Results

Week 13 – Arthur Christmas Results

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Despite a later night than usual, and us forgetting to wake the Dragon earlier on Monday morning, Tuesday virtual school went incredibly well.

Dragon sang the Bonjour song, answered combien de jours dans la semaine, and also answered combien de mois dans l’année (although did not answer in a complete sentence, so we will work on that). They listened to a new (to us) seasons song, which we really enjoyed.

They learned about the letter V today, and they wrote some words that started with V. She not only wrote the words on the screen, but she wrote three whole sentences. “V comme volcan”, “V comme vélo”, and “V comme verre”.

After recess, we were read a book about the seasons, and the kids were asked what their favourite seasons are. Dragon said automne, because of pommes and jumping in leaves.

After lunch, they did math. They started reading a book about a cat that likes math, but then the lesson got sidetracked (in a very good way) when the teachers asked the kids to get multiple objects from their house (blocks, cars, etc) to do math with. To hurry Dragon along in her choice, I gave her three options: blocks, dominos, or the playdough jars. She chose crayons, which was better than her eying our bookcases and wanting to pick out multiple toys (which we usually do during homeschool lessons). Mme Houria had her count out her crayons and I had to stifle a laugh because there are a lot of crayons in her little cup. Dragon got to 10 and Mme Houria tried to get her to stop there, but Dragon didn’t hear her and powered on all the way up to 20 (with a tiny bit of help with the first sound of the numbers 15, 16, and 20 – again, we’re working on those this week, but I already knew we had to). At 20, Mme Houria managed to stop her, mostly because Dragon doesn’t know how to count higher than that yet! Then, she was asked to remove 4, and count how many were left. I think the teachers were impressed that she was counting so high, but I’m not sure if they heard my slight assistance (PS Mme Samaké, I’m calling myself out here!).

Then they got to present, and Dragon started off by presenting her witch’s hat. She did an excellent job with her French, calling it a chapeau de sorcière. She was asked quelle couleur, and she said mauve without hesitation. She was then asked if there was a V dans mauve, and she thought about it and then said oui! (Yay for answering in French!) Then she presented her petit frère, who was super cute and kept trying to put her hat back on her head. She was asked how old he is, and she needed help with that because she didn’t know (17 months). Then she listened to everyone else’s presentations (with a slight bit of impatience and sadness when she had a question for one of the kids but nobody saw her hand was up).

Homeschool was a lot of fun this week. We baked a lot of cookies…and will be making more in two weeks (possibly more next week as well, but it won’t be school related).

Dance

She did ballet 2-3 times this week.

Music

Her letters are doing well. She didn’t learn anything new. She reviewed counting and clapping and was perfect. They did all three pieces that she already knew, including A and E, and she did them no problem, and the long piece without E and A and she did very well. No new pieces because she wanted to help decorate the house. However, she did get to play chop sticks and Jingle bells with major assistance.

We listened to French Christmas music this week. (obviously)

Crochet

We did not do crocheting this week, as she wanted to make more cookies. I can’t say no.

Basic Information

Working on the days of the week verbally is going well. She remembers without prompting, and can tell me the day before and the day after any given day. The months of the year is also going excellently. All months have proper pronounciation now, and we’re working on the month before and after any given month. (Except on Friday, she seemed to have forgotten Juin, Juillet, and Août all of a sudden.)

The saisons de l’année are now memorized, including printemps. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.

Printing words

We did the first sheet on Thursday and the second on Friday. Thursday was not a good day. Friday was not much better, but there were no tears, at least. Some of her letters look much better, others…less so.

Counting objects/math-type activities

She seems to be struggling with printing her numbers, which I find odd.

Counting while drinking tea from Thesaurus Tea!

Her verbal counting in French is going well. She’s fairly consistent up to 14, then needs help with 15-16-17, can get 18 and 19, but needs helps with 20. I’m happy with her progress.

We did some math with shapes, and then made a complicated suite (pattern).

12-3=9
A pattern using all the pieces

Storytime

We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.

We’ve also started watching Vampirina in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!

Activity

Write letter to Santa – she has been SO excited to write her letter to Santa. We’ve been discussing what she would ask for since mid-November (possibly earlier). Santa connected to our printer on Sunday night, when I printed the rest of her paperwork. She filled it out on Monday and I uploaded it back to him.

