Our new bookcases

I just realised that I never did share a picture of our new bookcases, the ones a friend built for us.



Look at how beautiful and sturdy they are. Yes, they are already filled and guess what? I still have a few boxes of books still filled. AND I have a lot more books I want to get, lol. Not surprising, right? I know we need more bookcases but since we are moving the kitchen into the school room and vise-versa, we are not having anymore build for now. I am not sure how much room I will have then.

A gift from the grandparents

When Patrick's parents asked the kids what they wanted for Christmas, the kids said a dvd boxset, like the previous year. We had a great time watching the series of Les Mystérieuses Citées d'Or all year long. I had gotten the kids two boxsets too; one on life and the other on the human. They watched a few episodes almost every single day. Patrick too. Anyway, when it came time to decide which boxsets they wanted, they asked for more of those. We should get these two sometime this week:



I saved 20$ because I ordered two. And since I was ordering anyway (I get free shipping on orders over 75$), I decided to get two dvds on space:



There are 27 dvds in this series, all about space. It goes into details on a variety of subjects, all related to space. I know the kids (and us) will enjoy watching them and learning. Now, I will need to start putting together a unit on space. For Christmas, I got these for the kids, as their 24th of December gifts:

The rainbow for the girls:



The moon for Zachary:



And the Star Theatre for William:



Mathieu got a toy that makes music and a little light show but I cannot find a picture of it.

They loved going to sleep looking at their new gifts. And I think we can use them to learn too.

Christmas gifts for homeschooling

This year, we got an artificial tree for the school room. I suggested that the kids make their own ornaments and decorations for that tree. They promtly got started and within a day or so, the tree was happily decorated. From top to bottom. I got the homeschool gifts wrapped and put them under that tree. The kids thought it was the most beautiful tree ever. A few days before Christmas, I had them open those gifts and they were so happy.

This is a picture of the tree. I took it today, before taking it down:

And these are some of the things I got for them:

















I had ordered a few more but they did not arrive yet. Some I could simply not get because of my location. I really wanted a wooden puzzle of the USA and the See & Spell set from M&D. Maybe I will look on E-Bay...

A few pictures of the kids enjoying opening their gifts:

ARTistic Pursuits

When I first got this art program, I thought only Catherine would be interested. From the first lesson, the boys enjoyed learning and coming up with their very own drawings.

The first lesson was *Artists Compose: To Place Together. They had to look at composition and discuss what they saw. They also answered several questions I asked them about that particular painting. They did really good. So, we moved on to:

Project - You Compose!

The kids had to draw a picture of something they had seen in our home. Zachary was the only one to draw a scenery. Catherine and William both drew objects they had seen.

Zachary:

William:

Catherine:

The dinosaur period

I am going to try and update my blog a little.

When we started our dinosaur study, I had the kids look at this book:



The kids love all our Usborne books but all from this series are favorites. When it is time for a story before bed, they will often pull out of of them and want to look and find the images instead of reading a book.

I also pulled out several books that helps kids to learn how to draw dinosaurs and prehistoric life:







May seem like a lot of books (and I did not post them all) but some were gifts and some were bought in garage sales and used books stores. Yes, some were bought brand new too. Anyway, the kids had much fun drawing several pages each of dinosaurs:

Catherine's work:

William's work:

Zachary's work:

Everyday, we sat all together and read a fun book:



This one sure was long to read. I remember us cuddling all together on my bed, reading a few pages, taking a one minute nap then read a few more pages then nap another minute. The kids thought it was so fun.



This one was a fast read and Ali reminded us that it was *her* book:



This was the biggest, most successful project of our dinosaur study:



It was very long to cut every little piece but it was fun to put it together. I would cut a few items everday and we would put them together. We saw the scenery come together, little by little. This was the result:



Of course, we had more books to read and so many things to learn too. I even found a few sites for the kids to explore and play on.



This site is full of info on dinosaurs and has some fun games to play:

http://nature.ca/discover/exf/index_f.cfm

Week 3, Day 4

Today, Alexandra did a LIttle Einsteins puzzle:


And we read this French book:



We also read the story *Beauty and the Beast* and did pages 1-5 of Hooked on Phonics- Colors and Shapes. She learned about the color yellow. I have discovered that my daughter is very meticulous and colors inside the lines as much as possible.

Zachary did Lesson 1 of Singapore Math, 2A. The next French book I had gotten for him really did not work out well so we skiped it. I will find something else instead, probably just start him with the same program William is doing, just at a slower pace. In writing, he did p. 22-23.

William did p. 116-119, Review 4 in Singapore Math, Les Sons, p. 44-46, Trousse p. 29-31 and Writing p. 59-62.

Catherine did Singapore Math p.

BBL.

Long time no update

I know, I have not been good at keeping this blog updated. I will try to work on it today and tomorrow. Since I write down everything my kids worked on, it will be easy to update. Easy but loooong. I also have to download some pictures and try to upload them on glowfoto but that takes a long time. Ever since I got a new camera, I can only upload 2-3 pictures at a time.

So, see you later?