This week I’m writing + filming about a hallmark This week I’m writing + filming about a hallmark of the Charlotte Mason method: narration. Have you ever heard of it? What would you like to know? 

I’m focusing heavily on how we use narration in our homeschool, but if you have specific questions about it, I would love for you to 1. Take the poll in my stories, and 2. Ask any questions you may have about narration in the comments so that I can answer them in my video! ❤️
Happy Mother’s Day! I especially want to encoura Happy Mother’s Day! I especially want to encourage those who are intentionally making a better life for their children than what they may have experienced as kids. It is not easy to change the cycle, but it’s well worth the effort. 

In the words of Louisa May Alcott, “A woman's happiest kingdom is home, her highest honor is the art of ruling it not as a queen, but a wise wife and mother."
📚 We are moving right along with term three of 📚 We are moving right along with term three of our school year. Slow but steady, we will finish up mid June and I’ll begin prepping for next school year in July and August! 📚

Here’s some of my random old and new tips + what I’ve been doing to help keep organized with the CMEC. 

01. Keep a regular day for nature outings or field trips. We have two days a week where I intentionally plan a hike or museum visit, etc. One is usually at the middle of the week and the other is at the end. It offers great variety to our weeks.

02. Notebook! I have had the girls consistently notebook this year, and it’s been such a delight to go back and see my form 1b student’s progress! I have a video coming out about how we notebook and why you should try it very soon! 

03. To stay on track with our morning timetable I’ve been writing the time we end each lesson in my logbook. It’s really changed how productive I am in making sure we get everything on our timetable done for the day. (I have a video on my logbook if you’re interested in learning more about that!)

04. And 05. Popsicle sticks! Friends, if you’re already a CMEC family, use these to help you choose which activities you review! I have on these for old singing games, French songs, folk dances or Swedish drill routines. I’ll share more on what I have on ours, specifically, but it’s fun because the girls and I get to be surprised rather than me choosing what we review!

06. Art instruction. Originally I had us doing three art lessons per week in the afternoon, but it didn’t allow for enough free choice, so we’ve reduced it down to one formal lesson a week for six weeks, then we change the method. So right now we are in week two of our chalkdrawing lessons. After six weeks we will switch to brush drawing instruction for the remainder of the term! As Charlotte Mason recommends, we draw from memory, model, and from imagination. 🌞

I hope this was helpful to you! So many of you guys are using @the.cmec next year! I am SO excited to see all of you at the online form meetings this coming year! 👏🏻 #thecmec #thecmecform1 #charlottemason
Do you keep your spices in a cabinet, on a shelf o Do you keep your spices in a cabinet, on a shelf or in a drawer? This drawer is right next to my stove and it’s my favorite way to store my spices! I reuse these little jars and fill them every couple of weeks with my bulk @azurestandard spices. 🧂
Are you planting a garden this year? What are you Are you planting a garden this year? What are you growing? Containers and raised beds? Or in ground? What do you plan to grow? Veggies? Flowers? We are doing a little bit of everything. 😍

It’s my third year growing food. (And ironically, our third house 😅) We just got our @greenstalkgarden planter, several @smartpots, and six raised beds that are ready to be filled next weekend. Really looking forward to this gardening season! 🥕🥬🥦🌽🌶🫑🫐🍓🥔
“Let them once get in touch with nature and a ha “Let them once get in touch with nature and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life.” -Charlotte Mason 

My kiddo had a birthday this past weekend. We do one main gift and a couple of small gifts; typically they’re  things they can use outdoors. Bikes have been a popular birthday item around here! My eldest wanted an apple tree last year. ☺️ But this year we got N a mud kitchen! Some friends of ours had one they built, and it inspired us. My kiddos have been playing on the forest floor in the mud for years now, but it’s exciting for them to have a little space in our garden for mud play. 🌳 What are some fun outdoorsy gifts you’ve purchased for your kids?
📚 When should I teach my child to read? How sho 📚 When should I teach my child to read? How should I teach my child to read? What does Charlotte Mason say about reading lessons? How did she teach children how to read? What curriculum do you use to teach your child how to read? 📚
These are all questions I answered in my blog post and video, “teaching reading the Charlotte Mason way” 📚 you can also swipe over to see some of my favorite CM quotes on teaching reading! 📚