Nice things: Listening, Bought a present (for Pegasus)
She would like: A ice cream shop, and Pegasus would like a stuffed Tigger

Geography – we played with a kid’s geography app on my phone. It had images of major landmarks for different countries as puzzles, as well as an image of each country’s flag, and a mini game for each country’s food. No pictures of this activity because I was using my phone lol

Bake cookies – this week, we made three family recipe cookies (my grandmother’s). Scottish shortbread, butter buds, and Swedish tea rings (with some homemade jam that Éric made). Dragon was very patient with rolling the dough into balls, and even managed to make them all the same size (and larger than the butter buds) for the tea rings (to have enough space for the jam).

shortbread
butter buds
tea rings

Week 12 – Frozen 1 Results

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Virtual school was much better this week (seems to be on an alternating schedule – one week good, one week bad). Dragon was disappointed to not be called on to name the days of the week, but when I pointed out that they already knew that she knew them, she was happier. She got to sing the Bonjour song, and then she was asked to sing the Automne song, which she hadn’t been asked before. She really didn’t want to do it, but unmuted her microphone and whispered along with Mme Houria. I was very proud of her for trying something new.

They reviewed the letter L, and Dragon volunteered the word “livre”. Not surprised. She loves her books. Then she wrote it down, with me only helping to sound out the word, not specifically telling her the letters.

During recess and lunch, we built a gingerbread house, and I took a picture to upload it to the Classroom so she could present it after lunch. Mme Samaké was thinking on the same wavelength as I was, because she had the pictures uploaded before I or Dragon even had to say a word! They had Dragon describe the picture (a maison gingerbread!) and then I asked her to mention what she did with the lights (I made the lights a suite!) The teachers thought she was saying sweet, but were very impressed when they realized she was saying suite (pattern). They had her list the suite in the lights and in the roof. Then they asked other kids the same thing. Then they asked Dragon about the formes (shapes) that she could see. (I hadn’t really covered that with her…something I remedied on Wednesday!) But she surprised me – when prompted if she could see any triangles, she said an arbre de noel! I was very impressed with her.

She danced with Yoshi during the physical exercise portion of virtual school during the Mario song. It makes me laugh.

We had parent-teacher interviews this week, and while Dragon is doing well, her vocabulary needs strengthening. To help with this, the teachers suggested that she watch a show in French, so we’re going to start watching one episode of Vampirina a day. We started this on Friday. She says she didn’t understand any of it, but at the very least she’s being exposed to more French?

Homeschool went well this week:

Dance

No martial arts again this week (seems to be a trend, but Éric has been busy with coffee roasting), but she did ballet 2-3 times this week.

Music

Her letters are doing well, but she needs to work on the counting of full, half, and quarter notes and rests, so my mom is going to work on that when she visits during the week. Eighth notes/rests are great. She did all three pieces she knows and did well. She’s getting better at recognizing the notes on the staff and played the long piece with reading the staff.

We listened to French Christmas music this week. (obviously)

Crochet

We did a little bit of crochet this week, after over a month of no crocheting. It went as well as can be expected lol.

Basic Information

Working on the days of the week verbally is going well. She remembers without prompting, and can tell me the day before and the day after any given day. The months of the year is also going excellently. All months have proper pronounciation now, and we’re working on the month before and after any given month.

The saisons de l’année are going well. She’s got automne, hiver, and été, but still has trouble remembering printemps. (no change from last week)

Printing words

Her tracing is going very well, but her small letters are iffy. This is a work in progress.

  • I asked her to practice her ‘g’, pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top. She took me literally lol

Counting objects/math-type activities

She seems to be struggling with printing her numbers, which I find odd.

Her verbal counting in French is going well. She’s fairly consistent up to 14, then needs help with 15-16-17, can get 18 and 19, but needs helps with 20. I’m happy with her progress.

Storytime

We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.

Activity

Make paper snowflakes – She really enjoyed this. I needed to help her cut through the thickness of the folded paper (we just used regular printer paper), but she told me where to cut and how long a cut to make, and she cut the edges. She also did the folding.

Experiment with states of matter: solid/liquid/gas (make an ice cube) – We decided to freeze water into an ice cube, and then melt it back into water to show a physical change. She saw the liquid to gas change happen when we boiled water for the following activity.

  • liquid
  • solid
  • cold!
  • liquid again!

Make rock candy – we were so very looking forward to this. However, the receipe I had didn’t say when to stop adding sugar, and we were able to add an extra cup and 3/4 more than we should have been able to. So we ended up with solid sugar in our glasses!

