November 15-16

Time for Thursday’s gratitude:

Trinity: for beaches

Emanuel: Thanksgiving

Gavin: going on trips with Mommy and Daddy

Zander: books

Sadly while Trinity was THANKFUL she was NOT in a good mood. I seriously did not realize one little girl can have such HUGE bad moods. She did perk up a little when asked to do her daily feather on the Gratitude Turkey though!

My girls

We had a special early afternoon with Ken clearing a block of time to allow us to run out to JoAnn’s and Dollar Tree. I am still a wee bit sad about the real LACK of a decent dollar store around here. Thankfully I WAS able to get a couple small (one inch) binders and some glitter glue… I am going to have to comparison shop for other supplies, and clip coupons. But I splurged on a pair of winter themed knee socks for a dollar! Oh and got the much needed white and black yarn to continue my Christmas crafting (and promptly FORGOT to grab the fill I need for my teapot… thank goodness there are other projects ALWAYS on the go).

The twins finally got the chance to cash in their Pizza Hut pizza coupons for the reading they did in the month of October! I have never seen them so proud of themselves! AND Trinity and Emanuel are up to their 25 days of work work work so this weekend they get another ice cream outing with Daddy! They make me so proud. Did I mention Emanuel and I are working on simple words. He is not memorizing them but learning to put his letter sounds together and practicing his printing skills… words like mom, dad, up, me, cat, dog… I love seeing his eyes light up when he gets one right!

Pizza!

Gavin got some time to sit down with a new set of instructions from Art for Kids — a silly cow! I love that he did a WHOLE picture and mean the WHOLE page! Very colourful and creative!

Well done!

Friday was a bit off kilter with Ken having a very important interview and all the grown ups’ nerves that go with that. BUT we still had time to be thankful!

Trinity: kitties

Emanuel: computers

Gavin: having food to eat

Zander: having boardgames

There’s our turkey!

And I am thankful that my boys are catching on with their spelling… Gavin got 100% on his spelling test today!!

So proud

We had less success with Zander who has opted to take the weekend to practice his words. BUT Emanuel did do up a wonderful Dinosaur Train related picture for his Friday fun with dinosaurs. Ken found some episodes and he and Trinity and Echo watched them on the laptop. Apparently, did you know that dinosaurs with plates used those to help keep warm???

Quite the fancy train

We started our next book for review BUT it is more of a chapter deal so the twins and I are reading it over the weekend. We will be sure to share our thoughts and opinions! Of course before we get to that though… Echo wore an outfit that her Grandma gave her way back when so I HAD TO take pictures! 

Miss E

And of course we have MORE art to share!

Miss Trinity’s art

And our Judy Moody front page, the boys did an AMAZING careful cutting job!

I just love this page 🙂

November 11-12

Remember Remember the 11th of November… Thank you to all service men past, present and future who make our WORLD a safer place. Though we may not understand motives, causes or reasons behind things, these wonderful and GIVING individuals give their ALL to keep our world safe and secure for ourselves and our children… Lives have been lost for causes great and small and it is those lives that we remember. Thank you!

And on that note – our thankful children for the day:

Trinity: my friends

Emanuel: the city

Gavin: having my mom and dad give me money to buy toys (is that a veiled hint??)

Zander: having people to play with

And apparently, today Echo is thankful for her Colour Wonder paper and time to colour with her sister.

Colouring together

Works of Art!

We did our moment of silence the day before as the morning went as I figured – Echo on a noise making rampage! I am so glad we took time yesterday to really try and grasp the concept of war and Remembrance of the men and women who sacrificed so much for us. We are careful to ensure that they understand it is not one or the other country’s army that is important but that the WORLD has people who fight to keep us all safe. After all these children are not one or they other. They are both Canadian AND American.

Our Canadian American 🙂 one of 5

Monday was a semi holiday for different people so I made the executive decision to go lighter on the kids… but of course we must first be thankful:

Zander: for ice cream

Gavin: for doing crafts with my Mom and Dad

Emanuel: the earth

Trinity: my Chococat

It was Zander’s turn to do the Gratitude turkey. Everyone gets REALLY excited when it is time to put another feather on.

