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1885

So this past week we travelled back in time (with our church) to 1885. The parish is celebrating its 125th birthday and we dressed up for the event. Here are some photos from the morning. Po's mom made all the dresses including the baptismal dress that baby Bee is wearing and my dress and hat!!! Yes she is that good!

Here's one of Grampa with his grand daughters. You can see that the girls are each wearing a different colour bow that matches their sash! They looked so cute! We are going to do more formal photos later this Spring in these outfits.

As far as homeschooling is going Bel began and finished "Fantastic Mr. Fox" by Roald Dahl today. Just goes to show that when a book is a good read it gets read quickly. She is still fighting through "The Whipping Boy". Math is coming along well. They really enjoy it a lot. (!) And they love Explode the Code which is an English spelling reading program. School is fun! Crazy hey?

Homeschool end of week 3

Wow! It has been so busy but such an amazing start to homeschooling! God just keeps on blessing us with fantastic learning opportunities! The biggest blessing has been to watch the girls re-learn how to be kids again! They play hard and spend so much time outside. They are also learning to help each other and love each other in an empathetic way. They are reading to each other and teaching each other! It is fantastic! This week we have covered a lot! The highlights have been a story that Bean (5) wrote on her own about thunder storms; Bel, Bean and Bibby learning about money and how to make change; singing along as we learn the names of the continents and the oceans; learning to tell time; and taking Daddy to the museum!!


Busy playing with Daddy!

Oh, and Daddy and our great neighbour put up our outdoor play structure so that we can play harder!



I learned that being a marsupial would be fantastic!

Yay homeschooling!!

Homeschool Day 4

Today is Dr. day. We are taking Bean to a pediatrician way out on the West side of the city. So of course I had Bel look up pediatrician in the dictionary...then pediatrics. It's amazing what a good dictionary can accomplish if you use it.

We are also learning more about giraffes, setting up our calendar with days of the week, months and seasons. Bel will be giving us the weather report for today as well. Yesterday we learned (and prayed) about children who live on the streets. And today we will be learning about Gypsies. I would be lying if I didn't admit to learning lots everyday too!

One cool thing that happened yesterday was an impromptu trip to a fire station. On our way back from Staples (for a much needed ink cartridge) we noticed some firefighters working on "manouvers?" So we pulled into the adjacent parking lot and watched them for about 30 minutes. They went up a ladder that reached a 3rd floor practice building. Then they passed each other on said ladder one hanging onto the ladder from the right and the other passing on the left! As Bel (7) said "Daddy would pee his pants!" (Sorry Po : )

After they were finished their work one of the firefighters noticed our little van full of kids watching their every move. So of course they came over and invited us for a tour. I was so impressed with these men and woman. (There was one female fighter). They brought the trucks out of the garage for the girls to see and they gave them each a chance to sit up at the wheel. They taught them the different truck names and their functions. Hey did you know that the tanker truck we saw held 16,000 litres of water?!? Unreal!

The coolest thing by far (for me anyway) was when they pulled out the ladder truck and extended it way up (100 feet?) in the air with one of the firefighters in it! It was awesome!

These folks were so great! They really exceeded my expectations! I don't think that day 4 can out-do day 3 but we'll try! : )

Homeschool Day 2 & 3

Day 2 was awesome! We got so much done and the kids were so eager to get going! We are actually ahead!

Today we:
- learned where Michigan is
- learned the difference between apes and monkeys
- reviewed about the first civilizations including the Babylonians and the island of Crete
- the girls read 7 chapters of their books (collectively)
- Bel learned to find words in the dictionary
-baked banana bread, and
- did phys.ed. on the wii fit.

When I gave them the option to either have quiet time upstairs or go downstairs and watch a bit of tv they chose to go upstairs and took turns reading outloud to each other!!

I'm not writing this to brag but to praise the Lord for all the peace, joy and encouragement that this is all giving me! This is definately the best decision we could have made regarding the kids' education!

Today, Day 3 we will be working on Math. We'll be starting the unit on telling time with Math-u-see. Learning about giraffes...and more reading!