Sorry everyone I am not going to link the movies and books… I am rather sure it can all be googled and the Christmas season has me rushed! BUT! Roald Dahl… READ HIS BOOKS!

Roald Dahl’s birthday is celebrated on September 13th. He is best known for his books Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda which have been made into movies. We chose to start reading his books on the 13th of September and then go from there. We managed to find quite the selection of books to enjoy as a family:

• Matilda
• The Twits
• The BFG
• George’s Marvelous Medicine
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Charlie and the Glass Elevator
• James and the Giant Peach
• The Minpins

Our main resource for printables was Activity Village. Lots of colouring pages and even some fun worksheets for a nice portion of our books.

For a more in depth activity I also found this site HERE. They had classroom plans for portions of the different books. Some we skipped and some we leisurely enjoyed. This unit quickly went from a celebration of a birthday week to as long as we can find books to read.

For the kids, while they listened to my reading I had them doodle portions of the book. It was so much fun to see what they picked out as interesting. They all had a different method and style to their pages (though at times Trinity was SUPER resistant to doing a doodle).

There were multiple movies to watch beyond just the original first come to mind ones:

• Matilda
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
• The BFG
• James and the Giant Peach

I came up with some additional activities to go with our books and movies. For The BFG I had the kids write their very own dream labels, and then compare the book to the movie. For Charlie and the Chocolate Factory we did various levels of comparison depending on the ability of the kids – a movie review, comparing the book to the movie, comparing the movies. It was interesting to see who liked what. The same for Matilda. The realization that movies are not identical to books came very quickly to the kids!

Of course we had to do a short insect study for four of the insects included in James and the Giant Peach… We had ladybug, silkworm, glow worm and spider (we went with Black Widow) chosen out of the list (funny how there is no silkworm in the movie). I got some pretty good links:

• Ladybug had all our questions answered with National Geographic Kids HERE.
• I found the silkworm highly interesting. Did you know there are none in the wild and that we have domesticated them so much that the moth that results cannot fly??? EnchantedLearning HERE and Itchy Fish facts for kids HERE.
• Black Widow spider was our distinct spider of choice and we went again with National Geographic Kids HERE.
• Glow worm was a little rough, but we went with the Encyclopedia of New Zealand HERE and A-z Animals HERE.

Roald Dahl’s books are a blast for our whole family. I am so glad we decided to make them a family experience. Even Echo is in on the listen and has her minutes for the BookIt Pizza Hut reading club counted during the time. One of these days I will take pictures of the binder and share it in another post! We really did have fun with this author’s work. 

Want a peek at how Fat Sheep and company fared in Drumheller? She posted last night with some lovely images right here. It looks like a great time was had by all involved. Drumheller really is a scenic area! She has been quite the blogger these past weeks and we hope the trend will continue. There is lots to catch up on I am told as well as adventures yet to come.

I am still working to figure out what main points we want to cover this year… other than the stuff I don’t feel they have firmly covered… the list is woefully short as of today – dinosaurs, family and family members (then comparing to other families all over the world), astronomy (including all things space)… but then what? We do not have our handy Leisure Pass any more so that does limit us for trips to things like the zoo (but then again we are not in the same city as one any more either). I think my first order of business is to head to the library after the in-laws are gone so that we can get our card and do some sifting through books. Not to mention the plan I have to set up a sort of unofficial open playdate at the local branch for twice a month with the hopes of meeting some new families. I would love some more suggestions from any and all!

Today I figured I would keep the kids as busy as possible… so I printed off some fun sheets for them to work on. The twins did the more complicated dinosaur colour by numbers that used addition and subtraction. These can be found under dinosaurs in the EnchantedLearning site. Again the only site (so far) that I pay a subscription for. Everything I printed off for Emanuel today was off of my new gem – education.com, from the workbooks section kindergarten level. 

Emanuel and some finished work... he did that green page solo pretty much by singing the ABC song and working it out!

We are, of course, back to our workbooks. Gavin is once again focused and ready to finish his grade 1 math book… enough that I had to basically pry him away from it for a break with his sight word book before we BOTH got frustrated. I am glad they are so willing to get back to work though. Emanuel especially was right in there trying his best.

Hard at work

Don’t forget our VBS themed poster… Pandas are tricky things to draw I am told by Emanuel. First the kids made up a bunch of pandas, then we worked on some of the things they remember learning in VBS. I am rather proud of everything they remembered. We only found one of their take home sheets had a slogan we missed! Not bad! And there is room for MORE pandas if they want.

The boys and their poster

A few more ads up on Kijiji. Make sure you check them out if you are local to me! I am downsizing some of our books… our reading tastes have changed AND the space is needed for newer volumes. In the case of some of Ken’s that are not yet up – he has gone over to digital. BUT I figure whatever I can get for them can go to new things… the kids are always needing SOMETHING! And Kijiji came to the rescue with one of the twins anyway. 2.00 for a pair of rainboots. Now we just need to get size 11’s for Gavin and we are set for the fall! 

