End of year Facilitator meeting

Yesterday we had our end-of-year meeting with Abigails homeschool facilitator. It went really well and I am really pleased with our school board. I have to say our Facilitator is the best one we have EVER had!! She just put me completely at ease, was so relaxed about everything.....so easy-going. Telling me that she doesn't expect any child to be at a certain grade level at any age and she just expects them to be going at their own pace - so long as they are progressing in the right direction...

She told me not to push writing (which is COMPLETELY the opposite of her teacher at school and is EXACTLY what I NEEDED to hear and is absolutely just the best news EVER)!!

...trust me as a homeschooler meeting a new facilitator you just NEVER know what to expect and you don't know what they will expect or how 'schooly' they will be or anything...

She told me she thought I'd done an amazing job of homeschooling through renovations and doing so many activities and crafts in my bedroom with no kitchen or place for studying or crafts etc....that changing our original education plan was completely fine and we had done plenty!!!

It went fine - we are all set to finish the year NOW if we want :) Yep - school is DONE :)

Or we can continue the year until school is out......

Or we can school all year round....

But like I said to her, the kitchen has been out of use for so long, I am just excited to be able to use it at last, for science experiments, crafts, baking, writing, painting etc etc etc......so I just plan to do all kinds of things with the kids there and less 'book work' anyway!!!

We will be outside so much more now the weather is better and many more field trips so there would be less book work anyway and now the pressure is off to do less writing I am much happier. We read more in Summer as we all take part in reading programs at the library.

I don't think 'homeschooling' ever stops :)

I'm looking in to horseriding lessons. I want to get easels for painting so we can go and paint around the acreage and out by the lakes etc around here.

I registered Abigail for next year, so thats done! Funding will be $715. I have no clue how to spend it! I've spent a little already but not much! I'll take Abby to Education Station and Michaels and go crazy :)

Art Classes...

Abigail started art classes last week and has been enjoying them very much. The first class was on 'acrylics' and they painted a colour wheel and then had time to free paint on a canvas. thery also learned about a Russian artist. After the class we went to Michaels and she selected the materials she had used in the class and we are going to spend time working on more acrylic paintings.

This weeks class was on drawing with charcoals. They studied Picasso amongst other artists....then they studied portraits and learned how to drawer a face. They drew a self portrait and then had some time to do a free drawing - Abigail did a horse.

I will take some pictures of her work later and add them! She is loving the classes and I will definitely be signing her up for more!! the teachers are wonderful and Abigail loves being at Smeltzer House surrounded by all that history!

While she is at the class I go for coffee with my friend Jennifer, who is involved with organizing SHINE. I'm planning to join SHINE this year and go along to some of their field trips, workshops and park days. I think Abigail needs this and I need the push! Jennifers pretty good at encouraging me to do more and Abigail loves her children :)

Solids and liquids..

Playing with cornstarch and water...first with very little water then slowly we added more and more water.....

Volcano....

A mini volcano we created :)

3d shapes....

Today was a lovely lazy morning....we sat on the bed and homeschooled from bed :) We studied 3 dimensional shapes and learned all about cubes, cones, prisms and pyramids!!!

It was wonderful to hear Abigail and Sam thinking of how these simple coloured shapes relate to the real world!!! I would ask them to think of where they could find rectangular prisms in the real world and they would think of things like 'the buildings where Daddy works' and 'long trucks'.......and for cones of course 'ice cream cones', 'party hats', 'carrots'.......and so on......

Sam spent ages afterwards building castles with the shapes and when Lloyd came home form work Abigail got the shapes out and showed them to Lloyd, remembering all the different names (thankfully YAY)!!!

Abigails home made table mat

Recently Tara mentioned that her Daughter had a small laminating machine that she LOVED, and recommended this machine as a great resource for the home and for childrens crafts and hobbies.....Tara uses one in her daycare setting also with the childrens projects there and I thought this sounded fabulous! I checked out the laminator at Walmart and thought it was a brilliant idea!!! thanks Tara!!!

We finally tried it out yesterday when Abby made a table mat with her favourite theme - horses!!! I think we will be laminating a LOT from now on :) it worked really well :)

Dance Recital

Abigail recently took part in her year end dance recital with her dance school. Her class (with only 5 students - how wonderful!!) danced to songs form the musical 'Grease' and also the song 'Move It' from Madagascar. Then they took part in the Finale....it was such a lovely evening ad I really enjoyed watching it. :)

Ice cream!

