October 17-18

This longer fall is still an adjustment for us. Where is the snow??? So we started our newest group project… this one a fall tree. Each of the kids got their own 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of white paper and some leaves to rub. Ken myself are doing our part by creating the trunk to assemble our branches and leaves on! 

Of course Emanuel had his dinosaur and the kids their book work. We had a slightly less enthusiastic spelling test with Zander getting 2 wrong. He focused on two words and didn’t pay attention to the sound the y makes in boy and by. BUT we are still happy to see he is reading the words that he has tested on later successfully and is proud of the words he IS getting right!

We had a few errands to run, our tulle stash was short a black… and we needed  to scope out the costume options at Target for the twins… and buy our trick or treating pumpkins. A dollar a piece and LOTS of options! 

Pumpkins!

I also had the twins decorate the poem sheet for Monday’s recitation… Their very own Elf up in a tree. I think they did a great job with the picture. Zander and Gavin worked together on it!

Great art

We have returned to Minnesota with a wonderful library book. Minnesota by Amy Van Zee. We are taking a lot of our larger books and more information packed ones step by step lately. Today we talked about the shape of the state and focused on the fact that there are over 10’000 lakes. I am hoping if we keep trying to come at the information about our new home from different formats and angles we will eventually get it to stick.

Ken and the kids finished up the day with Lego time! His special Legos!

LEGOS

We finished our special family tree on Thursday complete with a cat (Trinity), bat (Emanuel), pumpkins (Zander) and a squirrel with his nut (Gavin). Echo contributed her own leaf picture (at least we ASSUME it is an abstract representation on how leaves make her FEEL). 

Leaf assembly

Complete!

We started our Halloween themed poem memorization as well. A little more complicated as there are words like goblin in it which they are not used to using. I am so proud of Emanuel for standing with with the big boys and learning along with them.

As it was a day that started with the letter T we had our Minecraft day for the boys as well. The agreement is that they get Minecraft time and then draw a picture of progress or a favourite thing done and write about it in their journals. I am hoping to get them thinking more about processes, progress and other problem solving type things. 

Spontaneous mask creation via Zander

We had another art completion as well – Art for Kids is awesome. This time a junior Frankenstein! 

So well done!

We have had a bit of progress with Gavin’s cross stitch. He is thinking of gifting it to Daddy for his birthday on the 23rd but the big question is whether or not it will get DONE in time. I am hoping we can get it done. A completion is always a boost to the confidence and he has already picked out his next project! So with spontaneous crafts, continuing with the “master plan” and finding learning in unexpected places I am starting to feel like our feet are getting under us once again! 

Yah baby!

October 1-2

Mondays are always a bit of a minor struggle… after all we have been PACKING our weekends full of fun. And with the friends in school and the job hunt on weekdays we feel our difference between weekends and weekdays more than ever. So we hit the ground running, right into spelling, book work and colouring. Echo is especially interested in having her own page or colouring book while everyone else is working.

Baby at work

Of course we had the difficult dinosaur NODOSAURUS… with an under the weather Emanuel (I will have those links etc on another post), and Trinity had her usual book. However, Trinity was over the moon with the chance to work on one of the new workbooks Gammie sent us. She sat down and traced the patterns with great gusto. I love it when she gets motivated.

Ready to go

We officially started our Pizza Hut sponsored reading program with a colouring sheet and a book each. We lucked out, one of the set of pictures uses a family favourite – the ring-tailed lemur. Even Echo had a picture to colour. 

All 5 with their pictures

The boys are working on their personal projects, Gavin in his cross stitching and Zander colouring in the new books. With a new box of craft supplies from a friend of a friend on Facebook I am hoping to get them both into some new art projects! I am very happy to have new supplies to add to our slowly growing supply. Of course as part of a thank you we HAVE TO make a card… and then there is the letters and thank you pictures for Gammie… we have had a slow down on our pen pal responses so I am thinking we will send out some letters to some of our families to kick start in case  of missing mail!

