Today was Gareth’s final ocean-themed playschool class, “A World Down Under.” We parents came to pick up the kids a few minutes early, so the kids could perform a little song routine for us. To the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus”, we listened to and watched “the fish in the ocean go swim, [...]
A few days ago the Jim and the boys made their own fossils using plastic dino skeletons, sand, and plaster of Paris. Over the weekend we finished the project, removing the sand to reveal the fossil impressions. Jim began by carefully sliding the fossil “cake” out of the bowl, supporting it with his hand as [...]
This afternoon the boys and I met up with some friends down at Fish Creek Park, a huge wildlife area in south Calgary. The boys rode their bikes, scooters and trikes while while we two Moms walked and talked. It was a lovely way to spend an absolutely gorgeous afternoon in the sunshine! And we [...]
After getting some chores and homeschool work done, the boys and I headed over to meet up with the Calgary Attachment Parenting group at their weekly park day. They meet at a park / playground that is pesticide free (and frankly has less dandelions than lots of other places right now!) The boys had a [...]
Daegan found this video recently: He’s watched it several times, and wanted to try it at home. He drew the instructions, and made a list of supplies to get (plaster of Paris from Michaels, and play sand from Canadian Tire; we had everything else): They began by putting sand in a large plastic bowl, [...]
This afternoon the boys and I attended another Mad Science workshop organized by a homeschooling Mom, as we so enjoyed the one on dry ice and the states of matter a few months back. This time the topic was polymers. Here’s the pictorial diary of events (hover mouse over pics for details): The instructor began [...]
As the Homeschool Art class was cancelled this session due to low registration, Daegan has been asking me to do more arts and crafts at home. I saw these ideas for “bingo dauber” art on my friend Alicia’s Magical Childhood blog a while ago, and showed it to the boys today. “Oh, yes, we’re interested!” [...]
The boys play several computer games, some more explicitly “educational” than others. As Daegan’s computer skills have steadily increased, he is now able to find and play his own games. It’s amazing how quickly this generation learns how to google! Here’s some of their favourite dinosaur-related games: Online Games (mainly found by Daegan): BBC’s Skeleton [...]
Gareth has been creating lots of art around the house lately. He often uses the white board that I write our math ‘Problem of the Day’ on: I also find things like this on the board. Gareth is showing his scientific knowledge, drawing different species of dinosaur and putting them into their correct time period [...]
A couple weeks ago the boys and I did some learning about Ancient Egypt, which I blogged about here. One of the activities we did was try to mummify apple slices in different mediums: table salt, epsom salt, baking soda, and a ‘control variable’ apple that was simply left exposed to the air. A week [...]