I also shared what I do with my 3-year-old (which is very minimal) if you have younger children. You can view the post at the link in my profile! Are you up children school-aged? What do you use to teach reading?
I needed to accomplish a lot today. There was more I needed to accomplish a lot today. There was more unpacking and organizing to be done, pictures to be framed, meal planning to do, laundry that needed folding, bike rides to be had, meals to be prepared, sourdough to be prepped and lesson planning + pre-reading to do. Oh and dishes. So many dishes. 😅

I do essentially all of the inside housework aside from taking out the trash + recycle, but for a season my husband helped out while N was small by doing dinner dishes and sometimes even preparing dinner so I could nurse her after we ate. But as of late, I’m trying something new where I don’t ask my husband to clean up after dinner and instead I do it myself. I don’t mind it, and since my girls are old enough to get their own pj’s on now, I’ve been doing dinner clean-up (as well as lunch and breakfast clean-up and prep!) before I head upstairs to tuck them in, read them a story and sit with them while they fall asleep. Call me old fashioned, but I’m happy to do it, and I delight in my husband being able to enjoy some time with the girls after dinner instead of clean up a mess after a long day of working.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this post - I’ve felt pulled in so many directions today and it’s something I feel often, (and I’m sure so many of you can relate) but after five months without a home to care for and nurture I simply can’t feel frustrated or annoyed at my list of 10,000 things I need to do. Instead I pray my way through each task. I sip tea in between. I light a candle and wear my great-grandmother’s apron as I work. I read notes like the one my six-year-old left for me this morning and I weep tears of gratitude and joy. Happy Sunday, my friends. ❤️ 
.
(swipe to read her note 🥰 + a transcription in the comments!)
Remember that word we heard so often when we were Remember that word we heard so often when we were parenting infants? Attachment.  What comes to mind? Breastfeeding on demand. Co-sleeping. Babywearing. All of those things that come pretty natural to us when taking care of a baby. But did you know that attachment doesn’t just end when your child gets bigger? Attachment is actually necessary THROUGH adolescence. 😳

Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté is a brilliant book that stopped me in my tracks. The book addresses the severe lack of attachment to parents that is incidentally replaced by an attachment to peers. I wrote all about it on my blog, but if you swipe over you can see a few passages that I underlined, highlighted, and wrote down in my notebook. 

Peer culture is more prevalent than ever. Not only because our society now prefers it that way, but because of social media’s ability to unite our youth in an unprecedented way. What we need is a shift in how we pass down culture to our kids from a horizontal attachment (peer to peer) back to a vertical attachment (family to child). I’ve often felt this long before I read this book, but we prioritize our Children’s friendships and relationships with others before we prioritize their relationships with us. We don’t value the family unit the way we used to decades ago, and it’s to the detriment of our children. 

I will gift this book to every new parent I meet from now on because of the wisdom the authors share. I wish all parents would read it so we could be on the same page as a society and those of us who choose to hold on to our kids wouldn’t be going against the grain. So this is my plea to you. If anything I’ve said piqued your interest, or struck a chord, please read Hold On To Your Kids! ✨

(For those of you who have read it! Share your thoughts with us! Help me convince everyone to read it! 👏🏻)
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Birth Story Series, Motherhood, Pregnancy • September 11, 2017

Birth Story Series | Danielle’s Story

Thank you for stopping by to read the next story in our Birth Story Series. My goal in creating the Birth Story Series is three things. First, to empower women, and to change how we feel about birth. For so long I felt such fear. I want other women to feel confident in their birthing abilities, especially since I know how it feels to not feel confident. Secondly, I want to let women know that they have options. When I gave birth I didn’t know what a midwife was. I had no clue what a doula was. I want that to be different for you. I want you to know that you have choices. And finally, I want you to know this: whatever your story was, or ends up being… it’s yours. I want to demonstrate through these women’s beautiful stories that each and every birth is unique. No two stories are alike.
Disclaimer: These stories are not meant to serve as medical advice. The only person that can decide what’s right for you and your birth is you, your partner, AND your health care professional. So please consult them appropriately. I do however, want you to enjoy these stories. I cry almost every time I read them, and I’m sure you will too.

