Hogwarts Summer Camp

So for a while the girls and I have been listening on audio reading the Harry Potter series, and sadly, we've just finished the last book! (Sadly because it was a good series and we didn't want it to end! LOL!) So anyway the girls have been talking about Hogwarts and wanting to go when they're old enough so I sent away asking if we could do a Hogwarts Summer Correspondence course for under age witches and wizards (Hogwarts as you know starts at age 11.)

I told the girls I had requested it and on Friday we got to work on making our wands. As under-age wizards they aren't allowed to perform magic so if they make their own wands... its good! :) While the girls painted their wands the littlest one was colouring pictures - actually first time she has ever been ALLOWED to hold a crayon - without someone taking it off her so she spent the time figuring out what to do with it. Ripping off the paper and colouring on the high chair table was the best! LOL! As I was digging through the pictures later ET looked like she was asking questions and making notes, so she became the official admissions clerk at Hogwarts! LOL!

The girls got their letter by Owl Saturday morning - the Owl left it in the petunia pot out front. The letter just asks if they would be interested in doing a summer correspondence course through Hogwarts - but not AT Hogwarts. They both got very excited at the idea.

Just before lunch M and I created the quills they'll use for the work. The Quills are feather with and gutted ballpoint pens stuck inside! I haven't come up with the ink-well yet (but I'm still thinking on it!) M needs to reply to Professor McGonagall - which she'll do by Owl this evening or this afternoon! :) (Pink is a flamingo Feather, Red is a Phoenix Feather, and Green is a One-can - not a Toucan feather!)

Muffin Tin Lunches

So that lastest thing we're working on here is healthier food. Much to my chagrin we've been eating a lot of junk food lately, and I've been no better than a school cafeteria in terms of feeding my kids. With the little one on the loose these days and having dairy issues, its become apparent that we need to eat better! So here are our attempts for the last couple weeks.

I've got a laptop lunch box system that we will be using during the school year too - but for now we're getting used to the idea of eating at home, by using muffin tins. Its amazing how quick and easy it is to fill those little containers up with healthy foods.

Over the coming weeks we will work on implementing a muffin tin snack tray along with our lunches for munching all day. But I'm loving the idea of lunch boxes, and muffin trays, and just simple trays filled with fun Healthy foods.

If this is something that interests you go visit Muffin Tin Mom - on Mondays she hosts an event called Muffin Tin Monday. She has a Mr Linky that posts all the creative lunches people have made that day. And I think during the school year the moms work toward a theme of the week! :) This could be fun & Creative and best of all the 9 and 4.5 yr olds can help plan the meals.

Sketch Week #2

Wow a post 2 weeks in a row... who knows maybe soon I'll be posting daily! (ha to think!)

This is a weekly sketch challenge from Harmony Art Mom - the task was to sketch something you can recycle. M likes "Pop"/ Soda, so she chose to sketch a purple soda can.

She really seems to like the water colour pencils and so opted to "paint" her picture again this week!

So this is "Soda Can" by M.E.K.

Needing ideas for art?? Check out this week's challenge - you can find Here

Back to the Drawing Board with Weekly Sketches

So Harmony Art Mom provides a weekly sketch challenge and this week we decided to try it out. I think we missed the cut off for submission for the slideshow, but we still did the sketch - well M did anyway... I did too but I'm not showing it to ya! (hee hee!) M's sketch was a pencil drawing coloured with watercolour pencils (we used drawing paper hence the wrinkling of the paper. So this is "Space Train" by M.E.K.

I'm working on getting participation from S, and I'm doing them too... I figure I could use some help with my drawing and art skills so what the heck. The challenge with S is she wants to draw - no question there - she just doesn't want to be told what to draw!

So this is one of our adventures of late.

Endangered Species - Enviro Friendly - Getting Started

We bought a 1 yr Zoo membership this year instead of a membership to a neighbouring Aquarium. M(8) and I had been to the Zoo once before and S(almost 4) had never been. M's Brownie troop spent their cookie money from last year on a Zoo trip and got a behind the scenes tour this Saturday - seeing the food being prepared for the animals and then a brief tour of the exhibits.

So we were there on Saturday with the Troop and decided to go back on Monday because we missed more than Half of the exhibits.

I (the parent) have known about animals being endangered to the point of near extinction, and just came to realize that my daughters were unaware. While I don't expect S to 'get' that, M certainly does and actually has a few favourites that she wants to do something for.