First really warm day and we headed out to celebrate - where else but the ice cream store!!! :)

Easter fun!

Egg hunts, painting eggs, hopping bunnies game, jelly bean bingo......just endless Easter fun!

Science - Senses....

We're working on the topic of Senses right now and one of todays experiments involved sticking our hands in cups of water of varying temperatures and then sticking them in cups of warm water and seeing how the water felt on our hands - did it feel warm or cold depending on whether our hands had been in hot or cold water????

Abigail also had to follow directions I called out in an odd order to draw something and see if we drew the same picture. She also had to draw pictures of things she likes to smell and another picture of things she likes to taste. We looked through the Senses book and read about the five senses but Abigail seemed to know most of it from last year anyway so this is really a rerun for her. Fun though...more tomorrow!!

Happy Cheepster Mom and Dad!

An Easter picture from Abigail.....

Glow golf

During Spring Break one of the activities we have done is visiting the new 'glow golf' centre in our town. We were very impressed with it there and will definitely be going back soon!

Enjoying Spring Snow!

Archery...

Abigail tried out some archery at the Boat and sportsmen show.

Spring Break update...

I got some new math workbooks for Abigail this week - one on time and money - just to see how she could do with that - and I was really surprised at how well she did - I mean she has always just sued money and I never really thought about 'testing' her on it - she just used it in 'life'.......but she just knew all the names of the coins and everything without asking and then with the clocks she just knew all the times and everything with both analogue AND digital!!! I was really surprised!!! Yay :)

Our days have the same routine generally - mornings are spent with the children doing their 'schoolwork' Abigail can choose what she does as long as she does a variety each day and as long as by the end of the week she has done a good variety of work - some math, some science, some language arts, some social, some art, etc etc etc.......and she LOVES to help Sam with his too.

Because of the renovations we have going on home-renos.blogspot.com/
we are still having to stay upstairs and so we all do our work in my bedroom either at my table or on the floor, which is less than ideal but we get it done - hopefully it will only be a few weeks now until we can use the table and island downstairs. For now though we can't do many crafts or anything too messy which is limiting and means we can't have too much fun :( but Abby has done a little painting still.

We still go swimming regularly and we go to Kidz Quarterz (the indoor playground). I will be glad when the snow has gone and we can get outside more. the children like to go out and sled now that its warmer though and at least now the snow is wetter they can build snowmen!

I've been through the checklist of things Abigail needs to know before the end of the year - and the things I wanted her to do before the end of the year and there are just a few more things I want to cross off - so I'm heading to Education Station tonight to pick up some supplies....I want some 3d shapes for sure.....She needs a new Social book to work through too. Maybe one on the Inuit so we can use the Inuit books we already have! Or maybe one on maps.......hhhmmmmm

working on the diorama

Abigail continues to work on her wild horses diorama...

planting seeds...

We planted all our indoor seeds this past weekend - Sunflowers, Lupins, Echinacea.....as well as pumpkins, watermelon, tomatoes.

The watermelon have to be pollinated, so we had to plant both make and female seeds and our bees will then carry the pollen from one to the other once they flower! One of the Lupins has already sprouted!

Paper doll

Abigail and her paper doll that she had fun with this last week...

homemade sidewalk chalk.....

livelifecreateart.blogspot.com/2009/03/handmade-sidewalk-chalk.html

I think we will be making some of this as soon as I have a kitchen!!!

Back to work...

Now our trip to England is done, and we are over our jetlag, we are back to work again!! Abigail has finished her social book ad her 'community' studies...so we need to go and get another workbook for her when we are near that store....she is working through her workbooks pretty fast and doing well....the only thing we don't do regularly is reading together - we start books but don't often finish them....I really need to do better at that! And we need to finish her diorama as we haven't finished that since our trip!!! Maybe this weekend!

We are back into our routine of swimming etc when Sam is at school....and Sam is signed up for his Pre K again after Easter so we will continue with our swimming and running/ skating etc after Easter too as I enjoy this as our phys ed. activities together.

Today we signed Abigail up for a series of art classes after Easter - I'm so happy as we got ALL the classes we wanted for her :) Lloyd was at work early especially so he could get online to get the classes we wanted. I must write and thank Jennifer for letting me know about them! I must find out about the library group too and take Abigail along to that! And along to the picnics too....once they start in the better weather as she will enjoy seeing her friends....

