NaNoWriMo...coming soon!

NaNoWriMo, the month-long novel writing project starts November 1st!
I will be participating this year for the third time. My children have decided not to this year, but did it last year.

The experience of trying to write many words every day for a month is challenging and fun at the same time.

For the kids, there is a Young Writers Program that includes a ton of cool resources. I like to visit that site for their dare machine when I am stuck! There are also teacher's guides and cool workbooks. The young writers set their own word limits, not like the adult's mandatory 50,000 words. 

The goal of NaNoWriMo is to get your creative juices flowing and to get writing freely. Before this challenge, my children didn't like to write at all. They still rather do something else now, but when required, I find that it is easier for them to get words on paper, and they also write a lot more. I like to think that NaNoWriMo helped them along a little bit!

You can still register for either the NaNoWriMo or the Young Writers Program.

Lego Quest # 27 :: Archeology

This week's theme for the Lego Quest was "archeology" and both Adrienne and Andre participated.

This is the story Andre told me : "The red pile of bricks is an egg. This egg is from when the dinosaurs died, there was a dragon there and the dragon threw the egg out of the atmosphere. The egg started to orbit the earth and one day it was hit by a meteorite and it came hurdling back into the atmosphere. It struck this area and the people that work at Area 51 came to excavate it. They are planning on bringing it to Area 51 and putting it in an electrical cage until it hatches. The person with the number 10 on its back is looking for evidence in the soil. The person with the space helmet is looking for evidence in the water. The person with the red top and blue pants  (holding the pile of red bricks) is pulling the egg out of the water."

Here is Adrienne's archeology site's description which goes with the photo below: "The black tent is where they examined the objects found at the site. On the site there are more objects dug up, broom, wheel, money, treasure chest, lamp. One digger found the head of R2-D2 in the dirt by the river. The brown area has been all dug up, the green area on the other side of the river will be dug up later." 

Lego Quest # 26 :: Playgrounds

Another great Lego Quest challenge! This time, Adrienne had to build a playground.

Here is her description of it:

"This playground has different parts, a merry-go-round, a seesaw, and a spinning ride. There are green areas for running, a black bench, and a snack stand for when you get thirsty or hungry. The snack stand owner keeps a small rooftop garden."

Sam at Lego Quest received so many entries for this quest, you can see more here.
She also mentions a great free unit study "Learning with Lego".

Get Outdoors Challenge :: April 26 :: Canadian Geese

Get Outdoors Challenge :: April 19

We had a beautiful afternoon at the park today with our homeschool friends.

Get Outdoors Challenge

"Play along with us during the month of April for Children and Nature Awareness Month by posting a picture of your child(ren) each day enjoying the outdoors! Get outdoors and climb a tree!"

5 Orange Potatoes invites everyone to participate in this challenge. We love being outside, in nature in particular, but even just around our yard. My children spend many hours outside!

As I was reading 5 Orange Potatoes' post, Adrienne, Andre, and Celeste were outside playing basketball. We don't have a net, but that never stopped them!

Our challenge will be in getting outside even when the weather isn't that great. If you would like to find out more, please visit this post: get outdoors challenge.

Let me know if you take on the challenge, leave me a comment!

Have fun outside this month!

I forgot when I first posted this to include this great little video...from Sesame Street:

100 books-a-month challenge ~ december

We are at 60 books so far for this month! There are so many Christmas theme books in our library basket, it has been a lot of fun to read all these stories, and we still have more to discover!