So we embark on a journey of being more "consumer conscious" and environmentally friendly in our purchases. Example, one of the things we learned this past weekend is that a group of people decided to stop buying Girl Scout cookies because they were made with Palm Oil which is threatening the Orangutans in Indonesia.

So I'm thinking that the girls will do some on different animals.

For S that will mean learning about her favourite animals at the Zoo, maybe the Pink Cockatoo (which also happens to be a Webkinz,) the Hippo, the Tiger and likely the vulture. For M that will mean learning about the Animals she loves (Sumatran/Bengal/Siberian) Tigers, and the Grevy's Zebra. (for me that means the Tiger, the Orangutans and the Black Rhino.) We'll be learning about where they live, why they are endangered and what we can do to help!

I think this will go part of the way to helping us be more environmentally conscious with a purpose too! For example, being more vigilant with our cloth grocery bags to conserve on paper and polluting plastic products, etc. etc. I think with such a purpose in mind it makes it easier to be more mindful of the environment.

So there ya go. That's we're embarking on!

Grade 3 Plan

We're always fine tuning and making adjustments here and there.

LANGUAGE ARTS
- Growing with Grammar 3
- Various Reading materials.
- Creative Writing assignments from various topics
- Penmanship various letters and thank-yous to family


MATH
- Singapore Math (3A & 3B)
- Various online computer games
- Various Worksheets for practice

HISTORY/GEOGRAPHY
- K12 History (Grade 2&3)

SCIENCE
- K12 Science (Grade 2&3)
- various topics (including Junior Badges and other subjects of interest)

LANGUAGES
Not in Practice yet - haven't found what we want!

ARTS/CRAFTS/MUSIC
- Extra Curricular Art Projects
- Brownie Crafts and Music Projects
- extracurricular classes as appropriate

EXTRACURRICULAR
- Brownie Girl Scouts
- Soccer
- swimming
- outside classes as interest deems necessary

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If anyone out there reading has an absolute favourite program that they want to share, I'd love to check it out! :)

I will continue to update as we progress through this year! :)

Day 3 - of back to school

Grade 3. The gusto and umph we started off with on day one has definitely worn off. It took over an hour to finish two lessons of math - and it wasn't particularly hard either. But she was distracted I guess. Its almost 3 pm and she's barely gotten hold of her grammar - but ET had an appointment at the doctor today so that was her excuse. Either way she has until 4 to get most of her stuff done or we can't do any sewing. ET gets grumpy later in the evening so that puts the a damper on further mummy assisted learning.

Pre-Kindergarten. Its always nice when you find out that your 3.5 yr old has been holding out on you. For months I've been trying to determine what S knows - how much of her alphabet, how far she can count. She's had no problems with colors or shapes since she was about 2 - but the rest she's been holding out on. So a few weeks ago, I sat down with her and found out that she knows 20/26 of the capital letters... and about 6 out of 26 lower case letters (ya we need to work on that.) But the shockers that I've gotten in the last few days are these.

• she knows what her name looks like (she pretends to be oblivious!)
• she can finger spell (ASL) her name
  
• she can count to 10 without help
• she can finger count (ASL) to 6
  

so last year's goals......Goals for S for 2008-2009

(DONE) - Identify shapes
( IP ) - Identify ABCs and the letter sounds
( IP ) - Develop a larger vocabulary
(DONE) - count 1-5
(DONE) - count 1-10
(DONE) - sing simple children's songs
(DONE) - Gross Motor Skills: run, jump, hop, march, roll, sommersault, tip toe, walk backwards

We've got them covered. The only thing left on the list is to identify letters and letter sounds which we're working on now. S is a funny little girl who will learn what she wants, when she wants and how she wants and there is no way of getting around that at the moment. So we've been working slowly on the letters and finding reasons that it might be useful. She's now interested in learning to read so the letters are becoming more important to her.

Newborn-garten!
Little ET has finally entered newborn-hood instead of preemie-hood! She is 6 days past her due date and currently 7 lbs 15 oz... at 2 months old. As far as preemies go, she's pretty uneventful. She's not engaging yet but she is waking up more. She definitely has the I want it "NOW" down pat. M has decided that she will be helping me make some toys and things for ET to look at. We're going to start of with some pompoms and black and white images to put around her bed/bassinet/playpen/change area.

So there you have it 3 grades ... and I've sorta got it under control at the moment.