Frogs in our Pool

We are here in Paradise!

It's been so wonderful because the Leavitts are still here. I don't know what we'll do without them.

Vanuatu already feels like home and the boys have jumped back into the island life.

One of the most memorable things about our first couple weeks here has been the frogs! I've never seen a frog in Vanuatu before, and now I've seen all I ever need to see.

Our pools had been emptied by Sheira who had been fixing up our house for our arrival. She worked magic on our house, but she said she needed to empty the pools because of frogs. Okay...whatever.

One night we had this torrential downpour of rain that filled up our pool about three feet! And along with the rain came the frogs. Many, many frogs. They made a sound like a cow and a duck were having a baby on a motorcycle.

We have been dispatching the frogs to a different location, and now, although our main pool is full, we can sleep at night without cow/duck/motorcycle sounds.

But in the mean time, I was really tempted to dissect a frog for science.  I lost my nerve. I had wanted to in our biology year, but I couldn't find any frogs back then. Now that I had a plethora, I was a pansy. Oh well.

Studying the LIVE frogs will have to count as our science for this week. I haven't gotten around to organizing any other science club.

For art, our teacher back in Canada had asked the boys to paint the first thing they saw that was bright and colourful. What did they find? Yep. Frogs.

Now that we have a pool, our boys want to be in it for most of the day. How can I deny them this excellent P.E.? But I have to watch them, so while I'm teaching, I am watching the pool as well. This is what half of my day ends up looking like right now:

SOCIAL STUDIES

For history we learned about the second passage i.e. the slave trade. I think I sufficiently disturbed them. Interestingly, we also started reading Witch of Blackbird Pond and it talked about shipping slaves.

We also talked about Iroquois vs Hurons. We talked about the Beaver Wars and Hiawatha. I need to remember that I should talk about the Hudson Bay before this lesson for more continuity.

As our activity, I had them make Lacrosse sticks. Daniel was the only one to finish his, but I think it ended up pretty cute!

MATH

Maxwell's

Uhh....I think that's actually glue that got on that paper.

Hyrum's

And Daniel's

LANGUAGE ARTS

Maxwell's

Hyrum's

I'm not sure what to do about Hyrum. I taught him a short Barton lesson and he said "You're nicer here." but I'm not sure what happened because after that I think I turned into a mean person. I taught him about three times after that and I almost burst into tears of frustration three times.

I MISS JANDY!!!

Seriously...I might have to have Jandy FaceTime him.

But he DID finish reading his "Chain of Gold" stand alone chapter book, and he is continuing his writing:

The Warrior Elements....Continued

He ducked out of view and spied around the corner to see what kind of element was in the armour. The element was taking off the armour so it could rum away. It was blue, which meant it had to be water.

"Hey Vipe!" Flame whispered. Go follow that element."

"There's another element in here?" Vipe whispered back.

"Yeah. I'll be right behind you just in case it's fire, but I'm pretty sure it's water."

"Good idea." said Vipe.

They looked in the armour and no one was there. Them they heard a sound of someone tripping. They looked up and was a water element.

"Do you know what I'm thinking?" asked Flame.

"Chase him?" asked Vipe.

"Yep." said Flame. "Let's go!" and they were off, chasing the water element. They got out of the temple and saw the water running. While they were running, Flame remembered that the crystals in his bag could float. He remembered how Vipe had tilted the crystals to turn.

Flame stopped. "What are you doing?" Vipe asked.

"We need to go faster." Flame said. "So maybe if we....ah ha!" He had reached in his bag and pulled out the crystals. "Use these!"

"Good idea, but are you worried about crashing?" asked Vipe.

"Good point. Let's make a skateboard."

"That would take too much time. We need to catch that guy." said Vipe.

"Don't worry. I know where that water element is going." said Flame.

"Where?" asked Vipe.

"To the hoodoos in the water. That's the only thing in that direction. Water elements seem to disappear there. I don't know how, but I know it's caused by something. With this flying skateboard that I'm finishing with this flat rock, we'll be able to quickly fly and find him.

Here, I'll finish tying and---voila! A skateboard for you and for me!" Flame triumphantly said.


and Daniel's

The Adventures of Digital 3s....Continued

....and fell on the ground. Then Jack said "Jim, duck!" This time I wasn't too late.

Three knives flew over me. They hit the ruckalloe right before the ruckalloe reached me. It barely hurt the ruckalloe, but it did enough to make him slow down and get angry.

Then the ruckalloe charged atJack. Jack did not realize the ruckalloe was coming after him. I ran to stop the ruckalloe, but them suddenly everything turned black.

I woke up thinking I was in an enemy's prison, but I wasn't. I opened my eyes and saw Jack on the ground hurt and bleeding. I saw Twister helping him. This weird creature that looked like a droplet was helping too.

I said "What happened?"

Twister said "It was this droplet that saved us. He was riding the ruck aloe and guiding it to trample an ironside that was about to knock me out, but then he saw ironhides that were about to kill Jack. He had to leave me to save him. But as the ruckalloe was trampoline the ironhides, it hurt Jack as well.

I said to the droplet "What is your name?"

"Drooplet." said the blue creature the size of a small fruit who is Madde of water but has hands, feet, and a face.

