Taking Initiative

I just love it when my kids get what they need and go and do something all on their own. Here Zoe picked up a library book. She looked through it and decided on a craft that interested her. She got the supplies that she needed, set herself up at the table, and proceeded to make the craft from the book.

This doesn't always happen, but when it does, I just think it's great!!

Creativity at Home

Everyone tells me she should be in drama, but I can't find anything that is available for her age. She dresses up, paints her own face, acts out plays, makes different voices, dances, does acrobatics, sings and so much more. She is just an all around creative and outgoing girl. Being home provides a great place to practice her creativity.

Science with Arts and Crafts

We made some para-scopes (seen at the back of this table. Right after making them Zoe decided to repeat a science experiment she did at our Homeschool Co-Op. I got my camera out a bit late. What she did was pour milk on a plate and add drops of food colouring and then stir it up a bit making a marble design. She did it many times to this milk and now the design looks almost black.

This is Austyn using his Para-scope to spy on people walking by our house. I think the real reason for it is to spy on animals and birds from around a tree, but he is having fun.

My hope is that by being more creative or by making things that are crafty, that Zoe gets more interested in Science.

Science Journal

 We have officially started our new Science book for this year. We don't stop in the summer and due to having such a bad year this year, it's a good thing. 

 Our first activity was to make our own science journal. We made these with pieces of cardboard. I bought cupboard liners (has a sticky side) and binding rings. We cut out the cardboard to a specific size and put the liner on the outside, wrapping around the edges to the inside covers. Then we glued paper inside to cover up the liner edges. Then we cut a bunch of white printer paper in half and punched holes in the papers and the covers. They were lined up and the binder rings were inserted and closed. Here is Austyn's science journal. He liked the marble look.

 It's hard to tell in this picture but Zoe added a string on the rings to make a handle and she attached a pencil so that she could travel with it. She brought it to the races along with her caterpillar and drew her caterpillar and the stages that she could remember a caterpillar goes through before it becomes a butterfly in her journal.

When I first found these caterpillars they were very small. The one looked just like a little black burr. They are still very small but this is how they looked a couple of days after I found them. They are both the same kind of caterpillar (swallowtail). I know because we have kept these kinds of caterpillars before from our garden. This year we found more. It's one benefit of living in Ontario. There are so many chances to keep caterpillars for free! They are so easy to find!

Oh by the way... the book we are using is called Science Smart.

Sun-Catchers

 I've started to read blogs again. I usually don't have time, but lately I've been up early and on the internet to start my day. I was reminded of this craft. It's not the same craft as the blog I read, but it reminded me of it and knowing how many small crayons we had, I thought it'd be a good way to use some of them up.

 The kids grated some crayon colours into piles and put them into the muffin tin, to use.

When they were happy with the colour(s) they made designs on one half of a long piece of waxed paper. The other half is folded over top and I ironed them together.

 Here are some of their creations. This is Zoe's.

Zoe did this one as well. She cut all of hers into shapes.

 Austyn did this one on his own.

 Austyn and I did this one together.

I find that Austyn is less independent with crafts then Zoe. He doesn't like to do crafts on his own. This is due to his over-perfectionism. He is too upset when it's not perfect. I'm happy that he did do some on his own this time. He isn't too into cutting out shapes, so he left his creations as large square sheets of wax paper. I think they turned out great!

Juggling Kids' Sports

Phew... life, juggling sports between two kids has been a challenge. It's been fun though! Zoe is now finished. On the last tournament she was in her team won every game. Actually, they've never lost a game! It was their first year having a team at this level and there was a learning curve for all. Now we all know that the travel team for her age group (5-6's) check! We didn't know that. The kids didn't seem to mind. I'm sure all of that extra equipment helped.

Zoe was the only girl on the travel team. It was great experience for her. She played well, for her first year of lacrosse. 

That same weekend, Austyn was at a tournament in another location. He got a medal as well and they won their first game. We were so proud of them.

On the last day of Lacrosse Zoe got to play with parents and siblings and eat pizza. She got another medal and a team jacket with her name on it. 

Now that her lacrosse is done and our homeschool activities have slowed down, life will be a bit easier. I know this has seemed like a sports blog lately. I guess that is because much of our time at home is organizing and still unpacking, if you can believe that! I've given the kids some time to settle in a bit and let the stress of the past fade away. We've been slowly doing more and more educational activities at home, now that things are getting more organized. 

Creative Expression

Zoe loves to do her make-up and hair. This also includes creative expression made with face-paint. Here she is posing to show her look. I don't know where she learned to pose like this. I guess she is a natural model. LOL!

Graphics

Austyn has been interested in doing photography, graphics and maybe helping us with apps that we develop through our business. Here he is helping me post a Book Sharing Monday. He is editing a picture of a book.

Math is different

 What may look like a regular math worksheet to one person is something completely different for someone working on RightStart Math. In fact, someone came over and saw what Austyn was working on and proceeded to show him him the procedures she was taught in school on how to do the worksheet, but this is not the intention of the program. This program isn't about memorizing and learning proceedures to do math. It's more about TRUELY understanding how math works. It's hard to understand this, for some, especially if they were good at memorizing and learning proceedures (were good in math).

