Art lessons

Due to an increased grocery budget (with Gluten Free foods being the norm now), we were not able to afford art classes this year. We chose to cut out art instead of choir this year, because choir provides a great place for interaction with other children, preformance opportunities and group listening/discipline skills that art does not. Also, we can do art at home. Choir is a lot harder, although I suppose I could start up my own family choir.. but trust me, I'm no Maria.

Anyways, we've been working through Artistic Pursuits again this year and we have a new budding artist in the family... E's brother Z. He's 5 this year and has discovered a new love for drawing and painting. This picture is of Jesus and his sheep... in the fog.

Wordless Wednesday

Three Years ago...

What's Smaller than a pygmy shrew?

A paramecium! And some bacteria.

We've started our science studies this year. We are looking forward to learning all about the tiny things around us through Chemistry.

I've chosen Noeo Science Chemistry 1 to use, since we enjoyed the Biology 1 last year so much. I like this curriculum because it doesn't use a textbook, it uses a literature guide for many varying books aobut science that are at a reading level that E can read. I like to read them outloud first, and she enjoys reading them at bed time. Even Z enjoys science. This is his drawing of what we learned: it's a drop of water with bacteria and protozoa in it.

His drawing skills have increase dramatically since last year. It's just such a joy to watch these tiny little humans grow and develop each day.

Speaking of Z, we have signed up with a homeschooling board here in my city that has a unique kindergarten program for homeschoolers. We will be going once a week for a K program where he can get a bit of socializing and fun in, and we will also have access to a bit of funding to buy some good kindergarten books with. I'm looking forward to seeing him grow more and more this year.

First week of school

Phew! That wasn't so bad afterall... I was worried it would be CRAZY, now that I"m schooling two kids, and they are outnumbered by the pre-schoolers. Turns out, it was crazy afterall, but apparently I'm so used to crazy that it didn't bother me in the least.


The loop schedule idea is working SO WELL! It's allowed me to focus less on getting everything done, and more on just enjoying our learning. I haven't been stressed about leaving out science and art and religion and history. For example, yesterday we didn't get to science and french and geography, so this morning, when we started school, we started with french (we're using powerglide this year and it's SO MUCH FUN!).




We spiced up spelling by playing banannagrams with her spelling words. (you can do this with scrabble tiles too). I just pulled out all the letters she would need for her 15 words, and then she started trying to make words and attach them to each other crossword style. Z helped, and learned his letters and sounds too, by handing each letter to her as she needed them, and saying it's sound.

The babies played with playdough, felt figures, trains, plastic bugs, and pretty much everything they could get their hands into. Heather coordinated their attempts to terrorize the house.

If you live in calgary...

Here are some fun activities that I have come across for homeschoolers.  This is only a partial list that scratches the surface.  I know there are many more activities out there: hockey, music lessons, choirs, girl guides, etc..

THe Flip Factory:  Gymnastics, art, drama, gymtime.... offering homeschooling programs for ages 5-12

 Phoenix Foundation:  Offers many many sessions for homeschool kids that tie into the alberta curriculum. You don't have to be signed up with their board to take the workshops.

Homeschoolers Guide: A quarterly magazine for southern alberta that details many workshops and classes for homeschoolers in the area.

Calgary Homeschooler Resources: A webpage by a calgary hs dad... lots of good info here.

Yahoo groups:  calgary-hs (chat with other calgary homeschoolers online), hs-activities (find out about what good activities there are for calgary homeschoolers), hs-forsale (sell or shop for used curriculum online).

Needleworks - Sewing classes for homeschool kids and others.

North Mount Pleasant Arts Centre & Wildflower Arts Centre -- Calgary parks&rec: they offer many great classes in art, dance, drama.... They also have a specific homeschool art class that covers the alberta ed curriculum.

First Day of School

Yesterday was our first day back at school after a long break through the summer.  The kids were very excited about it.  E can't believe she's old enough for 3rd grade, Z is now in Kindergarten and working with us each morning, and H is now officially a preschooler. 

Since I have so many littles who are old enough to pay attention to me for more than 1 minute, we've started doing a preschool program with them called Little Saints.   We'll see how long this lasts, but for now it is fun! We sang songs, read stories and poems and even did some finger painting.