Danielle’s Birth Story

Even before I got pregnant, I always thought about having a natural delivery, and the reason sort of being the opposite of what you may expect, which was that I was more terrified at the idea of having an epidural than a birth without pain medication. The thought of a huge needle going into my back and the possible side effects from the procedure was of more concern than the pain I would endure from a natural birth, even though all I could think about were the delivery horror stories I’d heard from friends and the oh-so accurate Hollywood portrayals of women giving birth! What really helped me get to a place where I was completely comfortable with my decision was educating myself as much as I could about natural births, inductions, epidurals and cesareans and as silly as it may sound, just repeating the word “natural” a millions times over. I was fortunate to have a very smooth and healthy pregnancy, which without a doubt contributed to how I mentally prepared myself for labor and delivery.

Advocating for myself:

We considered using a doula, I even met with a few, but in the end I knew that the special relationship I have with my husband and my parents was how I was really going to get through the process. So there we were, my team of my dad, a retired cardiologist, my mom, a retired nurse, and my husband, my high school sweetheart and best friend of 18 years, all watching Game of Thrones for twelve hours while I labored at home and waited for the “okay” from my doctor to head to the hospital. We drafted a birth plan, but when we arrived at the hospital we realized we had forgotten it at home which made me feel a bit overwhelmed because I had knew this was an important part of the process as far as letting the staff know your wishes for a natural delivery.
 
We immediately let them know that we wanted a natural birth to avoid being hooked up to an IV and monitor if it wasn’t necessary, but it was their policy to do so in the event they were needed at any point. So right from the start, the nurses seemed to want to rush into getting me set up in the bed, advised me to stay put. It really wasn’t until we asked to speak with the doctor about the ability to walk around the room while I labored, that they seemed just a little more open to the idea, as if they were still uneasy about it even with the doctor’s permission.
 
It seemed odd to me, that here we were in this large labor and delivery room with space to move about and a new beautiful tub in the bathroom, and the nurses acted as though no one had ever utilized them before. My husband and I looked at each other with the understanding that from that moment on, we were going to have to be more assertive and forward with questions and our wishes, and be our own advocates. Just then, my water broke and the contractions immediately became more intense.

Active Labor:

I was in active labor for roughly 7 hours, going from 4 cm to 9 cm relatively quickly. Ironically, I never used the beautiful tub nor did I do much walking around because it was too painful to get out of bed! I tried sitting/rolling/bouncing on an exercise ball, leaning over the bed with my butt in the air, and a few other positions I thought may ease the pain, however I found that sitting in the lotus position in the bed was the only way both baby and I were going to get through it.
Throughout the 7 hours, I would say that the communication between the nurses and my “team” was comfortable. Although we got off to a rocky start, by being forward with questions while being sensitive to the fact that they may feel we were questioning their knowledge and the ability to do their job, we established quite a rapport.  With the nurses, my husband, my mom and my dad taking turns holding my hands and helping me brace myself in awkward positions as I rocked and swayed in any direction to find comfort, suddenly I felt the urge to push.
This is when the communication with the nurses started to become a little unclear. They checked my cervix which was still only at 9 cm and let me know that it was dangerous to push until I was fully dilated. So we waited, and waited, and just when I thought I couldn’t take one more deep breath or I couldn’t stay in my happy place any longer, I asked that they check my cervix again, and they wouldn’t due to the risk of infection.

Meeting our baby:

Just then, the doctor came into the room and I was prepped for delivery. At this point, we asked if I was at 10 cm, the nurses literally ignored us, told me to push, and 45 minutes later, I heard the words “Its a girl!” For me, the moment was just as they said it would be. Suddenly all of the pain was gone and as I held my baby in my arms, I felt almost paralyzed by the overwhelming feelings of happiness and this new found love for this perfect little human I had just met. Weighing 7 pounds, 10 ounces, she was as healthy and beautiful as the come.
 
