Wordless Wednesday :: Math with Celeste and Orion

Tennis...Our Way

There is a tennis court at the local park near us and since it's all fenced in, we let Orion loose and he plays along with us! This is how we like to play tennis!

Wordless Wednesday

Introducing...Sophie Nausicaa

A few Christmas photos are needed to introduce our new furry family member! We have adopted a new cat and named her Sophie Nausicaa. She is about four months old and comes from the local humane society. My husband set up the adoption and arranged for Santa to deliver her on Christmas morning. The children had no idea that a new kitty was coming, I did, but I had no idea that Santa was bringing her! What a wonderful surprise!

Adrienne's cat Clara was the first of our pets to meet Sophie. She really wasn't sure about this young one coming onto her turf at first, but now they are friends, chasing each other through the house every evening. 
Our dog has adjusted really well too, and was never worried about her. He just saw her as a play friend. Sophie isn't scared of Orion, unlike Clara. It's funny to see the difference between the two cats.
Her name, Sophie Nausicaa, was voted on. When she first came to us, she was called Sunny. We came up together with these two names from Studio Ghibli movies. We couldn't decide between the two, so we kept both! Sophie is one of the main characters from Howl's Moving Castle, and Nausicaa is the name of the princess in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

more simple summer fun

Wordless Wednesday ~ Homeschool Books are Here!

Wordless Wednesday ~ Water Fun

Spring Nature Study ~ Mammal Study : Cat

Meet Clara. She is 2 years old and her human mommy is Adrienne. For our Spring Nature Study on cats, we didn't have to go far...Clara was right near our school table, as usual, on the top of the couch on her favourite blanket.

She has many favourite napping spots, but this one seems to be her favourite while we are "doing school".

I grabbed our Handbook of Nature Study book and we answered together a few of the discussion questions.

Here are our facts we learned about our pet cat:

• 
  
  When hungry, Clara tries to trip us by walking in front of us to get our attention. She might also attack our legs.
• 
  
  She hisses when she fights with our dog. She growls sometimes too, which is when we now we need to stop the fighting/playing.
• 
  
  She rubs up against us and meows - this is how we think she shows us that she likes us.
• 
  
  Her eyes are green.
• 
  
  She has about 26 whiskers (Adrienne counted them).
• 
  
  She has many colours: black, brown, white, and orange. She is a calico cat.

We learned a lot about cat behaviour over the last couple of weeks by reading aloud an excellent book by Jean Craighead George called The Cats of Roxville Station. I mentioned this novel in a Book Sharing Monday post, and would recommend it for anyone wanting to learn more about cats.

 

We also enjoyed reading and looking at the adorable photographs in this book, Watch Me Grow: Kitten.

There are more interesting ideas on how to study cats at Handbook of Nature Study blog.

Get Outdoors Challenge :: April 21

After we finished our weather observations for our nature study, I gave the compass to Andre and the 3 of them played a game where he shouted directions, like "go 5 paces North West, go 4 giant steps South".

Orion joined us outside too, with his rawhide bone.

Outdoor Hour Challenge ~ Winter Series ~ Mammals: Wolf, Fox, and Dog

This week we decided to study mammals. Barbara at the Handbook of Nature Study blog has been posting some beautiful spring wildflowers photos, but we don't have those here yet, so we looked at other challenges and picked Challenge #51: Wolf, Fox, and Dog.

I started by reading one of the stories from the Burgess Animal Book for Children. while the kids were finishing their lunch. We don't have a copy of it, but I found it online at Project Gutenberg. I read aloud story #28 Old Man Coyote and Howler the Wolf. We enjoyed this story a lot.

Next, Adrienne and I watched the documentary from PBS Nature : In the Valley of the Wolves. The documentary is beautiful, set in Yellowstone National Park, and very informative. I agree with Barb that some parts may be difficult for younger children to see, but Adrienne and I were fine with it, having watched nature documentaries with top predators before.
We coloured while watching the movie, a fox colouring page and a grey wolf one. We paused a few times during the show to discuss what we were seeing, and many times we were amazed how the wolves looked like our dog Orion.

Our colouring pages:

After we were finished the PBS show, we filled in our Mammals journal page. I printed a mammal journal on both sides of the paper. We completed one side for the Red Fox.

