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

November 9-10

Zander: For being able to do crafts

Gavin: For the sun and moon and stars

Trinity: For songs

Emanuel: For my friends

We of course put another feather on our turkey. Today it was Trinity’s turn… she chose friends. We are having a lot of fun with this craft. Everyone wants to add a feather.

And the cape is back on

I love this Thanksgiving historical website. So we spent a THIRD day on the site. This time going over the timeline of events including the immigration of the Pilgrims and the eventual war the Pilgrim and Wapanoag ended up fighting against each other. We have learned more about how conflicts popped up over misunderstanding and actions that while natural to one of the group of peoples were foreign to the other. Each of the boys chose a time of interest and did up a picture and had me help them write out some information about what we learned.

All done

As it was Friday we did NOT have a new dinosaur… instead I dug out our old Dinosaur movie that we had purchased back in Canada and had Emanuel and the girls sit and watch it. Emanuel decided to draw what the movie called  the “largest” carnivore (which we all know has since been reputed…) Tyrannosaurus Rex. He really is working hard on his pictures and painstakingly copied the letters to write the dinosaur’s name onto his sheet.

Careful work

We had another beautiful fall day so the boys went out and ran their hearts out in the afternoon while  Trinity and Echo watched. The girls wore pj’s well into the day as Trinity declared that that afternoon/evening’s special trip out would require DRESSES for all the girls in the family. With my pretty toes I was right on board with the wish to wear sandals.

Here I am, toes and all

First though, we had to practice our poem. Echo is determined to learn the actions and be a part of this… too cute!

Helpful baby sister

Now for the big activity out for our WHOLE family: Heading to MOA, or in long form – MALL OF AMERICA!

MOA

We had a few stores to check out for various reasons… Victoria’s Secret to get underwear with coupons (bonus), stop in at the Body Shop to make sure they DO have my face soap (I have some left but there is only the store in the MOA and the airport!), a quick stop in at LUSH to check out seasonal products (got some Christmas ideas) and then to the BIG stop that the kids were looking forward to – LEGO LAND! It has gone through some definite changes since we came there years and years ago! But fun!

LEGOS!

After that it was a stop off at Rainforest Cafe to pick up some plates for a friend…

Rainforest Cafe

And then a wander around to see some of the very unexpected and interesting…

A whole store for PEEPS?

We had dinner at the MOA… there was a great deal on some yummy Japanese and a very rare treat for the kids (I mean SUPER rare)… Happy Meals!

Trinity and her dinner

After eating it was definitely time to head home. It amazed me that there were security guards at all the exits and VERY visible. A huge change from the Mall in Edmonton. We didn’t have any issues but at the same time it was different.

Checking out MOA’s fishies

Saturday is often just another day for us with Ken not working outside the home… yet… Of course we ARE still Thankful for so much!

Trinity: my Kai Lan teddy

Emanuel: Grandma

Gavin: having Mom and Dad make breakfast

Zander: time

With no plans outside the house we settled down to work on our sorting of the last box of Lego/Mega Blok mess. Sadly the two brands do NOT connect together well so we are on a mission – sort the two and then put the Mega Bloks in the van for trips. I think the kids are rather excited about that aspect!

Sorting the blocks

Ken had afternoon plans of boardgames with the guys so we took the time in the afternoon to relax. Sunday is Memorial Day here in the US or Remembrance Day as we know it, so I printed off some worksheets for us to work on off of my absolute favourite British site – Activity Village. I have missed the ever familiar poppy pins everyone wears in Canada! We did our sheets and talked about things and watched a video that had the moment of silence in it Saturday to ensure the kids DID experience it properly. You can find all of that HERE. With Echo’s rather out of sorts behaviour and mild cold it is WAY easier to do so when she was napping in the afternoon than trying Sunday morning.

Zander’s poem portion

Emanuel drew in the cross with the hearts for the dead soldiers because we love them

Trinity and her pro job colouring the very familiar Poppies

Gavin’s pages from the poem Flander’s Fields

We did ONE book review today on another advanced copy of a book. You can find the kids’ review HERE.

Basically we spent most of the day sorting Legos, and I think EVERYONE is determined NOT to mix the two again! Quite the production.

And then seriously, in November… POURING instant RAIN??

November 7-8

Today’s Thankfuls:

Zander: For having a place to live

Emanuel: All the animals in the zoo

Gavin: Mommy letting us do crafts

Trinity: My home

We also started our very own Gratitude Turkey today. Same idea as telling me something they are thankful for but we are doing one thing a day and each child gets a chance to take a day. Emanuel started the feathers going. You can find our inspiration for this craft HERE. I lucked out and Ken was willing to do the template and creating of our base turkey and feathers! I love it when he puts in a helping hand on a project, especially with the kids!

Gratitude Turkey

We also made good use of some of our Activity Village worksheets and continued our thankful theme with some more Pilgrims and thoughtful sentences. 

Thankful for…

Today’s dinosaur had less information than usual (well with no skull found I can’t really blame them) but we persevered… and of course worked on Thanksgiving some more. Sadly we had a 3 to 2 ratio on bad moods to good learners so by lunch time it was VERY clear that Echo, Trinity AND Zander ALL needed naps. Of course this had the added bonus of letting Gavin have some extra one on one time with me to get all his little bits done and assignments wrapped up. He did our Thanksgiving mini poster for the school corner. I love the creatively coloured turkey! Check out Education.com and this link HERE for the ones I am using.

Our sign

Getting some one on one time with Daddy on the iPad too!

We started our work on a page suggested to me by a fellow homeschooler. We have started our investigation with the Wampanoag Indians, learning about their culture and life style. What amazes me about Thanksgiving and the date it is supposed to represent in 1621 is there there is only ONE piece of source material… a letter from a Pilgrim to a friend back home, no oral record etc! What seems to be the deciding factor is the inclusion of the chief’s name… but still WOW! You can follow along with our learning and exploring by checking out this amazing website HERE.

Their favourite facts

Thursday’s Thankful Things are:

Trinity: For my play area

Emanuel: Everybody

Gavin: My Mom and Dad

Zander: For having Nana and Baba

Gavin’s turn with the Gratitude Turkey

And now for me… I am thankful (today and often) for amazing friends like Bree (and Karyn over the internets)… Thursday marked a special afternoon for me with my amazing pregnant friend. She treated us both to full out spa pedicures at nearby store. They were swamped so first we went to Target to window shop and then we went back for the pedicures. We got to soak for FOREVER as they were still busy which THEY apologized for and WE loved. We picked out nail polish and enjoyed massages, wax treatments and in the end – SPARKLY TOES!

Sparkly

But before all that grown up fun we had to get through our educational portion of the day! Today we learned about the Pilgrims on our VERY helpful webpage HERE. Their rather bare bones existence was interesting to read about as was the fact that they did not in fact celebrate Christmas (that one boggled the kids’ minds!). I found it very interesting that really we only know that MEN and the CHIEF came to this celebration and that the women and children (Pilgrim wise) would have been hard at work and probably kept from the native peoples. In fact, there were over 90 Native Americans there to the mere 30 Pilgrims in the very small village! AND that this was a ONE TIME THING! A whole tradition based on ONE written source record of an event that only happened (for sure) ONE time!

Pilgrim facts

Zander had a bit of trouble with the words eight and each on his spelling test but we will take another week and add those 2 to his new 5. Due to a link that a friend brought to my attention on Facebook Monday will be our first REALLY non dinosaur day with the woolly mammoth!!!

Emanuel and his imagination!

Seriously, when asked what it was he told me it was his imagination