Friday Fun Day and Beavers

This week we had our first Friday fun day. This was an evening of total screen-time bonanza for rewards of completing the chart. I believe it was a success. Reasons:

*More on-top-of-it parenting
*Motivation to achieve week's goals
*We actually started our history videos!!!

Maxwell is doing the top ten US founding fathers, Daniel is doing the top ten Canadian founding fathers, and Hyrum is doing Canadian history up to creation of dominion.

and last but not least:
*Maxwell started his 3D design COLLEGE class!!!

I've been meaning to get him going on this forever. Finally we are doing it!

And now,

SOCIAL STUDIES

We delved more into the beaver fur phenomenon. I had no idea how close we came to having a completely different history. Did you know it was FRENCH trappers who set up the Hudson Bay company?!? They went up there against the French king's will and so were thrown in jail and when they got out, they went to the British who sponsored them!

I doubt the British would have won the French Indian war without their Hudson Bay stronghold.

Anyway, we made hats to celebrate, but I couldn't find brown poster board paper.

SCIENCE

I promise from the depths of my soul to try to do science club this upcoming week.

MATH

Daniel

Hyrum

Maxwell

LANGUAGE ARTS

My boys insisted on a magical story instead of a historical fiction book. We're reading this:

Maxwell

Hyrum

Hallelujah!!! He is DONE with Barton book five!!! Serious celebration time!!!

The Warrior Elements....Continued

Flame saw Vipe. Vipe was fitting though the hole in the octagon sky. Vipe went to grab Flame's hands, but missed.

Flame suddenly remembered about his bag full of crystals. He ripped it open with all his might. Out dropped tons of crystals, scattering everywhere. He grabbed a crystal, which jolted him to a stop, but then it slipped out of his hands.

"NOOOO!" Thud. He landed in soft snow. The crystal that had stopped him had only been a few feet above the snow.

Vipe said "Are you okay?"

Flame said "Yeah. Where do you think that water element went?"

"I don't know. Hey look! There he is, I think." said Vipe.

A water element had just ran through the force field. An octagon had disappeared to let it through and then reappeared after it was in. It started skating down the hill toward them.


Daniel
The Adventures of Digital 3s....Continued

I'll take you there.

Instantly everything turned black. I could see a few lights that began to twist and bend. The lights turned off and then it was as if the blackness got smeared off my eyes.

I was looking down into a bucket. I vomited into the bucket. Twister did also, but Jack just looked very sick.

I looked up and realized we were at the water castle.

"What just happened?" Twister asked.

"You were teleported. Almost everyone gets sick when they do that, so we have a bucket ready." said Drooplet. "Come on! Let's go to the queen!"

There were almost no water people in sight as we were going to the castle. When we got to the castle, we saw why: There were hundreds of water people at the gate going through security. Apparently, the queen had asked for everyone's help.

After security, which took an hour, a guard came to us and told us what was going on."The water queen senses great danger. She is getting everybody ready for a giant battle."

Daughters of the King and a dissected frog

We are figuring out life here by ourselves. Besides we are a party with just our boys.

We are surrounded by awesome people, including our branch. In fact, this week they did their primary presentation. That's gotta count for some public speaking points, right?

And of course our favourite people, Matilda's family! Matilda is our housekeeper, and she's so sweet to us. She even gave us a kitty this week.

And we've been gardening! We've gotten potato like things, beans, and tomatoes, and now BANANAS from our garden. Can't wait for the pineapples to get ripe!

Also, we are really trying to get organized so that we spend less time on mamsy pamsy discipline and too much time on screens and instead, focused on school or the outdoors.

We made a new chart:

SOCIAL STUDIES

We've been studying William Penn. I love that guy. Talk about a guy with vision! I think history books need to focus on this guy more.

We also Studied the Filles du Roi and have been reading this book:

SCIENCE

Well, we still haven't done an official science club, but we did do an impromptu science class. With some more heavy rain, frogs came back. I kind of muttered to myself that I should do a dissection, but I'm too wimpy, and soon Daniel comes with a dead frog saying he "accidentally" killed it so we could dissect it!

Abraham was so excited. "We're going to look inside the froggy!" but Maxwell didn't want to. Hummm maybe not a vet in the making after all.

Hyrum made an epic movie about the experience. I thought it was hilarious, but Dustin said it was disturbing. What do you think?

And although Maxwell wasn't interested in the frog, he WAS interested in the salt water powered car he made from a kit he bought himself. Hmmmm maybe an engineer in the making. Yep.

MATH

First, I just have to say that William is so cute, whenever we do an addition problem, he makes the plus sign look like a cross and says "Look! Jesus!"

Maxwell's

Hyrum's

I just had to include this. He eventually did do those questions, but I loved his artistic way of saying he didn't know how to answer!

Daniel

LANGUAGE ARTS

So before I talk about everything, I just have to say, that it's fun living by Australia. We don't have very many picture books, but the picture books we do have we got from second hand stores. And the second hand stories sell things they got from Australians, and so we are collecting quite a bit of Australian children's stories, and I love them!

Crazy Charlie is my favourite.

Maxwell-umm, oh blah he's been doing it, I just can't find it right now.

Hyrum and his continuing saga

The Warrior Elements....Continued

When Flame got on, he instantly stomped the back as hard as he could, and he was thrust into the air.

