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 [...]
Wishing you and yours a wonderful Easter break. I’ll be taking a technology sabbatical for the long weekend. But before I do, I wanted to say how much I’ve enjoyed getting feedback and comments from so many different people, both strengthening old friendships and meeting new-to-me homeschoolers. And I am enjoying so many of your [...]
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 [...]
I was honoured to receive the Beautiful Blogger Award from Alicia of Magic and Mayhem, one of my favourite homeschool blogs. She also does the amazing feel-good parenting blog, A Magical Childhood. I am supposed to list three blogs I have found (fairly) recently that I enjoy. As most of the blogs I read are [...]
The boys and I did some shopping this morning, trying to get it out of the way before the regular school kids are out for teacher’s convention (tomorrow and Friday) and Family Day (Monday). Our first stop was Indigo Books, where Daegan used the last bit of his birthday gift card (from last June!) to [...]
Last Friday night the boys and I did a simple experiment with water and different shaped containers to understand better the nature of science. The idea for the experiment was inspired by an experiment in the Oxford First Book of Science. Specifically, I wanted them to understand the idea of a reasoned hypothesis: in most [...]
I recently discovered Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project blog, and in addition to all kinds of fascinating material and inspirational quotes, she has oodles and oodles of book suggestions—enough to keep even a bibliophile like myself happy for months! One of the most provocative and insightful books I read off her list is Barry Schwartz’s The [...]
Today was a gorgeous day here, with warm temps (8C / 41F—which is warm for Calgary in January!) and clear sunny skies. I wanted to get us all out for some fresh air and sunshine, so I suggested to the boys that we go for a nature walk around the neighbourhood and look for tracks [...]
One of our goals for Daegan this year, as odd as it may seem, is to give him opportunities to handle frustration. Not create opportunities artificially—being a 7-year-old boy with a younger brother these frustrating moments come easily enough—but after doing some reflecting on my parenting, I realized I was “rescuing” him or the situation [...]