Here is our list so far for this month:

Cardcaptor Sakura #3 by Clamp - Andre
Cardcaptor Sakura #4 by Clamp - Andre
Haunted Mansion Graphic Novel - Adrienne
One Snowy Night by M. Christina Butler
It’s Christmas by Tina Burke
Groundhog stays up late by Margery Cuyler
Cat in the Manger by Michael Foreman
Cardcaptor Sakura #5 - Andre
Angelic Layer by Clamp #1 - Andre
Angelic Layer by Clamp #2 - Andre
Angelic Layer by Clamp #3 - Andre
The World of Quest #1 by Jason Kruse - Andre
Cardcaptor Sakura #6 by Clamp - Andre
The Shortest Day Celebrating the Winter Solstice by Wendy Pfeffer
Christmas City by M. Garland
Santa Claus around the World by Lisl Weil
Witches by Rachel Lynette (Mysterious Encounters) - Andre
Bunnicula and Friends The Fright Before Christmas by J. Howe
Cardcaptor Sakura #6 by Clamp - Adrienne
Buddha in the Garden by David Bouchard
The Prince Who Ran Away The Story of Gautama Buddha by Anne Rockwell
Nancy Drew #4 The Girl Who Wasn’t There (Graphic Novel) - Adrienne
The Cobweb Christmas by Shirley Climo
Fancy Nancy Poison Ivy Expert by Jane O’Connor
Ghostly Warnings by Daniel Cohen
Dino Riddles by Katy Hall
The Mystery of UFO by Judith Herbst
The Hardy Boys #1 The Ocean of Osyria Graphic Novel - Andre
Sugar Princess Skating to Win by Nakajo (Graphic Novel) - Adrienne
A Practical Guide to Dragons by Sindri Suncatcher - Andre
Sugar Princess Skating to Win by Nakajo Vol. 2 - Adrienne
The Twelve Days of Christmas by Justin Todd
The Imaginary Garden by Andrew Larsen
We Were There A Nativity Story by Eve Bunting
Silent Night A Christmas Carol is Born by Maureen Brett Hooper
Auntie Claus and the Key to Christmas by Elise Primavera
The World of Quest by Jason Kruse - Andre
Magic Trixie and the Dragon by Jill Thompson - Adrienne
The Twelve Days of Christmas illustrated by Jan Brett
My Penguin Osbert by E. Cody Kimmel
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen retold by C. San Jose
Christmas in July by Arthur Yorinks
Mattland by Hazel Hutchins and Gail Herbert
How Santa Really Works by Alan Snow
Nancy Drew #3 The Haunted Dollhouse Graphic Novel - Adrienne
Angelic Layer #5 by Clamp - Andre
Angelic Layer #5 by Clamp - Adrienne
Amazing Science Discoveries - Chemistry - The Story of Atoms and Elements by Dr. Bryson Gore
A Visit from St Nicholas by Clement C. Moore, illustrated by Kim Fernandes
The Family Christmas Tree Book by Tomie De Paola
The Vinegar Bottle Woman retold by Philip Hawthorn
The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan An Enola Holmes Mystery by Nancy Springer - Adrienne
A Holiday for Murder by Agatha Christie (Mom)
When Santa Fell to Earth by Cornelia Funke
Kit’s Surprise A Christmas Story by Valerie Tripp
Christmas in the Country by Cynthia Rylant
The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
Papa’s Christmas Gift: Around the World on the Night Before Christmas by Cheryl Harness
The Curious World of Christmas by Niall Edworthy (Mom)
I Once was a Monkey: Stories Buddha told by Jeanne M. Lee (Mom)

Next month I will be sorting the books by categories, but at least this month I remembered to write who read what. If there are no names next to it, it means "read aloud", by me.

News from my create corner

Below is a copy from my personal blog "my create corner". Between Book Sharing Monday participants and the 100-books-a-month challenge, I think it's safe to say that many of you love to read, so I thought you might be interested in this new personal challenge for 2010 that I just signed up for.

Here is a copy of the post, or you can come over to my create corner and read it there!

December is the month for "december views" and I hope you have been enjoying my daily photographs. I wanted to interrupt the silence to share with you information about a challenge (I love challenges!) for 2010.

52 Books in 52 Weeks. That is the name of the challenge and there is a blog where you can sign up.

Here are the rules:

"The challenge will run from January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2010.
Participants may join at any time.
All forms of books are acceptable including e-books, audio books, etc.
Re-reads are acceptable as long as they are read after January 1, 2010.
Books may overlap other challenges."