Only 2.00!

I have found a new British mystery series to watch on Netflix… Campion. I would totally recommend it if you are interested in such shows as Nero Wolf or Poirot… the acting is great and there is a lovely bit of comedy. Very British. Each episode on Netflix is actually two parts. Oh and did I mention the main actor was the 5th Doctor on Doctor Who?

I am still taking minutes here and there to work on the stocking. I would LOVE to have it all done – stitching wise – by the end of this month. There is still a thank you gift to do up, and some other minor things on the list but this is the big one for the year really!

To date

And now it is time to get back to said stitching, as well as some cookies dough making, cleaning and Kijiji ad creating… enough with the blogging, on with the real work! 

Smile!

We are basically back to normal here in the Reinsch-Johnson home… well as normal as we get! We are right back into the little organized schooling we do do in the summer – mainly math and sight word work… oh and our illustrations with a couple sentence description for the Summer Folder. It feels good to sit down with the twins at the table and work one on one once again. Zander is finally starting to really grasp some of the more complex (at least more complex than addition and subtraction) mathematical concepts… and Gavin is going hard on his sight word books.

Working together all 3 of us, Zander on math, Gavin sight words and yours truly checking on the new educational website

I have drug out my book What Your 1st Grader Needs to Know to sift through and see how far we have gotten. I need to source out a copy for the 2nd grader level but I do like to have this as a basic (very basic) reference to give me some guidelines as I go along. So far my goals for early in the year are to cover fractions in detail… focus on the months of the year (we have the days pretty well covered) and of course time. Beyond that I want to get the boys through VBS, the wedding, Echo’s birthday party and Nana and Baba visit before we go absolutely gungho on the studying. August is going to be a whirlwind month for this family!

Ken was not able to pick up some of the items we need in the city due to long lines at the dump and a need to take time out half way through the day to do some necessary online work (have to love the ability to take his work with him as long as he can find an internet connection). So we still do NOT have the grade 2 level math books… Gavin is not impressed, though he has yet to complete the grade 1 book. He loves to have things lined up in front of him. I absolutely love the books we bought for the year – they are Canadian based and cover pretty much everything in a way that the boys find very accessible. It is the Complete MathSmart and we were able to purchase them for under 20.00 a piece!

Love this one, Gavin is ALMOST done the whole thing...

I don’t know if I have mentioned it but Emanuel has made up his own little activity to accomplish using a piece of green construction paper, a crayon and the ABC magnets. He likes to sit down, sing the alphabet song until he gets to the letter he needs to write, he then finds the appropriate magnet and sets it down to copy it. He made it to G before I knew he was even doing it as he had chosen to do it at the blue table while I was working with the twins at the kitchen table. He is a very independent learner unlike his brothers who prefer hands on one on one time. It amazes me how different our boys (and girls) really are. 

Emanuel and his ABC page... so proud of his initiative!

I was contacted today by someone connected to a free educational resource site who had come across this blog. So of course I had to run and check it out! I am very glad I did. As always I suggest a membership to EnchantedLearning BUT here is another resource to check out for people who like to have printables… the site is called Education.com. Here is the actual worksheet link. I will be adding the link to the main site to my links on the blog! 

We had the neighbour boy come over today – unannounced as per usual… and of course arguments, rule breaking, etc ensued. I let it go as long as I could but when he went home and brought back a tennis ball and nerf bat and proceeded to hit the ball OUT of the yard and onto the house I stepped in. And when they wouldn’t STOP playing baseball in our little yard with arguing I called time. I am sure he is a nice boy but for some reason when he is here… it just doesn’t work. Then add to that Emanuel and Gavin having a run in on the way in the door ending with Gavin hurting his knee and I was mentally planning supper and maybe a summer movie before bed. 

A moment of calm at least... note the little chair Trinity is sitting on - Grandma brought it when she came to get Jimmie!

I am determined to have a crafty night… bows, stocking, tutu dress… maybe some scrapbooking. Wedding, Birthday and Christmas all in one night! With some random special event thrown in by the scrapbooking. For some reason that makes me VERY happy! And after the LAN party (LOCAL AREA NETWORK in case people were wondering… I had it pointed out to me that I had never explained that!!) I will make sure my crafting area is photo ready so I can take a picture and show everyone!

Just a bit of black there

I have a new decoration idea for the kids’ room I will share with everyone tomorrow… the twins just have something they have to do first before we can finish up. I still haven’t found the box of photos to go on the walls BUT an idea has been born to help the twins feel like their room is more decorated! 

The boys working on Emanuel's decoration

I really hope I can get some more crafty ideas going… I think I want to make Trinity a wand for Christmas… she is REALLY into them.. I just need to figure out what to make the stick part out of… my dowels here in the house are too short really!

Our resident butterfly and her half dressed sister (you can't see it but the little shorts say CRABBY)

Bitty baby