  • Peach flavouring with the orange (red and yellow)
  • Vanilla flavouring with the blue
Setting up
Results

Week 11 – Onward Results

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Virtual school started off a little rough this week. Dragon told me her tummy hurt. I think it hurt because she was exhausted. It felt better by the time she had recess. She sang the Bonjour song, both while it played and then when her teacher asked her to sing it by herself. Then she was asked how many days in a week, but she wanted to list the days of the week, so that provided some confusion. She did not get the chance to say the months of the year this week. The teachers taught the students about the letter “L”. Dragon got to write in the chat any words that started with the letter “L”, which she was very excited about. She wrote “livre”. Then they were asked to make the letter with playdough, and then asked to make a word with playdough. Again, she made the word “livre”. She even got a little one-on-one time with the teacher when she was supposed to start recess, because she hadn’t finished and shown her word yet.

After lunch, they did some math. Dragon was able to count to 20 (with a little help for the numbers above 12 from the teachers). So guess what we’re working on this week? We also were introduced to addition of groups of 10, and addition of the under-10 numbers.

Dragon got to present twice this week – first thing in the morning, she presented her wand (baguette magique). She was asked about the colours on it, but she wasn’t feeling well and was tired, so her comprehension wasn’t really there yet. In the afternoon, she presented her family tree to the class. There was some confusion when the teacher asked her how many people were in her family, since her paternal grandparents are no longer with us. (It’s been over a decade, but that night, Dragon was very upset that she had never met them.)

The home school portion went well.

Dance

No martial arts again this week (seems to be a trend, but Éric has been busy with coffee roasting), but she did ballet 2-3 times this week.

Music

Her letters are doing well. She learned where the A and E are on the piano and on the staff. They did a review of the clapping and counting (success), and they tried clapping and counting with notes on the staff (limited success). She learned two new songs with using the two new notes. She practiced the two songs she sight-read last week.

We listened to French Christmas music this week.

Crochet

We did not crochet this week. I am crocheting baby octopuses for twin preemies.

Basic Information

Working on the days of the week verbally is going well. She remembers without prompting, and can tell me the day before and the day after any given day. The months of the year is also going excellently. On Friday, she was able to tell me all 12 months, with proper pronounciation. Prior to that, November and December had English pronounciations.

The saisons de l’année are going well. She’s got automne, hiver, and été, but still has trouble remembering printemps.

Printing words

Tracing letters went well on Wednesday. Printing went fairly well on Friday. She tried really hard to make the letters look the same as the traced ones. She tried to tell me that she had never printed letters without tracing them before. lol

Counting objects/math-type activities

She is doing much better with verbal counting. Her printing needs work on some numbers, but she is working hard. She can count to 14 in French, consistent 95% of the time. We are working on counting to 20. She can count to 12 no problem this week.

Patterns – her patterns have gotten more complex. She understands how to complete a pattern and how to define the first part (the repeating part).

Grouping dice – we used dice to make groups of objects to make it easier to count. But first we had to sort them into the different shapes.

  • Éric has 31 d10s!

Storytime

We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.

Activity

Make a pop-up diorama – Apparently Dragon was expecting it to “pop!” and was very disappointed that it didn’t. Personally, I was disappointed in how the glue came through the paper, making it blotchy. She doesn’t seem to mind so I haven’t pointed it out to her. I coloured for the first time in a while at the same time as she did, and OMG I didn’t realize how much it hurts to colour after a while! I will definitely bear that in mind next time she says her hand hurts!

Make a dungeon maze – initially I had this as a drawing activity on paper, but then I remembered that we actually have dungeon tiles for D&D, so I changed my mind and had her use them like a puzzle. She was thoroughly entranced by all the different pieces and enjoyed this activity a lot.

  • Sully and Buzz minis are checking out the “scary dungeon”!

Plan a menu for the Manticore’s restaurant – She wrote the menu on paper first, and then I had her type it up on the computer. It was excellent practice for her to use the keyboard, and excellent practice in patience for me! She came up with a breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert item (one each). We only wrote this in English. Her restaurant’s name is FOOD. She was very disappointed that we wouldn’t be making the items to give out to people. Link to PDF of resturant menu.

Week 10 – Abominable Results

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Virtual school was excellent this week. Dragon sang the Bonjour song, repeated the jours de la semaine, and repeated the mois de l’année (although she’s not as fast as the teacher expected, so she was prompted, which threw her off, and then she stumbled of the entire rest of them). She got to present her video from week 6 ParaNorman Results to the class, and tell them how much work she did on it (lots). She was also asked to describe a suite (pattern) and answered very well, once she understood the terminology.

