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. 

First Holiday Craft

I remembered doing this craft at a Homeschool Co-Op a couple of years ago and decided to pull it up on the iPad and do it with the kids. We are a bit limited because we don't know where many of our craft supplies are, but this craft just requires, paper, scissors, a stapler, and tape.

Mine is on the left. I followed the directions exactly. Zoe did the one on the right. I'm so proud of her because she did it all by herself except for the stapling. Austyn's is in the middle. I helped him a great deal. The cool thing about Austyn's is that his has more ribbons cut and a bigger center, on each arm of the snowflake. It looks different than ours and turned out amazing.

HERE is the link to make them yourself.

Lacrosse Practice and Goalie Practice

 Lacrosse season has started. Sports here in Edmonton differ greatly from sports in Ontario. If you play hockey in Ontario there is a good chance that you'll play lacrosse in the summer. Here in Edmonton most of the people we talked to never heard of lacrosse and were surprised when I told them that it's the official national sport of Canada. Here in Edmonton if you play hockey, you play hockey all year round.

 Lacrosse in Ontario is different than here in Edmonton. They take it much more seriously in Ontario and it's played close to the real thing with real games and they keep track of points just like in hockey. Here in Edmonton, it's just for fun and babied down for the kids. The nets are moved in, the kids rotate goal, and when they have games the kids play for short intervals with breaks and practices in between. There is no checking here (which is probably a good thing). A benefit of the way they do it here is that more kids get to try out being goalie and Austyn was one of the first ones to ask to try it out. He will be the goalie for the second game. A downfall is that the goalie equipment that is shared isn't in the greatest shape and is large for most of the kids. If there was one goalie the equipment would be customized for that child and likely it'd be in good shape.

 Here he is practicing with one of the coaches. He is learning how to stand and block.

 Instead of watching Austyn Zoe goes to the practices and games to socialize. Her friend brought beads and string. 

 The equipment makes him look so big! Not use to that. He is so thin normally. LOL!

He did well for his first practice. It's hard to stop balls that are coming from all directions so some got through. In a real game there'd only be one ball.

Painting

 Zoe and I painted some spring pots. Both the pots and the paint are from the dollar store.

Austyn isn't a huge fan of painting so he just used tempura paint on his shoe box. He made some small pictures on the top and the underside of the lid.

A Story + Art = StArt... My Pirate Papa

We enjoyed I Love My Pirate Papa by Laura Leuck.

We also listened to this CD while the kids worked away.

 We picked up a pirate ship craft from the dollar store.

 The kids made their ship as a gift to Daddy. Here is Zoe's ship. She included some custom pieces on it from our own craft supplies. She also made other gifts for Daddy and left them all on his computer chair for him to find when he got home.

This is Austyn's ship. He had me help him with some of it, but did a great job of assembling it.

Join in the fun at  A Mommy's Adventures: stART.

Kitties Love to Watch

When the kids get busy on a project the cats are there. When we play games the cats are there. Just about everything we do at home, the cats are there. They love to watch us and be with us. Here is a picture of Zoe getting into a project that she initiated on her own and one of our cats is right up close watching. Zoe is so use to this that she just keeps on working away and the cat just keeps on watching.

Weaving

One morning while Austyn was at an early hockey practice Zoe and I stayed home. I gave her a weaving kit that I purchased at the dollar store. I started it for her and she continued it. I was surprised at how well she did and how much she enjoyed doing it. It looks like there will be more handy crafts in our future.

Mayan, Aztec, and Inca activities

 We have been reading about the Mayan, Aztec, and Inca civilizations. I looked up some activities we could do that go along with with these themes. The funny thing is that with unschooling I may organize something that Austyn might like, but he may or may not choose to do it. He wanted me to get some activities ready for him but he took the materials I made available for the planned activities and decided to do his own things. He decided that he wanted to make Mayan people and a hut. He didn't fully finish but it looked good so far. He decided a day or so later that he'd make some sacrificial knives and capture stuffed animals to sacrifice to the Aztec Gods.

Zoe did follow my instructions. She made it herself and didn't fully understand what she was making before she started, but it all worked out for her anyway. She made an Incan Quipu. It is a way to keep track of things in life. We looked at actual pictures to see what they looked like and made our own but with a piece of bristle board so that each string could be identified as a different thing to keep track of. Zoe decided that she wanted to draw the activities she wanted to keep track of instead of printing the words out. She hung it on her wall and each time she does an activity she puts a knot in the string that represents it.

Fun with Friends

 We visited some friends last week. I guess you can see that I'm a bit behind in posts. When we were there we saw that the girls were allowed to take apart some chairs. What a great way to learn how they are put together and how to use tools! They wanted to put them back together so right away Austyn got right in there. It was a challenge that he worked on with his friend for a long time.

