Satori Smiles

And after two months, we are rowing again, with The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills. Today we learned about Minna, an Appalachian girl who loses her coal mining father, cannot afford to go to school and helps her mother out at home. The generous Quilting Mamas step in to help. Minna experiences a humiliation, but remembers her father’s lesson and turns it around in such a heartwarming way. I cannot read this book without a little lump in my throat and a few tears escaping.

The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills

The next few days we will cover the following main topics: quilting, coal, Appalachian mountains and that people are the most important things in our life. We first learned where the Appalachian mountain region was, and put our FIAR story disc up where we thought Minna might live.

Appalachian mountains region

It’s a bit windy, but here’s a video of Satori earning her Paleontology Badge at Dinosaur Monument last month! She was a wee bit shy, but she completed her pledge!

Today we did Lesson 6 out of First Language Lessons, I haven’t been focusing much on this, as it’s for first-grade level, but we both enjoy it and it’s super simple and easy. I then read this poem “The Caterpillar”, which was our 5th time of hearing the poem. I did not narrate this poem as many times as the book suggested. I haven’t ever required her to recite it nor did I expect her to anytime soon, but an hour later, I overheard her reciting it from memory today! I grabbed the video camera and asked her to do it again. She didn’t get the author’s name exactly right (Christina Rossetti), but the rest she got down perfectly!

The Caterpillar
by Christina Georgina Rosetti

Brown and furry
Caterpillar in a hurry;
Take your walk
To the shady leaf or stalk.

May no toad spy you,
May the little birds pass by you;
Spin and die,
To live again a butterfly.