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You Are the Guilty Mom

Check out my latest over at the Bravest Thing. It's for all those guilty moms out there.

Homeschool Notes: January

Morning Basket 

Poetry: “Stopping by Woods on a Winter Evening” by Robert Frost

Hymn: "Now Thank We All Our God" (only just began)
Music Appreciation: Listening to operas by Gioachino Rossini.

It's been so funny to hear the kids! Emilie: "Rossini is good one!" Joseph: "Put on William Tell Overture again so we can run around!" William Tell is by far the favourite! Maybe they'll even remember it in months and years to come!

Picture books: We've been reading these, and other snowy books, as we cuddle inside on cold days. Honesty, I just get my lists from Read Aloud Revival's monthly suggestions.

  

 

Math

Speed drills. Addition/subtraction of numbers up to 17. Borrowing up to 3-digits. Everything else.

Language Arts 

Read-aloud: The Michells by Hilda Van Stockholm 

Audio books: Arnold Lobel collections

Joseph's reads: many Boxcar Children books, a handful of the Canadian Flyer series, the entire Adventures of Pippi Longstocking, On the Banks of Plum Creek, a beginner of Tom Sawyer and more!

   

  

Beginning cursive writing. Beginning Wordly Wise. Spelling. Sentence/paragraph structure. Grammar.

Sentence writing is, by far, the most challenging for Joseph. I'm just not sure why it's so hard, but he agonizes over what to write. However, with practice I'm sure he'll get better. Good to start 'em young.

Social Studies/Geography 

Learning/labeling Canadian provinces/territories and capitals (just started).

Studying India. Listening to Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. Watching videos of snow leopards, Bengal tigers, and colouring pictures. Learning major cities, historical sites, physical landscapes. 

Books 📚 Monsoon, Mother Teresa, Grandfather Gahndi, Once Upon a Mouse, The Story of Little Babaji, Taj Mahal, and others.

Taj Mahal (pictured below) is a beautiful story (and beautifully illustrated) about the love and marriage of the couple behind the building of the Taj Mahal. I recommend it - we loved it!

    

Science 

Building catapults as part of monthly science with friends. Astronomy. Truthfully, January was a light on the science apart from what we did science-related in other subjects (e.g. animals of India and their habitats, weather in southern parts of the world, monsoons, etc).

We just began a trial to grow/"harvest" our own yeast. Crazy! But I have high dreams of making my own sourdough bread and need to make the "starter". I'll try to document the process if we have any success! Joseph loves crazy, weird science like this!

Music 

Joseph won an award from his piano teacher for successfully completing music goals. He performed Amazing Grace at a recital with a youth mini orchestra. He is doing really well with Suzuki piano and beginning to play pieces with both hands, solid or broken chords.