Book Sharing Monday - Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich

We borrowed the audio version of this book from our library. My kids loved it!! It's a fun, creepy mix of poems, stories, and songs.

The pictures are extra scary and the voices on the cd are perfect. There are many different monsters throughout the book. When we finished Austyn said "Wow! We have to get Daddy to listen to this one!"

Park Day

 After much thought I have decided that instead of doing a weekly wrap-up, I will just do posts on the things we are doing. It seems to work better for us and makes more sense right now. 

I may have already mentioned that I took over the secular group. I think that it is very important for all areas of Canada to have public homeschool groups that are accessible for anyone moving to the area or just starting to homeschool. So, the moms who were in charge passed the group off to me so that I could get it going again. There has been no activity for a very long time. The first thing I started was Park Day. Our family and one other family seem to be the regular attendants so far and we have met two other families at park days. 

This week Austyn drew some pictures inspired by Dragon books and this book by Emily Gravett called The Rabbit Problem. He made a little booklet called the Dragon Problem and a picture to give to a friend at park day on the same subject.

 I didn't get as many pictures this week but we did find something interesting at the base of this tree. We couldn't determine if it was a type of fungus or if this was something a person put here. It was kind of hard but reminded me of spray foam. It was much more metallic looking than this image shows.

Zoe brought her camera to take pictures. They played around this tree and on the ball diamond a good deal this week. It is nice to feel like we have a bit of a schedule even though I have booked more activities than normal right now. We want to get out and meet other homeschool families in this area and then we expect to slow down by December. For this reason we haven't done as much academic (at home) this week. Next week we will have two less activity and the week after that one more less. So, we will be home a little bit more. It's important to get out and meet some regular friends.

Book Sharing Monday - Elbert's Bad Word

Elbert's Bad Word by Audrey Wood is about a little boy who snatches a bad word out of the air and keeps it in his pocket. Without warning he uses the word. 

This story shows one example of how a child might stop saying a bad word. 

Our kids are not innocent. They have used bad words before. My husband and I are the type of people who question things about parenting and society. We discussed bad words and had many questions. Who decided that it's a bad word anyway? Why is it a bad word? Why do we have bad words? Is it for authoritarian power over others with the use of guilt? Some may say that it's just plane rude, but isn't it just rude because society has told us that? Isn't it just our perception? Although we shouldn't dwell on others think, we also don't want to insult others.

Our kids know our opinion on this and found this book funny and interesting. Zoe also pointed out that the author never says the bad word in the book. I think she was hoping to know what the boy said. LOL!

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. 

Our Butterfly

Within the first couple of weeks we captured two caterpillars. One was a Monarch caterpillar and the other was a Tussock Moth Caterpillar. The Monarch came out of it's crysalis fairly quickly but the moth is still in it's cocoon. This is one experience we missed about being in Ontario while living in Alberta and I jumped at the opportunity when we came back to Ontario. Here are some more pictures.

Book Sharing Monday - Oh The Places You'll Go!

You may remember this popular Dr. Seuss classic. I just love the wording in it. There are so many inspiring and encouraging words though out this story.

And as always the illustrations don't disappoint. This book is well worth reading whether you've read it before or not.

Adjusting to Change

 Austyn and I have been doing much more school type activities lately. Our homeschooling looks more like school than unschooling sometimes because Austyn has made it clear that that is what he wants. He has been reading from his reader, learning Canadian history, and doing math. Zoe sometimes feels a bit left out so I sit down and do things with her. In this picture she is doing math. She went off track, but this is what I let them do because I find it makes the experience more individual and fun. She decided that she wanted to play X and O's with the tally sticks. She made little pieces of paper and put X or O on all of them and that is what we played for the next few minutes until she lost interest. This is creative and provides confidence. The game itself provides it's own strategic challenges.

 Living with family, they get different experiences. There are many farm cats here. One of them had two kittens and they are kept right outside the door in a little cat house. This little kitten just opened it's eyes. 

 They have been learning to drive because Austyn is going to be old enough to drive a junior dragster. One way to learn to drive is to drive the golf cart and the lawn mower. 

 Zoe didn't want to be left out. They take turns driving with Daddy.

 There are many things to do that they could never do at our past couple of homes. Here Zoe is climbing a tree.

 The hammock provides hours of amusement.

It is very quiet here. We have had the chance to be here on our own for most of our stay so far. We can see far, there are many insects, and many birds. With the land so flat we can see what weather is coming and the sunsets are great.