Hello turkey

Today’s dinosaur was most definitely NOT a dinosaur… Due to the finding of an almost intact skeleton of a Woolly Mammoth in France of all places (such finds including fully frozen specimens are much more common in Siberia!) I just had to cover this amazing creature. You can find the article that brought this to our attention HERE. Thank you friend on Facebook. Zander joined us on our Woolly Mammoth investigation.

We finally got int the time to finish reading our Judy Moody book. And do the last of our Me Collage, colour some spiffy bandaids and of course get our fan club sheets! I have a folder that everything is going to go in. On Tuesday Zander and Gavin will glue the pictures we saved from the teacher print out to our front page! We used the Toys’r’Us Christmas flyer to cut out some favourite things and of course dug into the sticker box!

Certificates

Collages

Decorated Bandaids

Echo has been crazy busy with her crayons and papers. She comes over every so often and has me write her name over and over all over her picture! Such a proud little artist!

Echo’s Art

And we had ANOTHER set of instructions from Art for Kids! This time to make a snowman. I am  told that the nose placement on Gavin’s is all  the rage… at least that is where it looks COOL! We still have not had enough snow to make are real one. Which is just fine with me!

A bit Picasso?

Oh and don’t forget our poem practice!!

So cute!

Our week began rather well, I think! We are certainly finding things to learn about and keep ourselves busy. There are definitely days that I just wish I had another hour or two (thus probably why I keep accidentally staying up too late!).

I just can’t get over how grown up she looks at such a tiny size

October 15-16

Monday was a GOOD day, education wise. We had a teacher helper today – Ken cleared his schedule up to help out and watch how we do things. It was nice to have another adult to field questions. That is one thing I struggle with with the boys – the idea of needing to wait for your turn, the rule of putting their hands up and waiting their turn is a  tough one. 

Emanuel with his supervisor

We had lots to accomplish though… Emanuel had his dinosaur as usual… Trinity her workbooks… And then we went onto the fun stuff. After a Sunday of learning we HAD TO get going on the journals, the process of the apple cider making AND the best thing of the day. Of course we had to sit down and work on those Zombies for Cousin David. Gavin and Zander are becoming pros with the terrific instructions Art for Kids has up on their site. Definitely bookmark them!!

Cousin David’s Zombies

The 3 boys got to recite their newest fall poem for you all to enjoy! A Little Elf which can be found HERE with a whole list of fall poems! 

We had TWO crafts for the day. Our first was a repeat of Sunday’s leaf rubbing. The boys went out into the yard and grabbed leaves from our yard. These pictures are going to be mailed back up north to friends and family. 

On its way to Aunty Xinny

Note Aunty Karyn in the scene

The other craft is from Activity Village… spidery fingerprints. You can find the instructions HERE. A definite repeat for our family. I managed to get the ink pad from Jo-Ann’s with a terrific coupon AND it is washable off the fingers. We used baby wipes and had zero problems and great results on the paper.  

Dirty fingers!

Completed bugs

Tuesday was a bit of a lax day as yours truly was unaccountably wiped out. BUT we rallied after a brief period of Lego/iPad fun while Mommy napped. Echo has FINALLY figured out the sit and spin. 

Spin baby spin

We have decided to get a move on on the Halloween decorations… so today was a garland made out of pumpkins and bats. The twins traced and cut out the template shapes and everyone pitched in on the feature creating. I opted to snip the feet off our bat template to make the cutting out a little easier. You can find templates etc. HEREon the UK site.

Twins stapling while the littles sort out the pattern

So proud!

Our corner

I had the kids help me on a book review that was posted HERE on our site. It was our first kids’ book and it was seasonal! We really enjoyed Into the Pumpkin by Linda Franklin. It was fun to ask them what they thought and then simply write it out to share! I have a few more books  to do this for, all advanced copies so I am sure there will be more posts to share. 

We read more of Judy Moody, the book is one huge giggle for the kids and they are constantly brain storming for their me collages that they are working on.We have taken the angle of the joy of listening to a story and reading with the family over a lapbook intensive unit with this one. Next week we will take a break in our Judy Moody story to listen to our HALLOWEEN themed book! 

Add in a finish by Gavin of his review reading book (so much progress!).

All done!

And we are feeling like things are progressing! 

Looking forward!