Author Archives: Heather

Exercise

Leave a reply

Now that the skis have been put away, the skipping ropes and goggles are out(but not at the same time). We have tidied up the basement floor so we can skip every day. B6 is the least experienced skipper but has increased his individual and large rope totals considerably in just a week. When the weather becomes a little drier we will probably skip outside, but for now the basement, with Toby Mac blaring, is just fine.

Friday afternoon skiing has been replaced by swimming. None of us had swum laps in quite a few months so it was good to be back in the pool. I managed to do 1050m in 25 minutes which I was pleased with after such a long break . L12 did a little more than that and A10 a little less so it was not a bad start.

In a few weeks the gloves and balls will be out  as Andrew and I have signed up to play softball again this summer with his work team.

Initiative

Leave a reply

Our chore list is, I guess, what you could call a rolling list. When it is chore time we just look on the list and see what is next. This way we don’t have to do the same chore every week. I also like it because if we have a busy week (if?) then the next week we just pick up where we left off.

Well, I was just dusting in the girl’s room, usually one of them does this. Both girls have beautiful fairytale dolls, with full skirts, on the dressing table . I picked up the dolls to dust the dressing table and found a stash of bits and pieces under the skirts, you know the kind of things which are just a pain to put away. They all go in a different drawer or box, it’s much easier to put them all in one place, like under a doll’s voluminous skirt for instance.

We have been discussing taking initiative in keeping things clean and tidy around the house. Does this count?

Round the World in Forty Days

3 Replies

School is not B6’s favourite thing at present. I believe there are other 6 year old boys who feel the same way. When the girls were around his age I remember we hit a bit of a slump with our school work as well so I invented a world travel unit. They had tickets to fly on our own family airlines, travel journals to fill and a world to discover. We recreated many famous landmarks in our own school room. Exotic foods and original crafts were tried.

I am attempting to capture B6’s interest by creating something similar. In the mailbox yesterday was a challenge. He has to travel round the world in forty days. He must visit at least 25 countries, travel by ten different modes of transportation and take pictures every where he goes. He might encounter danger, be captured or have to eat strange food.

I’m glad to say he accepted the challenge. As soon as he had filled out the requisite form he received a list of items he had to gather together before he could begin the challenge. A world map, pencil, eraser, travel journal, scissors, ruler, cell phone and binoculars were easy enough to find. Getting a passport took a little longer as did raising $500. Fortunately for him, his sister works at the passport office (actually she is the passport office) so by this morning he had a beautiful new passport. He earned his $500 doing chores around the home so he was ready to start. B6 believes that the letters and instructions are coming from me but as he doesn’t have any proof he has started saying that they are coming from “the community” and that I am part of “the community”.

His first assignment was in the mailbox today, a trip to Nunavut. Reluctantly he worked out what was written on the page. It was no use asking A10 and L12 to help, they were banned from reading it to him. After reading that he was going somewhere cold he had to list the clothes he would take; he drew them.img_2273crop.jpg I know that was clever of him, but I made him write the names anyway. After all, this is replacing his language work. I met him in Nunavut and showed him around, via books , then he built an inukshuk. His cellphone came in handy to book a hotel room for the night as he is yet to complete the whole assignment.

 

Seabird

3 Replies

seabird2677.jpgHolling Clancy Holling’s books have a style of their own. While telling a story which spans generations, in Seabird, he has also given us a glimpse into the lives of whalers, sea captains, sailors and their families. There is history, geography, marine biology and ship building all woven into the story of a young Ship’s Boy. Ezra Brown is the ship’s boy on a whaling ship in 1832. During his watch, high in the crow’s nest one day, he is entranced by an ivory gull. The sudden, unexpected movements of the ivory gull trigger a memory which prompts him to shout,”Iceberg! Dead Ahead!” His warning saves the ship and a relationship begins.

Soon after his experience with the gull Ezra carves a model of one from walrus tusks with amber, slate, coral and whalebone for the details. He names the model Seabird. As we follow Ezra’s progress we see how his life stays linked with Seabird. Ezra becomes a captain and has a son, who also forms a bond with Seabird. And so the story goes on, spanning 100 years of adventurers in Ezra’s family.

Every second page in the book is a short chapter and the facing page is a painting. Around the text are small but detailed line drawings with notes for the reader. These line drawings give more detail to the story being told. Sometimes they provide background information describing how something was made or formed. There is often extra text around the pictures explaining a process or occurrence.

The book is short enough to read at one sitting but I would recommend doing what my son and I did and read it over a few weeks. I imagine we will probably read it again when he is older and he will glean even more from it than he did this time at age six.

Project Feederwatch

Leave a reply

img_2223cropagain2.jpgAlexandra has been participating in Project Feederwatch this winter. Her designated area to watch is our backyard where we have two bird feeders and a suet basket hanging on our washing line. It is the only place we have found where the squirrels can’t help themselves. With three weeks to go and the weather warming up we might see a few more varieties.

She has seen:

cardinals
bluejays
chickadees
downy woodpecker
song sparrow
dark-eyed juncos
American crows
hawk
goldfinch
a robin

 

More on dresses

Leave a reply

I mentioned my Aunty Dot the other day as one of the three aunts who taught me to sew.  Aunty Dot had been a home economics teacher but was retired when I knew her. In me she found a willing student. It was in her kitchen that I learned how to make scones, always rubbing in the butter, never melting it. It was in her living room that I learned to sew, beginning with the dolls clothes and accessories I wanted to make . img_2256crop.jpgWe still have some of the clothes I made, under her supervision, for Barbie and Wendy. In amongst the clothes, also are those that she made, many of them works of art. There are reversible dresses, skirts and cloaks for Wendy. Beautifully sewn evening gowns, complete with strings of pearls, lined coats and suits, and frilly nightclothes were created for Barbie. At left are some of the clothes in just as good shape now as they were when I played with them 35 years ago.

