Valentine's Day

Party time at little raCOONs academy. M and B wanted to plan a Valentine party for a few of their closest friends. The planning began with making a list of who they were going to invite, what they were going to do, what they were eat, and how they were going to decorate. I was very please with how they work together to plan this party. They both came up with ideas for food, games, and decorations. Each one respected each others ideas and both were put in the main party plan. Some of the activities that were included were: valentine making, balloon games, cookie decorating, and pizza making. They traced and cut out a vast number of colored heart to decorate with stickers other paraphernalia. Everyone got to cut out and decorate there own cookies which they got to eat after super for dessert. They wanted to make the pizza and nutritious as possible, so we made a whole wheat crust and used fresh veggies, and low fat cheese. The party was very successful, and I am sure there will be one next year too.

Fun Spelling

We have been using the All About Spelling and it has been really great for my kids. I love their way of teaching spelling. It has probably helped me as much as my kids, but there is more than one way to learn things. My kids are good at spelling and following the rules in a spelling lesson, but applying it in piece of writing is what really counts. This site is a fun way to practice spelling as well as typing. It is for grade 1-12. This site also has many other helpful resources.

Kub Kar

B got to make his first Kub Kar. He drew out the design, and then his dad and uncle helped him cut the shape out. It was now time to start the painting process.

The painting had to be done very, very carefully. He knew exactly how he wanted it to be, and there was no room for mistakes.

To top it off B added a B to the front. Now that the painting was complete. It was time to attach the wheels. This proved to be harder that B originally thought, so he recruited dad for some help.

The finished product. He can't wait to race it with the other boys in his pack.

Hand Prints

As I was searching for art projects, I came across this idea and felling in love it. I put my own twist on it to make it a bit more personal. I havd each of my kids paint a section and put their hand print in it. For the original idea click here. It started out as an art project, but turned into a combination of art and science. I have found that most projects we do cover more than one subject. I had the three primary color of paint available for the kids to choose from. M wanted to use the color orange, so she had to chose which 2 primary color to mix together to make the secondary color orange that she wanted. She chose red and yellow. After mixing them together she wasn't quite happy with the brightness of the color. I then asked her if she knew how to make it brighter. Her reply was to add some white paint. She added some white paint and was very pleased to find that it did the trick.

Decorating

M told me that our school room walls were boring, and we need some pictures on them. We went to shopping and she found some stretched canvases with outlines of pictures on them at the Dollarama that she could paint. Here are a few that she has completed. B has one that is still in progress. We will post it when it is done. I love the ray of sunshine that M brings into my life. She brightens up even the cloudiest days. I love her choice of color combinations and if you look closely she brings the two paintings together with the tiny little bird that matches the butterfly.

Thanksgiving Turkeys

These little turkeys were really fun to make. I got the pattern Here. They were easy and didn't take much time. We didn't use all suggested materials from the pattern. We improvised with what we had in the craft box. M, and B had so much fun that W and even little G made one too.

Sedimentary Rock

While we were studying about rocks and minerals, B and I made a small simulation of how sedimentary rock is formed. The first thing we did was gather our materials. M and B collected different materials to form our rock. They collected things like shale, sand, dirt, clay, gravel, and small pebbles. The other thing we needed for out experiment was a glass jar about 1/2 full of water. We used about a 1L glass jar. B said that this jar represented the ocean. We then put our samples in order of the particle size from largest to smallest. We put the pebbles in the jar, or in our ocean starting with the largest. The pebbles settled very easily and quickly at the bottom of the ocean. So then we added some gravel. After we added the gravel B observed that he couldn't see in the water very good anymore. We decided to let the gravel settle for a day. After adding each sample the water was clouded, so we let the particles settle for a day and then added an other component. B noticed that the smaller particles fell down and filled in the spaces between the larger rocks in the layer below. When we were all done adding our samples we let the water completely evaporate. This took more than a few days, but when the water was gone we had our very own sedimentary rock.