Snowboarding

 Both kids like to snowboard but Trinity is the one who has really grabbed a hold of it.  She works hard to practice the skills she learned in her lesson and she now goes on the chair lift and more difficult runs.  She is very brave!

Kyler has great balance and skill for his age.  He does lose energy after a couple hours but he is improving as well.

Tom Thomson report

Trinity loves the artwork of Tom Thomson so she did a report on his life.  We are planning to do some family Tom Thomson oil paintings.  We have all been influenced by how he expressed his love for the outdoors in his work.

Trinity has a hard time getting her cursive very neat but I know she did her best with this, and in ink.  I am well pleased with her effort.

Community

Kyler is learning more about what makes a community.  He reads the pages in his workbook, answers the questions and then we talk.   We drive to the country to get our goat milk, eggs, honey and cheese.  He is aware of how farmers are an important part of our community and how they feed us.

Science

 Trinity and Kyler are always finding pictures in clouds.  Now she knows that those are 'cumulus' clouds. 

Kyler recently learned about the water cycle.  He took some pictures and used the store computer to develop them.  After we got them home he assembled them in order and made a water cycle collage.  Great job Kyler!

Kyler loves to study bats.  He thinks they are fascinating so it was not hard to get him to draw and write down what he knows about them.

Mapping

Kyler is having fun learning about maps.  He can interpret simple map keys and has a concept of what he is looking at in different views (bird's eye, top view, side view).

Trinity is learning about the continents and Canadian provinces.   She enjoys mapping and she can interpret aerial photos from different views.  Trinity likes to look through our big map book of the world and point out where our old home, new home and grandparents' home are.

Health

We have friends who adopted a child with FAS and so we have witnessed the effects of it first hand.  Trinity and I read a book about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and this is what she derived from our reading.

 

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)

 

F A S is a disease you get when your mom drinks alcohol when she is pregnant.  Alcohol can damage the baby’s brain so they can’t think properly. It can also damage parts of their body. There is no safe amount of alcohol the baby can have.  When the mom drinks alcohol it goes from her bloodstream right to the baby.  The baby’s liver is not strong enough to clean the baby’s body. Most of the time you can’t tell that a baby has FAS until they are older and they can’t learn the same.  A woman should never drink alcohol when she is pregnant.    

                                                              The end

Explorers

Trinity made a timeline from Pierre De La Verendrye's work as the lesson lent itself easily to this task.  She found it particularly interesting to see how quickly he built forts and that he took a few years off to grieve his son's death.  She worked very hard to make her timeline neat and organized...though she did get one fact wrong.

Time for planting

Back in Ontario flowers are still under a foot of snow...but, here in Chilliwack, we can begin to plant and have fun getting dirty.  Trinity likes the dirt and bugs much more.  Here she is in her 'One Small Square'  It is one meter square in our front yard that is all hers.  She will be sketching it periodically to see what is new in her small corner of our property.

Kyler loves to be outside too.  He loves watching the birds and seeing things grow and bloom.  He will get his 'One Small Square' in the back yard soon.  The book we have used, to inspire our love of even the tiniest portion of God's world, has given us ideas of how we can focus on a small area to see how it changes over the year.

Healthy snacks

Kyler and Trinity continue to make healthy choices and to work together to create fun snacks.

Language, Reading and Spelling

Trinity and Kyler are both in ABeka Language Arts programs.  Trinity does regular reading comprehension activities and quizzes, both oral and multiple choice.  She sometimes has to reread portions of the story or poem to answer correctly but, all in all, her comprehension is good. She is reading at or slightly above her grade level.

Right now Trinity is reading through, "Liberty Tree",  that includes short stories and portions of well known novels.    The stories tell about real people and fictional characters who had high moral standards and achieved great things.  She was particularly interested in the life of Isaac Newton.

Trinity reads stories with comprehension quizzes from  "Adventures in Other Lands," that she reads for speed as well.   She has also read about Tom Thomson, a great Canadian painter, and she reads novels we get from the library every Thursday.  Some of these include:  "The Boxcar Children" and "Geronimo Stilton".   Trinity reads and listens to stories on the RazKids website.

Kyler has read through two ABeka grade 2 readers this term.  These include poems, short stories, songs and scripture.  He does oral quizzes at the end of the day's reading and he is doing very well with his comprehension.  Kyler still reverses b's and d's but much less often.  He does read through words he has never seen before well, using his excellent phonics and comprehension skills.  Kyler just finished "No Longer a Nobody," his first chapter book with 55 pages.

Kyler also loves to use RazKids and he uses National Geographic books that use an electronic pen to read out facts about God's creations.

 Trinity is studying maxims written by famous people.  The above is an example of how she has learned the truth of one of these.

Trinity's punctuation has improved quite a bit this term.  She does need to work on her run together sentences but she can correct them on her own when I tell her there is one in a particular paragraph.

Kyler does well with his language arts.  His cursive is coming along well.  His spelling paper below has many of the most difficult connections in it, though I think he did very well considering.

We have been working on the below suffixes and prefixes.  He has a good grasp on what a root word is.  He does still have to think hard about when to add 's' or 'es'.  He also needs help to remember when to double a final consonant, but he is improving and does his work without complaint...which isn't nothing :)

Spelling tests

ABeka has a very challenging spelling curriculum.  I am pleased with Trinity's progress with it.  When I have to look at the list to make sure of the spelling I figure it's pretty amazing if she gets it right.

Math examples

Trinity continues to excel in her math.  She looks forward to her lessons and does them without a fuss.  I believe she is sufficiently challenged with new concepts and works hard to get her answers correct.  The only problem Trinity continues to struggle with in math is discouragement when she doesn't get 100%.

 Kyler continues to do well in math.  He picks up new concepts quickly and applies them well.  He needs to work on his self control.  As the lessons get more difficult he has a hard time keeping himself focused.  I'm positive this is a matter of his age and he simply requires patience and training.

Wildlife Art Classes

Trinity and Kyler have started taking wildlife art classes at the Great Blue Heron Nature Reserve.  They attend a 1.5 hour per week class that teaches them a wide variety of techniques and drawing styles, using different mediums.

Of course they are very excited for Wednesdays to come around and they both try very hard in their classes, with full attention.

Now in week 4 of their classes, Trinity and Kyler have done sketching (3D and using a grid), cartooning, shading, airbrushing, roller painting, plaster art, and sponge painting.  There are still 5 more classes and we are all dying to see what will come next.

The below is an airbrushed background with a painted tree trunk and sponged leaves...artist :Kyler Brinkman!