Different sizes
Les saisons

During the exercise portion of the day, they played a bunch of really fun songs, including Mario twice. On the second time, I told Dragon she could dance with her life-size Yoshi. And when I say life-size, he’s a little taller than she is, and definitely heavier. At one point, she managed to get him standing up, and then he fell on top of her. She (and I) laughed so hard that she couldn’t get up or wiggle out from underneath him for a couple minutes. Very fun.

The home school portion of the week went well. She enjoyed the activities (and the results).

Dance

No martial arts again this week, but she did ballet 2-3 times this week.

Music

Her letters are doing well.

She learned where middle C and D are on the music staff, which is a big deal. Very exciting stuff! She also managed to site-read two pieces, keeping time and playing the notes (C-D on the right hand, and C-B on the left hand)!

Notes from her piano teacher: We clapped and counted whole, half, quarter and eighth notes and rests. She learned the name of the treble clef, bass clef, and staff. Introduced the idea of the time signature and bar. Learned where middle C and D are on the treble staff and middle C and B are on the bass staff. Played a short tune for each hand – reading the music! Sight read a longer tune using the two notes on the treble staff. Played it well!

We listened to a bunch of French music. We listened to Isabelle Boulay at the beginning of the week, and then French Christmas music at the end of the week.

Crochet

We did not crochet this week. I am crocheting advent calendar boxes all the time! (I finished that before this post goes live.)

Basic Information

Working on the days of the week verbally is going well. She remembers without prompting, and can tell me the day before and the day after any given day. As for the months of the year, she has the first 10 down and can repeat them without prompting. November needs prompting still, as she skips it to December.

We’ve added the saisons de l’année (verbally), as they are doing that in virtual school, and I realized we should probably go over it daily. She remembers automne easily enough, and hiver with prompting of the first sound, but the other two are not there yet.

Printing words

Tracing letters went well on Wednesday. Printing went fairly well on Friday. She tried really hard to make the letters look the same as the traced ones.

Her name is “Abominable Dragon” lol

Counting objects/math-type activities

She is doing much better with verbal counting. Her printing needs work on some numbers, but she is working hard. She can count to 12 in French, consistent 95% of the time.

We did more patterns this week. I think she finds them very easy. I feel like I must be missing something if she finds them so easy.

The repeating portion of the pattern.

Storytime

We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.

Activity

Make pork buns – she marinated the pork shoulder on Wednesday and we cooked it in the slow cooker all day Thursday. Then the leftovers were used on Saturday (flu shot on Friday afternoon, so we had no time) to make the steamed pork buns! We feel like something went wrong in the first few, though, because the bread did not puff up, so the yeast didn’t activate. But the later ones worked much better. Hypothesis: they were not cooked fully. Read Éric’s account of their cooking here!

Making the marinade on the pork shoulder for barbequeing.
Making the pork buns

Make paper flowers – This was fun and frustrating by turns. Her scissor use has improved greatly, and she’s gotten better at folding too, but keeping the tissue paper in one place was very difficult for her. I think I did the stapling wrong, because I feel like it left a large gap in the middle. This was mostly pretty fool-proof, though. The frustration on Dragon’s part came from the delicateness of the tissue paper. She didn’t want to damage it. But she and I ended up with beautiful paper flowers, so I’m going to call this activity a win.

Learn about endangered species – no pictures from this activity as we watched youtube videos and read about different animals online. She was very sad that animals are dying, but felt better once we learned about some of the things that humans are doing to try to help the animals.

Week 9 – Coco Results

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Virtual school went well this week, for the most part. The teacher asked Dragon a question when two other kids had their mics on, and Dragon couldn’t filter out the extra noise (I don’t blame her; I was on the verge of tears myself from the overstimulation) in order to answer the question properly. (Note to self: remember to put the microphone on her table before school starts!) She got to present her Halloween costume in the afternoon (a pink bunny costume that my mother made for me. This was her 4th year wearing it, and her last. Pegasus will inherit it next year) and she was able to show off her letter m worksheets in the morning.

Work for virtual school this week

Even better, though, was the conversation I got to have with her teacher after school. She pointed me in the direction of Mini TFO youtube channel, which helps both Dragon and I learn the vocabulary necessary for math stuff (like patterns – les suites) and stuff like that. I was also able to show her this blog, and Dragon will be presenting her stop-motion movie next Tuesday (yesterday, when this posts).

