Earth Hour 2012 Tonight!

We are participating again this year, are you? And go beyond the hour, in how you live every day.

Earth Hour, Saturday, March 31 starting 8:30pm.

To find out more, you can visit the official site: Earth Hour.

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world" Ghandi.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore - Complete Movie

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. It is beautiful and as book lovers, we adored it! If you have 15 minutes to spare, I recommend you watch it too.

You can also go visit Morris Lessmore website for more information. I enjoyed looking at the art of Morris Lessmore (click on gallery at the bottom of the site).

Wordless Wednesday :: Hello Robin!

Book Sharing Monday :: The Thinking Girl's Treasury Series

We discovered the Thinking Girl's Treasury of Real Princesses a few months ago and have read a few titles. On a more recent library visit, we noticed another series by the same publisher, Goosebottom Books, called "The Thinking Girl's Treasury of Dastardly Dames". I am sharing the two series with you today because I feel that both of these series would make a great addition to history lessons, or could be enjoyed on their own.

The Thinking Girl's Treasury of Real Princesses highlight one princess in each book. Each biography is filled with illustrations, photographs, and interesting text. We learn about what the princess wore, ate, along with her life story.
Both photos below come from "Nur Jahan of India":

"Nur Jahan was not born a princess, although she was a distant cousin of the Persian royal family. In fact, she was not born Nur Jahan at all. Her birth name was Mihr al-Nisa (Sun Among Women), and her father was a Persian nobleman who had come to India to work in the Moghul court."

The Thinking Girl's Treasury of Dastardly Dames highlights the stories of women through history that were a little more "nasty". These are also queens, princesses, empresses, but their reputations aren't as polished as the ladies presented in the Treasury of Real Princesses!
We read "Cleopatra: Serpent of the Nile" and I am sharing with you "Cixi: The Dragon Empress".

We read about the last empress of China. In a similar layout as the real princesses' books, we found out where and when she lived, what she ate and wore. We also learned how she treated others and how she was able to rule her country through her son.

"Cloistered within its thirty-foot walls, Cixi had lived a pampered life while her people starved. Her extravagant lifestyle, displays of bad temper, and brutal punishments on those who opposed her earned her the nickname, the Dragon Empress."


Goosebottom Books has extra resources for each of the titles. You can visit at this site: Resources. 


If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please leave a link to your book sharing post below. Thank you and happy reading!

Wordless Wednesday :: Spring is here!

~ In our garden ~

Book Sharing Monday :: Bubble Homes and Fish Farts

Bubble Homes and Fish Farts is written by Fiona Bayrock and illustrated by Carolyn Conahan. We picked up this title from the library to add to our fish study. This book talks about many more animals than just fish! It is all about bubbles and how animals, from Violet Sea Snails to Pearl Gourami, use bubbles. 

"Bubbles are soft and squishy and full of air. They shimmer. They float. And they are very handy. Animals make bubbles, ride bubbles, breathe bubbles, and even live in bubbles. Animals use bubbles in amazing ways."
To participate in Book Sharing Monday, please leave the link to your book sharing post below. Thank you and happy reading!

JN Mystery Class :: Week Seven

This week were were given the regular sunrise and sunset data for the 10 mystery classes and longitude clues. These clues are very helpful in determining the longitude coordinate for each location. Journey North gives very clear instructions on how to calculate these, along with a map where you can place your findings.

We placed each chart based on the information we found out. I added labels on the photo. The black horizontal dotted line represents the equator, the vertical orange one is the prime meridian. We forgot to add our home location for the photo, it would be in the top left corner, the Western Northern Hemisphere.

The Hunger Games - Homeschool Fun!

The Hunger Games will be in the movie theatres in one week and the excitement is building all around us! It almost feels like Harry Potter and Twilight all over again!

In our home, my two older children have loved reading this trilogy and I am currently reading aloud the first book to my youngest so she can come watch the movie with us next week.

I searched this morning for interesting activities but came up only with ones that had fees attached. I voiced my disappointment on my blog FB page and right away two friends shared their findings! Thank you :)
I then created a Pinterest board and it soon filled with ideas for activities that would be perfect for homeschoolers in my opinion. Fun, creative and without the need for a crowd (many activities that I was finding before were classroom based or for library groups).
You can have a lot of fun with this book trilogy!

my pinterest board - just starting!

JN Mystery Class :: Weeks Five & Six

We have continued working on our Journey North Mystery Class charts. I am only behind in posting our updates!

Update for February 27 sunrise & sunset data

Celeste helps too!

Update for March 5 sunset & sunrise data

Tomorrow we received Longitude Clues as well as the sunrise and sunset data! Here is a link to a helpful teacher's practice packet.
Another helpful link is for the slideshow: A Clue About Longitude Clues.
We like to use the form below to calculate our longitude clues. I am not sure where I first found this form. I wish I could give credit to whoever created this!


<><><><><><> <><><><> <><><><><><> <><> <><><><><><><><><><>

Mystery Class # _________	Sunrise in UT/GMT and Date
Step #1 Fill in Sunrise Time and Date GMT/UT	BOX A ____________time ______________date
Step #2 Fill in Greenwich Sunrise Time on March 20	BOX B 06:02 am
Step #3 Difference in hours and minutes between A and B	BOX C _____________hours ___________minutes
Step #4 Convert hours into minutes from BOX C	BOX D ___________minutes
Step #5 Divide by the number in Box D by 4	BOX E __________degrees
Step #6 Eastern or Western	BOX F East or West

Our next home...on Prince Edward Island!

We haven't found a home yet, but our current house in Ontario is sold. We will be moving out at the end of May. My husband is already living and working on PEI. We are all looking forward to this move and can't wait to be together again under the same roof.

Sandstone Arch - Prince Edward Island - photo from Wikipedia

We are also looking forward to exploring the East Coast of Canada and the Island especially. PEI has so much to offer, history, culture, nature, and so much more. I will try to share our discoveries as much as possible with you on this blog, until then I will be busy packing (but still sharing our favourite books every Monday and whatever else of interest along the way).

Book Sharing Monday :: LMNO peas

LMNO Peas by Keith Baker is a very cute and fun alphabet book focusing on occupations.

My youngest loves this book and I think it's wonderful that it shows so many different types of jobs people do with great illustrations.

"We are peas - alphabet peas! We work and play in the ABCs."

If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please add the link to your post below. Thank you.



Book Sharing Monday :: Robot Drawing Book

Ralph Masiello has a great series of drawing books. We have enjoyed the Bug Drawing Book, the Dragon Drawing Book, and the Ancient Egypt Drawing Book.

This time, we checked out the Robot Drawing Book from our local library. Andre and I tried our hand at some robots while we were watching a movie Friday night.

We particularly liked that each page gave us a  basic robot to draw and that we could add details "spare parts" to make each robot unique.

Extra resources can be found at the back of the book, books and websites for younger and older robot fans.

"If you can draw a square, a circle, and a rectangle, you can draw a ROBOT!"

If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, you can add your link to your book sharing post below. Your post can include photos of the book, a quote from the book and what you liked about it. Thanks for sharing!

Lots of Dr Seuss Goodness!

We have been having so much fun reading a lot of Dr. Seuss books this week!