We have also tried out a new system for scheduling and planning our days called Loop Homeschooling.  This is originally an idea from a lady on the Well Trained Mind web forums.  The idea is you school for a set ammount of time each day (for us, 4 hours).  When time is up you stop and clean up.  The next day, you start where you left off. So if you stopped just before you got to history and science (story of my life.. we never got to the fun subjects last year).... then you start with those first thing the next morning and proceed in a loop or cicrle through your subjects eah day.

Here's what we did:

K:

math, phonics lesson, the letter F in handwriting, latin video lesson 1, history: the Phonecians, veggie tales coloring page, played with a microscope

preK:

Little saints day one:  poem, fingerplay, if you're happy and you know it, video interviews with the kids, finger painting.

3:

math (trying out saxon this year... I found a copy for very cheap.  We'll see how it compares to our other standby Math-U-See), spelling, handwriting, latin, grammar in FLL 3 (i really like this book), Writing with Ease (I also really like this book... we did the mastery test for level 2.. i think we'll start in the last 4 weeks of level 2 and then move onto level 3), Religion, History.

My wonderful 3rd grader made breakfast (fried eggs), and the kids also cleaned their room, had a long play time at the park, read on the couch for 45 min of quiet time, and read the 4th chapter of the Incredible Journey with dad at bedtime.

A fun day. A busy day.... But what else can you expect?

Water babies

Do to the exceptional attention needed to take care of five kids while on vacation, I didn't take very many pictures of what we did... and sean didn't take any (so don't look for pics of me).

We did see the ocean, walk in the sand and laugh as the waves tickled our toes. We looked for seashells and beach glass, climbed on logs washed smooth by the water, and ran down the long beach.

We also played in every hotel swimming pool we visited. The babies getting more brave each time. They progressed from just looking at the water, to evntually letting daddy swim them along the pool chasing a ball.

These pictures are of the kids at a little lake in Deception Pass. It's right beside the ocean, but the water is shallow and there are no waves to worry about. I watched H and the twins play in the water, while Sean took the two older ones on a canoe ride.

Even though I was freezing cold sitting on the beach (the wind was chilly off the ocean), I had a great time watching the twins destroy sandcastles and splash in the water. Heather was so brave that she went in right up to her waist. (this is a girl who has never been swimming before!)

visit to the aquarium

On the way home from Washington, we made a brief detour into Vancouver for some fun 'family time'. We wanted to spend an extra day with just the kids and us, having fun together and enjoying each other's company.... ha! Unfortunately, we got stuck in traffic and rain, and ran out of gluten free food right around supper time, which left us most disagreeable.

No worries.. it all turned around when E started to pray to God that daddy would feed us, and mommy and daddy would stop fighting. Almost immediately (according to her later), the Golden Arches came into view and Sean swerved into the parking lot to make a french fry run for everyone. Thank God McDs has Gluten free fries!!



The aquarium itself was lots of fun. The kids had never really seen any kind of aquatic life, so it was enjoyable for all of us. We saw a baby baluga whale (sp?), seals, dolphins, lots of fish and frogs, jelly fish, and even a sea turtle.



The twins enjoyed themselves more than anyone. They refused to stay in the stroller and were running from exhibit to exhibit squaking in their strange language about everything they saw. It was so sweet to watch them. They loved everything they saw, but their favorite exhibit, by far?

The bubbles.

A great opportunity to get dressed up...

My cousin and her fiance had a lovely wedding this summer in Washington state. We packed up all five kids into the van, along with many many other things (like 2 playpens, 2 highchairs, a double stroller, 5 carseats, 4 suitcases, 2 packs of diapers and wipes, 1 big bin of books, 3 backpacks full of stuffed animals and toys, 2 bins and 1 cooler full of gluten free food...). It was a wild trip across the mountains. We stayed in Kamloops overnight and then arrived in Washington very tired of driving.

The wedding was so beautiful, however. And it was such a nice chance to visit with family that we rarely see. Cousins and second cousins, and great great aunties and various relatives in between. We were, as usual, the spectacle of the week, toting our five kids behind us (or maybe I should say, trying to catch up to our dispersing 5 kids in front of us).

Luckily we had the cute 'twin factor'. And oh, they were cute.

Thanks to a very very kind and generous relative, we had enough money to get formal outfits for each child.

The two girls were flower girls, and Z was also in the procession (carrying flags... a little unorthodox, but very fitting for Jen's wedding).

The twins were these adorable miniature grownups in their 5 piece suits. SO CUTE!