I never did find out if I was fully dilated, and I guess in the big scheme of things I could say it doesn’t really matter now, but there is something to be said for how nervous I suddenly felt when as the patient, someone who is unfamiliar with this environment, wasn’t being informed as to what was happening by those who you trust to have your best interest in mind. I was incredibly lucky to have people by my side who are familiar with the unique environment, who understand the terminology and were able to better communicate with the nurses and doctors on my behalf. I couldn’t imagine how scary it must be when something very serious goes wrong under those circumstances.
When it was all said and done, the nurses and doctor gave hugs all around, said congratulations, and even told us how impressed and proud they were of me, because they rarely had patients who delivered naturally. I guess this came as a bit of a shock to me, but in a way it sort of explained their attitudes and approach when we first arrived. They were used to doing this a certain way, and perhaps they felt we were going to be “difficult”, which is unfortunate, and may not be the case at all, but its the only thing that makes sense to me. By the end, I feel like we won them over, I would do it again in a heartbeat and wouldn’t change a thing.

FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS:

1. What was your favorite memory from your pregnancy?
 While its hard to narrow it down to just one, I will always cherish a trip to visit my best friend in New Orleans during Mardi Gras when I was 7 1/2 months pregnant. I took advantage of the fact that I still wasn’t too uncomfortable or had any kind of pains that come with being that pregnant so we had the ultimate girls weekend by indulging in way too much fried, southern cooking and even walked in a 3 mile Mardi Gras parade, something I can now check off my bucket list! I think one reason this trip is so special to me is that I can still feel how proud I was of my baby, and even of myself for that matter. Though she wasn’t here on Earth yet, I knew we were a great team and I felt like the best version of myself when I carried her. She let me eat dozens of powdered-sugar beignets without causing any grief and for that alone, I am forever grateful!
 
2. Did you do anything specific to prepare for your birth?
 To mentally prepare for my birth, my husband and I took a childbirth class and I read as much as possible and asked tons of questions about what a natural birth, inductions, epidurals and c-sections entail. To physically prepare, I tried to stay as active as I could without pushing myself, tried to be conscious of what I was eating, and to get very detailed, I also massaged my perineum in hopes this would avoid tearing. Needless to say it didn’t work for me…
3. Who served as your support system?
 My fondest memory of giving birth was having my parents and my husband by my side the entire time, listening to a reggae playlist that me made which now will always remind me of my daughter!
4. What is your fondest memory of giving birth? (Other than the moment where you met your baby.)
My fondest memory of giving birth was having my parents and my husband by my side the entire time, listening to a reggae playlist that me made which now will always remind me of my daughter! 
5. What advice would you give to first time moms or moms who desire a natural birth?
Some advice would be to learn as much as you can about where you are giving birth and the order in which they do things for a natural birth. Also, to remember that while you may have certain wishes and a specific plan, its important to be flexible because birth is so unpredictable and no two are the same. Lastly, to remind yourself, as difficult as it will be during contractions, that the pain you’re experiencing is your body doing what its supposed to be doing, which is a natural, beautiful thing. 

RELATED: READ KAILYN’S BIRTH STORY HERE

RELATED: READ NATALIE’S BIRTH STORY HERE

 

Thank you, Danielle, for sharing your beautiful story and photos. If you enjoyed reading her story, consider sharing this article so other families can find it and enjoy it too!
Thank you so much for reading!

Filed Under: Birth Story Series, Motherhood, Pregnancy

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I'm Larissa. A mama to daughters and wife to my college sweetheart. I am passionate about sustainable fashion, whole foods recipes, and Charlotte Mason home education. I also love being outdoors with my family. You can usually find me sporting a wide-brimmed hat, with a baby on my back.

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This week I’m writing + filming about a hallmark This week I’m writing + filming about a hallmark of the Charlotte Mason method: narration. Have you ever heard of it? What would you like to know? 

I’m focusing heavily on how we use narration in our homeschool, but if you have specific questions about it, I would love for you to 1. Take the poll in my stories, and 2. Ask any questions you may have about narration in the comments so that I can answer them in my video! ❤️
Happy Mother’s Day! I especially want to encoura Happy Mother’s Day! I especially want to encourage those who are intentionally making a better life for their children than what they may have experienced as kids. It is not easy to change the cycle, but it’s well worth the effort. 

In the words of Louisa May Alcott, “A woman's happiest kingdom is home, her highest honor is the art of ruling it not as a queen, but a wise wife and mother."
📚 We are moving right along with term three of 📚 We are moving right along with term three of our school year. Slow but steady, we will finish up mid June and I’ll begin prepping for next school year in July and August! 📚

Here’s some of my random old and new tips + what I’ve been doing to help keep organized with the CMEC. 