Home school was a little more relaxed this week, as most of the activities were verbal. Good thing, as irl stuff was a little overwhelming this week.

Dance

No martial arts again this week, but she did ballet 2-3 times this week.

Music

Her letters are doing well.

She had a rhythm piano lesson on Wednesday afternoon at our house. She did very well. Whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes and rests were clapped (or not).

We listened to a bunch of French music. We listened to Isabelle Boulay, whom I very much enjoy. (I forgot to change the CD again…)

Crochet

We did not crochet this week. I am crocheting advent calendar boxes all the time!

Basic Information

Working on the days of the week verbally is going well. She remembers without prompting, and can tell me the day before and the day after any given day. As for the months of the year, she has the first 6 down and can repeat them without prompting. The second half of the year is getting there. She’s SO close!

Printing words

Tracing letters went well on Wednesday. Friday was decent, but it required a lot of nagging to get her to focus.

une phototographe! 😛

Counting objects/math-type activities

She seems to be doing better with verbal counting. Her printing needs work on some numbers, but she is working hard. She can count to 12 in French, but not consistently yet. She did it without help on any number for the first time on Friday.

the counting was very easy for her. Next semester, I’ll have to make these harder for her

We did multiple different patterns this week, after watching the mini TFO videos on Les Suites. She greatly enjoys doing them…probably because she can do them with absolutely anything.

I started this pattern and she completed it easily.

Storytime

We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.

Activity

Remember the dead: go through old photo albums – my mom and dad really came through on this. My mom brought over a banker box full of photo albums from both sides of her family (three generations back plus half of the one before that!), and she told stories about all the people in them. My dad emailed my aunt, who sent him pictures all the way up to three generations back of the grandparents. So Dragon’s great-great-great-grandparents.

Yes, my family is awesome like that.

My father’s family
Stories about my father’s family
My mother’s parents
Dragon’s family tree. We could easily have gone further back.

Bake traditional Mexican food – Dragon and her Papa made Conchas. And they were delicious. A couple slight modifications to the recipe that we made, if you use the one in the link:
– Extra tbsp of evaporated milk to the dough because it felt flaky and dry.
– Extra 2 tbsp of butter to the topping (and green food colouring) because it wasn’t sticking together.
In the future, we will split each ball in two – these are quite large!
Dragon did the following to assist: dumped the ingredients, scooped the sugar and dumped it, kneaded the dough, formed the dough into balls, flattened and placed the topping, cut a few of the toppings

kneading
folding
yum!
she cut this one
it’s practically the size of her head!

Learn about Dia de Los Muertos (watch Elena of Avalor special episode) – we mostly did this verbally. She had lots of questions, and I can’t remember any of them!

P.S. The bruise on her cheekbone is because she decided to run in circles, got dizzy, and fell into a bookcase.

Week 8 – Hocus Pocus Results

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Virtual school this week was MUCH better than last week. Dragon raised her hand and got to list out both the days of the week and the months of the year (with assistance on the latter). She answered 2-3 counting questions in French. She asked a question during the presentation of another kid, although she didn’t understand the follow-up response. And she got to present the geometry cut-and-paste that she had done with four different shapes, responding to requests to point at each different shape and many different colours. She repeated French said to her by the teachers, and even responded a tiny bit in French (oui). And she paid attention throughout the school day. There was another minor incident with the playdough – she still doesn’t quite grasp the rolling of it and doesn’t care to learn. She does enjoy using the cutters to make shapes and will make a series (pattern) with them, but ask her to roll it out and place it along a letter? Tears. Screams. “I can’t do this!” Result: I will ask her to use a crayon to print the letter instead of using playdough to make the shape. I see no reason to get her all upset for no reason.

The home school portion was quite fun this week, with a couple special surprises.

Dance

No martial arts again this week, but she did ballet 2-3 times this week.

Music

Her letters are doing well.

She had a rhythm piano lesson on Wednesday afternoon at our house. She did very well. Whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes and rests were clapped (or not).

We listened to a bunch of French music. Coeur de Pirate was the favourite yet again and I am thrilled because it is a beautiful album. But we also listened to Isabelle Boulay, whom I also very much enjoy. (Yay for remembering to change the CD lol)

Crochet

We did not crochet this week. I am crocheting advent calendar boxes all the time!

