Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto ~ Part 2 ~ First Peoples

We also enjoyed walking through this exhibit on the First Peoples of Canada.

Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto ~ Part 1 ~ Dinosaurs!

The kids and I spent last week visiting family and friends in Newmarket and we also spent one day at the Royal Ontario Museum. We took the Go train from Newmarket to Toronto, then the subway to the museum stop. The subway stop itself was very nicely decorated (see pic 3 and 4). The ROM went through a major renovation and addition and we hadn't seen the new facade before...very modern! If you are wondering what those metal things are in the fifth picture, they are to lock up your bikes to. We were all amazed at the collection of dinosaurs that the ROM has! Dragon was very pleased and loved every minute of being in that part of the museum! I took a lot of pictures, I hope you will enjoy seeing the first part of our visit...more to come later...

Another Interesting Living Math Resource

I read about this series of Business Math on one of the Yahoo Groups I subscribed to.
This resource is available on the Simply Charlotte Mason website, as a printed text or as an e-book. Here is a description from the website:
"Your Business Math Series is a fun and “living math” kit that reinforces math skills for ages 8–12! Your student uses his math knowledge to keep his very own store running and, hopefully, make a profit. But there are also some surprises along the way!"
I thought this might be a great way to review math skills, it can be completed in a few weeks or a whole school year. The student can choose to "run" a pet store, a book store or a sports store. They cover many aspects of running a store...sales, inventory, paying bills, writing checks, keeping a bank account ledger, etc.

Spoiled Kitten?

This is a favourite spot for Clara and Fairy, they both love it! I interrupted her nap by taking the picture...sorry Clara!
Below is another favourite spot of this spoiled kitten. I keep telling Fairy that she can't be carrying that cat around all the time...

Dragon has his share of cuddles too. You can see their favourite spot, and this happens quite often. Clara likes to stretch her paws against him, for some weird reason, this is comfortable and she'll sleep like that until Dragon moves!

Sculpture Park at the Riverfront

We went for a walk to the riverfront yesterday. Daddy had the day off, so he joined us too! The kids and I had seen part of the Sculpture Park, but we wanted to see the other half. We still haven't seen all the sculptures this time...leaving some for another time!



Dragon is pretending he is riding the horse...the sculpture is only the head of the horse!

We were surprised to find out that this path was part of the Trans Canada Trail! The Trans Canada Trail is a 21,500-kilometre recreational trail that goes through every province and territory, from the Atlantic to Pacific to Arctic Oceans! The kids and I walked part of it in Barrie last year

On our way back to our car, we walked by another interesting sculpture...a space ship! Then we stopped at the playground for a few minutes.

This past week...

This past week, Dragon was at his camp, and it was incredible how quiet it was around here! I always find it interesting how taking just one child out of the mix creates a different atmosphere. Please don't get me wrong, I would never wish to change anything about my children or how many I have :) but it is something I notice every time one is away. The same thing happened while Fairy was at her theatre day camp last month. This week, the girls played many "girl" games with their dolls, read or listened to "girl" stories, painted and even made some felt play food...which the kitten got a hold off and pretty much destroyed!

I took advantage of the quiet times to finish off my planning for the school year. I had already decided which curriculum/resources to use, but now is the part when I sit down and work out the schedule. The schedule I make is more of a helpful guideline. I basically look at each subject and see how many lessons or chapters we want to cover over the year. I also plan out how often we will do each subject, daily or 2 or 3 times a week. I try to plan out the whole year and fit in special projects, such as the Iditarod or the Journey North Mystery Class. I can also see how much time we can plan for breaks or vacation...I am still debating over following a different schedule this year, maybe doing school for 5 weeks and taking the 6th week as a break to do something different (a unit study or special project). We are almost ready to start again...in September!

Player of the Day Award for Dragon!

Dragon finished his day camp yesterday. He attended a local hockey camp that also included 1 hour of karate scheduled every day. He enjoyed the camp very much. On Thursday, he came home with a surprise. He announced that he had won the Player of the Day Award! He was told that he won it because he was the most polite player in the dressing rooms and he was helpful on the ice by cleaning up the pucks. Sometimes it's the little things that count...Way to go Dragon! The prize included a $25 gift card for a local sport store.

Language Arts

I have been working on our plan for this coming school year over the summer. Here is what I have so far for language arts.
For Princess, who is just 4, we are starting very slowly and keeping it fun and interesting.

She will be slowly learning how to write letters, recognize numbers, etc...but it will not be "forced" on her. Her education will follow more of the "un schooling" method, at least for now!

I will be using a book called "Picture Book Activities" by Trish Kuffner as a guide. It has many ideas for simple games and activities based on many children's books.

For teaching how to read, I chose "The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading" by Jessie Wise. I will be ready when she is! (book and cd in top left corner on the picture below)

For Fairy, we are starting Growing with Grammar. I have looked at this most of last year, and decided to give it a try. We will also use the Story Starters by Karen Andreola for writing practice.
Dragon will be using Learning Language Arts Through Literature, Orange Level at his request. We were given this curriculum and he showed interested in the format. It includes all the language arts in one, spelling, handwriting, grammar, reading...
I will be adding on the left side of the blog links to all these resources/curriculum shortly.