The other side we decided would be our dog study.  I grabbed the Handbook of Nature Study, our dog, and we set out to answer some of the questions from page 258.
Here is a description of our dog:

Orion is our Siberian Husky. He will be one in April and was very cooperative with us.

We measured him from head to the tip of the tail. He is about 54 inches, with 13 inches being his bushy tail. We knew that he was about 70 lbs, so I didn't bother trying to weigh him!

He has a few different colours in his thick coat, grey, black, beige and white. His coat has two layers, an undercoat and a top coat. His eyes are beige/yellow. The journal page asked "how does this mammal defend itself?", we haven't seen him defend himself, but we guessed that he would growl, show his teeth, and bite. Adrienne also said that he might just run.

We then moved on to the questions in the book.

We looked at his legs and compared them to our cat's legs. His legs are long and strong, which we thought would allow him to run for long distances.

We looked at his feet and pads and compared them to the cat's. Our cat's pads are soft and the skin feels lighter, thiner. Orion's are hard and tough. We talked about how dogs would be able to travel through rougher terrain with those pads. Siberian huskies can also withstand colder temperatures, even though in the frozen areas they would need booties to keep their paws safe, if they were out for long periods of time.

Orion's (dog) paw:

Clara's (cat) paw :

We also looked at the differences in their claws. Orion can't retract his claws and they are thicker and harder. They are heavier and we can't bend them. Adrienne deducted that this might help him grip the ground better when he is running.

Orion's claws:

Clara's claws (we never de-clawed her):

We noticed that Orion's body is lean and muscular, as opposed to Clara, our cat, which feels soft and squishy (we didn't squish her, but hug them each and that was the best word we could come up with!).

Another difference were in their eyes. Their pupils are also very different. Adrienne talked about how cats could see better in the dark than dogs and how dogs would likely rely on their sense of smell more than their eyes at night.

We looked at Orion's ears and read the explanation in the Handbook of how important the shape of the ear is to the dog's ability to hear. Orion's ears are covered in fur.

The nose on the dog is up front, with the nostrils right at the front. The skin is rough around the nose. We thought this would help protect his nose while he is sniffing rough ground or surfaces. We talked about how dogs use their sense of smell to "identify" people.

Last, we talked about how Orion expresses himself and shows us his emotions. Our dog "talks" a lot. He hardly barks, but talks a lot. It sounds a little bit like howling, but he has so many different sounds that it's quite entertaining! He can also "cry". The position of his ears is important as well to his language. He doesn't wag his tail as much as other dogs.

We didn't go outside for this Outdoor Challenge but we had a great time learning more about wolves, foxes and our dog.

You can read more about the Outdoor Challenge here.

If you would like to do the same nature study on wolves, foxes and dogs, you can read all about it here.

home made dog treats by Adrienne

Orion is so happy...and so spoiled! Adrienne baked him a batch of dog treats yesterday...these have fresh mint and parsley in them. He loves them!

Orion

We have had Orion, our husky puppy, for over one month now.

We all have fallen in love and help take care of him. I am glad we waited until Celeste was five, because she can even help out and take him outside when needed.

Orion has started obedience classes and had lots to say during the first meeting! We have been doing our homework every day with him and he is learning fast.
Having had huskies before, I can't help but compare him to our other two, Orion is much more calmer than Alika and Naomi ever were. He listens better too, but then it might have to do with us too :)
I take him for two long walks every day, one in the morning around 6 and again in the evening. Each walk is at least 45 minutes, the evening one is usually longer and the kids come with me.

We really enjoy walking along one particular path, near the train tracks and the farmer fields. Here are a few photos I took last night from our walk..I even used one of my favourites pics for a new banner to this blog. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Wreck this journal ~ Week 4

Thanks everyone for the lovely comments! It feels great to be part of this community of wreckers!!

We took WTJ camping with us and had a blast! Here are a few photos from our fun:




and here is a very short video of us taking our journal for a walk. Sorry it is sideways, because I am one of those people that forgets I can't tilt my camera while taking videos the way I do while taking a photo...





Added friday evening:

I completely forgot to add one of my favourite pages this week..the paint splatter page:



This wrecking is part of Jamie's book club, The Next Chapter. You can visit the link here to see more destruction!

Introducing....Orion, the latest addition to our family

Our 10 week old Siberian Husky puppy, Orion