We have completed our short possum/opossum lapbook today… there was a little bit of writing, some gluing and word discussion to do and one or two more illustrations were added to the pile but we managed it. I think we will have to come back to the lapbook from time to time to work on our new words! And to admire the artwork and penmanship! You can find our links and videos HERE.

Front cover

I am out of staples so I had to creatively tape in our extra long pages

As far inside as you can get

Back cover, each of the twins wrote one of the words themselves

While possums took up our morning our afternoon was a crafty one with PAINT! Did you know that 4 kids with paintbrushes actually CAN keep the mess down to a minimum? The boys all used the palates they got last year from Nana and Baba, for some reason I can’t find Trinity’s… and Trinity used up the last of our ancient finger paints (from when the twins were tiny!! but with a brush of course as ALL our kids are finicky about their fingers) and some of our scarlet to make her masterpiece! 

Painting at the table

Now what brought on this sudden interest in all things messy and colourful? Well a craft I found on our favourite UK craft site – a Family Tree. They suggest this as a grandparent’s day craft, we are working on the boys really understanding WHO our long distance family are – there are 3 sets of Grandparents to remember and two sets are in the states. For our leaves I found a  template herethat Ken then shrunk down for me to a quarter page and printed out in green. The boys then cut them out and have begun the work of writing out names and drawing pictures of family members. 

Ready for leaves

We did another chapter of Stuart Little. Another edge of your seat adventure, this time on a garbage boat! Apparently Stuart can’t step outside the door without adventure catching him unaware.

4 more interpretations

I have begun my next round of owls for my “It’s a Hoot” page on Facebook. These ones are for H”owl”oween… groan I know BAD! I found some really neat socks and have been cutting them down to owl size. I have tried a couple different lengths with the camo – one a little taller and one the usual size. It is the re-purposing of the old shirts into owl stuffing that REALLY takes the most time right now… and cramps the hand something fierce! 

The kids ended their day with a walk down the block to the community garden with Daddy. They have a nice lot there next to the church that has enough room to run AND still a few plants to check out. Zander did run off home on Ken which was NOT good – we live only a building and the church away but he needs to realize he has to tell us…

Helping Trinity with her shoes as someone had to stay home with a sleeping Echo

A bit of a run

I managed to fill up another mocked up scrapbook page recently as well. A birthday piece!

For Emanuel's book

And now it is back to owl creating… cleaning… dishes… laundry… the list goes on and on. I am sure tomorrow’s entry will be much better organized! Well I hope!

Didn't Ken catch the perfect light on this one?

Possum or Opossum is the word of the day today… we decided to do a search online and find everything we could find on possums. There was actually a bit to learn, some cute (and educational) YouTube videos AND some worksheets I was able to download and print out… don’t worry I plan on sharing! We got MOST of what I wanted to do (pre-assembly) today leaving just the working on our new terminology and assembly for tomorrow. Zander drew his own picture with a possum in it… and a rabbit and a bird with worms… he worked really hard on it and it shows!! Now links and videos…

Virginia Opossum mini documentary… and a good EnchantedLearning info page… though you do need to be a member to use that one I think. Seriously I think the subscription to them is WELL worth it! And then there is the Ringtailed Possum page there as well. We read through the pages and talked about the new words and enjoyed looking up images of each type. If you want to go more the Australian route there is more to find on that as well… But first, fun facts about Opossums that includes a word search, some true and false trivia, jokes, facts and colouring can be found here. 

Baby possums ARE cute… the kids were adamant on that one! Want to see an adorable picture of one? Then you just have to click here.

7 baby possums that were rescued… did you know that babies leave their mother within like 4 months of birth! AND the average lifespan of one in the wild is 1-3 years! Here is the wiki page about Opossums. 

Zander and his possum picture... the possum is the grey creature on the left, next to the grey bunny!

I found some colouring pages the kids enjoyed as well. What about a different breed of possums? The Sugar Glider. Gavin liked this one. Oh yes and back to the Australia centred info… here is a great page for that! If you need a page for writing about them and then illustrating going to our UK favourite and get THIS page. Or do their mini booklet.

We read THIScute poem, did the question sheet (as a family) and then wrote our OWN favourite animal poems. A good first attempt for the boys I think!!!

Boys' poems

Oh and for tomorrow we are taking bits out of this lapbook and making up the rest of our info. Just writing out bits and pieces of interest and then ASSEMBLY! So I hope this gets anyone else going who is doing possums or interested in them! It was a bit of a search for information… and I did have to go through some not so nice videos on YouTube to find ones I liked for the kids! Oh this one made the kids laugh and laugh!!!

Now let’s see, the list of new words that we are working on learning that go with this… marsupial, nocturnal (not new but they still forget it), herbivore, prehensile, omnivore, predator and hind (as in hind foot). I am sure there are more but these are some that stand out! I will post up our finished lapbook as soon as it is done and link it BACK to this entry but hopefully all this information will make the job of learning about possums/opossums more enjoyable for someone else! 

Gavin is determined to design his OWN cross stitch… so today we worked together on something new. He made the cherry all on his own and I helped him with the handle on his watering pot. It was a bit tricky a we played around with it on another piece of graph paper before transferring it to where his cherry was. I am so proud of him for wanting to go with this and try and really be involved in something I enjoy so much!

Cherry and a watering can

I have managed to sneak out with Karyn to Dollarama today to purchase… MORE SOCKS!!! I am trying something new… I am going to try and sell my spare sock owls. I am starting slow with a Facebook page you can check out called It’s a Hoot! If you cannot see that I put up information on my deviantArt pageabout it as well! My goal is to make the money to pay for Ken’s Christmas present really, and have an excuse to make more sock owls! I put the striped ones at 10.00 plus shipping costs… I have no idea if that is a price people are willing to pay or not but hey, it is worth a go right? 

New socks!

I have been working on a new cross stitch pattern – one of our own designs, but I can’t share it here until AFTER Christmas as it is a gift. I should be able to finish Anna’s stocking soon though and THAT I can share. Cross stitching has not been the priority but I am working on refocusing at least a little bit of my spare time.

So we started with Opossums/Possums and ended with owls… we have had continued potty success with the only oops in a naptime pull up! So life is good… busy, loud and chaotic (so the norm)… but good!

In her red, white and blues today