February 13-18

Slow but steady, our family motto when it comes to all things is – if you start it you FINISH it! So Thursday the 13th we got right to work on our RED poster for our Chinese New Year unit. I think we did a rather good job on our assembly and quickly realized that this is a poster AND a binder unit! Sometimes we are caught off guard as to how much we really do as 5 kids all working on portions of a unit.

For our Olympics unit we printed off snowboard templates and each of the kids designed their own. We talked about how some will have slogans, labels for selling things, images they like and enjoy seeing and then used their imagination and got to work. This was found on Activity Village under their snowboarding section HERE.

Further proof that Art for Kids drawings are amazing – Miss Trinity was well pleased with her results drawing her own snowboarder. She had to do a second for Echo. I just love how accessible he makes more complicated drawings for kids (link on right) and adults !!

Emanuel made us what he told me was a Chinese style building out of Echo’s wooden blocks… quite nice! She liked it.

We have been working on our Valentines Day themed worksheets. They are really helping the confidence with numbers and colour words!

We also set up a table so the kids could take a week or two and just bead up a storm! Perler beads are simply a family favourite!

Friday, of course, was Valentines Day! And so we had our cards and such to exchange. Ken and the kids had TWO cards for me and a bag of cookies and cream kisses! How spoiled am I?

I made Ken his very own crocheted Kiss… you can find the pattern itself HERE. This site does not allow for sale of completed projects but has a lovely list of free patterns to make of different kinds of food.

Of course we dressed up in red and pink and white to match the theme.

We spent our morning on puzzles and games. Lots of team spirit!

Lunch was full of pink and white and red… we had waffles with whipped cream and strawberries, red jello with whipped cream, pink juice and heart shaped cookies. Add in some suckers and hugs and the kids were over the moon with the variety of snacks.

Our centerpiece!

In the afternoon the kids got white t shirts and fabric markers and made themselves up some fancy t shirts. No theme on those just what they wanted to make but they had a blast working on them.

Supper was the kids’ Pizza Hut reading coupons! I am so proud of the effort they all make to work on their reading! 

We had a VERY quiet Saturday… mainly due to my getting sick. Mommy is ALWAYS the last to get sick… and by then the germs have mutated.

That did not stop the kids from going to Sunday School on Sunday and then heading out into the backyard and all the snow we have out there to enjoy. Yours truly went to nap. I have not been so ill in a very long time. I think I lost days to sleep if you count up all the hours I napped and or slept in.

I went for a bath in the early afternoon to try and clear out my sinuses and came out to my whole family cleaning up the boot room! What sweeties! They all worked so well together!

The evening ended with a Skype visit with Nana and Baba all the way in Roatan!

On Monday it was back to beading – Gavin has an especially large pattern to work on thanks to some of our Christmas money (we purchased the largest peg board we could!)

And then back into the snow. You will see this as a February pattern – any day that is not too cold is spent outdoors. I figure we need to burn off that winter snoozy feel!

Tuesday we were back to family storytime. I cannot tell you how wonderful it feels to see the twins reading to their siblings. They are doing so well… so smoothly and so amazingly coherent. I am hoping they will love reading as much as I always have and Ken has grown to.

Trinity, Echo and I read a favourite book – Guess How Much I Love You.

The boys drafted Ken out to help them with a rather impressive structure in the backyard. They started off with a rather half hazard structure and went from there with Ken’s help. Out came the snow brick maker and a piece of wood for the roof. Imagination and manpower… priceless.

I think these moments with Ken out in the snow are going to be amazingly lasting memories for the boys!

February 8-12

Saturday marked our very first Pinewood Derby with the Scouts. And while we did not win, we did race a sweet car! In fact, Emanuel was more upset that he didn’t get the door prize he put tickets in for than loosing the car race! He really just wanted Blackout to race… and race it did! Aidan, on the other hand, won a bunch of awards! Big Andy even said that if we had sanded our wheels and greased our axles we may have won! But we really wanted to go by the book and sources were on both sides on any sort of wheel alteration.

The track

The cars

We were at the races with most of the Novaks (Alex was at a friend’s place as his races are another weekend with a different troop). Food was a little pricey so Darcy and I took some of the kids and went to the dollar store across the highway for snacks.

I was so pleased to see not only Emanuel out there playing but the girls and the twins as well. So much socializing and fun to be had.

1st badge!

After the races (which did seem to go on forever! We had cars only in the youngest race but had to wait for the awards which were not only at the end but after a lunch break??) we all headed over to the Novak’s for an afternoon/evening of visiting and fun. It is so nice to come over and visit there. The kids just wander off and play for hours!

Sunday was super special for us… not only did we START with Sunday School, but when the kids and Ken got back Echo and I joined them for a special field trip. But first we saw our WHITE SQUIRREL!

Then we headed over to the Chinese grocery in the city – United Noodles. That place is a wonderland for our kids. So much to see question. While it is not as large as T&T back home, it is a substantial store. They have a nice freezer section and dried foods. Not much on the fresh. We did good with some on sale items and quite a few new foods for Emanuel to try as Scouts suggested we do.

I even grabbed myself some new tea to try. We had a hard  time finding anything post extraction Ken could handle immediately but he took great pleasure in reading labels and checking out some of the (to us) crazy combinations on the shelves.

We started the week with a fun field trip to a brand new gas station which has its grand opening. First we went through the flyer and talked about sales and how coupons work. Then we headed off with our flyer and went shopping. There was a terrific deal on donuts, free coffee, bananas that are always at 38 cents a pound! We had a blast wandering the aisles and talking about what is a good price on foods and what isn’t. Reading price tags and labels.