The kids ate and danced and ran around charming everyone. They even had time for a quick movie down in the basement with a hired babysitter.

E was thrilled to make a new friend, and they played with each other for hours and hours. It was a lot of fun, and I"m so glad we made the effort to drive down there.

Now that would really spice up the bible

The kids were talking to their dad in the car about clouds, and he told them that mommy's favorite things were clouds:

E:No Dad, Mom's favorite thing is dad's blackberry!

Mom:Very funny!My favorite thing is Jesus...

E: Jesus isn't a thing! He's a man.

Z:No, Jesus can do anything... He has all the power. He can even turn into a giraffe!

Blackberry Love

Not the fruit... The cool phone my husband has for work. On a recent treip through the mountains I had waaaay too much fun playing with all the features including GPS, interenet access, and games. The kids had to fight me for it the whole trip.
I was able to research homeschooling curriculums, check the weather, talk to the dentist and add an appt to my google calendar, follow our car through the mountains on the screen, and get an estimated time of arrival.

Of course we also had fun laughing, watching the clouds and trees, stopping at a visitor centre and listening to sharon, lois and Braham.

Overall technology can be very useful and entertaining, but the best things in life are the slow, inefficient, and noisy family and friends that
God gave me.
God, grant me the grace to see how wonderful they really are.

Zoo time!

Heather is so much fun to be with when she's not in the big crowd of her siblings, trying to get noticed (poor middle child). Alone, she is a ball of joy.... curious about everything, sweet, kind and delightful.
My sister and I had a free morning last friday and since Z and E were both busy, we decided we could manage a trip to the Zoo. I probably could have managed with all five kids, but it was fun to spend some alone time with my 3 youngest.

The babies had a blast running all over the place, stopping to point at each animal they saw... especially all of the sparrows and the big airplanes that flew over our heads all morning. JP even said his almost first word... "blah blah!" (that means airplane).

The best part of the trip, however, was when we asked Heather what animal she wanted to see first:

"ummmm.. a HORSE!"

(poor child, obviously i haven't taken her to the zoo that often LOL... so I asked her what OTHER animals she would like to see)

"a COW!" she proudly proclaimed.

A sweet prairie girl at heart, I guess.

Thoughtful girl

"Mommy, when grownup and BIG... I can be the mommy!!

And you can be the little girl, OK?"

"no, Heather dear... when you are a mommy, I will be the grandma."

(pauses to think hard).... "But mommy, who will be Heather?"

How did this happen?

She's growing up so fast. In five short years my baby E is going to be almost 13 years old. gasp!!

This week she's in a daycamp from 9-4.  Her first real time away from the family for any extended length of time.   It's the Girl's Choir camp, and they are working hard on a Musical that they will preform in on saturday morning.  I'm so proud of her!!

Yesterday she was ecstatic because they even got to go on a field trip to a local park along the river.  Can you guess her favorite part of the whole day?  ..... the school bus ride LOL.

The second morning she got up and promptly told me that she did NOT want to wear a skirt that day.  (this is the girl who has worn a skirt or a dress every day since she was born.. I think she came out of the womb in a princess dress).  

"but mom! All the other girls are wearing pants!!"

sigh... 'all the other girls' are starting to make an entrance into her thoughts already?  She's really growing up!

Camping fun!!

After a crazy week of VBS at my parish, I decided to relax in the mountains with my five children, and my mom and dad.    OK, maybe relax isn't quite the right word :-) 

Between the 2 grizzly bear warnings, 1 black bear warning, 1 daring coyote warning, 1 furnace that wasn't working, 2 toddlers who weren't sleeping, 1 preschooler who wanted to go pee in the 'stinky potty' every 15 minutes, and six MILLION mosquitos, it was a very exciting trip!!

So exciting, that the day after, I went back out to the mountains with two of my girlfriends for a girls weekend away in a cozy cabin -without- the kids.

Now, to get back into homeschooling mode.  Anyone offering free nanny service is welcome to apply at my house :-)

Belated First Communion Pics

On the Feast of Corpus Christi, E made her first communion.  She was lovely in her white dress, white shoes and my wedding veil.  Thank God for Very-Low-Gluten Communion hosts, because even though my little princess has Celiac Disease, and can't tolerate the regular wheat hosts, she can still have communion!!

Isn't she pretty?

He wants to know everything about everything.

