I’ve said it before and I will say it again, on a day like today it’s best to be outside! Off went to our favourite park – we were there yesterday finding mushrooms and chickadees and more, oh my!
Today was another search for mushrooms, not for picking, just identifying. And with mushrooms we always find moss and lichen, so many wonderful kinds for which we love making up names.
Before we left I found that Annie and Dawn were putting together a nature exchange and decided that we would start a collection for this as well which we will show once we have collected.
The sky was perfect as the sky always is with wispy clouds and the scent of ocean and pine in the air. A beautiful day to be thankful on this day of Thanksgiving and a perfect way to celebrate!
It was a busy day at the park so we decided to venture off the paths and into the forest to find what we could find, treasures that have always existed but tucked safely away. Nature never disappoints!
L found a walking stick! 🙂
Stick balancing which is always fun and worth the time.
We found a path through the trees.
A wonderful day indeed then off to home to prepare our Tofurky dinner but not without some newfound treasures and some oldies but goodies as well.
X ended up catching a cold again this week so there was a lot of low energy going around. I brought L to sports class this week while X stayed home with Daddy and played Yahtzee. I really didn’t want him running around being all snot-filled and feeling like he just wanted to lay down and rest. That being said, L scored a goal during their soccer game!
This week was filled with little projects and board games, me second shooting a wedding on Thursday (weird I know!), reading and resting, and Xman really wanting to clean the floors!
Floor washing attracts a curious Gypsy girl!
L got the Lego Play Book for his birthday and he has been building a miniature town complete with a museum, beach and hover trucks.
The days were beautiful so we took advantage by spending our time outside playing chess, strategizing, snacking and planning more creations.
X won chess pretty much fair and square I gotta say.
…all while the house siding is being torn down around us to make way for new siding!
L and I played scrabble and I showed him how to incorporate one word into another while utilizing the ‘triple word score’ making him beat me by a long shot. See bottom left where he added ‘go’ to ‘car’ then next turn ‘soy’ to ‘cargo’. Great game!
We read a FABULOUS book by Neil Gaiman which had the boys and I roaring with laughter and enjoying the notion that time travel can make someone be in two places at one time, while flying in a Floaty-Ball-Person-Carrier with a dinosaur. Dinosaurs aren’t really extinct, did you know that?
I just finished reading a wonderful book filled with myth and magic which has left images in my head and set my mind to wondering…and wandering…
We have a cousin arriving today for a week of visiting! I am glad and thankful that Xman was so keen to clean the floors!
Hope everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend – we bought two Tofurkey’s this time around because last year we found they were so good that one just wasn’t enough! 😉
I have been doing a massive editing of hundreds of hundreds of images dating back to 2009 to either add to the blog or just for archiving.
I came across these two pics last night and seeing as how winter seems just around the corner, seeing these faces amidst the big flakes gave me warm fuzzes.
It’s been a great weekend for us all and especially for L. This weekend he had his 9th birthday. Wowza!
This is a post with A LOT of pictures for those family and friends who do not live nearby.
We started out at a play café called Rebel Space with friends. They had a great time together and tired each other out indeed!
From there were went for some lunch and then to the library. In the parking lot we found many a fire truck so, naturally, we went to visit some trucks and the boys got to go inside of them and try out the firehose too!
I found it interesting to learn that this particular truck is no longer used to carry more than two firefighters. The seats in the back (sorry I didn’t take a pic!) would have been facing sideways facing each other which wouldn’t be safe if they were t-boned. They changed the truck seating about 6 or 7 years ago. This truck is still used as a support vehicle for extra equipment, communications (they have a fax), and other supplies.
The boys loved aiming the hose (a smaller hose than the firefighters would have used!) at the target. Xman wanted to use the hose twice.
Lucas only wanted to use it once but he hit the target so quickly I only managed to catch the end of it with Stephen untangling the hose.
I managed to get a video of X the second time around!
This truck is used at the interpretation centre to help the public become more aware of fires and fire safety.
Off to the library for a bit of reading…and relaxing…we came home with many a comic books and then some!
On the way home we stopped at the market for eggs and some fun chalk drawing by L. Have you seen a crockasoraus before? If not, it looks a little something like this.
L loves to make long squiggly arrows…
When we left the market the sky outside reflected in this building looked pink in the windows’ reflection. I had to take a pic. Lovely.
Sunday:
Lucas: “I slept off and on like an elephant last night I was so excited!”.
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Apparently, he explains, it’s true, elephants only sleep four hours at night and not all at the same time. 🙂
L was so exited in the morning and he brought his favourite stuffy, Milkshake, that has been with him since birth to partake.
“No pictures, please!” L was specific about the few things for which he asked. This is his first model to build.
