Stella Stella olla quack quack quack

 

Science club today!

 

I am really loving science club, such wonderful teachers.  Today the topic was Mars.  They had a 20 minute talk about mars and then it was project time.  Todays project was fantastic to say the least.  The kids had a kit of supplies that they had to build a mars rover with.  This rover was then dropped from above the instructers head onto a mountain on mars.  The goal was for the rover to remain upright, so the solar panel was intact on top, so you could run all of your cool equipment.  They talked about all the cool equipment and what neat things you would like to discover and find out about mars. 

 

The kids were divided into 9 groups of about 5 kids each, they were told what resources were available to them, but they had to first discuss as a team, and come up with a plan and put in onto paper first.  They then took these plans to the funder, to see if they could get money for their resources.  If they had a sound plan, they were given their bag of resources.  In the planning phase they could go look at pictures of actual rovers and could go and look at what types of resources were available.  Parents were strictly prohibited from helping and the students were told that if a parent was giving advise or trying to help the kids were supposed to tell them to get lost!  I got told to take a hike once :)

 

In the supply kit there were pipe cleaners, 2 nuts, popcycle sticks, table tenis ball, eraser, tape, tie strap, and I am sure a couple of more things.  They had to build this into their rover.  It was amazing to see all these homeschoolers take this on!  There were only a few out of the 45 kids who were a little overwhelmed at working with others.  It was neat to see all the kids take on different roles and work together.

 

Next they got to come and watch them all drop, if they succeded then they could make a discovery.  They would then read their discovery out to the rest of the group.  Full of neat facts about mars they could discover if they landed their rover. 

Nathan was really enjoying the collaboration

gigi is checking out the pictures



SFU teacher in beside the planet mars, she is dropping rovers...

After science we played a bunch of chess, gigi only played 2 games but she went outside with anika and climbed some trees.

Cousin time, and rescuing grandpa.

Saturday my dad came down to take nathan to soccer, which was wonderful.  When Gigi and I were done cheer we went home thinking Nate would be home any moment.  Almost 3 hrs later still no nathan, then I look outside and a tow truck pulls up with my dad's truck attached.  First thing I think is accident ;).  Nope truck looks fine, Nathan's fine just starving.  Grandpas truck would not start, but as soon as it was unhooked the truck started again, my dad moved it and came in for lunch.  Nathan was excited to run in and tell Gigi that he got to ride in a huge tow truck!   Funny how excited he was and how refreshing, us adults are usually in pretty bad moods when tow trucks are involved.  He had a greAt adventure with my dad.  

We then had a bday party to go to and guess what dad's truck would not start.  Dad stayed until we got back and he tried it again, still didn't start, so we decided to pack an overnight bag and head to grandmas for the night.  Nathan got to watch the hockey game with grandpa.  I even called ahead and asked mom if she could make us dinner if we brought her husband home.  She had already made a big pot of spaghetti!   Thankfully mom checked before serving, she put tofu, instead of meat in, the tofu had wheat ;).  Don't tell my dad he thinks he is eating hamburger.  

Sunday comes and my sister in law came up with my niece, so off we drive to Abby to visit for the day.  Kids had a great time in the sun playing at mill lake with their cousin.  

Sunday evening we went to the cultural centre to see an illusionist.  What fun this was, I only wish Jeff was with us as his face when the tricks are done are so great!  I love how it always freaks him out.  Nathan got to go on stage, it was pretty funny.  He changed his number 3 times.   I had my picture removed from my drivers licence.  He did some pretty awesome tricks.  The kids looked at the posters of upcoming shows and picked out a few more they would like to see.  And I noticed one that was on this afternoon that would have been perfect!  It was coast Salish stories for kids!!!!   How did I miss this.  The performers were at the magic show and I talked to them, they said oh we are doing another one tomorow morning for a few schools if you want to come,  but we have our science club!!!  Too bad

Middle of the month???

How can it possibly be the middle of the month!   Everyone is still dragging today.  

Piano and singing practice were don't this morning.  

In this picture nathan is trying to teach Genevieve his song.  I think this was good for nathan, he was able to help Gigi with piano.  

After music was math time.  Nathan read the next chapter of beast, he usually loves reading beast, but not today.  Genevieve did a little math but decided she would do it during horse lessons. 

Genevieve did a brain pop jr video on illegal drugs.  She said brain pop jr sounds babyish.  I agree they do talk down to the kids a little and the one girls voice definitely sounds like a little kid.  I told her she still had to do some videos from brain pop jr.  

