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).

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.

Summer Weekly Wrap-Up ~ Week 5

A quick wrap-up for last week. We had another great week, with a lot of fun and a bit of studying. We continued our Prehistory study and watched the BBC Walking with Dinosaurs documentary. We enjoyed the Walking with Monsters more than this one, but it was still interesting.

We spent more time at the park, the beach, with family and friends. We also did something completely new to us: we were extras in a music video! It was for a local singer and we were "acting" at a restaurant. This was such a great experience for my kids and I! Andre dreams of becoming a movie director one day and so this was very exciting for him!

Adrienne left very early on Sunday morning for her two-week Air Cadets camp. I am so happy for her, she applied for this camp and was thrilled when she found out she could go. We all miss her already, but we do know she will love this experience.

I am taking a break from blogging for the next three weeks. I am planning on starting our new school year on August 15. Over the next three weeks, I will be busy finishing up this past year's report cards and organizing our upcoming school year. If anything of interest pops up, I will write about it, but for the most part I will be off, including the wrap-up posts.

Hope you are all having a wonderful summer, enjoy your time and your family!

Hugo Cabret Movie!!

Thanks to my good friend Carol, I found out that a movie has been made based on the Invention of Hugo Cabret. Andre and I read that story in 2008 and loved it. I even wrote a post about it, you can read it here: The Invention of Hugo Cabret. It was a very interesting historical fiction novel which had set us off on a few different bunny trails, movie making, automatons. We had also both enjoyed the mix of black and white illustrations and text. The illustrations told part of the story just as much as the text. I would recommend the story for ages eight and up. The movie comes out in November this year, we are looking forward to it, I think we will check out the book again from the library before going to see the movie!

Summer Weekly Wrap-Up ~ Week 3 & 4

Two weeks have gone by so fast! Summer is here and we love it. Here is a quick review of our last two weeks.

The first week we visited my aunt's pool, twice! The kids and I had a lot of fun there and we are so grateful to be able to go there. The weather is really hot and can be humid here too, so an afternoon spent in a swimming pool is perfect.

We continued with our Prehistory study. We learned about the first swamps and forests, the first reptiles and watched the BBC Walking with Monsters documentary. That documentary is part of a series of three and is amazing to watch. I would recommend it, we found this particular title at our local library. I also found it on youtube (the picture quality isn't as great as on DVD):







Adrienne finished her Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra lessons during that first week. She wanted to be finished before her birthday, so she decided to double up her lessons!

Celeste completed one lesson in the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading and practiced reading in her Elson Reader, two pages.

On Saturday, Adrienne and I attended a free outdoor concert given by the Windsor Symphony Orchestra. It was a quintet made up of an oboe, a clarinet, a flute, a bassoon, and a horn. I took a short video of it:

The second week, we basically took the whole week off. On Tuesday, it was Adrienne's birthday. She turned 14!

We could call that week the movie week. We went to the show twice! First was on Adrienne's birthday. She chose to go see Mr. Popper's Penguins. We had listened to the audio book a while ago and were all curious to see this movie version with Jim Carrey. We thought it was quite different from the book, but we loved it anyway. Jim Carrey is very funny! The trailers never show his office assistant, Pippi, but she is a great part of the movie too! 






Adrienne and I went out again to the movies to the midnight showing of the new and last Harry Potter movie.

We met our cousins at the local festival on Saturday and watched parts of the parade and a fun magic show. It was so hot!! We biked there and it was so hot!

The rest of the week we spent at home mostly, trying to keep cool. Another nice relaxing week!

If you would like to read more weekly wrap-up posts by other homeschoolers, please visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Weekly Wrap-Up ~ March Break!

This week was March Break for the local school boards. I wasn't planning on taking the week off, but between the beautiful spring-like weather, the free ice skating, the library programs and all the neighbour kids coming over to play with my kids, I decided to just take the week off and enjoy it! We all took advantage of the fresh air, even our pets!

We all enjoyed this break from our regular routine.

We went ice skating.

We took advantage of $2 movies at our local theatre and saw The Voyage of the Dawn Trader (Narnia). All five of us! The treats we bought at the Bulk Barn cost more than the movie!!

We played board games together, Uno, Mouse Trap, and a new-to-us Artifact. I have found many great board games at the thrift store, this Artifact one was my latest find and my two oldest and I had a great time playing it.

We continued to follow and chart the progress of our selected mushers in the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. We also continued our literature study with Black Star, Bright Dawn.

We also read a lot! Below you can our current books. Andre finished Darkwing by Kenneth Oppel today, Adrienne is reading The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (which I read a little while ago, can't wait to hear what she thinks about it!), I am reading Jane Eyre, and Celeste is reading with me Mia the Bridesmaid Fairy. I also have been reading aloud Peter and the Sword of Mercy from the Peter and the Starcatchers series.

A great and relaxing week! If you would like to read other homeschoolers wrap-up posts, you can visit the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers blog.

The Karate Kid - then and now

When the first Karate Kid came out, I was twelve years old. I remember liking the story very much, but not so much the fighting. My kids wanted to see the new one but I thought they should watch the original Karate Kid movie before we rented the new version with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. A few days ago, we were able to watch that first Karate Kid movie (1984) from our local library with the famous "wax on, wax off". My kids loved it and I enjoyed watching it again.

