Background

Tuesday, August 16, 2011


We got one of our Curriculums today. Our CLP English Program. This program is so in depth . It has taught both of my children how to read at an advanced level working with different learning styles. We got a couple extra books to read with our readers. Aidan started reading and was soon asking me questions like, " When can I use an electric saw?" We are focusing on a Pioneer, Western and North American vein through all of our Curriculum in this next year. We also will be visitng the whole world with our FIAR worldview:) SO many activites to do next year during the weeek. We now have to see what we can fit in!
September is fast coming and as we wind down Summer and gear up for school. We are excited to find out what this year holds for us!
FIAR can be found here:
Also The Story of the World is going to shoot us back in time to the beginning of History.
We will be threading our way through the award winning :God's Design for Science. Universe and Plants for this year to start.
We can't wait to start up with our Elluminate class and share ideas and listen to our wonderful teacher Mrs. Mitchell.

Monday, June 20, 2011

June

My kids and I!
Daddy rolling logs to the other side of the yard.
The kids enjoying the newly felled tree stumps.
So these shoes are a half size apart. We tried the smaller ones.. then the bigger ones. It appears that Kellen is now ready for the next size..
One of our apple trees almost doubled in size once we started giving it some nice fall foliage at its base. The apples are growing nicely. This year I plan to try even harder to find them a cool climate so that we can eat them all Winter.
Mr. McGregor's garden appears to be growing something:) All that is missing is the robin perched on Dad's shovel that he left with me. He re..retrofitted the handle.. awesome!

Sharing time in the garden on our thinking bench.
no feet on the table!
hugs from sister

Kellen loves to pummel his brother. Here he is watching a DVD while squishing his his brother and using him as a ride.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

May

The kids learning about Sir Sandford Fleming.

Mary hard at work in the piano Studio.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

April leads into May

Kellen feeding the birds.
A busy creative science day. Messy, but productive.
Aidan's egg experiment from his "Motion" kit. INERTIA

The children's impromtu pop botttle rocket experiment. They used baking soda and vinegar to make the top fly off.
An example of one of the many writing prompts in LLATL. Mary likes to write on her own often.
Mary's Award.
Aidan's award for memorization.
Mary's LLATL Part 3 word Assessment. Here the child is supposed to write the words as they think they are spelled. It is a test in where the child is . No grammar rules have been taught in this particualr Grade 1 book. But Mary has been listening in on some of Brothers CLE English ..so has picke dup on silent e etc.
Mary's Ancestry chart
Aidan's Ancestry chart from FIAR book. "They were Strong and Good"
Going back on Daddies side we see lots of good American and British Isles Stock:) Dutch Tanis and Canadian..Scots Background Wilsons.. On my side we have alot of cultures . Lemons of England, McSweeneys in Ireland, Hornblows in England.
Allfreys of Kirdford going far back... on my Dad's side Karesavich from Russia and my fathers Great Grandfather a Marquis de Cuevas of Spain.
Pretty neat to go back and see.
Mary helping me with Scones.
Mary doing an LLATL assessment test.
Our weekly Elluminate sessions from our perspective. The kids love this sharing time. The reports were awesome that day. This one was a girl's report on a cow that had been purchased fed and then sold for meat. The whole group gasped at the lucrative amount that the 2 children had made for their bank accounts. $500.00 each. Wow! Hold on...let s get a truck and some land and some steers.
Some pictures of planes docked at the Aerospace facility. Dad told the kids about the planes and some of their cool features.
Pictures that Daddy took of Prime Ministers Harpers visit to BC
Very Canadian ..great opportunity to make it personal . The kids are aware of the Prime Ministers victory in a majority Conservative Government.
Alot going on in the May 2 2011 week ..in all of the world.
We also showed the children clips and pictures of the Royal Wedding.
As I am English by birth .. it was nice to take in some of British Pride and culture at its best. The children were able to view the inside of the Westminster Abbey and watch a Royal Prince wed his commoner ..now Duccess.

