My friend Sarah sent me this simple science video: The boys and I gave it a whirl today, with a few variations. If you try this at home, we found it worked better if you put the food colouring closer together, overlapping or even on top of one another. I didn’t do this. Now, add [...]
Jim took the boys back to the zoo for a few hours this afternoon, after I ranted like a lunatic it became clear I need a few hours of Mommy-recharge time. They headed back wearing bright-coloured shirts, and sure enough, it worked! Both boys had butterflies land on them, and were able to gently transfer [...]
The afternoon class the boys took at the zoo’s homeschool day was called “On Gossamer Wings”. It was about butterflies and moths. Here’s some of what they did: The class began with a hands-on demo of the differences between our bodies and butterfly bodies. To demonstrate, the instructor transformed a volunteer into a butterfly, putting [...]
The boys and I had a glorious day at the zoo today. It was homeschool day, and I had signed them up for a couple classes: “I Dream of Dinosaurs” in the morning, and “On Gossamer Wings” (butterflies and moths) in the afternoon. In between we had just enough time to eat lunch and have [...]
I adapted this recipe off this amazing veggie recipe site I recently found. It’s like allrecipes for vegans / vegetarians, with over 13,000 recipes, complete with comments and ratings from folks. These cookies were a huge hit with every member of the family. Even Gareth, who is often suspicious of new foods, gobbled them up. [...]
I’ve mentioned before that Daegan loves puzzles and riddles of all kinds—from Dr. Dooriddles (review forthcoming!) in language arts to kakuro and Math Analogies to chemistry / geography puzzles. They make learning more fun! Both Jim and I were the same way as kids, and as adults we’ve come to believe even more in the [...]
Just a quick post tonight as tomorrow is a very full day. Gareth starts a new ocean-themed playschool class, Daegan has an orthodontist appointment, and then we’ve got our year end meeting with our homeschool facilitator. But I wanted to share something the boys and I have been having fun with lately. A few weeks [...]
For a couple weeks now the boys have been expressing an interest in Ancient Egypt, our first foray into people history, rather than that of dinosaurs and animals. Yay! Admittedly, it was Daegan who first brought up the topic, after Jim mentioned a show about dinosaur finds in Egypt, and got the companion book for [...]
The whole family headed to the Science Centre this afternoon, the final day before it closes and is dismantled to prepare for the BodyWorlds exhibit. Today was also our last day of “spring break”; we’ll be back into our homeschool routines, with new spring classes starting next week. Here’s a ton of pics from [...]
I took the boys for a bird walk at Glenmore Reservoir, about 10 minutes drive from our home, this morning, after hearing from several people on my alberta-birds email list that hundreds of swans were there on migration—both trumpeter and tundra swans. As we had recently read the book Trumpet of the Swans, I [...]