Tonight we rented the new Karate Kid and all watched it. It is a bit long, but Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith are awesome in this version. The story follows very closely to the original, with some interesting changes, in particular the setting. The new story takes place in China. There is beautiful scenery in mountains, the Great Wall of China, and even inside the Forbidden City. Unlike the first Karate Kid, there is no blood in this new movie, but still a lot of fighting. The focus is again on gaining and giving respect, training hard and focusing.

I have a couple of favourite quotes from this new movie:


Dre Parker (Jaden Smith): " I thought you were just a maintenance man"
Mr. Han (Jackie Chan): "You think only with your eyes, so you are easy to fool."

~

Mr. Han: "You have taught me very important lesson, Xiao Dre. Life will knock us down, but we can choose whether or not to stand back up".

Loop Scoops

Annie Leonard from The Story of Stuff along with PBS and WGBH created a new online series called Loop Scoops. Through fun little cartoons, kids will be asked to think about important questions about recycling, using and buying less, where you food comes from and much more. My kids and I have watched a few of these and we are sharing our favourites with you so far. You can see more on youtube by searching Loop Scoops or by visiting the PBS site.

{this moment: creating}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember

hosted by SouleMama

robot vs. indy :: Andre's second stop motion movie!

Movie Set Making!

Andre has been busy this week creating his first stop motion video and now has many other ideas for more movies! He has been telling me for the last year that he would love to become a movie director one day. He decided to create some background sets for his movies and his sisters joined him outside to paint.  We are back on our "school schedule" this week, but having a relaxed start and I like to encourage any creative projects like this one!

He looks pleased with his sky set:

Ponyo

We're all in love once more with the work of Hayao Miyazaki from Studio Ghibli. Celeste has always loved the movies from Studio Ghibli, her favourite (before Ponyo) was My Neighbour Totoro. The newest release is Ponyo, the story being inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid.
She told me this morning, after begging me to let her watch it again with her breakfast, that she loves this movie. In her words "I love the animation, Mom, the story, and they even put opera music in it!". She might only be 5, but she loves opera, and The Phantom of the Opera is another one of her favourites.

I just realized I used the word love way too many times in this short post, but there are no better words!

If you haven't see this beautiful movie yet, I would encourage you to rent it. You can read about it here and here. Here is a little preview:

tick tock...

The Fox and The Child on YouTube

Thank you Michelle for letting me know that you can watch the whole movie on YouTube. You can see the first part below, or click on the title of the movie on the tv screen to take you to YouTube and look on the right side for the nine following parts.

The Fox and The Child ~ A beautiful movie

My children and I watched The Fox and the Child tonight. We had found it at our local library, and not knowing anything about it, gave it a try. This movie is beautiful. It almost felt like a documentary, with little dialogue and breath-taking nature photography. It is the story of a young girl that befriends a fox. From french director Luc Jacquet (March of the Penguins), it is narrated in english by Kate Winslet.

I would like to warn you that there is a sad part towards the end of the movie, where the fox gets hurt, but it all ends well in the end.

September 13 is Roald Dahl Day!

We really enjoy reading his stories. Adrienne and I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory during our first year of homeschooling, and we did a study on it as well. I remembered reading it as a child and enjoyed discovering it again with her.
Lately, we have picked up a few more of his titles at the library. We listened to The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar on cd during our last road trip. Andre also has been picking up a few titles and reading them on his own.
I found out by going to Roald Dahl website that September 13 is Roald Dahl Day, and there is a whole website for it, full of free activities to download, printables, etc... Many of these seem to apply more to a classroom, but could be adapted for homeschoolers.
Another discovery, from the website, was the release of the movie version of Fantastic Mr. Fox. Andre was really curious since he had just finished that book!


We will be away on September 13, on vacation, but I am planning on doing some of these activities and reading aloud on September 2, next week. I will try to post about it, and maybe you could share your stories if you do a Roald Dahl Day as well by leaving a comment.

Alice in Wonderland and Johnny!!

One of my all-time favourite stories is Alice in Wonderland and I do have something like a school-girl crush on Johnny Depp... so I am soooo looking forward to watching this next March. I always love Tim Burton's work too.

New Twilight trailer

Need I say more?...

City of Ember ~ the movie

Yesterday, we all went to see the City of Ember movie. I had just finished reading the book aloud to the kids and we decided to go and enjoy a night out.

The movie was good. We all liked seeing the actual city, the old buildings, even the clothes people have worn through generations. As it usually is, the movie is never as good as the book, and we were prepared for that. What we didn't understand is why they had to bring a "monster-size" mole type creature into the movie version, when there wasn't any of that in the book. Same goes for the giant moth! They also changed some of the main parts of the story, such as how the two main characters find the way out, but we all agreed that it was a good alternative anyway.

I am trying not to give away too much of the story, in case you go and see the movie!

I have often thought in the past that maybe if we read the book, we shouldn't bother watching the movie version, but I have now decided that we should keep doing both. We like to read and we like to watch movies, and all the conversations that are started because of the differences and adaptations are a lot of fun!

While I was searching for some pictures to add to my post of the movie, I found this site called City of Ember Underground ...it isn't exactly from the movie, but has a lot of underground photos of many actual places that could remind you of the story. Especially this one from the Japanese storm water drain!

The Spiderwick Chronicles

We have read and loved the five books as a read aloud in this series and are looking forward to the movie, coming in February 2008. We spent a lot of time reading the Field Guide (pictured above)!
To find out more about the books, visit here.
This link here will bring you to Tony DiTerlizzi's site and this one to Holly Black, the authors.