Spring has finally sprung! We had a guest this weekend... papas birthmom who we have only met a couple of times. She is so amazing and fits into the family so easily that it is almost comical! 
Papa is trying to take as much work as possible right now, as the work situation in the valley seems to be drying up somewhat. He has been working some evenings... sometimes we all tag along if it is sunny and the kids and I explore the different neighbourhoods.
The days have been busy. We only have 4 weeks of school reporting to do until we meet our requirement for the year, so this time next month and we will be " done"! Nothing really changes... but I don't have to write down what we do all day, or type out reports weekly for the boys. I still have a bunch of funding to spend. We are thinking of getting a rock tumbler, audobon mineral and rock guide, rock picks( and eye protection!) and some mineral guide books of the area. We will probably get a couple of other guidebooks to beef up the collection as well. I don't know what to allot the funding to for my youngest. I purchased a LOT of paper becauase he was so into bookmaking, some Sensory Therapy play books and the Autism book Building Bridges for ideas to help through the social/ sensory issues( dairy is still helping amazingly by the way!), and the mantis egg stuff with his funding. He has met with all of the ministry guidelines for the year so doesn't need any actual curriculum at this time. He is really a builder and a maker... he has k'nex and lego.. Does anyone have any ideas of neat things that they have spotted? I was even trying to find a good source of online art supplies that was good quality ( not crayola) that is based in Canada, but wasn't having any luck. The Canadian dollar isn't doing so hot and I don't want to spend all of thier funding on huge shipping expenses!
A few weeks back we recieved an order of ours from Lee Valley Tools for my oldest sons learning plan.They did a reprint of the 1915 book series ( maybe it was a magazine then?) Boy Mechanic. It is a series of four books, each with around 1000 projects. Everything from kite building ( 10 different fancy types even like box kites, separate leveled kites, etc) , glider making all of the way to human sized, how to fish/ set traps/ build shelters/ camp. Then it goes all of the way to building steam powered motorcycles/ boats/ cars etc.!lol Anyhow , the stuff that was acceptable fun for kids/ youth back then is so different than it is now. Of course we use more safety precautions now which is fantastic, but now we just buy prefab things and set them loose on structured activities. When it snows for example, there are 2 dozen ideas for making different sleds. Some are beautiful and complicated patterns if you have the time, some can be thrown together in an hour out of scrap just in time to have fun still. Now we just buy a sled from Walmart when it snows.( well, not us cause we still have my hubbys old GT snow racer from when he was a kid) It feels like your mind would be so expanded by trying to make more things for yourself. Anyways... the boys freak for these books! My oldest reads them for hours and the youngest looks through them for ages( he is the engineer type) and then builds cool stuff with k'nex. They do have older materials that are hazerdous to use... but next to impossible to find these days anyways. Many of them are awesome projects to make with creative kids though... to get them used to using tools and being creative with what is available. Anyhow, I highly recommend them!
We are definitely looking forward to building some great stuff with them this summer.
This was all a little bit fragmented... kind of like real life feels right now! Now the clock is ticking on getting the garden finished! I planted some inherited raspberry canes in the old side garden last night. I still have to finish cleaning up the newly 3 times expanded main garden, and tier the darn thing before I plant anything. Looks like that will be the plan this weekend. In the rain!
2 comments:
Hi.,... Im just a random lurker. But I used to work at a place in Prince George, BC that sells good quality art supplies, they do mail orders and they support homeschooling and unschooling. They do a lot of 'charging' to various home learning accounts, and they take special orders too. I dont know how much art supplies are online, but the website is speedee.ca I think. Its Speedee Printers in prince george. I used to work there so, I thought I would pass the idea along. The cool thing is they are a local (to the area) family owned business that supports tons of local artists and families in that community
:) Vanessa
Thanks Vanessa!Iwill check into this!
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