Nate joined Gigi and they watched a video on smoking and Christopher Columbus.  They both have read a book recently on Columbus.   They took the tests, I will have to get pictures later.  

We then left for horse riding.  Nathan did well at riding even though he was starting to get a migraine.  He was queezy on the way to, and had a pretty good headache and sick to his stomache on the way back.   We had about an hour at home before we left the house which nathan tested and felt better.  

Gigi doing math at the barn.  And I am no longer concerned about her place value!   I think that was a few day thing and she was sick and not wanting to learn or listen, she was grumpy ;).   We also worked on writing without tears.  She learned a few letters last year so we recieved the a and the c.  She completed a few pages in her workbook.  

I then took Genevieve to tumbling practice at twisters.  This is from 7-8:30 every Friday.  While Gigi was at tumbling, nathan and I enrolled ginger in a doggy class in Abby from 7:30-8:30.  Today was the first class and we really enjoyed it. Nathan did well listening to the instructions and working with ginger.  Now we have homework for the week and we will have to teach Jeff and Genevieve. 

So we didn't pick up Gigi until close to 9, and then we had to drive home.  Nathan fell asleep on the drive home!  This is unheard of for nathan!  He is always afraid the driver is going to fall asleep and get into an accident.  

Tomorow morning I must be super mom and be at soccer at 10:00 and cheer at 9:30!   Did I mention they are in separate cities?   Thankfully my dad is coming down to take nathan to soccer.  

And that wraps up our day today!

Tomorow is soccer/cheer, and a birthday party.  

Sunday we are going to see an illusionist at the cultural centre.  

I am hoping to squeeze in some DIY club stuff.  

Weeks almost over

Even though none of us has actually come down with the flu or a cold, we are definitely run down or fighting it off.  We had two late nights on the weekend, Saturday Nate stayed up to watch the hockey game, and Sunday we had friends over for a thanksgiving meal.  It may just be our lovely EDS bodies telling us we need to catch up.  Thankfully this weeks schedule is actually lighter, we don't have physio this week.  And nathan and Gigi both decided they were not well enough for hockey or cheer.  And soccer was cancelled!   

We did manage to make it to piano/voice lessons.  So during Gigi's hour long lesson, nathan and I worked on math again, nathan was not as eager this time.  I hate when we don't feel well.  Next it was Gigi's turn for 1/2 hr, I decided to work some math with her as I found a mistake she is making adding and carrying.  I tried to joke with her about being excited to find a mistake.  Gigi was really not impressed that a mistake was found and pretty adamant she was not going to learn from me.  Did I mention we are fighting something????  Oh how I love grumpy children!   I managed to show her a bit, but I realize she does not have a solid understanding of what place value really is.  I think we need to revisit this, when she is feeling better.  Genevieve I find more difficult to deal with when she gets in one of her moods, as they happen so rarely I haven't really figured out how to deal with them.   So this was Tuesday, we did very little else on Monday and Tuesday!

Wednesday, kids didn't get out of bed until after 9!  Nathan had set his alarm for 6 am, I took out the garbage at 7 am, his alarm was blasting away!  A complete hour his alarm was going off and he did not wake up!   So Wednesday we worked on some math, and then nathan did some brain pop, Genevieve did some creative writing.  Both of them did about 45 minutes piano and singing. F

Nathan did brain pop on mercury.  He took the test after.  We then reviewed it together.  He did not score very well on the test.  But discussing the questions with him, I could see he understood the concept, but missed part of the question.  I think I will continue to get him to do the post tests, as I would like to see if this is a consistent issue or not.  I will also get Gigi to do these too Rebecca!

The kids also played a game of linkology space

Here's Nathan's math

I used today as kind of an unschooling day, so even though everyone is under the weather we still managed to get some learning done.  

I was trying to get nathan motivated to do some writting.  I said he could write about anything he wanted.  Nathan informed me scientists don't need to write.  I told him that scientists need to write papers to explain their research.   He informed me that he could write notes, and the publisher would do the rest. I said but the publisher won't understand science and your work.  Nathan said mom there is science publishers, you know that right.  Since we were unschooling today, I did not push and he did brain pop instead.  I do need to find a way for him to communicate to the rest of the world what is in his head.  He desperately hates typing or writing, he is begging for dragon speak, so I'm thinking we really need to look into that.  He needs to be able to get what's in his brain on paper.  