01. Keep a regular day for nature outings or field trips. We have two days a week where I intentionally plan a hike or museum visit, etc. One is usually at the middle of the week and the other is at the end. It offers great variety to our weeks.

02. Notebook! I have had the girls consistently notebook this year, and it’s been such a delight to go back and see my form 1b student’s progress! I have a video coming out about how we notebook and why you should try it very soon! 

03. To stay on track with our morning timetable I’ve been writing the time we end each lesson in my logbook. It’s really changed how productive I am in making sure we get everything on our timetable done for the day. (I have a video on my logbook if you’re interested in learning more about that!)

04. And 05. Popsicle sticks! Friends, if you’re already a CMEC family, use these to help you choose which activities you review! I have on these for old singing games, French songs, folk dances or Swedish drill routines. I’ll share more on what I have on ours, specifically, but it’s fun because the girls and I get to be surprised rather than me choosing what we review!

06. Art instruction. Originally I had us doing three art lessons per week in the afternoon, but it didn’t allow for enough free choice, so we’ve reduced it down to one formal lesson a week for six weeks, then we change the method. So right now we are in week two of our chalkdrawing lessons. After six weeks we will switch to brush drawing instruction for the remainder of the term! As Charlotte Mason recommends, we draw from memory, model, and from imagination. 🌞

I hope this was helpful to you! So many of you guys are using @the.cmec next year! I am SO excited to see all of you at the online form meetings this coming year! 👏🏻 #thecmec #thecmecform1 #charlottemason
Do you keep your spices in a cabinet, on a shelf o Do you keep your spices in a cabinet, on a shelf or in a drawer? This drawer is right next to my stove and it’s my favorite way to store my spices! I reuse these little jars and fill them every couple of weeks with my bulk @azurestandard spices. 🧂
Are you planting a garden this year? What are you Are you planting a garden this year? What are you growing? Containers and raised beds? Or in ground? What do you plan to grow? Veggies? Flowers? We are doing a little bit of everything. 😍

It’s my third year growing food. (And ironically, our third house 😅) We just got our @greenstalkgarden planter, several @smartpots, and six raised beds that are ready to be filled next weekend. Really looking forward to this gardening season! 🥕🥬🥦🌽🌶🫑🫐🍓🥔
“Let them once get in touch with nature and a ha “Let them once get in touch with nature and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life.” -Charlotte Mason 

My kiddo had a birthday this past weekend. We do one main gift and a couple of small gifts; typically they’re  things they can use outdoors. Bikes have been a popular birthday item around here! My eldest wanted an apple tree last year. ☺️ But this year we got N a mud kitchen! Some friends of ours had one they built, and it inspired us. My kiddos have been playing on the forest floor in the mud for years now, but it’s exciting for them to have a little space in our garden for mud play. 🌳 What are some fun outdoorsy gifts you’ve purchased for your kids?
📚 When should I teach my child to read? How sho 📚 When should I teach my child to read? How should I teach my child to read? What does Charlotte Mason say about reading lessons? How did she teach children how to read? What curriculum do you use to teach your child how to read? 📚
These are all questions I answered in my blog post and video, “teaching reading the Charlotte Mason way” 📚 you can also swipe over to see some of my favorite CM quotes on teaching reading! 📚

I also shared what I do with my 3-year-old (which is very minimal) if you have younger children. You can view the post at the link in my profile! Are you up children school-aged? What do you use to teach reading?
I needed to accomplish a lot today. There was more I needed to accomplish a lot today. There was more unpacking and organizing to be done, pictures to be framed, meal planning to do, laundry that needed folding, bike rides to be had, meals to be prepared, sourdough to be prepped and lesson planning + pre-reading to do. Oh and dishes. So many dishes. 😅