I had no idea L already had a hot wheels type Blue Angel which is one reason why he wanted this model. I think there will be more of these!
Lego? Is that Lego? 🙂
This set came with cool transparent stickers!
A new scorpion character.
Lego Galaxy Squad Star Slicer. Pretty cool, I have to admit. Nice mantid!
Our most awesome friend, Sharon, came by for the big day as she has known the boys since they were in my belly. She is totally in love and we love her too! She helped decorate the cupcakes to be Koopa Troopa shells. Xman helped add the white icing too. L placed them aside. A good system going to keep things moving! Oh yes, and these were little mushrooms with eyes! Cute Koopas! Happy Birthday, L! Of course we had to make room on the table for his Lego and winged friends!Xman decided to run over to the piano and play a song for a sing-along. So fun!
After the sweet celebration we went out to the book store and came home with the Lego Playbook that L has wanted for like, foreverrr.
It’s very cool…
We always take a family photo at the end of each birthday. Some nice ones and some fun ones. Happy birthday, sweet boy! We love you!
What a week! We spend A LOT of time outside this week making the most of the amazing fall weather. Between sports class, the art gallery program and swim lessons, plus a lot of outdoor learning and fun we managed to squeeze in some fun indoor learning as well.
I LOVE collages (and apparently using all caps right about now) and L’s Millipede Fair is so fun! Every art gallery program which happens once a month gives the boys a chance to create something similar to that of an artist at the gallery or from a group exhibition. I think this collage had some inspiration from out time outside and our visit to the fair earlier in the week.
L explained that the bottom left image shows a millipede playing a water shooter game to try and win the stuffed ‘Milkshake” cow hanging above. His water needs to fill up the tube first to win. Yes, we played this at the county fair this summer and they loved it (oops – just realized that I haven’t blogged about that one yet!). The millipede on the other side is going down a waterslide and loving it! Aaahh!!!
This is Xman’s piece entitled Deep Forest. I have to say I love his use of positive/negative space to illustrate how deep this forrest is. Love it.
This collage is X’s as well. I see a tree theme here. We are big fans of the moon especially in it’s full phase. It’s mesmerizing and so beautiful! He made a point of letting me know that the craters on the moon were made with a silver colour pencil – very important. Love again.
It’s definitely okay to love your own child’s work I believe! I find it to be a window into their minds and what a wonderful land they may share!
As you may recall in the last HA post we were exploring the number three. Well, I found a fun poem about threes in our Waldorf notes and L had a great time with it. Below is a 30 leaf clover which is really ten clovers placed together because that is so much better for luck than one four leaf clover! Obviously!
X went a different direction or a tangent you could say. He started drawing out Margot Multiply gnome we had made for this year in an attempt to continue illustrating multiples of three. He went on to draw Plusil Plus, Minihat Minus and Daisy Divide in a nature walk. Well, what could be better?
This next week is all about fours in so many ways! I have never had so much fun with numbers, have you?
I laugh to myself now at the title as I believe there is a store in our Historic Properties with the same name. 🙂
Yesterday it was such a beautiful day (again thank you!) that after swim lessons we decided to go to our favourite park. Xman wanted to start another trail and write down the route again. He is becoming very keen on recording these things and I find it fascinating. I did however, suggest to him to perhaps this time try drawing the route instead as we only had so much time to stay. I showed him an example from our Earth Adventures book and he agreed.
It took a bit of time to get started as we were naturally distracted by the ducks on the pond at the entrance to the park. I had brought along some great print-outs to differentiate between some duck species. The boys had a fun time really looking at the ducks to tell the difference. They already knew for the most part how to tell a drake mallard from a hen but we didn’t know until we read this blog post that drakes can sometimes look like hens! I think we may have found an American Black Duck as the bill was more of an olive colour but I couldn’t get a picture of it. Maybe next time!
Female:
Female? Hmmm…or Black Duck? I think it’s a female due to the eye line but the bill is a kind of yellow green and the wing tip colour is edged in black. What do you think? Pop on over to this post to try and figure it out!
Working hard on the map! I can’t show you the map as it isn’t finished just yet…
The dragonflies are getting a little slow in the cooler weather and we found many of them warming themselves on the rocks in the sun.
While waiting, Stephen and L found their way under one of the bridges and also found some of these:
We had a lot of fun identifying the ducks and look forward to next time. We also kept an eye out for that blue heron that visits the park but still a no show for us. We will keep looking!
We had a great time on a beautiful day. I’m sure X will be continuing his map making on another day – a future cartographer perhaps?
Are you a nature lover or trying to become more of one? Seen any flying friends lately? Maybe some big winged bugs or green bulgy-eyed insects? Pop on over to Mud Puddles to Meteors for some natural inspiration!
