 11 and 12 of Peppa se va a dormir.

She worked on some cursive. We tried working on the whiteboard (she is still having some perfectionist frustration. I think we need to get a slate that she could use at the table instead. Writing vertically is quite different. Good, but different!)

I read poem #163, "Little Things," from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse and we reviewed our last few poemas.

Fina read aloud from Squirrel Nutkin.
We sang our hymn and folksong. We will start our next hymn and folksong tomorrow.

Fina spent some time painting, while listening to The Red Fairy Book on Librivox.

Then she spent all afternoon and evening playing outside. We went back to the forest at the creek and the water had risen at least another two inches. I was unable (unwilling) to cross and fill my boots with water!

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 32, day 2, March 24

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then she painted for another half an hour.

We went outside in the afternoon.

Year 1, week 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 4, March 21

For life reasons, we had a slightly condensed school day today.

We started with Genesis 2:22-25.

We did some MEP math, Book 1, p9 3-4 and p 10 1-4.

I read "The Quack Toad" and "The Cat and the Fox" from Aesop's Fables. Fina narrated them.

We reviewed her recitations.

We worked on pages 1+2 of the Spanish book, Peppa se va a dormir. I read through them a few times. Fina repeated. She narrated in English what each sentence meant.

She worked on her cursive for a few moments. She is working on a list of "things that people are scared to eat because they think they are too dangerous"

We read Me on the Map and looked at our wall map to place our country, province and city. We looked at google maps to zoom into our town and to see our street.

We read our next poem, #151.

Fina read a bit of Squirrel Nutkin aloud.

She's been continuing to work on her loom knitting and other handicrafts.

And we had our outdoor playgroup in the afternoon. The kids played in freezing cold mud puddles and "ponds" and we had to change them down to their socks and pants. They had fun, but it was a bit much!