Lots of Love for Leo Lionni

This morning we finished up our third book for the virtue of Forgiveness. I deliberately made the quality of Forgiveness in each book more subtle than the last and we had a very interesting discussion about this story, Leo Lionni's Cornelius. As soon as I brought the book out -- I always hold each book up and ask if anyone has ever read it before -- my daughters immediately started exclaiming how much they love Leo Lionni! So after we finished reading the story, I went ahead and got out all of the books that I had by Leo Lionni and made a display. It was more than I expected!

Fish is Fish

Pezzettino

Tillie and the Wall

The Greentail Mouse

Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse

Cornelius

Inch by Inch

Tico and the Golden Wings

Little Blue and Little Yellow

Geraldine, the Music Mouse

The Biggest House in the World

Let's Make Rabbits

Our morning routine is to begin the day with SSR until all of the students in the homeschool co-op have arrived. If we have a morning special at 9:15 (Philosophy, Yoga, SWI/Script) that happens next. Then we come together and start our morning meeting with our morning verse and our affirmation and story for the virtue of the week. The affirmation is not long. Here's an example: "I have Determination. When something is important, I will keep going until I have finished. I will get the help I need to do what matters. I will stay on purpose."

The book we are using gives a thorough explanation of each virtue: what it is, why you should practice it, how you can practice it, and signs of success. In addition to reading part of this background information, I choose several picture books from my extensive collection and read one each day. The children then tell me where they see an example of the virtue in the story.

I don't think I've posted these book lists in a while, so here they are. We started back into the school year with Enthusiasm for the first week of 2018.

• McElligot's Pool
• The Old Woman Who Named Things
• The Duchess Bakes a Cake
• My Mama Had a Dancing Heart

Students were very taken with the title character in Cynthia Rylant's The Old Woman Who Named Things. They paid close attention, even noticing that she doesn't have a name herself in the story. I love it when I am reading to a group and they're so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I would really like to write to Cynthia Rylant to ask her if the old woman is inspired by someone she knows personally.

Our virtue for the week of January 8th was Faithfulness.

• Faith the Cow (the origins of the Heifer Project)
• Freedom in Congo Square
• The Gardener

Our virtue for the week of January 15th was Flexibility.

• Be Nice to Spiders
• The Queen Who Couldn't Bake Gingerbread
• Grump Groan Growl

And this week our virtue was Forgiveness.

• The Table Where Rich People Sit
• A Baby Sister for Frances
• Cornelius

This post contains affiliate links to the materials I actually use for homeschooling. I hope you find them helpful. Thank you for your support!