She is Riding!

The other night after supper Zoe asked for her training wheels off. Kev helped her that night to learn to ride and this is her, bright and early the next morning, riding on her own. She learns physical things so quickly. That whole next day she was zooming all over the place on her bike like she'd been riding for weeks.

Giving

Zoe and Austyn have been making presents and wrapping them up with construction paper. My hubby and I have gotten so many presents the past few days. They are all so cute. This one I captured a picture of. It's from Zoe. She wrote my name on it. I think this one was a picture that she drew for me.

Darker Sooner

We'll be able to look at the stars more soon and Austyn has been bugging me to look for Owls when the moon is more full and it's clear out. We'll have to do that soon too. The days are getting noticeably shorter. This picture was taken after studying some squash. There was a puddle and Zoe decided to take advantage of the chance to step in it with sock feet and make foot prints on the cement.

Squash Study

A few months ago when I decided to take advantage of lap book deals I downloaded a squash study. Our gardens are full of all kinds of squash and the kids have been bugging to pick them. So, I figured this was a good time to print it off and do the study. 

They each got their own lap book and activity printouts. The material seems to suit Zoe better. Austyn was really only interested in having the lapbook to look at and for me to read to him and he is more hands on. Zoe likes to colour and doodle and copy all of the words in the material.

We cut a squash open to look inside.

We noticed some small squash bug larvae attached to it.

Here is an adult.

P.S. Excuse the size of the images. Blogger changed their image importing program again and I can't import images like I use to be able to. So I have to copy from Flickr and the images that I can copy are the thumbnails.  

Festival of Hawks

Holiday Beach is a well known hawk migration observatory. There were cars from all over North America in the parking lot. Austyn has been so interested in Birds of Prey lately that we just had to go and check out this festival. It was well worth it. They learned about many other animals as well. The first table had a scavenger hunt page that you could pick up and they showed how they catch and tag monarch butterflies. They showed us a beautiful dragonfly, skeletons, antlers (very heavy), a turtle shell. hawk wings, hawk legs, and some stuffed birds. Zoe is checking out a frog skeleton.

 Here Austyn is observing, comparing, and discussing different wings. She asked him many questions and he know the answers to many. Unschoolinig is AWSOME! 

Here he is telling Zoe all about the things he sees on the table. After this Zoe got her face painted and Austyn and I got a head start with the Zoo animals.

A local man keeps Zoo animals to educate kids at parties and special gatherings. Here is the wallaby in his cage. 

The wallaby eventually gets to come out and get attention.

The kids got a close up look at many animals from all over the world

While learning about the animals a tortoise wandered around the room to see what everyone was doing.

It was like a fashion show as they tried on life snake bracelets. 

They got to try on a live boa scarf!

It was a very hands on experience. Every animal was observed close up and touched. These are bunnies.

We took a walk to see the rescued birds. Here we saw four rescued birds and donated money to help pay for their care. 

The owl was very comfortable around all of the people but was on the look out for dogs. Dogs are not a favourite for owls.

The turkey vulture with only one wing was Austyn's favourite. He loves turkey vultures. The woman who cares for him said that he is an amazing and very intelligent bird. He can even manipulate humans into doing what he wants.

We climbed the observation tower and looked across the swamp with our binoculars. There were eagles nesting in the distance. 

 While there people were catching, banding and releasing birds. This is a male sharp shined hawk. The females are a bit larger and instead of being kept in tomato juice cans are kept in a pringles tube. Pigeons and other things are used as bate so that they can be caught. Once caught they are kept in these containers with holes on the end. The containers keep them safe so that they are easy to handle without harming their wings. Also they are calmer. They band the one leg and then release the birds. 

While releasing the bird the people who work there educate the public about these magnificent birds. We already spent our money and were bummed that we couldn't adopt a bird. With adoption we give our email address and if the bird is caught again or found dead they send all of the information to us automatically and we get to track our bird. Maybe we'll make our way to this festival again and next time we'll be sure to have cash to adopt a hawk.

Austyn learned about microscopic pond life while Zoe got a head start with the outdoor crafts. 

It was a great day and amazing that Austyn knew so much about birds of prey. Following his interests is really helping in his learning process. He picked out a turkey future stuffed animal and Zoe chose a skunk. The proceeds went to Canadian Parks.