Basic Information

Working on the days of the week verbally is going well. She remembers without prompting, and can even pick out the words and put them in order when given the full seven days. As for the months of the year, she has the first 6 down and can repeat them without prompting. The second half of the year is a bit of a struggle still, but she can figure out the rest of the word if given the first sound.

Printing words

Tracing letters went well on Wednesday, but Friday when she had to print the letters did not go as well. I think she didn’t sleep well the night before, because everything was very dramatic.

Counting objects/math-type activities

She seems to be doing better with verbal counting. Her printing needs work on some numbers – 5’s come to mind right now – but she is working hard. She can count to 12 in French, but not consistently yet.

  • Counting 12 random objects

We started doing patterns (les suites) this week, as the virtual school teachers mentioned it again this week, to one of the other students. I thought it might be a good idea to do more with that.

Storytime

We didn’t read any French books together this week.

Activity

Experiment: elephant toothpaste – this was quite fun, although it was mostly a demonstration. We didn’t have the right kind of yeast, and we didn’t realize that the narrowing at the top was relevant, so we ended up trying this three times. First was as written in the experiment. Second was halving it. Third was with the right yeast AND the right kind of bottle, but I shook it and didn’t wait for the bubbles to go away, so it had a similar reaction as the first two. Also – don’t buy the cheap food colouring. It doesn’t work as well.

Pumpkin carving: Dragon picked her stencil (stencil weblink) and drew it onto the pumpkin. It turned out very well!

Learn about Samhain – we had a video call with one of our friends, who celebrates Samhein (pronounced Sow-in). He told us about the history behind it and how it is celebrated today. We won’t be having a feast, but we set out an extra place on Halloween night in honour of our ancestors. No pictures of the chat, but here’s one of Dragon waiting for the chat to start:

Week 7 – Curious George Halloween Results

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This week was not as good as the previous week for virtual school. I’m not sure what happened, but she didn’t want to talk to, listen to, or try to speak French with her teachers. And then there was the thing with the playdough. She had never played with playdough before, and the teacher asked them to make letters out of playdough. Dragon just had a complete meltdown because, and I quote, “but the playdough is ripped apart now!!” Cue tears. She got a nice bit of one-on-one with Mme at this point, which was nice. It was just a little frustrating on my end, because she *is* doing better with her French.

  • This was a worksheet from the teacher. She LOVED it.

As for the home school portion, it felt like there was less to do this week, thankfully, as there were a lot of handouts from virtual school to complete.

Dance

No martial arts again this week, but she did ballet 2-3 times this week.

Music

I forgot to get her to practice with the letters, so we did it verbally just now as I’m writing this post. I’d say she’s doing pretty well.

She had another piano lesson on Saturday. She worked on rhythms and clapping (eighth notes seem to be the easiest for her), as well as the song she played last week and Chopsticks.

We listened to a bunch of French music. Coeur de Pirate was the favourite yet again and I am thrilled because it is a beautiful album.

Crochet

No crochet this week.

Basic Information

Rather than pull out the papers, we did these verbally this week. She can now recite the days of the week in French without prompting. She has the first five months of the year down pat (when she remembers to start with Janvier and not Février) and is working on remembering Juin. Next week, I think I’ll add the next 3 months.

Printing words

Despite not wanting to complete the printing words on Friday, she did pretty well.

  • Words are traced
  • Not sure this is the best way to sit to print properly….
  • Words are printed

Counting objects/math-type activities

She’s still forgetting that sept comes after six. We tried repetition both verbally and written. I’m guessing that this will just take time. Her printing of numbers is getting better, I think.

  • Objects counted
  • Numbers are coming along nicely.

Storytime

We didn’t read any French books together this week.

Activity

Draw pumpkin face – she wanted to draw a scary pumpkin face. This is the one she chose. Appropriately spooky.

  • The middle face is the one she deemed spookiest
  • Trying to copy
  • Look at all those teeth!
  • Very spooky. I approve.

Finger painting with Crayola washable paint on paper – she decided that although it was fun to make hand prints, she didn’t like washing her hands in between each colour. Verdict: prefers painting with a brush.

  • Set up
  • Two by two, hands of blue
  • Cleaning station
  • Purple prints
  • Look! The water is green!
  • Completed abstract art

Learn about monkeys – she found this fact sheet very interesting.

  • Les chimapnzees!