She also made some lovely clothes for my mother and me. Yes, I still have some of them too. I don’t hoard everything, but an original item of clothing made out of a beautiful piece of fabric is hard to give away. And you never know, I just might find the right occasion to wear it one day.

Last May my own girls and some of their friends wanted to learn how to sew. I thoroughly enjoyed teaching them on Friday afternoons. There were looks of satisfaction on their faces as they completed each step and looks of disappointment when I told them that something needed to be redone. Perhaps I had similar looks on my face when my great aunt showed me how to unpick and try again. Never the less I’m glad she did.

Dresses

1 Reply

When writing about the Group of Four acting out scenes from Romeo and Juliet the other day I didn’t mention a small detail which delighted me. The acting was great, they really stepped into their roles, they made their props and organised their costumes. The extra little bonus for me was seeing A10 and L12 in dresses I had made for myself many long years ago. These dresses are not worn by anyone at present but neither have they been relegated to “dress up box” status. They hang with the formal dresses from the wedding years.

img_2248crop.jpg L12 wore my 21st birthday dress. I designed it and made it out of white voile with lace inserts, pintucks and a blue sash to go round my waist. A10 wore the dress I made for my older brother’s wedding. It was violet and gold shot silk with lace inserts (yes I did like lace inserts) in the sleeves and a very full skirt which A10 spread dramatically about her on the couch as she acted. It was made from a dress which my great aunt had made herself. Aunty Dot was one of three aunts who taught and encouraged me to sew from an early age. The material is really quite beautiful, the light catches the violet, then the gold as the folds of the skirt move.

As I was describing the history of the two dresses to one of the other mothers she mentioned how she had slightly altered her mother’s 21st birthday dress to wear to her highschool graduation. I did exactly the same thing for my highschool formal. We still have that dress in the dress ups and it has been worn by many a “princess” or “bridesmaid”.

Ski day

Leave a reply

img_2225crop2.jpg

Everyone was all smiles at the beginning of our day of skiing in Gatineau Park. The nine of us had water and plenty of food packed. The temperature was -15, we had sunshine, no wind and about 3.5km steadily up hill to get to our lunch stop.

img_2226crop2.jpg

B6 led the way and set a great pace which kept us going but didn’t stop us from enjoying some conversation along the way.img_2227crop.jpg

We stopped for lunch in one of the cabins maintained by the NCC for use by skiers and hikers. It is heated by a wood stove and there are tables and a clothes line for drying your gear while you rest and eat. Each table has a candle sconce on the wall beside it so you can eat by candle light if you are skiing at night like Andrew was last month. It was warm and we had plenty of food and even the very chilly outhouse experience didn’t dampen everyone’s spirits.

After lunch however, we began to hear a few differing views on what should happen next. The two adults had no intention of stopping yet but we had to play the Smarties card to keep some skiers going. The next leg of the trail was nowhere near as long as the first but a lot more encouragement was required. When we got there we were treated to a display of chickadees, at least eight bluejays as well as what we think was a purple finch.

img_2240crop.jpg
The trip back to the parking lot was mostly down hill much to everyone’s delight. B6 was pretty weary by then so he and I brought up the rear. We talked about his favourite books and movies and didn’t talk about our tired muscles. Once we hit the downhill sections he discovered he could practically sit on his skis and fly along so that is what he did, calling from behind,”I can’t stop, Mummy, you’d better go faster.”

We worked out that we had probably skied 11km and the concensus was that it had been a great day. We ended it by joining up with the dads, who had been at work all day, for for chili, beef stew and a tart bought on the way home.

Act II

1 Reply

We had a house full of very enthusiastic actors this afternoon when the Group of Four met for the second week of our Shakespeare unit. Once again we began with insults, most delivered with some acerbity but all received with much laughter. I guess there is nothing quite like having your mother encourage you to insult your family and friends in public. Next we spent some time talking about sonnets and looking at both the prologue of Romeo and Juliet and Romeo’s description of Juliet in Act I, Scene V. As the actors were getting quite impatient for their rehearsal time we began but did not finish a hockey sonnet!

The children were allocated a role and given a cropped scene to learn four days ago. Most of the girls had arrived with costumes, much to the surprise of the family of all boys. The boys, however, did come with very impressive swords for their fight scene. All had come well prepared, with their lines memorised. The performance opened with L12 delivering the prologue and then the first of our Juliets for the afternoon gave us a soliloquy from the balcony scene. L12 was the next Juliet partnered with a fine Nurse for Act II,Scene V. B6 was delighted to be Benvolio in a fight scene between the Montagues and Capulets. Lord and Lady Capulet’s argument with their daughter was acted with great emotion and finally we saw A10 as Juliet visiting the Friar and receiving the potion which would give her the appearance of death.

Once again we saw the children use their own initiative to make this unit a success. This was the first taste of Shakespeare for some of them and has left them wanting more.

Fables retold

Leave a reply

I have been reading some of Aesop’s fables to B6. He has retold three of them in his own words, here is the first.

One day there were two children walking along the road. One of the children, whose name was Mary, found a horse and said, “I found a horse.”

The other child, Nicholas, replied, “You mean, we found a horse. When travelers find something they ought to share it.”

Mary said, “Oh no, I found this horse and now I am going to ride it.”

Just then three big men appeared, two on horses and one walking, all with drawn swords. The man on foot shouted to the children,”You thief! You thief!”

Mary, who had found the horse, turned to Nicholas and said, “Oh help, we are in trouble.”

Nicholas replied, “Oh no, you found it, you can be in trouble.”