Fun at the Public Pool

Not a real public pool, but still lots of fun!
We have been "collecting" Playmobil toys for years now. This is one toy that I am happy to recommend to other families. They have many historical sets that are a great addition for homeschooling. My kids have played for hours with these German-made toys. Age doesn't seem to matter, my teenager still plays with her siblings with these toys. They use their imagination and come up with many stories to use with these characters and sets.



Celeste had many pieces on her birthday wish list. 
She received the pool with water slide and they played right away, with water of course!



I think they are over capactiy for that pool, and where is the lifeguard?!!

Birthday Girl!

Celeste celebrated her 7th birthday today! She had the whole day planned out including the food for each meal. We have a little tradition that whenever it is someone's birthday in our family, we all take the day off, from school and for Daddy, from work. Today was a perfect day, she told me she loved it!

Weekly Wrap-Up ~ Three Weeks Worth!

We have been busy! I will try to condense three weeks worth of wrap-ups in one post, without putting hundreds of photos!

Starting with our regular subjects, we are finished with some and took an inventory of what still needed to be done with a count of lessons for each subject. Here are some highlights:

Andre is now finished his Math Teaching Textbooks 6 and after a two week break, he started Teaching Textbooks 7. Celeste also started Saxon Math 2! I thought I would never go back to Saxon but I decided to give it a try with her. Miquon Math and its discovery-based style worked out nicely, but I felt that she now needs a bit more in this subject. We'll see how it goes, we are giving it a try since we already had it (from Andre). Adrienne has about 50 lessons left in her Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra.

Andre is also finished with his Growing with Grammar 6 and is now taking a break, since I don't have the next one yet. He has been working on his writing for the last couple of months with the help of Write Source 2000. Adrienne is also well on her way with Growing with Grammar 8 and with her writing. She has been using Format Writing and I can see a big improvement since last year in her essays.

One subject that we are definitely behind in is spelling! We are using Sequential Spelling but have missed many days. We will work through the summer on it. It only takes a few minutes a day.

Now, for what happened in the last three weeks...

We finished our study of Canadian History too! This took us all the way to our current time and we wrapped it up with a brief study of our government and politics, since Voting Day was on May 2. We also learned about the Census which is happening this month in Canada. I had requested teachers materials from the government (free), which are also available for download here.  These materials are for various ages and we were able to all work together. My kids enjoyed the activity where they were acting as town planner and had to study the census data given to decide the best locations for a playground, a seniors centre, and a health care centre. They also liked the colouring pages!

In World Geography, we finished our study of Asia and are now learning about Australia. Adrienne has always been interested in Australia, so we'll make sure to spend a little extra time studying it! We are adding some library books, more are coming, especially on Dreamtime! The next unit in our geography study is the last one, Antarctica.

We also did some Art and Music Appreciation over the last three weeks. We listened to Richard Wagner and admired John James Audubon's work.

In Science, we are wrapping up our study of Physics. We now have 3 topics left to cover (lights, optics, and electronics). We covered sound and electricity over these last two weeks. I had picked up a documentary at the library to add to our study. We really enjoyed it, it was a nice change from reading. I will be looking for more from this series at our library. The series is from Disney, called the Science of Disney Imagineering. It is geared to grades 5 to 8, but Celeste enjoyed watching it too. We watched the Electricity one. You can see a little video about the series below:






We also had a lot of fun these last couple of weeks, the weather has been better..even hot! We enjoyed our time outside, going for walks, playing in the driveway, having popsicles and much more!

We attended the Science Rendezvous at the local University (see previous post). We celebrated my birthday by visiting Point Pelee National Park and so, I will leave you with a few of my favourite photos from that day:

This post is part of the Weekly Wrap-Up hosted by Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. Visit her blog to read more posts by other homeschool families!

Wordless Wednesday :: Happy 12th Birthday, Andre!!

♪♫ 13 ♪♫

Adrienne...in a few words:

caring

responsible

artistic

smart

resourceful

animal lover

environmentalist

kind

and a few of her favourites:

books (Vampirates, Series of Unfortunate Events, Artemis Fowl, Sisters Grimm, the Boy Sherlock  Holmes)

music

movies

brain teasers and puzzles

painting

baking

drawing

traveling

biking

swimming

what she wants to be when she grows up:

a police officer in the Canadian Army

or

a K9 officer

or

owning her own bakery with Cambrie

We love you Adrienne!

Wordless Wednesday ~ Birthday Fun

Happy 11th Birthday Andre!

Andre...my little boy...growing so fast.

How can I describe him?

funny

dramatic

caring

loving

interesting

unique

imaginative

dreamer

smart

talkative

precise

cuddler

a few of his favourites:

dragons

dinosaurs

marine life

traveling

history

science experiments

camping

biking
baking
reading (audiobooks at the moment)
board games (Dragonology, Monopoly)

video games (Kingdom Hearts, Zelda, Sonic)

There is more...but this is a good start!

♫♪ Happy Birthday ♪♫

homemade gift bows at my create corner

These bows are super easy to make and so cute (and a great way to recyle)!

Read more here: homemade gift bows.

12 years ago...

Adrienne at 3 months

I became a mother when my first baby was born!

Adrienne is 12 years old today, July 12.

Happy Birthday!

My baby turned 5 today!

Celeste is five years old today!
It was a wonderful day...opening presents this morning, watching the birds, walking along a trail, and then some yummy chocolate for dessert tonight! A perfect birthday!

We all went to a provincial park, I will post nature photos shortly from our hike.

♪♫ A perfect birthday ♫♪

Today is my birthday and we have a little tradition in our family. For each of our birthdays, we take the day off, from school or from work. The kids stayed home from school today, and my husband didn't go to work until late afternoon. The birthday person always decides what we do for the day as well. My choice was to be in nature. I love going for a hike and being surrounded by nature, its smells, its colours, and its sounds.

Here are a few photos from our fabulous hike:

A Day at Point Pelee National Park

First stop was the visitor's centre, with a fun kids' area (costumes, a really cool microscope that Dragon just loved, turtle shells, antlers...all kinds of stuff to touch!). There is also a small walk through area with history about the park, Daddy and I couldn't believe that in the 60s there used to be over 6000 parking spots at the park! I am glad it is back to being a park and not a parking lot...

We then took a shuttle that brought us closer to the tip. Point Pelee's tip is the most southern point of mainland Canada! You actually cross the 42nd parallel, as the signs says, we were as far south as Rome and Barcelona! It was very windy and even raining lightly at the tip, so we didn't stay very long.

There are different trails in different parts of the park. This time, we decided to explore the Marsh Boardwalk after walking to the Point. We climbed the marsh tower, walked the boardwalk and looked at the wildlife. Next visit we need to bring our pocket guides so we can identify what we see!