Grocery Store Science

Learning about the strange things we find at the grocery store is fun. Here is Zoe checking out the rough texture of a coconut.

We poked a hole and tried the fluid inside. We talked about what coconut milk is and how the fluid inside is mostly water. There was at least one vacation story thrown in there. We cut it open and tried the moist meat inside. Austyn and I like it. Zoe doesn't. What fun!

Fun with Twister

Zoe is finally tall enough to play. She still has the disadvantage of being shorter, but she can play! What fun!

Late Summer in the Park

The leaves are starting to change and fall to the grounds. The kids are all gone to school so our park is empty. We get it all to ourselves.

It's cool now instead of hot like it has been. Being outside is so pleasant this time of year.

What a great way to spend a morning while Daddy works in our home office in silence.

Meeting New Friends

I decided that it would be nice to network with other homeschool groups outside of our area. The group closest to us was having a get-together at a beach and we decided to drive there and attend. It was to celebrate our freedom to homeschool here in Ontario while all of the other kids are back to school. 

Well, they may not be new friends but last year our kids didn't play as much with them. At the race track there is a family who parks behind us in the pits. Their kids and our kids love to play. They are both getting old enough and us parents are becoming more comfortable with letting them go back and forth to each others' pit spot.

Making an Electromagnet

Austyn loves this kind of thing. We tried it a few weeks previous but the wires we had were too thick for it to work well enough.

Thanks to a new friend who was moving and donated a bunch of supplies, we got to try this again and it worked great! The book I used is all about communication (I can't seem to find the book to share the title and I'm wondering if Austyn stored it away in his room). We learned that electromagnet was important in the development of telephones.

Book Sharing Monday - Birds

I've been so busy that posting on this site has been hard for me. Life may even get busier here. I'll try and do more posting regardless.

Here is a book that has worked well for us right now. Last year Austyn was into insects and this year it's all about birds. Lately it's been about hawks. This book is a great introduction to birds. It's called Birds Nature's Magnificent Flying Machines by Caroline Arnold and I can't forget the illustrator, Patricia J. Wynne. We've been reading many books on birds lately and this one is the best one I've found so far to give a nice introduction to all of the aspects of birds and their lives. It's not too long or overly textbook like. We really liked the format. The illustrations are well done.

Our Local Fair

Every year this fair comes and goes and we race and don't go. We hear about it from many people around us. They recommend that we go, but we don't. So, when I heard from a friend when it was coming and that it starts on a Thursday and was cheaper I decided we'd check it out.

Don't get me wrong. I love fairs. I grew up with a big one in my area. People drove hours to come. The problem I see with fairs is that they are overpriced. I find it hard to believe that families are OK with spending up to $70 for a family of four to go on three rides, and that doesn't include the admission ($7/per person over twelve). To top it off, if your child is too small to ride a ride on their own the parent has to pay to ride even if they didn't want to ride in the first place. Also, the rides are so short. The roller coaster ride at the top went around two or three times.

In today's hard times I'm surprised to see how many people go to fairs. Everything is so much more expensive and people are making so much less. The family experience still comes first I suppose. Maybe that is why people still go. Is it a family experience when the kids go on a few rides and the parents give up their rides so the kids can have more? I think our definition of family experience is changing.

Games were $5 or $10 a try and you were guarantied a great plastic, blow-up prize or small stuffed toy made from low quality petroleum products. Are they serious!? After all of the other expenses and purchasing ice cream to cool off all of our pocket cash was gone.

Being a local event, families meet up with those other families they haven't seen in a while. This is a homeschool family that we love to hang around. They gave the kids a hands on experience with their farm animals.

It's a fun and educational experience. That is what I tell myself when I think about the fact that we could have gone to a zoo or a small amusement park for the same price and we'd have unlimited access to rides and animals. 

From my memory of fairs this fair was very small. I was expecting something a bit bigger. We weren't there all that long because there really wasn't that much to do or see. It was around the same price as the fair I grew up going to less the parking fee and that fair could be an all day event. We did enjoy ourselves, but I just wonder how much longer families will put up with such high prices? Also I ask myself, how many families out there can never go to a fair because the cost of it is beyond their budget?

Here Zoe's friend is showing her the guinea pigs that she entered. 

I'm glad my kids had this experience, but I don't think we'll go to a fair every year. What ever happened to the good old days where everyone could afford to go to the fair, have fun there all day, and it was a community event that nobody missed?