This is my favourite time of year. I find that once Autumn arrives the air smells fresher than it does in the summer. The sun is still warm but there is a refreezing coolness to the breeze. Days like these just cannot be spent indoors!
After sports class we went to the Commons and the boys played on the playground (The Magic Playground as we call it), scootered around the skate park and then over to The Oval for more running, chasing pigeons and scootering.
On the way to Chapters for a treat and a read we drove by a fair and could not pass it up. Upon going to the ticket booth we were approached by a couple who asked if we wanted their tickets. I couldn’t thank them enough and they insisted on no money for them. It was enough for the boys to go on four rides – one of which they went on three times!
The boys have been wanting to go on a Ferris Wheel so badly and so we all went around and around enjoying the laughter and the view.
They LOVED it!
Then on to the roller coaster. They had such a great time on it they went on two more times! It’s hard to get a pic with a phone but I managed a couple.
On my way home from work the sky was on fire. It wasn’t my preferred location to take a sunset pic but I didn’t want to forget it.
This was a busy week with programs starting up and visiting friends plus friends visiting which made for a fast yet fun week.
The boys have been learning grammar for a while using First Language Lessons, part of the classical teaching we had been using. It’s wonderful and has some great poems in it for memorizing and some of them (many!) we use for our circle time. It also introduces grammar beginning with nouns and verbs and the different types. I think I may still use it from time to time as I find it so valuable.
In grade 3 grammar is introduced in the Waldorf lessons. Since Xman is familiar with some of the parts of a sentence from our grammar book it made it easy for both boys to do this lesson. This copy work is from a wonderful poem in the Watercolour Stories called Blessings of Fall. We read the poem together and then the boys copied the work using blue for the nouns and red for verbs. Xman switched ‘scarlet’ for ‘red’ poppies as he loves this colour. I can’t blame him – it’s a pretty awesome colour!
Xman’s is first and L’s is below.
I found it interesting the way L spaced his work out into verses as shown in the poem and X just focused on copying.
Math. Geez. Who’d a thunk I’d love math? Wish I had learned it the way the boys do. It was wonderful starting off with MathUSee and now using Waldorf is amazing. We have started with grade one for both. It’s not that they don’t get it. They know how to add, subtract and multiply and even divide a bit but I decided to start here because it gives a new understanding and a new way to look at numbers and how they relate to each other and the real world.
I love the number three. It’s just wonderful and so I was excited to introduce it in a new way:
•physical three such as a shamrock with three leaves; a triceratops with three horns; three colour receptors in our eyes.
•mental three such as trigonometry – measuring triangles (3 sides!); others threes like ‘trio’, ‘triad’, ‘triplet’.
•spiritual three such as the Holy Trinity; three divisions of self – physical, mental, spiritual.
We made a vine of leaves where each had three points and these points we numbered. The boys ended up with ten leaves of three points. I asked Xman (as I knew L would get this right away), ‘If there are 30 points of 3 then how may leaves have you drawn?’ He said, ‘ten’. And so we have learned some division. 🙂
The boys were thrilled to see their drawings as a way to count by threes. Much more fun for us than a workbook.
L went further and added all of the numbers you use to count by three’s up to number twenty-four to see if the sum would be a multiple of three (see lower right). We talked about how all these numbers are multiples of three and did a bit of division as well to see how many times three could go into 108.
This bit of work proved promising for me for it taught me that even though L is learning Waldorf grade one math he is using another level of thinking to go further with the basics. I need not worry that this is too elementary as it gives him room to explore and discover numbers in a new way. I have found that even with X it has opened his eyes to the relation of numbers that he wouldn’t experience with a workbook.
We read a story called How the Corn Came to Be. To continue the theme of three’s we thought of what we could make with triangles and Xman came up with some pretty fun drawings such as gems and a rocket!
He then went on to draw arrows and bows which he decided to price. If you can see the paper clearly he made a list of prices with the type of arrow that coincided. The arrow drawings at this point weren’t complete arrows but the parts of an arrow. You had to mentally combine the lines with the other shapes to figure out which arrow was which for each price.
This brought about more ideas with L and arrows being sold with his new currency called Qwaddel. Xman decided his were Quibble. L said one Qwaddel was worth five Canadian dollars so he did the conversion for the price of his arrows. These boys sell some pretty pricy stuff! 🙂
The fun didn’t stop here. The boys wanted to make their own currency. I found a recipe for air dry clay that was easy to make and for which we already had the ingredients. (We used recipe number four.)
The boys shaped their coins and once dry added value to them. Xman has red and blue for his Quibbel and L has yellow and green for his Qwaddel.
Now that the coins are dry the boys have started trading them. Tomorrow we add shellac to them to prolong their life. I think they will see a lot of use!
The more Waldorf we do the more I find their minds expanding to include other ideas and ways of thinking. Creating a new currency was so much fun. I can’t wait to see what week four brings!