Part of Mary's Arctic fox report.
Love this pic of the kids at rest . I even got the baby at rest for a split second:)
Force, Motion.
The kids helping Dad prune and then clean up the debris.
Kellen "Stampin up".
Aidan and Mary working on their animal projects.
More physical exercise at Awana
AWANA Award night.
Another picture of the kids at the pool. Following instructions they will roll into the pool.
Kellen gets in on some weight fun
The kids listening to their Red Cross Swim Kids Instructor, Jordan. The guy on his right assists ..he is a graduated Homeschooler.
I managed to snap a picture of the kids with some of their pals .. while waiting at the Leisure Center.
We enjoyed a flock of yellow tropical looking birds that came to visit our little bird sanctuary.
The guys working on Weight in Singapore

Here we are heading into the last leg of the year.
Here are a few of the things that we did in the last few weeks.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

April Post


IN the FIAR book "Mirette and the HIgh WIre" This lustrous book depicts colored scenes of "Paris 100 years ago" The heroine helps her Mother run a reputable boarding house and does her chores and cooking cheerfully. We renacted a boarding house meal. The children were delighted to greet Dad at the door ask him for his hat .. hand him a newspaper and then show him the menu and the charges. See video as well:)Mary was excited to make him a place card with his name and to put o a n apron:)Bellin is a mystery boarder and also his rope contained copper so we leanred about Copper and discussed what could contain copper. Daddy is quite the expert on this as he enjoys metals and works with them. We had a great talk about The Statue of Liberty and Oxidization. The weight of pennies and the softness of copper. Also the mixtures and their names.. of copper and other metals. Copper being a base element and its symbol is CU. Mum's hair also appears to be copper too:)
Here is the planner that we looked at that shows the Passover beginning and end. The children were able to see time that was predicted and then slot it into the calendar and see how it fitted in .
The children added yeast to flour to see the effects it would have. They baked a bread "cookie" with leaven. We talked about the Passover bread having no yeast in it.
Aidan
Mary
THis week we discussed the Nation of Isreal and also the Jewish Holocaust in a gentle and sensitive matter. Giving the children a gentle visual of the camps that Jews were marched too and then a small explanation of the folly of following one person and the sad persecution of the Jewish people. Mary asked if we could visit the camp and I said that some people do take a Pilgimage as it were to visit and reflect . We recollected some of our Old Testament stories and then the chidlren and I talked about God's amazing plan through history. The Uniqueness and preciousness of The Nation of Isreal and that we as Gentiles are truly blessed to be included in such a plan as God's Salvation! The children did a creative thinking brainstorm bubble and the above is their little writings on their reflections on som eof the things that we had considered. In the FIAR book "Mrs. Katz. and Tush" The Passover and the life of a Jewish/Polish elderly lady and her new friend a boy.. are told. In the FIAR Volume we read about percentages of dialects or language contained in Yiddish. So I drew a pie (MATH) and we observed as Mum seperated up 100%. Everything always to leads to tens it seems .. as our SIngapore books have told us many times.This is our chicken scratch as it were. The children observed and colored.

Upon being asked about a couple of her many pictures that she draws.. Mary informed me that the larger page was for a Car's Learning Center(baby in mind) and that the squares show the growth of a bunny from Ages one to four. The second picture is of a Wolf Howling at the Moon.
Freedom of Religion and Speech

We started Freedoms of Canada in our "Canada My Country" Here is an example of Mary and Aidan's worksheets

-Aidan

-Mary

In the FIAR book "A New Coat For Anna"We talked about work well done" The children wrote down their ideas on things that they had helped with or taken part in in order to achieve a "Job Well Done"

What started out as a simple "FInd Capitals all over the house" task for Mary for her LLATL Lesson became a full on competition for the kids to find , track amd write on the white board(note the squares..I told them that one was left and one was right )


They were completely absorbed in finding letters.It became a complicated mass of squares and code. But they understood that THEY got to tick the boxes. Aidan took on the responsibility of pourin g out the heavy sandbags for the babies sand box. Mary helped too. We bought the shell in the sales at the end of the SUmmer and had stashed it. We were so pleased to bring the shell and some bags of sand together for baby!

Baby was so cute and enjoying new experiences. Thanks AUnty for this Bike buggy.
I think Aidan is the dot on the beach:)
Daddy on his way home from work hopped off of his long drive home and joined us for a picnic on the beach.
We drove away from the rainy spring hills of Mission.. taking some chances and beating the clouds to arrive at Crescent Beach .. a well kept public.... residential beach which is pristinely watched over by the City of White Rock and residents. .. A sunny .. perfect evening and picnic on the beach.. The children.. disappeared out upon the beach ..occupied.
Walk along the Fraser River with cousins. This is in Fort Langley ..beside the original Fort .. the location where the Traders came up the river and landed .
On that day we drove from MIssion across the Fraser, through Bradner and ended up on the Langley side of the River. We drove by along the South side of the river winding our way past a Navy Base, Float Plane docks and then followed the train which was driving straight as an arrow beside us. Kellen's eyes were as big as saucers that day! We came up right from behind the Fort and met Aunty and cousins.


Sorry this is sideways!


Young Wooddpecker that we have been tracking.. showed back up.