"How did you do that?" I asked.

"My water influences their thoughts."

Then I asked. "Why did you do that? I thought you were an enemy."

Dropplet said "I wanted a true master that would not enslave me, and I could tell that's who you are."

I said "Who, me?"

"Of course you."

"Why not Jack?" I asked.

Fall and Winter Lasted just 2 Weeks

And we're off, AGAIN! We're in an airport on our way to Vanuatu and summer.

Leaving Alberta in the middle of October is PERFECT! We saw the fall colours. We had cozy sweater days by the fire with hot cocoa and snow gently falling out the window.

We made snowmen and made snow angels

Heh heh heh...yellow snow. (Food colouring)

We had Thanksgiving (which was perfect timing for our Social Studies about Pilgrims.) Thanksgiving with lots of family and friends. Turkeys and pies galore.

And we even had Halloween! We threw a Halloween party as a going away party. I didn't want a mess right before we left and I wanted to invite so many people, that I rented the Senior Centre. We filled up to whole place.

I feel so blessed to have so many friends and family.

I wanted my kids to have an opportunity to dress up. Halloween was always my favourite holiday.

Maxwell worked really hard on his Steve costume, and I'll never forget Denise's tooth!

But now we're off to the southern hemisphere where summer is just starting. We had our fall and winter, and now we're ready for summer!  We have been packing and packing. I brought lots and lots of school stuff. Enough for a year, but hardly any of my cute historical picture books. Maybe the Walshes (who are coming to visit us for a couple months) will bring them.

I am a little nervous this time around. The crime in Vanuatu has gone up in our neighbourhood, and it's dengue fever season and cyclone season. Interestingly, we had our yearly start of the school year father's blessings, and the common thread throughout all the blessings was that guardian angles would be protecting us. Hmmm...not sure what that means.

We will miss our art teacher!! Daniel even cried when he had to leave. Janet even sent us with art supplies and she will teach us remotely. Love her.

and now for the main school subjects:

SOCIAL STUDIES

We learned about Samuel de Champlain. We found a cute historical picture book about him, which is shocking because Canadian history doesn't have many of those. Did you know Port Royal was settled BEFORE Jamestown? Yep.

But of course, the Lost Colony of Roanoke was before it all. I have to teach my kids about the Lost Colony because the Outer Banks of North Carolina was in my first district on my mission, and it's on my bucket list to see the musical there (if they still do that...)

We also learned about Jamestown and Pocahontas. There are so many different versions about Pocahontas!!! It was an excellent opportunity to talk to my kids about how historians can put their own spins and biases on the past.

John Smith didn't say that Pocahontas had saved him until he wrote to the queen years later. Why? WE DON'T KNOW. But most historians think they know the truth. In fact, one book I have is called "The True Story of Pocahontas." Which contradicted some of the other versions that claimed to be the "truth." Yeah. Gotta love "history."

We also read "A Lion to Guard Us" which was a fascinating historical fiction novel about a ship that wrecked in Bermuda on it's way to Jamestown, which ended up being a blessing, because they lived well in the tropical lushness, were able to build a new boat, and brought lots of food to the starving Jamestown. True story.

So interesting!!!

We also learned about the pilgrims. I sort of had my USA Thanksgiving because of that. I love celebrating the pilgrims instead of Columbus.

We had our pilgrims pudding. We have chocolate pudding and cookies for dirt and candy corn as seeds, and then fishy crackers as the fertilizer in honour of how Squanto taught the pilgrims. A hit.

SCIENCE

For science we had our last electricity lesson. We focused on circuits and we played that game where you try and not touch the wire because we don't want to close the circuit and make the light go on.

MATH

Daniel's

Hyrum's

And Maxwell's

LANGUAGE ARTS

Maxwell's

Hyrum's

The Warrior Elements....Continued

Vipe flew into another room in the temple and Flame heard a crash. He ran over to see what was going on.

He said "Are you okay?" Then he saw something move. He looked at one of the statues in the room. He realized it was armour, not a statue, and that someone was in the armour.

Flame went closer carefully, knowing it could be an element that was against him.



Daniel's

The Adventures of Digital 3s....Continued

When we got close enough to get one, they all ran off. The herd had been frightened by something, but we didn't know what it was.

"What spooked them all?" Twister said.

"I don't know but it must be really dangerous to scare off a whole herd of ruckalloes." I said.

Then I had a strange feeling that someone was right behind us. Then Twister said "Watch out!" But it was too late, I got stuck in a humongous web. A spider that was three times bigger than me jumped on me. Then Jack punched it in its weak spot, making it fall.

But that was just the first beast there.

Then the ground suddenly shook. A lava serpentine came out of the ground in front of us. A bunch of ironsides (metal like creatures with spikes all over and tiny hands and feet) had curled into balls and were quickly rolling towards us. 

Then a ruckalloe was charging us as well. Jack used his staff which made it so he could jump over all the creatures. Twister turned into a caterpillar and inched off. For a second, I thought they were abandoning me. 

Then the lava serpentine moved away from me.

Hmmm. Why is Daniel's so much longer? anyway, I'm a bit nervous about leaving Cardston and Jandy Barry, our amazing tutor, but we'll see what adventures await us!!!