Week 6 – ParaNorman Results

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This Tuesday at virtual school, she was able to turn on and off her microphone (although it took a bit of time sometimes). The small groups were a bit chaotic, as it was the first time trying to do them. Hopefully they’ll be worked out by next Tuesday (although when this post goes live, it will have been yesterday…). Dragon raised her hand to talk three times – to sing the “Bonjour song”, to recite the days of the week, and to answer a question about trees. All of which she did in French! I’m so very proud of how well she’s doing. I’m very impressed by her teachers. She loves them. The homeschool portion of the week was short by one day, because of Thanksgiving, but that’s why we have a flex day worked into the schedule every week, to give us some wiggle room.

Dance

No martial arts this week, but she did ballet 2-3 times this week.

Good toes!

Music

I forgot to get her to practice with the letters, so we did it verbally just now as I’m writing this post. I’d say she’s doing pretty well.

She had another piano lesson on Saturday. They reviewed whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes, and tried clapping their rhythms. She was introduced to whole and half rests and how not to clap them. She played the piece from last week, as half notes, and had no trouble at all. She is holding her wrists properly. They’ve started learning “Chopsticks”.

We listened to a bunch of French music. Coeur de Pirate was the favourite yet again and I am thrilled because it is a beautiful album.

Crochet

We managed to get a few more stitches in on Friday.

Basic Information

Rather than pull out the papers, we did these verbally this week. She can now recite the days of the week in French without prompting. I took my thought about 12 being too many and shrank it down to only the first three, which we started learning on Friday. I think she’s remembering them by sound, but that’s okay for now. We’ll work on the first three months until she can say them with minor assistance before adding the next three months. I think this is working. *fingers crossed*

Printing words

Tracing the letters went better this week than printing them. I think she was having an off day today.

Tracing
Printing

Counting objects/math-type activities

She’s still forgetting that sept comes after six. I’ll need to figure out a game or something to help her remember (note to self…)

Counting
Writing numbers
She wanted to be in the picture

Storytime

We didn’t read any French books together this week.

Activity

Film script in stop-motion (2 days: taking the pictures + putting them together on computer, find music to go with it) – She directed me in how to move the toys (and I showed her how to make the basket look fuller than it actually was – movie magic!) and followed her script and storyboard extremely well. She told Éric how long to make each frame and where to put the text. Then we recorded her playing her xylophone to make the music. Éric put it all together because the technical ability to do that was a bit beyond a 4 yo’s ability, especially since she can’t read yet!

Director hard at work
Movie magic!
Putting it together
Staged photo of her playing xylophone because I forgot to take one when we were actually recording!

The completed movie!

Make a shoebox diorama – we looked at the provided example, and then I asked her what she wanted in hers to make it Halloween-y. We searched google for the objects, put them in a word document, and added blocks underneath them (or on top) to be able to stick them to the inside of the box. Then we made the background very simply – just black with a yellow moon. She had fun using the “big-kid” glue.

Colouring and cutting
FIguring out where to place the pieces
The bottom ones are glued!
The ghost is still wet
Completed shoebox diorama!

Week 5 – Halloweentown Results

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This week was Meet the Teacher (vitually, of course) and I discovered that I was not letting Dragon be independant enough. So I taught her how to use the track pad on the keyboard so that she can turn on and off the microphone by herself. This is good – it means I can sit with my laptop or crochet and I don’t have to pay attention as much (only to what time we need to return). Also, starting next week, they will be doing small groups, which will allow her to (hopefully) talk more French. We’ll see how that goes. The homeschool portion was a little more relaxed this week, for some reason. Maybe she’s getting faster at doing her work?

Dance

No martial arts this week, but she did ballet 2-3 times this week.

Music

In order to prepare for piano this week, we practiced the alphabet forwards and backwards A-G.

  • Practicing the music alphabet

She had her second lesson on Saturday. They reviewed whole notes and half notes, and learned about quarter notes and eighth notes. She practiced the tune that she learned last week, and then tried to play it as all half notes – she did it perfectly! Then my mom taught her a bit of chopsticks. She had lots of fun with that.

We listened to a bunch of French music. Coeur de Pirate was the favourite yet again and I am thrilled because it is a beautiful album.

Crochet

We managed to get a few more stitches in on Wednesday.

Basic Information

We played with the days of the week (four times) and the months of the year (once). It’s going to be a pretty steep learning curve, I think. She’s able to separate the days of the week into English and French. She can now list off the days of the week in French if I prompt with the first day (L for…?). Still a work in progress, especially for the months. I think it’s intimidating to have twelve pieces of paper in front of her rather than only seven.

Printing words

The words were much shorter this week, and she remembered that broom was balai from Monday to Friday. I was impressed.

