Do your kids know about the new animated show Wild Kratts from the Kratt’s brothers? Martin and Chris Kratt, of Zoboomafoo fame, have a new show that airs on PBS. It’s a cartoon in which the Kratt’s brothers characters save animals by donning “animal power suits” in which they take on the abilities of various [...]
The other day the whole family watched an episode of MythBusters that we all thought was fantastic: Bug Special. If you are unfamiliar with the show, have a quick read here for what it is all about. In this episode, they tested three things: 1 – whether or not bees, temporarily glued to a laptop, [...]
The boys (and I too!) were quite taken with the Rocks and Minerals science crate activities that we did last fall at a science class at CHSA. I blogged about the science classes here. To continue our learning, I got some DVDs out of the library on the topic, and one of our favourites came [...]
This afternoon we had our final nature class of the year with Judy, environmental educator at Outdoors In. We learned all about owls, focussing on the 11 species of owl that live in Alberta. Judy showed the kids pictures and accurately-sized silhouettes of various owls, like this Northern Saw-Whet owl: For many of the owls [...]
This fall, the boys took a new homeschool offering: drama class at Evergreen Theatre. Evergreen does educational productions for schools on themes of science, nature and the environment; you can read about when we went to see their production Flushed, all about the wastewater treatment process, here. The theme of the boys’ drama class was [...]
Yesterday I watched a science DVD with the boys, called City of Bees (Canada)(US), yet another of our recent library finds. We all quite enjoyed it. It follows a family (from Denmark , I believe) who keep bees, showing how a hive operates, the different jobs of the queen, workers, and drones; we watch a [...]
This fall the boys and I joined CHSA for the first time, taking advantage of the weekly get-together of homeschoolers for classes, socializing and just plain fun. We signed up for a science class built around exploring the activities in 4 crates from the Science Alberta Foundation. We began with F.A.R.M.S. (Animal Needs and Lifecycles), [...]
Today we went over to our old house for the final time, as the new owner’s take possession tomorrow. The house holds a lot of memories: good, bad, and bittersweet. Here’s what our home looked like when we moved in in fall, 2003: And this was our family then, just me, Jim and 15-month old [...]
On Saturday after the theatre presentation, the boys and I headed to the local school yard to play. They have such a neat set-up there, with a full-size Stonehenge replica: A fabulous play structure, with swings and slides, climbers and merry-go-rounds, and a bajillion other ways for kids to expend some energy: And huge open [...]
This afternoon we attended a Halloween-themed nature class led by Judy, the nature-and-outdoor educator that led us on a nature walk a few weeks ago. This class focussed on spiders and bats. She began by pulling various critter replicas out of a bag and asking the kids if it was a spider or not, and [...]