May 18-23

We spent a large chunk of our Sunday out on the hunt for treasure… and for a good park! The girls decided to go matching on their excursion. We actually found a special geocaching coin that travels and is tracked. It has been all over the US an now it is our turn to pass it along!!

Chipmunk!

Pioneer Park

So swampy everywhere!

We have continued our watching of Veggie Tales when we can get our hands on them. So on a cloudy Monday it was a great filler between the rest of our ongoing learning of Texas, reading, writing and math. Sadly we are running out of shows that include a set of Sunday School worksheets to use. So instead we drew our own fun pictures.

That evening Ken worked on teaching the boys Agricola (HERE) another strategy game that I honestly am not a huge fan of. The additional reading, challenging game play all seems to be helping them stretch their skills more and more.

Tuesday was a nature walk in our very own neighbourhood. Keeping our eyes wide open for some more signs of spring… discussing road safety and the difference between planned plants and weeds. I think in June or July we will do a walk through the neighbourhood and see if we can get a bunch of different leaves and try and identify what trees are actually local to us. Which gives the little guys the chance to do a favourite activity – leaf rubbings!

Of course around lunch time we had to head back outside to enjoy the backyard. Really we were stuck indoors way too long this winter!

Art for Kids has put tons of wonderful how to’s out for us to enjoy. (link on right) Even Trinity is gaining confidence with the use of these.

Miss Echo was quite adamant that it was an ipad anime day for her. I really do love my Crunchyroll membership. Affordable and fun for me too. Granted she doesn’t understand anything being said and can’t read the translation but she bops to the music and enjoys the animation.

We tried something different for mid week. Of course we continued reading Treasure Island together.

But I had Ken make me up a nice set of charts for us to go onto the ipad and use my weather app to chart the week coming up weather local to us and for Austen Texas. Using this comparison we opened the table for a discussion about how activities and such would differ for the days there than here. Then for each day recorded the twins settled in with a sibling and wrote basically a daily diary for what they would do in Texas according to the weather. Zander was super creative and one day played out in the rain only to have to stay in the next sick with a cold!

We dug out our box of fraction magnets just to enjoy the manipulation of the pieces and to see how they look as actual objects. The boys were discussing and quizzing each other and explaining to the littles so I just sat back and let them go at it (as long as the information was CORRECT!).

We rounded off our outside experience on scooters, bikes and fancy skateboards. Sunshine sunshine SUNSHINE!

Trust me we really ARE doing sitting down book work interspersed with LOTS of outside running and burning of energy. Gavin has been taking charge of the camera occasionally and taking pictures too! Mommy in front of the camera instead of behind!!

Emanuel and I stole some afternoon creativity time on Wednesday and made a car ramp out of stuff in the livingroom while the other kids went on a walk with Nana and Baba. It is nice to have some quiet one on one time with the kids.

We ended our school week with ANOTHER Geocache adventure to a small park with a terrific tree shaded walking path. The boys are definitely the ones to jump up and go into the woods. We girls tend to wander the paths closer too and enjoy the more tick and branch free portion of the experience. That is not to say that Trinity does not jump on in from time to time though!

We are certainly seeing portions of Minnesota that Ken hasn’t even seen. There are some absolutely amazing out of the way tiny lakes and pretty shaded places. And we are seeing all of this together which is absolutely another plus. One thing we have learned from all the sessions Ken is now doing with his counselor is that going out as a family and enjoying an activity is absolutely crucial for all of us! That time together getting out, exercise coupled with the ability to spend POSITIVE time as a family. Amazing!

And a touch of Texas facts

Mondays are always a bit of a mish mash for this family. There is the inevitable whining to play MORE Minecraft or computer games, the randomness of which kid is actually interested in learning something new and of course the constant requests to go down and bother Daddy (and today Sean as well) that have to be headed off before feet hit the stairs. 

We started our true focus on the Inuit people and the land they live in. We have a stack of books and actually managed to go through 4 of them and read the first chapter in a 5th. The goal is to actually make it through all of the books we have out from the library by Wednesday. The main lapbook I am using with supplement files from a friend can be found HERE. 

Working at the table

Even Emanuel got creative and on his own suggestion made a black paper picture. He loves using the white crayons to create art on black paper! I am VERY impressed by his igloo. He added a person crawling in after I took this picture. 