  • Tracing
  • Printing – she had problems with “un balai” but eventually got it

Counting objects/math-type activities

I feel like we’re going backwards with the printing of numbers, which is weird. But she’s getting better at counting to dix – she still forgets sept, but we’re working on it.

  • Counting
  • Numbers

Storytime

We read a couple small books together.

Activity

Draw a monster mask – definitely a highlight for Dragon. She wanted a scary mask, picked this grotesque one, and was very pleased with herself when she coloured it. She also cut it out by herself (minus the eyes, which I did for her). I don’t know if I should be encouraging her to colour in the blank spaces more or not…. She’s happy with it, and that’s what matters?

Write a short Halloween script (2 days: writing + storyboarding) – we wrote a very short descriptive script (I wrote it because she had so many ideas too quickly and couldn’t get them down fast enough. They were all her ideas, though.), then I explained how to storyboard and she sketched it out, and then she wrote the dialogue for each step of the script so that we could know what was going on in the stop-motion video, which we will be doing next week.

  • Original script
  • Script after re-writes to make it more Halloween-y
  • Storyboard
  • Writing the dialogue
  • Writing the dialogue – she wrote each sentence (there are 4) in English and then in French

Example of a series of stop-motion images, not put into video form:

Week 4 – Tinker Bell Results

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Other than a few tech issues on the teacher’s side of things (videos not broadcasting properly, etc), virtual school went well this week. Dragon had to be coaxed to talk to the teachers, but she really opened up about Miraculous Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir (we had watched the new movie the night before and she was really excited about it.)

The home school portion was a lot of fun this week, with a nature walk, building a new LEGO kit, and putting together a new and challenging puzzle as the major activities.

Dance

I kind lost track of how many times we did ballet this week. Essentially, I do this whenever she stops sitting still, so more often on some days than others.

Music

First piano lesson happened this week! She paid attention and tried really hard. She started to hold her hands properly and knows where middle C is. Whole notes (doughnut) count to 4, half notes (doughnut with a stick) count to 2.

We listened to a bunch of French music. Coeur de Pirate was the favourite yet again and I am thrilled because it is a beautiful album.

Crochet

We managed to get a few more stitches in on Friday. This is definitely the category we do the least, as it involves me not crocheting on my own project in order to help her with her own.

Basic Information

We played with the days of the week (twice) and the months of the year (once). It’s going to be a pretty steep learning curve, I think. She’s able to separate the days of the week into English and French. After watching the journées de la semaine video (thank you, Mme Samaké), she was able to remember the days of the week in French, which is pretty exciting. This was the first time she saw the months, so that was a bit difficult. I definitely consider this a work in progress.

Printing words

The words were very long this week. I think this was the point that I realized I should be trying to make the answers be words that she will actually remember. (hopefully – I made these worksheets at the beginning of August so I don’t actually remember)

  • I trace words!
  • I write words!

Counting objects/math-type activities

Her numbers have really improved in the few short weeks since we started doing this. I’m so impressed and love seeing the progress!

  • I forgot to get a picture of the traced numbers, but here is the second one

Storytime

We read a couple small books together.

Activity

Nature walk – look for different kinds of leaves, acorns, maple keys, flowers, etc. Because this week was incredibly rainy, only Thursday had no rain, so we didn’t pick up leaves and stuff. Instead, I had Dragon bring her camera along and she took pictures of things she found interesting!

My pictures:

  • Grand-dad accompanied us for the first little bit
  • Taking a picture of a picture of a leaf
  • On the bike path

Dragon’s pictures:

Build a Lego kit – This was the only thing that we bought in preparation for teaching Dragon at home (that wasn’t necessities like a bookcase for storage or a computer). We had many books and craft supplies generously donated by a couple people, so we were fortunate in that respect.

  • A new LEGO kit!
  • All the pieces
  • Does it match?
  • I think I’ve got it
  • I’ve got it!
  • Complete!!

Puzzle – put a puzzle together. I gave her several options, all of puzzles she hadn’t done before. She decided to do the 200 piece Little Mermaid puzzle. She was elated and frustrated by turns, but in the end, it only took her about 3 hours to do the whole thing. I’m very proud of her.

  • Start with the edge pieces…
  • Flounder and King Triton were easy to place
  • Ariel next…
  • Start on the statue
  • End of day 1
  • More of the statue
  • Ah, Ariel’s tail
  • Putting in the last piece!
  • Complete!!