These were a dollar a half dozen!

They had sandwiches and cheeseburgers at a total steal which made lunch a breeze! Of course that didn’t stop us from working on our school work. The twins have been taking turns each day reading one of our Valentines Day books to the rest. We are still having some mumbling problems but the smoothness of their reading is AMAZING compared to last year!

Emanuel of course had to record his pinewood derby experience in his journal.

The weather was rather pleasant so the boys spent some time in the snow.

The girls worked on a fun Valentines Day fingerpainting activity I found them on Facebook through Pinterest. HERE is the original idea thanks to Red Ted Art. I think they turned out sweet and both girls had a blast making them.

Miss Trinity and I had storytime together with a Valentines Day theme. Each book we are drawing a picture to go in our folder for Valentines Day. It is fun reading together.

Our sports of choice for the beginning of the week were snowboarding and the skeleton. I was totally unfamiliar with the Skeleton! But wow is it a scary sport! Hurtling head first down the hill on basically a few pieces of metal… crazy!!! So of course we had to get on the internet and learn all about them! And share the links of interest with all of you!

Skeleton:

• The history of on Rusbob  HERE
• 5 things to know about the sport thanks to yahoo news HERE
• Equipment and history thanks to Olympic.org HERE
• Our video and all that fun stuff is found on Activity Village HERE

Snowboarding:

• History of thank to library.thinkquest HERE
• Infoplease.com’s information HERE
• Our video etc is of course on Activity Village HERE and later on Art for Kids put up an how to draw… you can find that on their site, link on right.

The twins had swimming lessons on Monday. It was their mid way review and it looks like things are going pretty well! They are still loving it!!

We had a visit with a fairy princess…

And another Valentine book.

We ended the evening on Tuesday with some game playing. I love it when the kids help Echo learn how to play too. They can be so patient.

Mid week was another Olympic themed day with a touch of Valentines. The kids wrote their own poem using the word OLYMPICS.

The boys headed back out into the deep deep snow! I cannot believe how much snow we have around.

Trinity did up a beautiful picture of traditional Russian children.

And we did a variety of toilet paper roll crafts (starting the day before). Each kid had the option to think on their own (Emanuel’s castle tower and Trinity’s telescope) or use the list I found on Facebook for 25 different options. You can find that list HERE thanks to Kids Activities Blogs.

And there goes the first half of our week! So much snow, fun and crafting. I am very proud of our progress!

Storytime with Daddy

Been rather chilly lately!

Snoopy

Little gamers

February 6-7

It is always a bit of a mental adjust when the inlaws leave for one of their extended leaves. Nice and hard at the same time. Nice, because it puts us back to the 7 of us working as a family unit again but hard because man do we miss them! We have been promised that they will have internet and may Skype and I even had Ken slip in a gift for the birthday girl – it was Nana’s birthday on the 6th. Baba always gets her the best presents – a whole beach!!!

We had a bit of major birthday excitement. The day before the last of the gifts Aunty Holly and Uncle James had sent from Canada got here. So on the 6th we opened the gifts from them AND from Gammie! Talk about a list completer day! Emanuel got the Pokemon he had been dying to have, Gavin Pokemon cards. Zander even got a brand new Lego set. We snuck out earlier and Ken got each of the girls a little something so they would not feel totally left out. 5 pleased kids I am telling you!

Think he wanted it???

Thanks Aunty Holly, Uncle James and Cousin Jimmie

Echo and her pony

We really took a day off school for the most part BUT that did not stop progress on the car. Emanuel and Ken are a building force here. With lots of interested eyes keeping a careful watch on the progress. After all… the race is on the weekend!!!!!

The Olympics start on the 7th and while we are not doing a whole unit on it we are cherry picking things here and there. Of course covering Russia and some of the winter sports we could watch. Xfinity has a section of clips from the Olympics which the kids have taken to watching every morning and discussing for fun. It has actually been a little difficult finding information about Russia for the age range we are working with here. Once again Activity Village has been a great resource you can find their Sochi section HERE. Or go to Art for Kids and look through their drawings HERE. They have covered a few of the sports with some how to illustrations.

We totally started with a couple of sports we were able to follow drawings with. Ski Jumping and Bobsled. This is actually the first year of women being allowed to compete in ski jumping at the Olympics. Zander was quite upset about this… he said girls can do anything so they must have been missing out not letting them try sooner!!! Talk about proud momma!

Of course we looked up our two sports on the internet… and I will share our links!

Ski Jumping:

• Activity Village HERE
• Art for Kids HERE
• Infoplease article HERE
• We of course had to do the video thing… an Olympic trials

Bobsled

• Activity Village HERE (video at the very bottom)
• Art for Kids HERE
• Library.thinkquest HERE
• Infoplease HERE
• Kids Britannica HERE
• Our video from youTube with Chris Lori

• Equally exciting is that my own cousin Brad Reinsch is listed as 4th ranked bobsledding pilot in Canada!! Very cool! 

Emanuel also drew up his paint job on his car. It is a Batman themed piece and looking AMAZING!

We are preparing for Valentines with tiny cards printed off the Activity Village site. I love printing off stuff on cardstock (best price ever at Sam’s for a ton of it!!) and letting the kids create their own little gifts. These are for them to make for their siblings. We have several purchased ones (or given to us from Gammie) to use to mail out. Another thing to get done and mailed!

The kids lucked out and Nana left her iPad behind. So we are having some kid together time of course!  With limited fighting thankfully!!!!

On our own once again… yup yup!