This will be a challenge for me, even though I love reading, I am not a fast reader. Unless a book grabs my attention, I tend to loose focus and can take a lot longer than 1 week to finish that book. I also have difficulty sometimes with the language. English is not my maternal tongue, French is, so sometimes that slows me down! But I am determined to try.
I am going to plan my books one month at a time and will share my January list before January 1, 2010.
If you enjoy reading, you might be interested in joining the challenge. Please visit the blog 52 Books in 52 Weeks to find out more.

The future posts related to this challenge will be at my create corner, starting with my January book list.

Book Sharing Monday and 100 books-a-month challenge update

For Book Sharing Monday today, I am being assisted by Celeste! This was her pick, and she wanted to hold the book while I took the photos.
She chose "The First Dog" by Jan Brett. Celeste has enjoyed every Jan Brett we have read, but this one she loved...I am guessing because we have our own puppy. I know that we all enjoyed reading about the adventure of Kip, the young prehistoric boy that befriends a wolf, which becomes the first domesticated dog. The story is full of prehistoric animals and the illustrations are amazing, along with all the art in the borders of each page, inspired by cave paintings and artifacts from that time period.

Look at that Saber-Tooth cat!

"Finally, Kip made a speech. He said: "Wolfy, if you will use your keen nose and your fine ears and your sharp eyes to keep me from being eaten up, I promise to share with you all the Wooly Rhino ribs and even Mammoth meat that I cook over my fire."

Celeste and her dog, Orion

Today marks the last day of November, and the last day for the 100 Books-A-Month Challenge! We made it, we read more than 100 books this month. We enjoyed reading a mix of non-fiction, fiction novels, lots of picture books, graphic novels and even a couple baby board books (Celeste likes to get these from the library still!).

I printed at the beginning of the month a hundred chart (the ones we use for math) for the kids to be able to see our progress through the month. I put it in a page protector sleeve and used dollar store stickers to keep track of the books. Whenever I added a book to my log on the computer, I asked the kids to add the stickers to this chart.

If you would like to participate in this challenge, please visit home-grown kids for all the details.
Here is our list of all 100 books read this month...that's going to make this post very long!

