leading up to December 22

This is what we have been up to over the last few days.

Fina has continued to recite her Shakespeare at random times of her day. She says she wants to learn the next one.

We have been continuing our Jesse tree devotional material. We are well into the seven O Antiphons, and this part is fun for both of us.

A while back, I had serendipitously come across the fact that the Chartres Cathedral (you remember, the one from our artist study of Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot!)

has as one of its stained glass windows this lovely window:

photo credit: https://mikejklug.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/ch-jesse-tree-window.jpg

And guess what this window is? One of the earliest surviving stained glass depictions of the Jesse Tree!!! Please click on this link to see the window, and you can click on each section to zoom in to see a detail of the section and to see the list of who is in it. So wonderful! At the bottom, there is Jesse, with the tree literally stemming from his loins. (Thankfully she took it in stride and didn't ask me why this man had a tree coming out of him!).  The centre then has David, Solomon, a couple of generic Kings of Israel, Solomon, David, Mary and then Christ at the top. Along the two sides, there are a bunch of prophets.

Before we looked at the Jesse Tree window together, I showed her this photo

and I asked her if she knew what this was. She instantly answered "the Chartres Cathedral!" I was so pleased. Artist Study for the win!

We have been having some trouble with her pencil grip, so I have stopped having her do her cursive for a bit. I'm still trying to discern what to do about it.

Yesterday, we did some math. We did chapter 26, which is telling time, starting with the minutes. She did a good job with that and it was fun, so far.  Now, of course, she has asked for a clock as a gift. (We don't actually have an analog clock in our house. We have watches, but not clocks.) I'm thinking we can find a cheap one at Ikea for her.

this table clock for $1

OR

this wall clock for $2.99.

The next math lesson is learning the hours and then putting it all together. We only have 4 lessons left in our Primer book: telling time with hours, with hours and minutes together, and then the last two chapters are an introduction to subtraction. We will start the Alpha book in the new year.  I have said it already here I'm sure, but I am so happy I went back and bought the Primer book. I think it was a great way to start math, and it only took us a few months to complete. I am much more confident myself in moving on to Alpha, which is sort of grade one. I am very happy with Math-U-See!

Fina has also been playing outside a lot! She is overjoyed with the amount of snow we have had.

Yesterday afternoon, she took out her year-round bedroom Christmas lights and put them on our front stairs to make our house look like a "gingerbread house"

My parents live in Hamilton ON, and this is their forecast for Christmas.

Even for southern Ontario, this is UNSEASONABLY warm

This is ours:

I talked to her about our weather and the Hamilton weather. I asked her "Fina, would you have liked to go to nonna and nonno's house for Christmas?" Her answer? "No, there would be no snow. That would be terrible!" And this coming from a girl who loves visiting all her grandparents in Ontario.

We had gone for a walk in town, heading over to the Museum grounds. We went to see if our creek was frozen yet. (Fina and her friends [and their moms!] have been waiting anxiously for the creek to freeze this year, because the ski bridge that usually provides us access into our little forest has been closed due to creek bed erosion. So we can not get into the forest until we can walk across the creek.) As were looking at the still unfrozen creek, Fina said to me "Mom, the thing I want for Christmas is to be able to get into the forest. I wish I could fly and that my friends could fly, so that we could get into it. Once we were in the forest, we could still fly if we wanted to, but we could also walk around and have so many fun adventures in there." With the temps we are getting now, I think it should be soon.

We have our outdoor playgroup there today. Regular school kids are on Christmas break, so we expect a good number of kids today, with their school-aged siblings who we have been missing. It should be a great time. And pretty warm. Minus 3 is just lovely at this time of year. We have had such a mild start to our winter. It really is unfortunate we couldn't get into the forest. But the joyful anticipation, much like Advent is to Christmas, will soon burst forth into celebration!