Waldorf is big into nature and that is great for us because we have a trail near our home where we always make awesome discoveries.
Perfect camouflage. What do you see?
We love moths!
Hmmm…dualities? Before and after? Life and rebirth? Math in nature.
I don’t know what it is about grasshoppers lately but they love sitting on the boys’ hands!
We collected leaves and went home to do some printing.
L had the idea of printing both sides at once.
This is a most interesting leaf – it is soft and fuzzy on one side and smooth on the other. A wonderful discovery.
Fuzzy side printed.
Smooth side.
I think we may be doing more leaf printing! Do you recognize any of the leaves from these prints?
Today we decided to go for a walk after dinner. Xman wanted to follow the Earth Adventures trail we had done previously and write out the directions for which way to go. L went ahead with Steve and had some great one on one time while X walked and wrote…
and walked again and wrote…
It got pretty dark near the end and we missed the blue heron that a couple had mentioned spotting but we did see a mink with a mouse (or some other furry fellow) in it’s grasp but he was too fast for my little camera.
L and Daddy were happy to spend the time together.
Xman was very proud of all of the writing he did and eager to share once he was finished.
He was very determined to walk the whole adventure trail and write it all down and L and Daddy were very interested in listening to him share it with them.
When X didn’t know how to spell a word we sounded it out together and for those tricky ones I told him how to spell them. In turn, he looked back on his work when he came upon the word again in order to spell it correctly. I told him to not worry about spelling for now but he was determined to spell the words correctly from the get go. I find both boys are picky when it comes to spelling, that’s part of the writing experience for them.
This next pic? It sums up the week and my effort to steer clear of things. (It worked).
Here comes Monday and Week 3! I will try to keep the pics to a minimum but I cannot guarantee anything! 😉
What did you do this last week? We’d love to hear about it!
Looking back on many of the images from my camera from this week, I realized that despite the boys having crazy colds, we managed to do a decent amount of discovering both inside and outside of the house. This was a lovely thing for me to notice and made me realize that perhaps I am sometimes too hard on myself in thinking that we haven’t done enough. Boy, I should have been recording in images what we do every week since I started home educating four years ago! I feel better now. 🙂
That being said, I have decided that I needed to break this week down into parts to make sense of it all for posting sake.
Early in the week we read a fable entitled Little Jackal and the Lion about how a jackal outsmarts the lion who wants to eat the jackals after eating all of the other animals. It reminded me a bit of the story The Gruffalo where the mouse tricks the beast into thinking there is a creature more ferocious and feared than itself. The beast is outsmarted. This is L’s version of the lion looking into a well with the jackals on the other side of the well watching. The lion is convinced that there is another lion bigger and more ferocious and is led to the well where he looks in and sees his reflection. Thinking it is the other lion is jumps into the well to attack. Well, we know how that ends. 🙂 There’s brawn and there’s brains. I like it when the ‘brains’ win in stories and it’s great encouragement for children.
L had fun with the play clay and made two almost identical sculptures.
I have to say that Mama K’s Play Clay is one of the many supplies we ordered this year and it not only natural but smells so wonderful as well. Love it!
Since we are on the subject of play clay I’ll share another creation of the boys’ from this week. I read another Waldorf story entitled Peasie and Beansie – a nature story. It’s about two sisters: Peasie who is thoughtful and generous and Beansie who only thinks of herself.
Xman drew the fire in the story that, upon Peasie cleaning out the ashes before they choked the fire, was given nice warm cakes as a gift. X drew a big pot cooking cakes on the fire.
L drew the buffalo that carried the gifts from Peasie’s father home on its back.
The boys used the block crayons for these drawings. It was the first time using them and I showed them that they could use the edges for fine lines or the wide areas for shading. They really enjoyed using the blocks and I must say they are very cool!
The next sculptures were a bit of a collaboration. I made the plum trees for the boys and they added the fruit.
The story goes that Peasie passed a plum tree whose thorns were all scattered about so she tidies them up. On her way home from her father’s house the tree thanks her by giving her ripe yellow plums which she carries home on the back of the buffalo (he is a very helpful creature!). One boy made the purple plums and the other the ripe yellow.
One things we found is due to the softness (?) of this clay it doesn’t hold well for some things. The tree tended to droop after a short while. I believe this was actually due to the weight of all those ripe fruit. 😉
After using the lovely smelling clay I went out and purchased some lemongrass essential oil this weekend and how wonderful our house smelled! Yes, one of the clay balls is scented with lemongrass, oh my!
I have to admit, having a fine art degree has been tough when it has come to home educating. I had a difficult time bringing art into our lives and now we do it everyday. (insert heart here)
Stick balancing which is always fun and worth the time.
