Sometimes you have to reorder your day for something as important as snow in April… the boys caught me before I even made my way out of my bed and asked if they could do outside fun first, school second… Since it is FRIDAY and I had a half day planned anyway (well half day for us… still at least 3 hours of concentrated schoolwork) I told them to go for it. Of course that meant an afternoon of MINECRAFT!
Since it was a no new dinosaur day we did a multiple dinosaur colouring page which has lead us to the next dinosaur (Monday) the Scelidosaurus. I have yet to research this particular dinosaur, but with Emanuel’s track record it will be a toughy!
Pointing to dinosaur of choice
Zander reminded me of Dirty Jobs (a favourite show for our family)… and in doing an episode search found the one about Penguins that I remembered watching ages ago. You can either purchase it off Amazon or watch it for free if you have Prime HERE.
We had TWO videos in regards to the Dodo who was mentioned in the day’s Mr. Popper’s Penguins chapter…
And a museum short from Manchester
The dodo is so interesting regarding what we DON’T know about it… basically everything, even though it was found and destroyed during a time of “enlightenment”.
The dodo
We gave our practice chipsticks a trial run! I am so proud of Emanuel and how determined he is to learn to use these. He has even inspired Trinity!
Two intrepid learners
Oh and don’t forget time with their grandparents!!! Not a bad ending to the week!
NOTE this is being posted on the 15th and I just want to send out a prayer to all those involved in the bombings in Boston. The world we live in is such an amazing and at times scary place…
April 9-11
Some days are special days and some days we MAKE special… today after a successful (with only a few glitches) morning I put the girls to nap and let the boys Minecraft it up with minimum fuss for once!
Working together
Of course first we had to learn all about penguins… our second book for the day was National Geographic Science Readers: Penguins by Anne Schreiber. Penguins really are one of the most interesting birds. And today we found out WHY they are black on their backs (to hide them from predators from above) and white on their stomachs (to make them hard to spot when fishing!).
Our informational brochure type thing
We had a video covering the career and death of Captain Cook… apparently there is no clear answer as to WHY he was murdered… killed… whatever… Thanks to Crash Course World History. A little over their heads but enjoyable all the same.
Gavin and Emanuel assembled an ice box off of our Mr. Popper’s Penguins lapbook.
It is hard to see but Emanuel made the penguin (he is pro) and Gavin cut out the ice cubes.
We also had a phone call from Grandma on her trip down Route 66… assembly line phone call!
Pass that phone!
And since apparently winter is not willing to let go… we had snow themed pages in our brand new nature journals.
Back to snow
For some unknown reason this is the window of choice!
The middle of the week was definitely not a sunny spring day… however that did not stop us from learning even more about penguins. This time we made clay ones to go into our tiny refrigerator with the clay food.
Penguins on parade
We had a fun second story in the form of the book Little Penguin The Emperor of Antartica by Jonathon London. This time instead of reflecting on the story itself the 3 boys worked together to create their own little story.
Penguin Book
We made fingerprint pneguins…
CUTE!!
Then the boys snuck off on me to do Lincoln Logs…
A little city…
With our Mr. Popper’s Penguins the boys re-enacted a phone call in our chapter… too cute!
hilarious
The boys went and played with the neighbours. In the process of learning the proper catch and throwing techniques Gavin’s cheek got in the way! He was just fine about it though.
Ouch
Thursday marked a rather massive amount of spring snow… so of course the twins had to go out and play in it for a while.
Super sticky snow
Our second book of the day was by an author we really enjoy – Antoinette Portis (Not a Box) called A Penguin Story. This time the 3 boys (Trinity refused) drew their own adorable penguins and we stapled that together to be a mini book.
Adorable penguins
Here is how our weather ENDED on these 3 says of SPRING…
Seriously???
We did a Wild Kratts that was appropriate for our theme if only because these are animals that are MISTAKENLY showed with Penguins – Polar Bears and the Walrus are NORTH Pole critters… the Penguins SOUTH of the equator!
Such art!
So our 3 days have been filled with Penguin learning and snow… I think the kids don’t believe me that it is spring anymore!!!
Sometimes there really isn’t too much you can do to help family… but Sunday we managed to do our part. Anthony is still in hospital which has Darcy there as well… and while he is better he is not yet ready to be home. So that left Andy and the remaining 3 “A’s” home alone. With a request only Ken could fill we met up with them on Sunday at BestBuy to pick up a necessary piece of equipment for our lonely sickee. We picked up our birthday present for him as well, his very own Minecraft subscription. We were going to wait until his party but as plan have stalled (of course) we figured why not now?
So with 8 kids and 3 adults (two of which were not only male but busy talking electronics), I was VERY thankful for the test electronics available for the kids to bang around on (gently of course).
8 kids at BestBuy – Not bad!
Right to the Apple products
And computers too
Where the menfolk were the whole time
After that we went over to the Novak’s to set up the specs on the new machine… Echo was rather put out not to find her Nee Nee or Darcy there!
Setting things right
Then onto our original plan of spending Easter money!
So much fun shopping with the kids
Of course one Skylander came home as well
Monday was back to our schooling… with the good news that Anthony was heading home as well!
We had our Mr. Popper’s penguin chapter… I am loving this lapbook we found to go with it though I have found some minor errors. I found a site with some penguin crafts… Crafty-Crafted. We chose the Paper Loop Penguin.
And then to round off our day after penguins, reading, spelling and more… Wild Kratts!
The Spider Monkey
Not the busiest of Mondays but when I look back at the stack we are creating for our penguin lapbook I feel like we are really learning something new. 17 types of penguins later and so far the Macaroni penguin is the favourite — just due to the name really. There are murmurings of wanting to learn about PANDAs next… maybe!