Thursday, kids were up a little earlier today, but still off.  We started the day later, with piano and voice.  Nathan was slumped over the whole time on the piano bench, no energy to keep himself upright.  Gigi did math while nathan was on the piano, she asked for help and that did not go well.   I sent her to her room and told her to come back down when she was ready to learn.    30 seconds later she was back and she was ready, how does she do that?   But I could see that her poor eyes are completely purple underneath, and she does not look her best.  So math and piano is all we have done so far today!   

Independant reading

Gigi - she is so varied and reads for hours every night.  She did not finish jane eyre as it got too scarry for her, I may have to read the last part with her.  She then picked up little woman again and she was so excited one night saying mom it is so much better the second time.  This may have a little to do with her age as well, first time she was 7 now she's 8 ;).  She then moved onto Garfield!

Nathan- is liking readers from usborne, he is reading about the titanic.  These series are perfect for him in that the are easy to hold in the hands, they have pictures, and the book is small enough and not too overloaded with information. I find he gets overwhelmed even looking at say a DK eyewitness book.  He is also a vet slow reader, he is okay with this, he says it's because he is always thinking about what he reads.  I think this may help him in future with understanding, not sure if he will ever be a fast reader, he has to digest everything.  

Goats milk Soap

Today we went back to Neverland Farms today.  Nathan and Genevieve made goats mild soap.  They both enjoyed this workshop quite a bit, a lot more than the cheesemaking.  This workshop was more hands on and they each had their own workstation, and they each could make their own soap.  They had to do all the work.

I confused today and somehow got the times mixed up, or I didn't have the right times, anyway, I showed up a few hours early.  So I called a person I have met online who has EDS and lives in Mission.  I had told her I would be in Mission on Friday, but she is an EDSer and well our brains don't always remember thins, so she had forgotten, but was very happy to welcome us over.  She has a 8 year old son who she is homeschooling.  Nathan and Genevieve went and played outside with her son, and mom and I had time to chat.  Nathan really enjoyed himself!  I think he really likes meeting other children who are like him, we have met one other family so far, and he thinks its pretty neat.  The mom and I had time to discuss life with EDS.  She is just recovering from a craniotomy for two brain aneurisms, that dissected.  My dad has an aneurism in his abdominal aorta that they are going to keep monitoring for now.  I guess this is why when I tried to get life insurance, it was next to impossible.  And the one company that offered me insurance charged me 4 times what I would have been prediagnosis.  Unfortunately with Hypermobility type Ehlers Danlos, there seems to be a lot of crossover with vascular complications.  Hence Nathans almost daily nosebleeds, and maybe his weird vascular migraines.    Anyway a great visit, and nice to meet someone in person.

We then came home and are excited to have a weekend off.  On the way home we did listen to skip counting CD.

Genevieve is a song writer

It was another fairly good day today.  We started out with Math.  Nathan and genevieve both wanted to do some dreambox.  Unfortunately I think Nathans dreambox account expired, I hope he does not loose everything as he will not want to start again if he looses all of his rewards etc.  So Nathan instead played some mathgames on a site he used to get to go on in his grade 3 class.    I let them play these for about 45 minutes.

 

Next we went on to MBTP and we worked on a outline for an essay.  The way MBTP has it organized is you organize, write and edit all in one day, and have other activities.  I wanted to focus more on quality of the writing and work on the writing process with them, so I just had them work on the organizer.  We also did a lot of oral discussions on what they wanted to include.  I think it is important for them to vocalize what they want to say and get across to the reader, so it is easier to write. 

 

Nathan's outline.  He changed one of the suggested paragraphs to be santas not real :)

Genevieve's outline

Math was up next again.  Nathan worked on Beast and Genevieve worked on TT.  She was actually on unit 32, so she worked on that today, she slowed down a bit today, and Nathan actually accomplished more than her today.  Nathan also went and helped Genevieve with Money.  She called for my help, and Nathan heard and said, money, I can help, I know how to count money, so off he went to help Genevieve.  I think that helped boost his math confidence.

some of Nathans work today, that last one was tricky!

 

 

Next we went to physiotherapy and music for gigi.

 

Here is a video of genevieve singing a song she composed.  She reworked the chords from someone like you by adele, and made it her own.  Notice the shift near the end where she makes it sound creepy, I think it sounds very Gothic.  I think she was very moved by the opera and she definitely is trying to sound operish.  It was so funny she wrote in a part for her teacher to sing, she wanted to give her a solo too, but her teacher influenced her not too :)  It was pretty funny to see Gigi directing this she knew exactly what and how she wanted to sing this, and how it should sound.  It was neat watching her figure out what she thought sounded good.  She definitely has opinions and ideas!

