Book Sharing Monday :: Usborne Boys' Activity Book --- + a small update on our move

We moved last week from Ontario to Prince Edward Island. I apologize for the poor quality of the the photos in this post. The moving truck hasn't arrived (I am typing on the floor!). We just hooked up our computer yesterday and I don't have my camera out yet, so these photos are from our iPod.

Our big move went well. My two youngest children and I traveled by train from Windsor, Ontario to Moncton, New Brunswick. This was a long train ride and I didn't bring many things along because we had to change trains twice. We then made our way to PEI for our final destination!

My son (13) has his own iPod Touch and Celeste (8) used mine at times. I had uploaded audiobooks from the library to each iPod and they listened to those. I also had brought Dutch Blitz card game and the two activity books seen in the photo above. My daughter didn't use it as much as my son. This book was a hit with him!

The Usborne Boys' Activity book is filled with a ton of puzzles, codes to crack, jokes, did you know? facts, mazes, stickers, writing prompts (finish the story) and doodle suggestions. The book is organized by themes, monsters, cars, space, etc..Hours and hours of fun, really!

If you want to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please leave the link to your book sharing post below. Happy reading!

Wordless Wednesday :: We ♥ Hooping



Lots of Dr Seuss Goodness!

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

Winter Wonderland (a little)

This was from Sunday, January 29, last snow storm.

We visited a local conservation area in Windsor.

The snow is gone now. Not much of a winter this year!
(all photos taken with our ipod touch).

Educational and Fun Events in February

February is full of fun and educational activities that you can do with your children at home! 

{photo from Mystery Class site}

Journey North Mystery Class started this past Monday, but it's not too late to register and take part. "Mystery Class is a global game of hide-and-seek. Follow photoperiod clues to search for ten secret sites around the world. Track sunlight to solve a mystery! Discover the reasons for seasons along the way".

(photo from World Education Games)

World Maths Day, World Spelling Day, and World Science Day will held again this year in March.  "The World Education Games is the exciting event for ALL schools and students around the world. It runs from 6-8 March, involving 5.5million students from over 200 countries and territories. Practice opens on 1 February. This is the global challenge to get ALL students (4-18 years of age) excited about learning, and to give the top students in each school an opportunity to see how they measure up against the best". Homeschoolers are welcomed! We have participated for the last two years and enjoyed these free events. Practice starts today!

(photo from GBBC)

The Great Backyard Bird Count is held February 17 to 20 this year. "The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. Anyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to experts. It takes as little as 15 minutes on one day, or you can count for as long as you like each day of the event. It’s free, fun, and easy—and it helps the birds".   

Tower of Freedom statue in Windsor

Black History Month is in February as well. Black History Canada has an interesting website with teacher resources. Family Education also has excellent resources with many links: Celebrate Black History Month. I have a few reading suggestions from my past Book Sharing Monday posts here including related links.

Homemade Valentines 2011

Valentine's Day is February 14 and so many sweet ideas are floating around, especially on Pinterest! We liked making these valentines in 2010. 

Groundhog Day is tomorrow, February 2nd! Kaboose has a nice page of the history, activities, and crafts to do.,

So much to do this month! I hope you have a wonderful time with your children learning and discovering together! 

Wordless Wednesday :: Snow (a little)

Weekly Wrap Up :: Week 18

We are fully back to our regular school routine now, even Adrienne. Her unschooling experiment is done and we both learned a lot from it.
In case you haven't read my last post, we will be moving in the near future from South Western Ontario to Prince Edward Island for my husband's work. This will be the biggest move we have done as a family (I don't count my move from France to Canada!). We are all looking forward to it and somedays feel like Celeste who said "can we go NOW?"!! We do have a house to sell first, but my husband will be there as of the end of February and we will be following not too long after hopefully.

Back to our routine, with two days completed last week and this week a full week.

Smurfette helped Celeste with her schoolwork ;)

We completed all the main subjects, language arts and math and also managed to include science, world geography and cultures, history, and a new small literature study.

