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 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 [...]
Over the Easter weekend, we ventured out for a short nature walk to feed the chickadees. Black-capped chickadees are Gareth’s favourite bird, and they LOVE black oil sunflower seeds: Jim and I got in on the action too: But it was Daegan, our “nature whisperer”, who got the best results. Despite being nervous at [...]
The weather was great again this past weekend, so we went for another nature walk in our nearby natural area, Edworthy Park. We saw (and heard—“wick! wick! wick! wick!”) oodles of Northern Flickers: I quite like this shot I got mid-flight; it is not until you see their showy colours and white undertail “flickering” when [...]
Jim did a couple of really simple science activities with the boys on the weekend, using just ice cubes, salt, and string. He emptied an ice cube tray into a large bowl, and then put one cube in each of the boys’ blue bowls, along with a piece of string, asking: “How can I use [...]
Jim took the boys to the zoo last Sunday morning, giving me (and my ankle) a chance to rest. This was our first visit to the zoo since our decision last year not to renew our memberships, something we decided to revisit in light of the zoo’s recent decision to invite an independent inquiry into [...]
On Monday night Jim and the boys put together this tin can robot kit that we’d bought for the boys ages ago (and hidden in the closet, and promptly forgotten about!). Here’s the finished product. I quite like how the opening of the rootbeer can looks like the robot’s mouth: Jim said it was quite [...]
Jim and Daegan did some simple activities last night about probability. If you’ve got a pair of dice, paper and pencil, and some kind of counter (we used cuisinaire rods, but anything from pennies to beans to bingo chips will do), you can do this too. I found it interesting how Daegan would form hypotheses [...]
I mentioned in yesterday’s post that Jim did a neat science experiment with the boys on Sunday night, building on an experiment I did with them last year. I loved the simplicity of this experiment, and that it uses items most folks have at home already. Here’s what you’ll need: a large (mixing) bowl, [...]
We had a lovely weekend. Friday night I took the boys swimming at VRRI, where the pool is wonderfully warm. They do lots of rehab stuff there, so I am not kidding when I say the pool is kept at the temperature of a warm bath. Ahhhh! The boys had lots of fun splashing, [...]