 

 

 

After music and physio, we had lunch at the park, and went swimming again 2 hours we were there.  I'm tired!  We practiced swimming again before all the afterschool kids arrived.  Kids are loving this new swimming day.

School, Hockey, Cheer, BED

My morning starts off on Wednesdays with a 7 am garbage truck call, thankfully I guess I am a light sleeper, and I always here the garbage truck.  I then quckly run down 2 flights of stairs, in my pajamas, and take out the garbage. 

 

Next up was Tea

 

AFter this we had breakfast and read another 2 chapters of Little house in the bigwoods.  After finishing and looking at our assignments for MBTP  I realized, we are only supposed to be reading 1 chapter a day, not 2, so we are ahead reading by 2 days.  So tomorrow we will not do any reading and the kids will be so excited to know we will be working on a three paragraph essay again :)

 

these are pictures they drew to show the differences between today and long ago.  They also had space to write a few things.  they actually were both excited about doing this one, but we did not have a lot of time to do it.  I was actually surprised that I gave them 3 worksheets to do, and left and went upstairs to do a few things, when I came down Nathan was playing with Ginger, but they had finished the work.  I was expecting maybe 1 sheet done not all of them :)

Genevieve

Nathan

They had to make a list of chores that Laura's family did, and then a list of chores in our family.  Genevieve had to think about what chores I did.  Nathan started laughing when Gigi said this.  He said ummm make dinner, wash dishes, do laundry, teach us, drive us everywhere.  I will remind this to Nathan when he says to me I never do anything.

genevieve, her printing was very messy today, I don't think she was into doing this today.

Nathan

Worksheet on Capitalization.  Nathan did his where he just rewrote the words that needed capitals instead of rewriting the entire sentence.  I thought this was great as he just did it himself! 

nathan

These are the worksheets they are completing after every chapter, they are recording differences in the big woods compared to life today.

Nathan

genevieve

 

Next we finished reading our book on dirt, and had lots of conversations of dirt.  We are supposed to do some hands on dirt stuff, but I am supposed to do some homework myself and try to see what we are going to do, one thing we are supposed to do is grow some plants, but we have already done that in the spring, but I am going to read the MBTP guide and see what we will be doing and what I think is important.

 

Next up is Math.

 

Gigi is on unit 28

 

Nathan is trudging along, and I think it is mostly getting better everyday, but today was definitely not yesterday!  He definitely felt different learing at the cultural center, he asked to go back there today to do math.  Unfortunately we can not do that everyday!  But here are a few pictures of his rectilinear perimeters he is trying to solve.  What I like about this is I am getting him to add whatever he can in his head and then writing it down on a dry erase board.  Trying to get him to see how he can make shortcuts, using mental math, in practice.  I think Nathan learns better when he is using a skill, instead of just learning technique.  If it is put to use, he finds it useful, and worth knowing.  I think it is like me and names, I am terrible at learning names, as I think that oh well I have no need to store your name, I will probably never see you again, Im not filling my head with it.  but guess what I have not learned I always end up needing to recall someones name and I almost purposefully never remember a name.

 

 

More rectilinears and unkowns for perimeter

finding the perimeter, and solving for unkowns in a rectilinear
 

And after math and lunch came Hockey, here are a few pictures of my little hockey players!  Nathan is doing lots of fancy footwork and he's dropping down on the ice triying to block shots etc.  You can see how much he loves the feeling of moving on the ice.  He loves how much better his feet are moving, you can see how confident he feels.  Gigi is a fierce one, she is gaining confidence and is right in on the action and game this year.  She wants that puck, and she likes it.  Last week, a boy on her team was picking on her (I think it was the boy girl thing where the boy has no idea how to talk to a girl so he is just plain mean), he was not letting her come off the ice and was screaming in her face evertime she came off.  Jeff was doing the timeclock and could see this little boy harassing her and was just going to go and speak to him again, but little Gigi took care of it herself.  She came off the ice, gave him her staredown, and gave him a really big two handed shove onto the bench, then stared down at him from her taller position.  Needless to say the boy never bothered her again.  Unfortunately he chose the other girl on the team to pick on.  Jeff laughed at this situation as it was a I guess I don't have to worry about her.  And normally I do not condone violence to others, but I think this child just needed to know that Gigi would not take it from him.  Jeff had already gone in there and talked to him, as he was hitting everyone over the head with his hockey stick...

Nathan trying to block a shot

genevieve is the red player second from right

Nathan number 58