Daegan is sooooo excited! Multiplication Vacation, the DVD from a company called Googol Power, finally arrived in today’s mail. It’s sold out at both the publisher and Indigo/Chapters (Canada’s biggest book retailer), so tracking a copy down was a challenge. I finally found one used on amazon. Daegan asked me to get it months ago [...]
Our family went to see Bugs Bunny at the Symphony, presented as part of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra’s line-up this year. It was wonderful, and all of us—from the 6-year-old to the 41-year-old—enjoyed it. We got there a bit early to pick up tickets from the box office, and they had some live rabbit entertainment [...]
Yesterday the boys and I did a fun activity tying into our learnings about the human body: we made a model of our blood, based on this activity an acquaintance of mine did with her daughter. I began by asking the boys, “What is blood?” and we attempted to find a reasonable model for it. [...]
A couple days ago I learned of a new-to-me website called Top Documentary Films (link here), and on it I was thrilled to find The Story of 1, a math documentary featuring Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) that I’ve been looking for for a while now. (Update: If the previous link is no longer [...]
We’ve been in a real Roald Dahl phase here lately, so imagine our delight to find out today is Roald Dahl Day! Over the past few weeks Jim read the boys Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and on the weekend we watched the 2005 Johnny Depp version of the movie as a family. The boys [...]
Today the boys and I started our Human Body learning, the main science topic they asked to do this year. In my usual style of creating a “unit study” (I am so NOT a planner in this way), we dropped by the library last night and I cleared them out of a shelf of books [...]
Over the summer the boys and I have been enjoying a new Bill Nye series (yes, of ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ fame) called Stuff Happens. It’s a 12-part series about living more sustainably, and thinking about the environmental consequences of our lifestyle choices. But unlike many shows of this ilk, this one is fun, [...]
Over the summer the boys and I have explored a variety of DVDs, including one we watched a couple weeks back and really enjoyed, called The Lion’s Share: A Tale of Halving Cake and Eating It, Too by Matthew McElligott. (There’s a picture book as well). I can’t do better than the summary on the [...]
Yesterday I shared some of our favourite apps for reading and spelling for young readers, and today I thought I’d share some apps I’ve found that allow you to learn via videos. There are so many quality free educational resources out there now—wow! You’ve probably heard of some of these apps, and most (all?) of [...]
Over the past couple weeks, the boys and I have been enjoying some science DVDs in the ‘Backyard Habitat’ series that we borrowed from the library. We particularly enjoyed the ones on City Birds and Deer, no doubt because we could relate to them so well. In fact, right now we have a pair of [...]