September 8-12

Our Canadian guests have come and gone as has much of the summer. So our first company free Monday of September was officially our beginning to a whole new year of schooling. Quite the move up… this is actually the ONLY time we state our grade for the year. Otherwise it is a constant working towards progress. So here is how we start up: the twins are grade 4 and 10, Emanuel 2 and 8, Trinity 1 and 6 and Miss Echo… pre school rambunctious. All posters were decorated by those holding them.

This is the beginning of our trays and binders system. We shall see how it pans out. It is hard to keep tabs on all the papers each child uses.

We had our special lunches in our lunch boxes. The other 4 already had one from last year but Miss Echo got her very own brand new HELLO KITTY lunch box for herself. She was so proud!

We did a special craft for the day – using Sharpie markers to create stained glass style pictures using photo printer paper. Very simple an a lot of fun. We got a bunch of the photo paper a year ago when purchasing toner refills that were saved and never used.

We had a special visit on our week of the new year… Renee brought the boys over for an afternoon visit. Who doesn’t love a gaming and baby break?

Echo and I had fun doing sticker craft… a little early on the winter season stickers but they were what we had on hand. We are trying out different ways to keep her occupied. Daily to do boxes have not worked… she buzzes through them too quickly. But stickers, if only we could keep enough on hand, seem to work a treat. She did these without any assistance whatsoever.

One thing we did keep from the previous year was the clipboard with our daily tally on what we did and completed. I got the print out from the Back to School section on Activity Village (link on right).

We played magnets…

Dressed up for pretend fun…

Created art for our pen pals (of which we have a few new ones!!)… I think we are all looking forward to getting to know our new long distance friends.

We made a new wreath of our handprints to hang up. Those twins are getting quite the reach!

We got some amazing scarves from Gammie in the mail for the girls to model.

Made a few garage finds…

And finally picked up stuff for the new year of Scouts! Where has the time gone? And that is a quick overview of our first week of the new 2014-2015 year!

January 23-30

And now we get into the end of the month. The FIRST month of 2014… And the final countdown to finalizing our decision to stop with 5 kids. I can honestly say that I feel no regrets, sending Ken to the doctor on the 24th for the in office procedure (I will spare you the picture he took of it). If we do feel the need in the future for more children there are those already in existence that need us more. Having the procedure on the Friday did mean an at home weekend. Not that the kids complained as it culminated in the cousins coming to visit as well!

But first the Thursday (23rd)… I decided that since this year we weren’t going to make our own fortune cookies that we could still make our own fortunes! Jumbo fortunes. Even Echo made her own (translated loosely by myself).

I went out with Ken to an appointment and stopped at a more local small Asian market where I lucked out with super affordable red envelopes and lucky candy for our Chinese New Year celebration. The kids and I are rather excited about our celebration. We even sent off envelopes for the den Otter 3.

We had a half day on the Friday.

With some time squeezed in with Daddy learning more about magnets. These kits from Christmas are REALLY coming in handy! We used the last of the kids’ Christmas money to pick up some strong magnets at Lakeshore which has made them even more excited about it. (and had us sit them down and discuss where we do NOT put these magnets – laptops, electronics, Daddy’s computer!!!!)

Nana went and collected the cousins before she headed off with Daddy to the doctor. It has become a family tradition here… she also took Ken’s brother for his. It went smoothly and they were home before we knew it… though then Ken headed right to bed to sleep off the medicine, stress and hopefully through the first of the pain.

The weekend was quiet… with lots of potty attempts. We are still rather hit or miss and I sense a long road ahead with this one.

Saturday was a whole day of cousin time.

Sunday was the beginning of what we now see as Echo’s “Helping” phase, which often is not so helpful!

We skipped Sunday School so that the kids could spend the time with their cousins before they had to head home. Emanuel and Daddy took a few minutes to finish a Scout task. They had to figure out where to go when there is a fire.

And then on Monday it was back to school and Chinese New Year as usual. This time with some panda learning. You simply cannot learn all about China and such without touching on one of our favourite animals!

On Tuesday the kids finally sat down and worked on their rubberband loom. So many pretty (though still very basic) bracelets. Enough to add some to the package to the den Otters and give some to me! I need to take some time and try this thing out for myself! We do not have the rainbow brand version that is one you can change the set up on, but if it catches on with the kids it will go on the list for the next holiday!