Conversing with my five year old boy:

"mom, where would we live if our house burned down?"

umm... I guess the insurance would give us money and we would buy a new one

"mom, where would we get a new house?"

well, a Real Estate Agent would help us

"like our neighbor? "  thoughtful pause... "where does he keep all those houses that he sells?"

(hiding a laugh) well Z, he doesn't acutally -have- them.  He just helps people sell theirs.

"oh! like in a garage sale. I get it"  and he walks away with a complete sense of understanding....  

he's so sweet at this age. He wants to know everything about everything and somehow his mind thinks that he almost does!!

Suprise! I'm alive!

Oh my poor poor neglected blog... you sad little thing.  How you must have waited for me for days and days to return, looking sadly into the distance hoping I would come back one day.  Don't despair, dear blog. I have returned.  I still love you!  I had to take a break because the babies were destroying my house while I happily typed along.  Although they made great blogging subjects, I couldn't justify the chaos that was created.

Even now as I sit here with you, one baby is trying to spill water on the keyboard, delete the whole page in one fell swoop, and pull all of my papers and pencils on the floor.  The other one is still asleep, so I just knew it was time to chance a venture your way again.  

Life... life with twin toddler boys.   With 5 kids under eight.. it's a joy.  It's a very very full joy. And messy too... and now that I think about it, noisy. very noisy.

But oh the fun we have, and the adventures they get into.

Lets see what have we done?

Camping... we're crazy, but we went camping with all of them to a Family Conference.  A great time of marshmallows, dirt, running, laughing and friends.  (oh, and screaming, overheating during the day and freezing at night).

Vacation Bible School... I've taken on the role as director this year to save it from being cancelled...  lots of work. Lots of helpers, lots of fun.  

Grade 2: We're done!  sort of.  But I'm satisfied anyways.  multiple digit addition, multiple digit subtraction, ancient egypt, biology, spelling, grammar, the western hemisphere... There's always next year to move on... 

Reading: we've conquered that mountain and now E has sprinted on ahead of me, reading hours a day, just about to begin reading the Narnia series.

allright the baby has declared me to be done.

blessings to you all!

Easter cuties

A lovely gluten free easter. I made hot cross buns that were pretty good, we had brunch at grandma sonia's house, the kids wore their new outfits, and we laughed loved and enjoyed each other's company.... oh and ate too much chocolate.

Update and a great Canadian hs store

Who has time for blogging when you are busy laying in the sun reading books and drinking lemonade all day?

(ok, really that's just a dream, but my birthday is coming up next month if anyone would like to contribute to the mommy sanity vacation fund).

Actually, I've been doing the same old. Baking gluten free: I've tried some bagels that tasted good and looked kinda scary, lots more bread that tasted ok and looked interesting, some more pizza shells, pita bread, muffins and waaay more cookies than one should bake in a month, and just recently I embarked on trying to bake cakes and cupcakes. That was a big failure. They came out looking like tart shells and a pie shell. hmmm... I think I'm doing something wrong here.

Through a bit of research I determined that I might have too much leavening (baking powder or yeast) since calgary is at a higher altitude than most places, and I live on one of the higher places in the city. Sadly I have run out of vanilla and oil, so I"ll have to wait until payday to refresh my baking supplies and try more recipes.

School work is going on as usual, with lots of hillarious interruptions by the twinadoes (as my blogging friend Angela likes to call hers). We finished a study on the seashore, and are moving back into ancienty history, talking about the sumerians, the cannanites and the babylonians, with some assyrians tossed in because I bought a cool book about assyrian soldiers for Z.

I just returned home from a homeschooling conference last weekend and bought a whole bunch of things as usual. One of the best was a copy of The ABCs of Christian Culture Level A which is a history program that is very well laid out with timeline cards, maps and ideas for projects and writing assignments. All of this was only $5 (from the used curriculum table), and I was delighted because it normally costs $65 US plus shipping and duties.

For you Canadians, there was a great vendor there from Ontario that sells catholic homeschooling supplies called Blue Mantle Education. They are such a nice couple, and have quiet a selection. Their website has been overhauled and it looks great. In addition to Seton, they are also carrying the Mother of Divine Grace Lesson plans and resources, RC History, Hillside Education (including Catholic Mosaic which I LOVE and Lingua Mater which is supposed to be really good. )

ok, I'm off to mark a math test. wish me luck :-)