 I finally showed them how to turn the chair to another side so that the pieces could be held together easier and they helped by putting in the screws.

I read them some of our favourite books from home and the kids made some crafts. It was a wonderful visit!

Homeschool Pottery Class

 We attended a pottery class with one of the local homeschool groups. The teacher was wonderfully flexible. The class was suppose to be creating a plaque with their hand print and while she was giving instructions one of the children put up his hand and asked if they could make something else. She hesitated but said yes. I'm not sure anyone made a hand print. :)

 Zoe made a circle plaque and decorated it.

Austyn made a square plaque and added hockey sticks and stamps.

Handy Crafts Before Christmas

Here are some crafts we worked on this week. It was my first attempt at beeding. I'm making a snake bookmark for Austyn. Zoe made the dog (well she started it and I finished it for her) and it's orange on the otherside (we worked with what pieces of felt we could find). Austyn made the bird almost completely by himself and he started beeding himself a bracelet. We threw out all of the recycled stuffing we had before we moved here to save space so we stuffed the bird and the dog with dried rice. Austyn put a large bead in the birds head for a brain.

The three of us spent some bonding time while we worked away at our crafts and chatted. It was nice.

Dragons... dragons... dragons...

I find it so amazing when Austyn if following his interests and from that topic he touches on so many subjects. I don't even have to prepare a unit of study for him. I just need to be flexible and open enough to follow his lead and support what he wants to do. Lately he is interested in Dragons. This is a book we got from the library. We love it so much. This book is called How to Raise and Keep a Dragon by John Topsell. 

 If anyone was ever thinking of owning a dragon, this is the book for them. It is a detailed guide for anyone who wants to own and care for a dragon. It gives many common breeds and describes them to help decide which dragon is right for your home.

 It describes in detail the environment needed for each dragon. What supplies you need. Did you know it's very expensive to own a dragon? They also require a large amount of space. Even miniature dragons require at least one whole room in a house. 

There are many tips and tricks to help train your dragon. A dragon not trained well could cause lawsuits if they destroy property or people. 

Austyn and I read all of the dragon descriptions and discussed which one made the most sense. He ended up choosing a Standard Western Dragon to order and decided to order the egg. He played out this scenario. He even gave up his room so that the dragon could use it.

He then had me photocopy the registration form for the Worldwide Dragon Club and filled it out. I helped. Then he had me get an envelope and he put the address on the front.

He started to talk about how he might be able to afford a full sized dragon. I told him that it would be very expensive and that most people could never afford one. So, he went to get his play money (we print mini money off of the internet and he has purchased some mini U.S. dollar sets) and counted all of it with  my help. We counted it in sections and then added it up in the end. He decided that three million dollars should cover the cost of getting a dragon and setting up an environment for it. I then reminded him that full sized dragons eat a great deal of food. "A hungry dragon isn't a happy dragon!" He said that dragon feed is probably ony $10. I said that was for a small amount and that the dragon would have it eaten in no time. He would have to have a good, constant income. He said he'd get a job. LOL!

This is one of the eggs he found to pretend that he had a dragon egg. The object beside it is a serpent dragon that he made up with string and a mini clothes pin.

Dragons continue to be the main theme in his artwork.

Through our study of dragons and the use of the book I described earlier in this post, we learned about the bombardier beetle. It seems to have dragon like qualities, so to confirm this we looked it up in one of our resource books. There was only a short description, but the information was correct. It can explode chemicals out of it's butt!

I just love this dragon he made.

This is a rainbow dragon that he made.

So far we have covered many subjects and none of this was planned by me except getting the book. We have covered hand writing, math, history, mythology, art, crafts, nature, science, and probably something else that I've not thought of. So, in some cases I'm required to do so much work and use so much creativity to introduce ideas and activities to accommodate his interests but sometimes... just sometimes... these things come to him naturally and all I need to do is be there to help the magic happen. 

I'm sure we are not finished studying dragons. It is only the beginning.

Are we Really Sewing?!

Austyn and Zoe have asked more than once to sew up a pillow or stuffed animal. I'm not a very crafty person, so I'm a bit surprised and excited that I got everything ready and got them sewing. It's only felt pillows but it's a start.

I had a little plastic needle for Zoe but I couldn't get the holes punched in the felt so I let her use a regular needle. Actually on the first try I let her use a needle work needle which isn't as pointy. She loved it. She has made another pillow since this. 

Austyn enjoys it as well and so do I because it seems to have a calming activity for them both. My kids are energetic and loud most of the day and this is a time where they seem to naturally sit quietly and concentrate.