November 2009

The Luck of the Loch Ness Monster by A.W. Flaherty
The Gruffalo by Julia Donadlson
If you take a mouse to the movies by L. Numeroff
The Ravioli Kid by Michelle Freedman
Monsters by L. R. Penner
Atlantis the Lost City ? by A. Donkin
Two Days in May by h.P. Taylor
Bambi by Janet Schulman
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by M. Hoffman
Library Mouse a friend’s tale by D. Kirk
Shark and Lobster’s Amazing Undersea Adventure
Baby Penguin at Home
Every day’s a holiday
Usborne First words: people
Chipmunk’s ABC
Olivia helps with Christmas
I’ll be home for Christmas
The Nutcracker by Susan Jeffers
Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett
Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett
The Hungry Coat by Demi
Justice League Adventures The Magnificent Seven
Leaping Lizards by Stuart J. Murphy
Monster Musical Chairs by Stuart J. Murphy
Bug Dance by Stuart J. Murphy
Behind the Curtain: Hansel and Gretel by Christian Thee
It’s a Baby Zebra! By Kelly Doudna
Zebras by Jill Anderson
Deer at the Brook by Jim Arnosky
Peter and the Secret of Rundoon by Dave Barry
Max Disaster #1 - Alien Eraser to the Rescue
The Snowflake Sisters by J.P. Lewis
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
Hieronymus Betts and his Unusual Pets by M.P. Robertson
Buzzboy by John Gallagher
Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Institute by J. J. Krosoczka
Rock-A-Bye Baby by Heather Collins
Lunch Lady and the League of Librarians by J. Krosoczka
Trucks Go by Steve Light
Furry Friends Same and Different by Sami
Bob and 6 more Christmas Stories by Sandra Boynton
Les Camions by Usborne
Sarah’s Little Ghosts by Thierry Robberrecht
Home Lovely by Lynne Rae Perkins
Something Queer is Going on by Elisabeth Levy
Weird Parents by Audrey Wood
The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett
The Pea Blossom retold by Amy Lowry Poole
Once upon a tomb - gravely humorous verses by J.P. Lewis
Utterly Otterly Day by Mary Casanova
The Winter Trail Disney’s Bambi
Barbie The Holiday Gift
Auntie Claus
Artemis Fowl : The Eternity Code by Eoin Colfre
Imagine you’re a wizard by Meglin
Imagine a Dragon by Laurence Pringle
Walt Disney His Life in Pictures
Imagine you’re a mermaid by mer meg
Autumn An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schnur
River of Dreams The Story of The Hudson River by Hudson Talbott
Six Swans A folktale retold by Christine San Jose
Whose Chick are you? By Nancy Tafuri
Little Swan by Jonathon London
Amazing Animals Swans by Valerie Bodden
Artemis Fowl : The Opal Deception by Eoin Colfer
Swans by Nicole Helget
The Loch Ness Monster Jr. Graphic Mysteries by J. Demolay
Amelia’s Most Unforgettable Embarrassing Moments by Marissa Moss
Fantastic Creatures - Investigations into the unexplained by Ivor Baddiel
Amelia’s 6th Grade Notebook by Marissa Moss
The Book of Beasts by E. Nesbitt
Marvelous Mattie by Emily Arnold McCully
The Inside-Outside Book of Libraries by Roxie Munro and Julie Cummin
Cardcaptor Sakura #1 by Clamp
Max Disaster #2 Alien Eraser Unravels the Mystery of the Pyramids
Max Disaster #3 Alien Eraser Reveals the Secrets of Evolution
The Cobweb Christmas by Shirley Climo
Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss
Card captor #2 by Clamp
When Santa Fell to Earth by Cornelia Funke
Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer
A Forest of Stories: Magical Tree Tales from Around the World retold by Rina Singh
Max Finder Mystery Vol. 3 by Liam O’Donnell
Christmas is Coming by Anne Bowen
Auntie Claus and the Key to Christmas by Elise Primavera
Honk, Honk, Goose! Canada Goose Start a Family by April Pulley Sayre
Honk! Honk! A Story of Migration by Mick Manning
Bird, Butterfly, Eel by James Prosek
Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer
The First Dog by Jan Brett
The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett
Harvey’s Hare’s Christmas by Bernadette Watts
It never rains in Antarctica and other freaky facts about climate, land, and nature by B.Seuling
The Princess and the Pea (the Barefoot Book of Princesses)
The Sleeping Beauty (the Barefoot of Princesses)
The Emperor’s New Clothes (Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales)
Utterly Otterly Day by Mary Casanova
Lucy and the Sea Monster To The Rescue by Karen Dolby (Young Puzzle Adventure)
Clifford’s Christmas by N. Bridwell
The Trouble with Tink by K. Thorpe
How Santa Lost his Job by Stephen Krensky
Igraine the Brave by Cornelia Funke

Update on 100 books a month challenge and on NaNoWriMo

A week and a bit has passed since we took on this challenge and we are up to 30 books so far. We are planning a trip to the library near our house this afternoon, and tomorrow we'll visit the city library too!

