Wordless Wednesday :: Chocolate Marble Muffins!

Celeste made these Chocolate Marble Muffins (with a tiny bit of help from me!)

Dash the Snail

We have been having a lot of fun studying this little snail. We found him last week near the library. Celeste wanted to bring it home and I agreed because I remembered that our science curriculum included a snail study.

After bringing him home, we made him his own little habitat. We used a peach container at first, then he moved up to a small pet habitat.

We take the snail out of the habitat every day while we do our science and observe it. We learned all about the different body parts and that a snail is both male and female. We saw its mouth. We haven't been able to observe it eating yet, but it does eat the cucumber slices we put in its habitat. We measured it too, it's 4 cm in length.

Andre named it "Dash" because of the marks it leaves on the paper:

It's been a lot of fun to be able to observe Dash! We will release it very soon in the same spot where we found it last week. For now, it is enjoying daily exercice on paper. Andre wishes we could find a second snail so that maybe they would race!

I have a few books coming from the library and will share the ones that we really enjoyed soon with you.

Weekly Wrap-Up :: Week 6

The routine has set in now and most days go pretty smoothly. Life is never perfect, but we do enjoy our days together!

After the Battle of Britain parade with the Air Cadets, on Sunday, we spent time at a local nature area. It was a beautiful day and even if we didn't stay very long, it was nice to spend time together looking for birds, flowers, fungus and enjoying the walk.

In our homeschool, this week, we continued on our Math and Language Arts subjects. Adrienne and Andre had a light week with their Lightning Literature again, it was only reading assignments.
Math is going very well for all 3 kids. Celeste is much quicker at understanding Math than with her reading! Adrienne started last week to tutor our neighbour in Math.

In Science, Celeste learned about cells. We used an egg in an experiment. She is really liking the hands-on experiments of this curriculum (R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey) . Andre joins us for Science, and also does his own.

Next week, we will jump to the mollusk section since we found a snail this week while we were walking to the library. We are keeping it for a little while so we can observe it, it's our new "school pet"!

In Geography, we studied United Kingdom. We made mini scones with jam and tea one afternoon. We also completed some map work and created flashcards with the names of countries and capitals of some European countries. We continued to learn about different religions, ancient ones this week: Celts and Norse. 

I used this site for the worksheet that Celeste is working on in the above photo: homeschool creations. It's a wonderful site with lots of great printables!
I also printed colouring pages from education.com, they have a lot of different landmarks to print and colour. We did the Big Ben with double decker bus and Stonehenge:

It was another good week, we took Wednesday off so not quite a full week. We had plans to go to our homeschool park day, but the weather had other plans, so instead we went shopping for boy clothes. It's not his favourite thing to do, but was needed, all last year's fall clothes are too short. I think that he will soon be as tall as Adrienne! Here is a photo from last Sunday, at the parade in their Air Cadets uniform.

How was your week?

If you would like to read other wrap-up posts, you can visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Wordless Wednesday :: Science at Home: Snail!

Weekly Wrap-Up ~ Back to it!

After a nice relaxing week of camping, we are now back to our routine!

Monday was a little slow, the mountain of laundry had to be taken care of first, but we still managed to catch up on history, literature, and geography.

The rest of the week was very productive. We completed all the lessons in Math and Language Arts that needed to be done this week.

We learned about cells in Biology and finished reading Mummies in the Morning for Celeste's Ancient History. Andre is almost finished reading the Tales of Ancient Egypt. He has enjoyed this book a lot. 

For literature, Adrienne has been reading Treasure Island and Andre is reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Their assignments this week is only reading, so it has been a week filled with reading!

We did a little bit of art during our Art Appreciation time on Thursday. We wrapped up our study of Prehistoric Art with some aboriginal art, and our version of it. I don't think our hearts were in it this time, but we still had fun.

We started our Music Appreciation today with reading and listening to the Story of the Orchestra. We have used this book before to learn about the orchestra and we love it. It is well written, informative, and we all enjoy listening to little pieces of music that illustrate what we just read. Today we read about string instruments. 

We visited the local library a couple of times this week. They already have Halloween books! Celeste loves Halloween stories!

How was your week? You can read other homeschoolers wrap up posts at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Wordless Wednesday :: Body Art

{body art with washable markers}

Weekly Wrap Up ~ Week 4: Camping and Nature Study

I am a little late with my weekly wrap-up post! We were on vacation last week, camping in a provincial park near Lake Huron.

We took several walks, two on nature trails. We climbed to the highest point of the park, on the oldest and largest dune ridge. The view from the top was spectacular! We could see endless farm lands on one side and Lake Huron on the other. We did a lot of "nature study", nothing planned but as we walked and saw interesting things in nature, we talked about it. Here is a quick family photo we took at that highest point with the camera self-timer:

We observed different types of pine (red and white) trees and oaks. We saw invading wild grape vines and lots of wild flowers. I love moss and found a lot. We also saw various types of mushrooms and fungus, especially turkey tail fungus (last photo).

We also noticed many butterflies and moths. We found several dead ones and took them home to identify. I found a dead bat in the bathroom near the dog beach. I used two sticks to move it outside so we could see it better. I took several photos and we left it there (I am ok with moths or butterflies, but that's about it!), talking about how some scavenger would surely find it later. Today, at home, we looked at the photos more closely and researched what type it was. We think it is a little brown bat . 

The kids and my husband took a little paddleboat ride down the small river in the park. They spotted a Belted Kingfisher bird, Canadian Geese and a turtle too!

We also spent a lot of time on the beach, even if it was a little cool. We watched two sunsets and played in the waves and the sand. It was a wonderful vacation!

It was a wonderful trip for our family, lots of fresh air, nature, and time together.

If you would like to read more weekly wrap-up posts from other homeschooling families, you can visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Weekly Wrap-Up ~ Week Three

This week was a bit on the light side, but we still accomplished a lot.

We completed two full days of Math and Language Arts. Celeste seems to still be struggling with some of her reading, but I do see a little progress. I think we just need to keep practicing and finding books that interest her.

In Science, we took a nature walk. In the lab we were doing, we had to choose a spot and note all the living and non-living things we could see in that spot.
Adrienne also continued with her high school science. She completed her second lab and finished all her assignment questions for the first two chapters. Even though she is following a completely different curriculum, we are learning about the same things!

In History, we started our study of Ancient Egypt. We are using Story of the World, the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History, and a selection of novels and picture books. This week, we read several versions of Cinderella by Shirley Climo including The Egyptian Cinderella. We are also reading Mummies in the Morning, which Celeste really likes. Andre is reading Tales of Ancient Egypt.

Our Art Appreciation was really interesting, we continued reading about and viewing prehistoric art. We also made some red clay sculptures of our own!

In World Geography and Cultures, we started reading Free The Children by Craig Kielburger. This is a very interesting book so far. We knew about the organization Free The Children, but it's great to read how it all started in more details. We also continued reading about world religions.

Adrienne finished the Medieval Castle that we started two years ago! Her cat Clara loves it. She has been sleeping in it every day.

We spent most of Friday at the park and splashpad with our homeschool group. It was a great day. On the way home, we stopped at the skateboard park. It was super hot and humid that day so we didn't stay long, but the kids loved it!

We had another great week, enjoying the gorgeous weather while still getting some school work done.

If you would like to read more wrap up posts from other homeschoolers, visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.