So thankful

Tuesday was an at home day as well… we covered the basics – spelling, reading (gotta get those books in to get pizzas), a little math for one, some colouring for another… all in all we were WAY productive. Our new favourite art site added ANOTHER how to… so of course all work stopped so Gavin could make his attempt at drawing a bat according to the (once again) amazing instructions!

Bat with an original ghost

Surprisingly ZANDER then wanted to have a go!!! And with his lower concentration it was HUGE that he could follow through and really create with success… what a confidence booster! And then to top it off… Gavin created his own step by step instructions to draw a cow!

Step by step cow

Then to fill the time we decided to get creative on a smaller scale… black construction paper and white crayons! Spoooooky pictures for fall and Halloween! Even Echo sat down and had a go!

Zander and littles

Echo’s

We actually had a series of Gavin creativity during the beginning of the week… there was his AMAZING chalk creation with a dragon…

Amazing chalk image

His leafy creation… using nothing but the stems of the leaves to hold it all  together…

Leaves

And his outdoor table for Trinity…

Table for 2?

With Emanuel just LOVING the dinos and Trinity diving head first into the new workbook that just leaves a passion for Zander…

Creativity

Sunday was another at home day… with  company once again. This time Joe, Gabriella and Zachary. They were so glad to see Nana and Baba again as well as their cousins. So it was run run run for the kids and a nice visit with his brother for Ken.

Outside

And inside fun

I managed to sneak off with Bree to do some shopping, have some Dairy Queen and generally do girly things. I found Hello Kitty stuff for a quarter marked down at Michaels (well on clearance that is, pencils and the like), stopped in at Bath and Body Works to get some hand sanitizers (5 for 5.00 and not sealed the same way they are in Canada). Sat and chatted for hours… it was TERRIFIC!

Monday was back to the grind stone. Back to schooling, and sorting out future classes. In the mail I received the coupons for Pizza Hut and the information for a reading program we are starting in October. I have printed out most of the printables we need to get going with and will be sorting out books to start. I may have to do some used bookstore and thrift store hunting for leveled readers… or raid the library! You can find out about the program HERE. 

Gotta find lots of different ways to motivate! (Zander teaching Echo colouring skills)

Trinity and Emanuel did their craft project for the book Hungry Caterpillar. You can find our caterpillar project HERE. I really enjoyed this one – it covered colouring, scissor skills, creativity, gluing and of course… binder clips! 

Colouring the print out

Cutting

Caterpillar AND food

Gavin is back to work on his cross stitching again and boy does that make me HAPPY. He is determined to finish his mouse joke card and then start another one. I am so glad that one of the kids is ready to stick it out with what is one of my absolute FAVOURITE crafting activities. (sorry crochet you are getting up to second and beating out duct tape but I must stay true to my first love!). 

My crochet IS coming along though!

So Tuesday went a bit off kilter with Ken pulling an all nighter coding and myself having a lovely mishap with my head connecting with the edge of our bedroom door while cleaning (thus loosing half the day to a nap and Tylenol). I am not sure the kids were too upset as they got to play more time outside. BUT we did have the time for our basics and the boys to work on their Minnesota folder, which is now decidedly ONGOING.

Tuesday NIGHT, however, was fun fun fun! After seeing Nana and Baba off to a movie we got supper ready (spaghetti and garlic toast) and awaited our guests – Shandai and her boyfriend Skot! They brought knitting supplies and board/cardgames. So after supper we stitched and  gamed it up! It was a total blast and I look forward to doing it again! Add another couple to couples to game with!

Gaming with friends always rocks!

So as days never seem to go the way we want we still had Emanuel learning on the computer…

Working on the PBSKids.org site

Trinity with the learning apps on the iPad… And Zander and Gavin spending learning time with Ken. Which was a total  treat! 

Thanks to Baba and Nana taking some time with Echo

The great adventure for tomorrow – hunting down a pie pumpkin for homemade pumpkin pie!! Wish us luck!! 

Can you believe this top was mine when I was tiny!