Here is our list so far:

The Luck of the Loch Ness Monster by A.W. Flaherty
The Gruffalo by Julia Donadlson
If you take a mouse to the movies by L. Numeroff
The Ravioli Kid by Michelle Freedman
Monsters by L. R. Penner
Atlantis the Lost City ? by A. Donkin
Two Days in May by h.P. Taylor
Bambi by Janet Schulman
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by M. Hoffman
Library Mouse a friend’s tale by D. Kirk
Shark and Lobster’s Amazing Undersea Adventure
Baby Penguin at Home
Every day’s a holiday
Usborne First words: people
Chipmunk’s ABC
Olivia helps with Christmas
I’ll be home for Christmas
The Nutcracker by Susan Jeffers
Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett
Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett
The Hungry Coat by Demi
Justice League Adventures The Magnificent Seven
Leaping Lizards by Stuart J. Murphy
Monster Musical Chairs by Stuart J. Murphy
Bug Dance by Stuart J. Murphy
Behind the Curtain: Hansel and Gretel by Christian Thee
It’s a Baby Zebra! By Kelly Doudna
Zebras by Jill Anderson
Deer at the Brook by Jim Arnosky
Peter and the Secret of Rundoon by Dave Barry.

If you are interested in the challenge, please visit home-grown kids to find out more.

About NaNoWriMo, we hit a roadblock.

I do have to say that I am so impressed and proud with how much my children have written so far. They have never written this much before. From day one, they were focused and wrote every single morning, meeting their daily quotas. Then we took four days off, and ever since we just haven't been able to get back to our routine. The kids have run out of ideas they say, and my stress level is clouding my creativity. They both have asked if they could keep their stories, but not participate in the challenge any more, that they want to finish their books, but when they get more ideas, which might not be right away. We talked about quitting, and really I don't like to quit and they don't either, but at the same time I am just so happy they tried in the first place, that I see "quitting" more as a pause than a stop. There is still two weeks in the challenge, so we might pick it up again, but for now, we are stopping.

Adrienne wrote 1714 words, Andre 1581, and I had 11,132 at last count. One benefit from this challenge that I already noticed was with Andre. We have done written narration with history and I normally get one sentence out of him for a chapter read, but this week, he wrote an entire page after reading his chapter! It seems like writing is not a scary thing for him anymore!

Photography and Art Challenges for Kids

Here are two photo and art challenges that might interest your family:

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, better known in our house for the Celebrate Urban Birds, is hosting a challenge called "A Murder of Crows and Other Spooky Bird Tales". They point out that a murder is the name for a large group of crows. This is a photo-video-art challenge. You can write a story or poem, take a photo or video, do a painting about crows, pigeons, starlings, or any kind of bird doing something strange. The deadline is Halloween, and there are some pretty cool prizes like binoculars, birdfeeders, CDs, etc...

National Geographic is hosting an International Photography Contest for Kids. It ends November 2, 2009 and is open to kids 6 to 14 years of age.

5 days of creativity ~ first week!

Monday ~ not sure if baking counts as being creative...but that is what I did on Monday! Adrienne was home from school because she had 6 teeth pulled out first thing in the morning. She did really well and was back to being able to eat a few hours later. We made this "palmiers" which I used to eat when I was little back in France, delicieux !

Tuesday ~ I tried a new little pattern from the Bend the Rules Sewing book, a cute little pouch and I had so much fun making it! I just need to find a big button and it will be complete.

Wednesday ~ I wasn't as creative today, with Celeste home with me, but we had a lovely day together. Actually Andre was home as well, his class was going on a field trip to see the Tale of Desperaux and we have already seen it together. So, not much creativity today, but lots of fun times with my children :)

Thursday ~ After seeing the black pouch that I made, Adrienne asked me if I would make her 2 pouches for her. One for her camera and one for her ipod. Again, I am missing buttons, but they turned out really cute. She picked the fabrics from my stash. The print one is the lining in the purple bigger pouch for her camera, and vice-versa for the smaller pouch...I did it that way because she couldn't decide which fabric she wanted on the outside of her pouches, so now she has one of each!

Friday ~ this day was spent packing for the weekend. We all attended a wedding out of town, and I packed for everyone, since I was home. I did find the time to start cutting fabric for a small quilt, that used charm packs fabrics. I didn't take a photo, but I will share that little project soon...

Beautiful Colours...or Photo of the Day Part Two!

After I posted my picture of the day, the sky gave me another opportunity to play with my camera...The colours were beautiful, I couldn't resist!

