Snow Fun

We had a rare winter blast over the weekend and the kids (the furry one included) had a great time playing in the snow.

Jay gets a snowball ready.

Princess looks on expectantly.

Pounce!

Bee in the snow fort we built.

There's more snow in the forecast for tomorrow - we can't wait!

To see some more snowy photos, click here.

Multiplication Fun

A lesson in oxymorons, or a great way to learn your times tables?
My son has been really enjoying a game called Timez Attack lately. It's an adventure game for the computer that teaches kids their times tables while they try to escape from a dungeon, battle trolls and fight dragons. We downloaded the free version a while ago, but we purchased the full version today, as they're offering $10 off until the end of November (just enter the word "turkeybrainz" in the coupon code line during checkout).
Jay played it for 2 to 3 hours tonight and is up to his 4X tables!

Go to the Big Brainz website for more information and a free trial.

Self Portrait

Bee completed this picture of herself in her art class last week.

It's done with a combination of pastels, watercolours, and collage.

To see some neat photos of our mason bee house and its inhabitants, click here.

The Many Uses of Cedar

Last week we took part in a program at a local museum to learn more about the many ways the local Musqueam people used the cedar tree. It's amazing how important it was to their way of life.

The above photo is of what a waterfront village may have looked like hundreds of years ago. The houses and story poles were all made with cedar.

This is some of their large collection of story poles...

...and there was an artist on site doing a carving demonstration, which the kids were quite interested in.

This canoe is decorated with some traditional coastal artwork.

Jay was very interested in this canoe, which the kids were allowed to touch and examine close up. It would have been hollowed out, and then filled with several inches of water and steaming hot rocks in order to steam the wood to make it more pliable. After a while, the sides of the canoe would then be spread to make it wider in the middle.

They made bentwood cooking boxes in a similar fashion, steaming a single piece of wood and bending it to make the four sides of a box. They would cook in them by dropping hot rocks into the box to heat the contents.

One of my favorite things that we saw were these bowls. Everyone got their own individual beautifully carved bowl when they were born, and they took it with them wherever they went throughout the rest of their lives.

Even more impressive was that they could even make various articles of clothing out of cedar. These hats are woven out of individual fibers of the inner bark. They were a particularly good thing to have in our rainy west coast weather, as the fibers would expand when they got damp, making the hats impervious to water.

It was an interesting field trip, and the kids enjoyed playing anthropologist, figuring out what various tools and artifacts were used for.

Our guide seemed a bit wary of the whole homeschooling thing to begin with, but she warmed up pretty quickly, and one of the moms even heard another employee say what a good group of kids they were.

I guess it was educational for all involved!

Hooked Rug

Bee finished hooking this rug yesterday using a kit that her aunt and uncle bought for her. It's pretty small (maybe 10 X 10), so she's thinking of turning it into a pillow. I think it looks great!

Busy Kids

I just read this article about how full kids' schedules are nowadays and I think it's right on the money. My two get really stressed if we're out all day and they don't have a good chunk of time at home when they can do their own thing, whether it be cooking, working on a project, or just reading a good book. You have to wonder how kids cope when they're at school all day and are then sent off to various activities in the evenings and on weekends. How are they supposed to formulate their own thoughts and figure out who they are if they don't have time to just be?


No Time for Childhood

Call it "hyper-parenting," and it's rampant, according to Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld.

This child-rearing phenomenon has well-meaning parents delivering kids to an endless array of academic, social and athletic activities and programs in order to accelerate accomplishments and enrich childhood.

"Over-scheduled lives have become the norm. Parents feel remiss, even neglectful, if they don't fulfil every iota of a child's potential," says Rosenfeld, an author and child psychiatrist in New York.

So adhering to a relentless to-do list in order to make kids the very best they can be is the name of the game. It's widely believed to be the sign of good parenting, but just who is it good for and at what cost?

Read the rest of the article here.

Field Trips - Fire Hall and Pathology Lab

We've had a full week this week, with two neat field trips in the past two days. Yesterday we went to a local fire station to learn all about what the fire fighters do and to see all the neat equipment that they use. The kids were thrilled to get to sit in the trucks, and got a real kick out of seeing one of the moms dressed up in fire fighting gear.

It's amazing to think that the gear she has on weighs close to 100 pounds, and then there are all of the tools and equipment to carry on top of that! They must be incredibly fit.

One of the dads in our homeschool group is a doctor, and today he arranged to take us on a tour of the pathology lab at one of our local hospital. There was an entire room filled with walls of specimens like the ones pictured below, and we saw some pretty amazing things. We were able to examine samples of almost any body part one could think of, as well as compare healthy tissue to diseased or damaged tissue.

It was enlightening for the kids (and the adults too) to see what a difference your lifestyle choices can have on your internal health. It really makes you realize how incredible the human body is. In the above photo, some of the girls are learning about the female reproductive system with one of the moms (who is also a nurse).

After these two trips, we're definitely inspired to be more careful about our health and safety!