This lesson was taking two 4-place numbers and adding them using the base ten cards and trading with a bank. So, instead of learning to carry the one or two or whatever, he is truely learning that there was a place value to it that is moving along. Here is what the book says about this lesson: "This purpose of the leson is not to teach the child paper and pencil procedures, rather she is to experience trading on a more abstract level."

While Austyn worked on math Zoe had a snack that turned into an art project!

Secret Princess Diary

At Toys R Us we found a Secret Disney Princess Diary that was on sale. I bought it for Zoe and she has almost finished filling all of it in in only a couple of days. What a great way to get her to practice spelling, printing, drawing, and imagination. We took the diary to hockey so she could work on it when Austyn was playing. She has been hiding the key and she calls it her "Homework Book". What fun!!!!

Weekly Wrap-Up

 Last weekend we went to Canada's Wonderland with family.

 We've been observing many insects. Here is a stick bug that Austyn found.

Here is one of the two Stag Beetles found in the basement of this old farm house.

Here is the large spider we found on one of the mattresses we sleep on. The kids caught different insects to see what it preferred to eat and it only seemed to prefer live flies.

 Unlike last week, when we focused on History and Reading, this week we focused on Science. We have been using Adventures with Atoms and Molecules Book 1 by Robert C. Mebane and Thomas R. Rybolt. We did many experiments this week and the kids made a water molecule (not in the book). When Zoe got bored with Science she started to make crafts and just watched from her place on the table as Austyn and I did the activities.

 We enjoyed going from experiment to experiment and Austyn seems to be getting over his balloon phobia. 

 Austyn is really into Finding Waldo lately so a large Waldo book could be found laying around the house even when he wasn't in the room. Zoe placed her crafts on his book (above) and thought it was funny to spell the word "pee" with pipe cleaners.

 Austyn made many make-believe things from the craft supplies I picked up at the dollar store. Here he is looking at one of his bombs and infront of him on the table there is a special gun. He placed guns like this around the house and was pretending that as people walked by they would get a surprise. 

 We continue to observe the behaviour of the farm cats. Here they are all huddled together in their house. It's a cold day and they are able to keep warm by sleeping together. The mother cat still nurses her first litter of this season and one cat babysits and nurses her newer kittens for her when she is busy. 

 The kittens are growing fast. They are now starting to walk around. This one has extra claws so his feet are so big and cute like a teddy bear! They are starting to be more vocal to us and less shy.

Moving to this area there didn't seem to be much support for us so I took over the secular group and have been getting things together to organize events. The first event I organized was park day. We had a couple of families join us this week. The kids enjoyed themselves.

Zoe practiced dance and Austyn practiced singing. This is something they do everyday.

Zoe practices gymnastics at any available moment. Zoe is in Dance Lessons and both kids started gymnastics this week.

Austyn is in Power Skating and Hockey.

Daddy started to dust off the race car. He tried to get it ready for the last race but it didn't work out. We may have to wait until next year.

The great thing about being in the country is that there are discoveries around every corner. Here the kids are observing the sap from a large pine tree and then they found some lady bugs trying to hide.

 They are in two reading programs at the library. One is a regular story time and the other is a French Story Time. They are enjoying them. This is probably the first time they have ever had homework. This is a project for the regular Story Time. They are to write a story about the adventures of a cat named Scooter and Scooter will read it when we return to Story Time.

 They worked on Drawing. I was going to crack out an art project but they weren't interested. Instead Austyn wanted to do a drawing from a How to Draw book that we purchased at a local book store and Zoe wanted to just draw what she wanted to draw.

Austyn did a bit of reading this week, but not as much as last week.


Hmmm... I'm discovering that it's not so easy to do a Weekly Wrap-Up with unschooling since we really don't follow a curriculum or subjects like kids would in school. I'll try this for a little while, regardless, and see how it goes. 

Medieval Things

 Austyn drew some interesting swords from a sword book we got at the library and made up one of his own. 

Here is a sock doll I made for him. In this picture it's not stuffed yet and he is picking out the buttons.

Here is the doll finished. It's actually a vampire doll but I had a bit of trouble doing the teeth. It may look a bit sad. LOL! I have to fix the eyes already because they are loose. I never said I was good at sewing. It turned out nice, considering.

I will need to get embroidery needles one of these days so that he can sew his own things more. My needles are too sharp.

 The doll was an activity we chose from this book. The mead recipe from a previous post is from this book as well.

Back Yard School

 This is our curious little friend who visits our fence everyday to see what we are doing. 

 Austyn has expressed that he wants to do more structured school and part of unschooling/natural/child-led homeschooling is that I make sure he does what he wants to do. So, if he is asking for more school activities and structure this is what I'm going to provide. 

 With the weather so nice, we've taken much of our time out-of-doors. Here Zoe is working on a paint project that we picked up at the dollar store.

Austyn and I work on his Hawk lapbook that never got finished last year.