Here are some highlights:

In Geography, we studied India this week. We learned about their culture and religion with the help of the books in the photo above. Adrienne and Andre completed  notebook pages about the country, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism. We also listened to some traditional Hindu music on youtube. We will be trying some food next week before moving on to Greece. The video below is one that we listened to:



  
Adrienne is back to her regular schedule, which includes high school biology. This week, she learned about DNA. We used a simple kit from Home Science Tools to help us visualize what we learned.

Andre and Celeste finished their study of the human body with a fun study of fingerprints!

We also had a lot of fun, even though we spent some time decluttering and cleaning our house! We went to see The Adventures of Tintin, which we loved! We have enjoyed the books over the years, I used to read them when I was little, both Andre and Adrienne like them too. We saw it in 3D, which we don't normally like, but it was fine this time.

The girls have been having fun with their AG dolls. We gave this book to Celeste at Christmas and it has been a great inspiration. They made most of the food you see with foam sheets. You can get big packs inexpensively at most craft stores.

There's our week back in a short post! How was your start of the new year?
If you would like to read more weekly wrap up posts by other homeschoolers, visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Wordless Wednesday :: Fun at the Playground

Weekly Wrap-Up :: Week 8

We had a busy week! We enjoyed the beautiful weather and went out with our homeschool friends a lot! The school work suffered a little bit because of that, but I know we will make it up when the weather turns cold and grey again. I truly believe that this is one of the great benefits of homeschooling: being able to take advantage of the weather and participating in fun homeschooling events, being flexible with our schedule.

We did manage to complete several lessons. Mondays are usually our most productive days and this week was no different. We had a full day of school last Monday. Tuesday was equally good, Wednesday and Thursday together made up another day.

Even when we are busy outside the house, I try to get our Math and some Language Arts completed with the kids. Adrienne and Andre work on these subjects independently and I check their work after they are done. Celeste and I completed 3 Math lessons this week and 3 days worth of her phonics, writing, handwriting, and reading practice.

In science, we started our unit on the human body by making our folder and reading the introduction to the unit. A very light day for science, but it was fun for Celeste to prepare her folder. Andre, Celeste, and I are looking forward to this unit!

Adrienne has been working on her high school science regularly every week and she is getting more confortable with the curriculum (Oak Meadow high school biology).

We also continued with history, learning about Sargon and Sumer. We are also reading some bible stories. Celeste has never heard these, so this was interesting. This week we read the story of the flood and of Samson.  We read these stories in a beautifully illustrated book from the library called "Everlasting Stories" by Lois Rock. We also watched an episode of Veggie Tales on Youtube "Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Samson's Hairbrush"!  Celeste liked that! On the photo below, you can see the book I mentioned and Celeste's drawing of Noah's Ark.

In geography, we finished our study of Ireland. Adrienne and Andre finished their notebook page. We have been reading from the Enchantment of the World series. This series of geography books are wonderful for reading aloud, our local library has several titles. We also made some Irish food on Monday: Irish Soda Bread and Colcannon Potatoes. We also listened to U2 and watched some Irish dancing!

We went to the homeschool park day on Wednesday morning.

On Thursday, we met two other homeschool families for a nature hike in a Carolinian forest. We had a lot of fun together and saw so many different types of mushrooms and fungus. I requested a guide book at the library and will do a seperate post with more photos once we identify the mushrooms.

Earthstar Puffballs

 On Friday, we participated in a homeschool track and field day. The weather was again perfect and it was a good turnout. The kids competed in races, long jumps, discus, javelin, and more. It was all in fun and the kids had a blast! We finished the day at the beach, playing in the water and the sand.

We also watched two beautiful family-friendly movies this week, both portraying homeschoolers in a good way! Dolphin Tale which is still playing at the theatre, and the other we watched on dvd: Soul Surfer. Both were beautiful movies based on true stories. I highly recommend them!

There's our week! How was yours? If you would like to read more weekly wrap-up posts, you can visit Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and see all the links to other homeschool families blogs.

Wordless Wednesday :: Body Art

{body art with washable markers}

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.