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

May 5-10

May has marked a definite increase in our book work and math exploration. Multi tasking has become Mommy’s most helpful skill (what you can’t see in the picture below is my fingers at work on a crochet project to steady the nerves!).

Our first real focus on Texas was the Alamo. A historical look at a location that shaped so many lives and the future of the now state of Texas. I absolutely adored the book we found at the library about it (which is listed in our Texas Resource page that will be posted in the not too distant future). Trinity and Emanuel took the responsibility of illustrating what we felt were some main points from the book.

Miss Echo felt a need to bring back out the at home assembled Kaleidoscope. She is so gentle with this toy it is just lovely to listen to her explain what she is seeing.

That night we had a special visitor – COUSIN ROBBIE! He came to play games in the evening (and have dinner) but obligingly came early to play with the kids FIRST! I don’t know that there could have been a better treat for them. He is a family favourite.

We even pulled out Sorry for the kids to play with Robbie so he had a double game night!

Tuesday we started our Texas themed stories… After learning about exaggeration and touching on the saying Everything Is Bigger in Texas the story was all sorts of outrageous fun!

The boys are showing great strides in their reading… Pokemon cards have been a great incentive… after all there is A LOT of information on those cards to discover and the rule is they have to read them THEMSELVES!

The kids were just not feeling it. So we did have quite a bit of down  time. I hate how spring always seems to bring in those seasonal change colds!

Of course on Wednesday we had to take a time out to watch Daddy and Baba move the trailer in the yard. An interesting visual example on how some things turn widely!

I love how as  the bigger kids learn Echo is there soaking it in!

We snuck in another Wild Kratts. I finally had to take them all and put them in a binder… so many animals, so many amazing facts and hand drawn illustrations!

Wolves

I found a great craft on Activity Village for mother’s day = a template to make a flower where on each of the petals the kids write why they love their Mum. You can find this by searching Mother’s Day on the site (on right) and look under their designated craft section for that theme.

We finished up the day with dragging out the spring toys. So many bikes in a row!!!

It was back to worksheets and Texas learning the next day.

We also had a sheet for Mother’s Day to complete.

With a break for a magic trick – putting a pin through a balloon without popping it! (hint the trick utilizes TAPE) This was another of Emanuel’s Scout achievements.

We rounded out our week with a family trip to the mall on Saturday… Grandma and Grandpa Mike had sent Easter sandal money and we had 5 little sets of feet to cover. All of the kids except Zander got sandals. His sneakers were tight so we got him those. Amazingly we walked into Payless and walked out 15 min later (yup THAT SOON) having had our own personal shopper and a 20% off total purchase coupon.

Seriously we bought only one pair of shoes (Echo’s) that was not on sale in the first place and Zander’s Airwalks were on super clearance! There was enough left over for Mommy to treat herself to a little spending spree at H&M. Two new dresses and two new shirts and the total cost was under 40.00. (granted had to dip into my special stash of cash but a TINY dip!)

We also stopped in at Lakeshore and did the gambit of craft activities they had with Mother’s Day themes! A bit of a mad house but we managed to enjoy it and have EVERYONE involved. Even Echo got her glitter on.

Once we got home we noticed a neighbour down the road had a bunch of stuff at the curb for free… suddenly we had two VERY happy girls with a new trike and two new playsets (kitchen and vet) for our backyard structure.

We ended the day with all guys boardgames and it was time for bed.

Mother’s Day is Sunday and our life cannot get much more busy, fun or enriching. I am so pleased with May so far!!

June 17-18

I love it when a unit is done on time. The kids even sang their song to Ken on Father’s Day. Though with our issues of posting our vids on youTube that may be a belated post.

Anyway, Father’s Day is COMPLETED! And what an almost origami project of a lapbook. You can find our resource blog HERE.

Topped off with diploma

We are loving our single lapbooks for the family, they end up HUGE and full of cooperation and family learning!! We had some lovely penguin images come in the mail from Gammie… so of course we had to stop everything and paste them into our Penguin Lapbook. Oh and then look through it again… lions are our next animal by the way.

Perfect Penguin Pictures

There was one more book to read that tied into Father’s Day…

Daddy drew the front picture on this one!

And a beauty parlour to run.

Emanuel has the most patience on this one

Gavin had a book completion! His first picture journal DONE! Emanuel had to show off his sidewalk art elephant… And get his hands dirty with another dino dig day…

With a different help the next day

Miss Echo had a baby who needed some fresh air. We even squeezed in a family walk. Now Tuesday was a bit of a throw up in the air day with Sean having come for a relatively unexpected visit. That meant in the morning Ken and I had to head off and pick him up, stop in and see Bree (fancy coffee!), and go out for a nice lunch. The kids were over the moon!!

Jet lag

It was time to enjoy the sunshine… as infrequent as it has been.

Echo’s day as a biker chick!

AND the kids made a rather mature decision. They gave up a year of birthday presents from Nana and Baba for a rather extensive wooden playset NOW. That meant that Ken and Sean had to drag out the trailer and get the wood off and into the garage for sorting. So a completion AND a visitor. Quite the beginning of a week!

Pin wheels are a work in progress for Echo!