I do essentially all of the inside housework aside from taking out the trash + recycle, but for a season my husband helped out while N was small by doing dinner dishes and sometimes even preparing dinner so I could nurse her after we ate. But as of late, I’m trying something new where I don’t ask my husband to clean up after dinner and instead I do it myself. I don’t mind it, and since my girls are old enough to get their own pj’s on now, I’ve been doing dinner clean-up (as well as lunch and breakfast clean-up and prep!) before I head upstairs to tuck them in, read them a story and sit with them while they fall asleep. Call me old fashioned, but I’m happy to do it, and I delight in my husband being able to enjoy some time with the girls after dinner instead of clean up a mess after a long day of working.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this post - I’ve felt pulled in so many directions today and it’s something I feel often, (and I’m sure so many of you can relate) but after five months without a home to care for and nurture I simply can’t feel frustrated or annoyed at my list of 10,000 things I need to do. Instead I pray my way through each task. I sip tea in between. I light a candle and wear my great-grandmother’s apron as I work. I read notes like the one my six-year-old left for me this morning and I weep tears of gratitude and joy. Happy Sunday, my friends. ❤️ 
.
(swipe to read her note 🥰 + a transcription in the comments!)
Remember that word we heard so often when we were Remember that word we heard so often when we were parenting infants? Attachment.  What comes to mind? Breastfeeding on demand. Co-sleeping. Babywearing. All of those things that come pretty natural to us when taking care of a baby. But did you know that attachment doesn’t just end when your child gets bigger? Attachment is actually necessary THROUGH adolescence. 😳

Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté is a brilliant book that stopped me in my tracks. The book addresses the severe lack of attachment to parents that is incidentally replaced by an attachment to peers. I wrote all about it on my blog, but if you swipe over you can see a few passages that I underlined, highlighted, and wrote down in my notebook. 

Peer culture is more prevalent than ever. Not only because our society now prefers it that way, but because of social media’s ability to unite our youth in an unprecedented way. What we need is a shift in how we pass down culture to our kids from a horizontal attachment (peer to peer) back to a vertical attachment (family to child). I’ve often felt this long before I read this book, but we prioritize our Children’s friendships and relationships with others before we prioritize their relationships with us. We don’t value the family unit the way we used to decades ago, and it’s to the detriment of our children. 

I will gift this book to every new parent I meet from now on because of the wisdom the authors share. I wish all parents would read it so we could be on the same page as a society and those of us who choose to hold on to our kids wouldn’t be going against the grain. So this is my plea to you. If anything I’ve said piqued your interest, or struck a chord, please read Hold On To Your Kids! ✨

(For those of you who have read it! Share your thoughts with us! Help me convince everyone to read it! 👏🏻)
I promised I would share how I teach foreign langu I promised I would share how I teach foreign language the Mason way✨

When my oldest (now 6) was younger we loved and used @theculturedkid but since beginning formal lessons we’ve switched to this wonderful book by @cherrydalepress. 

Mason recommends that students learn 5-6 new French words a day and that they use them frequently. She writes in Home Education, “…children should learn French orally, by listening to and repeating French words and phrases; that they should begin so early that the difference of the accent does not strike them, but they repeat the French word all the same as if it were English, and use it freely…” (p. 80) she then writes about how important it is to employ the use of French vocabulary words during time out-of-doors. My kids and I have taken this to heart, because it isn’t uncommon for us all to be walking along the hiking trail, singing our French folk songs together. It’s something I’ll remember that we do together for many years. 

The Cherrydale Press program allows the child to learn common phrases, orally, a bit at a time. Along the way, they learn common verbs and vocabulary. 

Each “series” lasts about 2 weeks.
So here is the process we go through in that time:

01. We practice and memorize the English phrases. 
Here’s an example: 
I take the book.
I open the book.
I close the book.
So we say the phrases as we ACT THEM OUT, which is crucial to this method of learning French and retaining it! It’s helped me tremendously as a non-native speaker.

02. We then learn the French verbs from those phrases in French: je prends, j’ouvre, and je ferme. We memorize how to say them and act them out!

03. We learn the whole thing in French as we act it out. 
Je prends le livre.
j’ouvre le livre.
je ferme le livre.

After my daughter can say/act them without error, on her own, we move on to the next series!

Thanks to The Living Page, I keep a French notebook where I record the phrases or words we learn! (That’s what I shared in my stories the other day!)

In addition to this program, we have two French folk songs, one French vocabulary song per term (we sing daily) and a story we listen to in French, thanks to @the.cmec and their support!

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