A different point of view

I have been wanting to play around with my camera a little...this wasn't in black and white, but I thought it would be fun to take part in this self-portrait challenge from Shutter Sisters. All I had to do was go outside this morning (brr...) and take a picture of myself using the sky for background and another of my feet on the ground. Our grass is still so green!

Novel writing challenge starts today!

I had decided to stay up last night until midnight to start NaNoWriMo, but I didn't make it...I ran in the afternoon, my longest distance so far (12km) and was too tired to make it past 10pm!

This morning, after answering countless times "no, you can't have candy for breakfast", I found a little bit of time to myself. I did give in to the candy after their breakfast! The kids had a few friends over, so I wasn't sure how that would go but I sat down at the computer, looked over my ideas that I had written out in October, and started typing. I had noticed that I could do a word count on the word processor I am using. So after a while, curiosity got the better of me and I clicked on word count...2437 words! Wow! It didn't seem that bad!

Then after lunch, the kids asked to go and play outside with their friends...geez...that was a tough decision! Yes! Go ahead! They need to work out all that sugar anyway, and it's a beautiful day. And I need to take these moments when they come...so back to my desk I went and now my word count is at 4254!

One thing I found interesting is that even though I had a rough idea of the story I was creating, putting the words on paper has changed the story along the way a little bit, and that is what I find interesting, seeing the story unfold right before my eyes. It is only the first day, but I am really enjoying this. I will let you know if I still feel the same way by the end of the month!

A Wedding, a Move and a Challenge...

We spent this past weekend with our family, attending a going away party for my husband's sister that turned out to be a surprise marriage proposal and wedding all in one! It was an amazing day! I wish them both a safe move to the West Coast and a wonderful life together.

We started our second part of the move Tuesday. We had a safe four hour drive. I drove our car, with kids and guinea pigs and Daddy drove our rented U-Haul truck!

We have been very busy these last few days unpacking and catching up with family here.

An update on Our TV-free challenge week:

Being out of our home had its challenges, especially during the past weekend. We stayed at Daddy's Grandmother, who leaves the TV on for background noise...but since the weather was nice, I took the kids out for many walks! Since Tuesday, we had no TV plugged in until yesterday, and the kids played with their new neighborhood friends. We did plug in the Wii yesterday and they all played Guitar Hero together for about one hour or so. Princess did a lot better than I had thought, and she only watched 3 movies since we left our home last Thursday! As for me, I had been off the Internet since the April 15th and I was missing it, so when the Cable/Internet guy came and hooked everything up yesterday, I just had to re-connect!

I think we all did well during this challenge, but I am planning on participating next year again, when we won't be in the middle of a move!

TV Turnoff Week Challenge

This year April 21-27 is TV Turnoff Week. I was planning on doing this on my own, but then found another blogger that is putting on a challenge!

I decided to accept her challenge. I am not sure how successful we will be, the same week is our moving-in week, so it could be easy because we will be busy unpacking, but at the same time it might be challenging too...especially with Princess (almost 4) that is a bit too young to help unpack compared to our older 2 kids (10 and 9).

We don't watch a lot of TV and only have 1, but we do enjoy our DVDs. Especially through the winter months and with Princess, it's our "cuddle time" as she puts it! Dragon and Fairy also like movies, and on top of that have a lot of fun with our Wii and their personal DSs. I have always monitored (read controlled) the time they spend on any video/computer games, so it might actually not be an issue to not have it at all...then again it might!

For me, the challenge will be with the computer/internet. I do spend a bit of time on it, in the early morning and after the kids go to bed at night, working on my blog or reading others, researching homeschool stuff, and answering e-mails.

My goals for that week are simple:

Turn off the TV and DVD player... or maybe we won't plug them in yet!

No Wii or DS for the kids

and as for me, the computer and Internet will be off until the 27th...

Can we do it? I will post how it all went on the 28th! Wish us luck!

If you are interested in taking on the challenge too...visit Unplug your kids!