I want to find a better math book for her though as I don't like the one we are using right now.....at all.....so I think we will look for another when we go to Education Station.

I'm loving the poetry reading comprehension book though and Abigail is really enjoying it too and asking to do several pages a day instead of just one....

Sams math has come on in leaps and bounds in the last couple of weeks too.

All in all it's nice to be back in the old routine - and with the nicer temperatures at last things are looking cheerier :)

Trip to England

Abigail recently came with me to England. During our stay we went to London for a day. We went on the London Eye, visited the Hamleys toy store (where we had lunch with Aunty Karen), rode on a double decker bus, saw Big Ben at the Houses of Parliament and rode on a train and the underground/ tube. We also had to go to the Canadian Embassy to get our return visas.

On the way from Heathrow to Abigails Grandparents house, we stopped at Stonehenge.

We visited the seaside - West Bay and enjoyed splashing in the waves despite it being February. We even managed to see snow in March - and crocuses and snowdrops!

Abigail saw all four Grandparents AND visited her Great Grandmother, Nanny Spicer! She had 2 sleepovers with her cousin Isaac who she hadn't seen since she was 7 months old, and she spent time with both her Aunts. She saw the house that her Grandma Spicer grew up in and she met my cousin Lynn and her Great Aunt Pat. She learned that Lynns little boy Evan is a whole head smaller than her even though he is a month older! She really liked this news!

The flight to England was a night flight and Abigail didn't enjoy it too much as it was difficult to get comfortable in the seats - and the television screens weren't working at all times....

the return flight was more fun as the staff were more friendly and the people on the flight were also much more friendly and chatty - more children on the flight and the people more child oriented! The tv's worked and the food was better and the flight was day time too! Both Abigail and Sam were very well behaved on the flights though - I was really proud of them.

Abigail was a little obsessed with double decker buses on the trip and took almost an entire disposable camera full of pictures of them! It will be interesting to see the pictures she took - I even bought a miniature bus in London just to remind myself of her on the trip :)

Workbooks...

Some of the books Abigail is using this year....of course we are also using much much more than this but these are just a few of the things we fall back on. I picked up the grade one books to be sure Abigail had covered the basics that she didn't do last year. She has flown through them - especially the math which she finds ultra boring and doesn't want to do but I said if she flies through it in a couple of weeks we will go and get her grade 2 and 3 as a 'treat'...and of course she loves this idea...so she is rushing through it. instead of doing a page a day or whatever she is doing she is doing several a day. She just wants to get it done. I know she doesn't need to do it but I kind of want her to do the basics again because I think her teacher really messed with her confidence and I kind of want to bring back the fun she had with math before - she used to love how easy it was and then in school she was struggling because her teacher was a dork! I want her to find it fun again and see it as puzzles again! To WANT to do it....so thats what we're doing!

I have been having fun going through the Education Station catalogue choosing things....I much prefer their south store to Scholars Choice. I think I'm going to go there next week and head to Ikea for breakfast. There are a few things I have my eye on for Abby from Edu Station....

Trying Chinese foods for New Year...

The children tried out some Chinese foods for our new year festivities last week! We also had some decorations around our display table to celebrate the new year. We have decided to extend our study of China for the rest of the year instead of just for New Year because we have been enjoying it so much! Susannahs friend Melissa was able to join us to try the foods. Most of the foods were made with sticky rice. The bread was filled with a pureed bean.

Wonderful resource

www.k-3learningpages.net/editions.htm


Lots of links for grades K- 3......from an Albertan teacher too.....

Display table..

Here is the table in the hallway where we are displaying our work for Chinese New Year as we do it. I think we have decided to continue studying about China as our 'community' to learn to about this year as we are finding it so interesting, so I bought an information and activity pack on it at Education Station on Wednesday which looks really fun! And the fun the pack can be pulled out each year at New year for us to go through as well! We also bought these fun lanterns that can be reused each New Year too!

We have so many more crafts that we want to do that we just can't fit them in by Monday...it's such a fascinating country and culture, so we plan to just keep learning about it!

Oh and the little Valentine Tree isn't part of the Chinese project - just my little holiday tree - oops!

Tomorrow we are off to see the Dragon Dance at West Edmonton Mall :) We've been before but this year they have a market there too as well as all the other events they normally have. Grace was telling us about the market before she left for Hong Kong!

The little box on the table is made from Bamboo, which pandas eat, and was made in China!