We had a minor but consistent argument about electronics that night, so I called an hour of no batteries and pulled out games and toys… we started with dominoes, first the traditional line them up and knock them down with moderate success.

And then doing a matching version. I think I played MOST of the rules right with the kids, but we had fun regardless.

And then onto the I Spy game with a BELL! That was noisy and crazy and totally enthralling to all.  Operation back to the basic fun — SUCCESS!

Mid week and we are back to the books. Education.com and Activity Village have been amazing resources for us! Though remember, now with Education.com you only get TEN worksheets free a month.

The twins headed outside to add to Nana’s ice garden. Simple water, food colouring and cold weather… we freeze ours out in the sunroom.

Miss Trinity and Miss Echo have been learning together lately. Big sister must impart that wisdom on her little disciple. Everything from school stuff to online gaming!

And to top it off… Emanuel had his first extra field trip for Cub Scouts — to the police/fire station! Baba took him as Ken got stuck at a dental consult. But Darcy shared pictures with me and I was told by himself and Darcy that it was SOOO much fun!

And with that we are left with ONE day of January to see through and the start of Chinese New Year – year of the horse!! What a whirlwind month!

January 6-10

The weather has gone cold cold cold… so cold in fact, that it has been declared ARCTIC! SO of course we had to try the boiling water thrown into the freezing air. Yes, instant steam and an impressive sound to boot. Ken was the adventurous one who ventured outside to do so. We also did up New Year’s Resolutions and pictures of some of our favourite Christmas moments in our journals. We did ATTEMPT a balloon left out in the cold but we did not see a dramatic change in its shape sadly. It was worth a try. The kids and I did an afternoon movie in bed – BRAVE! It was fun to snuggle and hang out together in our own little world. The twins also did another Christmas related drawing from Art for Kids. Seriously, click on their link on the right and enjoy the free art lessons! The next day we started storytime up again. I am determined to keep us reading. We lucked out over Christmas and ended up growing our book collection and of course there are always random stops at the library to find some seasonal gems. And lately, our day is never complete without a fairy! With all this cold weather we decided it was time to take on our next Little Passports country – Mexico! I did order some extra books from the library:

• Mexico in Pictures by Janice Hamilton
• Mexico by R. Conrad Stein
• Christmas Traditions Around the World by Ann Ingalls
• Countries of the World: Mexico by Beth Gruber

And of course we used Activity Village (search under Mexico) for some print outs.  We found this great Animal Planet show – Treehouse Masters. After watching a few episodes the boys decided to create some joint masterpieces of their own using their imaginations and Gavin’s art book.  On Wednesday Trinity figured she would come up with some dreams for 2014 and did an amazing job colouring the page up afterwards. In fact, everyone did some winter or New Year’s themed papers. All printed out from Activity Village (link on right). Emanuel and I took on reading about dinosaurs from a Christmas present. I have sorted through all the books I could in the house and have put everything dinosaur into a box. I am hoping we can vary up our dinosaur learning. Of course I still have backlog to share once I get off my bum and link everything up and all that fun stuff. Emanuel’s love of dinosaurs has not faltered. We are just reaching the end of our easily researched dinosaurs. Time to get more creative!  We had more storytime and more treehouses. Both Wednesday and Thursday. As well as a closer look at the amazing microscope bought with Christmas money. I cannot wait until summer when it is easier to get specimens for slides! Ken and the kids took on one of their new science kits and cracked open the magnet box.  We also got a good start on Chinese New Year. This year we are making a poster with our findings again. Lots of books and online hunting. This is one of the kids’ favourite celebrations. And this year it is the year of the horse.  With cousins coming Friday afternoon we rounded off our school week with the creating of our own ice rink. A really simple craft you can find HERE. We also made our own little critters out of magic clay and spent some time discussing how they would skate together and play.  Treehouses of our imagination… magnets… Chinese New Year… add in some interesting government stuff to accomplish – American passports, Social Security numbers and various medical appointments for Ken and we are keeping our 2014 active and exciting!!! 

And we keep on reading!