Igloo on black

We found a really interesting video on YouTube to share as well… Watch a young Inuit boy make his first Igloo!

Another interesting and more amateur video done up by an Inuit girl has some interesting information in it. 

Another interesting video from a definite CANADIAN perspective. I love the little bit about poutine (and boy did it make me hungry!).

And here is a shorter one with different aspects of Inuit life!

I will share more videos and such as we come across them! Zander is especially interested in the tools they use. So I have some research to do tonight! I think we are all enjoying learning about someone who lives a VERY different life in the same country as we do!

The start of our readings

Karyn and I ran out for poutine and Dollorama perusing. I spoiled myself… well Karyn spoiled me (it is always a struggle, the wish to purchase something and the wish to not use the debit card for said tiny purchase so she combined ours) with a new set of Valentine’s Day themed socks… time to make owls! I would like to pick up a couple more pairs of socks before Valentine’s Day passes. If nothing else, they would be great gifts for little girls! 

The part for the van has been shipped, it went out either Friday or this morning so it is not looking good for us to have our own van for the weekend. Thankfully we have the Chris’s on hold. I am still trying to get my mind around the fact that we are almost to their party. Where has the first month of the year gone???

And here I am at the end of the day thinking… didn’t I do more? Though we have learned a lot! More on the Inuit to share tomorrow and of course library day! So definitely will have more to share! But for now, it is time to post and then get ready for bed… or watch more anime… choices choices!

My little girl

Ken has finally succumbed to the family cold. Today was not his finest day health wise and it certainly did NOT help that he was up late the night before. We had a minor mix up on Karyn’s flight times (and location) and could not agree if it was an am or pm flight. So Ken stayed up in case it WAS an am flight (and kept me up with him, so you can imagine how tired I was as well today) and kept the phone by. Of course it turned out we were basically totally WRONG on our info and she came in this afternoon with Ken there waiting but still… totally the Reinsch-Johnson way of doing things – err on the side of caution but make sure you do it in a crazy way. Not that I was complaining much… I am coming to the end of the current anime series obsession – Mushi-shi. Which I officially want to collect in manga form as well. To make Ken’s life easier I am compiling a list of the mangas I want and which I don’t have. Should be an interesting list. I actually have been collecting a few over the years but VERY slowly and am very much behind.

I have started a project to make something for Petite Sheepette to wear at the August wedding. I am trying to make two little behind the ear clips of matching ribbon to Echo’s headband. Either that or a decorated choker… I am still in the planning stages. It can be super frustrating to try and make two identical (ok nearly) bows!

Working on bows

Today we focused on yesterday’s ignored math. Gavin is in the final two page testing series in his. I am finding out through these short tests (which we just do as worksheets) what things we need to go back to once we are done. So far the big one is the months and time… we seem to have the concept of a calendar figured out and are well on our way with the days of the week… it is just the bigger concepts we need to do work on.

We also did a chapter in our story. I think we are getting into the final stretch here.

Two more illustrations

Tonight we welcomed back Karyn from her Alaska trip. I will share pictures of the gifts tomorrow due to laziness tonight. BUT we went out for dinner – Karyn, Lauralee, Echo and myself… to the Wok box. Echo spent most of her time in the highchair… though it was a little too big for her. The food was great and even with Echo’s later moving around we were able to sit around and visit.

Quick snapped picture

Ok so the highchair is still a little bit big

The evening ended in rain again! Always! Seriously I am starting to wonder if the sun is scared to come out at this point. So very very wet. I would absolutely love a week of sunshine. Fingers are definitely crossed that Saturday turns out to be a sunny day. Friday we can BBQ and eat indoors but with the weather all nasty on Saturday we may end up a bit cramped in my brother’s place.

Our big excitement (beyond Karyn coming back and Lauralee visiting)… the neighbours cat felt the need to rest on our fence! They actually have 3 as far as I can tell, the other two long haired orange tabbies.

Kitty

So today was not heavy on the work but a good day. We accomplished things, we spent some time together and the kids watched quite a few episodes of Curious George on the Netflix. It is the best way to deal with a house full of people getting over being sick and rainy weather. I just hope that the rest of our week can be nice and relaxing. Or at the very least, that we have fun while we do things around the house. Check out Hooked on You… Seriously!

Echo in one of her lovely headbands. I think she looks marvellous!

Modelling with Petite Sheepette