Flame and Vibe went extremely fast. Flame remembered the hoodoos, and turned so he was headed in that direction. He looked around for Vape, and saw him off to the side doing loop-d-loops. and yelling "Woohoo!" Flame decided to join in with making loop-d-loops. After all, it was far for the water element to get to the hoodoos and Flame was sure he could catch up.

Flame finally focused again and shot off like a rocket towards the hoodoos.

Instantly, the grass disappeared and there was a river with greyish green blurs that must have been the hoodoos. Then there was green again. Instantly, Flame tried to stop, realizing he had gone too far. Instead of hoovering, he slammed down on the front, which made him shoot down to the ground.

Then everything went black. Flame felt like he was still falling. He opened his eyes, and he saw not the jungle, but what looked like an ice city. He saw little dots of blue moving and when his eyes focused, he realized they were water elements.

Beyond the ice city was the jungle, but as Flame looked at the sky, he saw the shimmer of see-through octagons creating a dome over the city.

He realized he was still falling. He saw his board falling next to him by a broken octagon. He swam through the air to his board. "This is just like skydiving" he thought. He grabbed his board and tried to brake, but SNAP! The board broke into two.

Flame looked up hoping he would land in soft snow and not die.


Daniel's:
The Adventures of Digital 3s....Continued

"First we need some E-slime." I said.

Drooplet said "I know how to make some."

"We also need two healing bugs." I said.

Drooplet said "You two look for healing bugs, while I make the E-slime." We had finished the potion in no time. Then I had Jack drink half of it while I put the other half on his wounds. That's how you heal the outside and inside.

Then Drooplet started to glow with a moonlight glow. Jack said "How are you glowing, Drop of Water?"

"My name's Drooplet. I'm glowing because my water queen needs me. Telepathically, she's telling me to bring back help."

Twister said "Hey, we could come."

Drooplet said "Oh, you guys won't be that much help."

Twister said "Hey, I thought you said we would save the whole water tribe!"

"Oh yeah, that's true, but you guys were pretty helpless with those beasts just now, plus I'm not actually sure if you are the right people, and besides, the legend might not be true. You can come anyways.."

Witches and Pirates but no Halloween

This week we had to say goodbye to the Leavitts. For the first time, we are living in a foreign country without family. We are going to miss the Leavitts so much, but especially Nate. We love you buddy!

But we are making new friends...like the ones we met yesterday when Dustin saved a wind surfer from dying....yeah. True story.

We found out Dustin was taking a dinky kayak out on very choppy waters to rescue a downing windsurfer during our pirate treasure hunt. Which brings us to....

SOCIAL STUDIES

We learned about pirates. Real pirates. I've changed what cycle I teach pirates in, and consequently I feel like we've talked about them twice as much as any other subject. Black beard, jolly Rodgers and a swashbuckling good time. We had a treasure hunt as our activity. Behold my cute pirates:

Hyrum really got into making a movie about it:

And since it was halloween (which doesn't actually happen in Vanuatu,) it was the perfect time to talk about the Salem witch trials. What a weird but important history lesson! We made ghosts as our activity. Daniel decided to hang his because that's how they killed the "witches."

As part of the Salem Witch learning, we are in the middle of reading "The Witch from Blackbird Pond." I loved that book when I was younger, but as I'm reading it to my kids, I'm realizing that it's vocabulary is a higher level than anything I've read to them before. Maybe that's a good thing. I don't know.

We also learned about King Philip's war for social studies. Sigh. I had forgotten it was between the pilgrims and the Wampanoag people. Sigh again. History isn't pretty, is it? It's nicer to think of how wonderful that first Thanksgiving was and not to think about King Philip's war fifty years later.

How could things have been different? How could the combining of two worlds happened peacefully, or should they have never come together at all: only on vacations. "Let's go on vacation the country of Cherokee. I'm tired of this English winter and how crowded it is here." Hummm. Weird to imagine.

SCIENCE

Umm-I still haven't started up a science club, but Daniel HAS started a bug collection. That counts, right? I WILL do a science club this week. I WILL!

MATH

Maxwell's-by the way, Maxwell ran out of videos, and I was so upset because that meant I hadn't uploaded all of them for this book. Maxwell was not sad at all. I called up Video Text, and they were so nice and helped me out. We are back in business! Much to Maxwell's dismay.

Hyrum's- we're still going over fractions:

Daniels

And Williams

I had to include William's because I just had to mention something interesting.  William really did do these problems. Handwriting Without Tears can take credit for his numbers. You can hardly tell his writing from mine. The 10= is William figuring out every way that you could get the sum ten. Isn't this great math? Isn't he clever?

But he couldn't get the words "before" and "after." He can count by odds and evens up and down. He can add quite well, but the words "before and after" are hard? That's a little insight into the dyslexic mind. We're woking at it, and we are almost there.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Maxwell's

Hyrum's- well, things went a bit better and we got through reviewing somethings he needed to, and let's see if we can finish lesson 9 this next week. That's my goal.

The Warrior Elements....Continued

"Okay, get on. I don't know how fast this will go, but which ever way you lean will turn you in that direction."

When Flame got on, he did not know what it would do. All he knew is that it would go really fast. Flame said "Are you ready Vipe?"

"Yeah"

"Okay, remember that what every you lean is the way you go, so lean down in back and that should take you up into the air."


Daniel's
The Adventures of Digital 3s....Continued

"Because ancient legend says you will save half of the water tribe, Jack will save a quarter, and Twister will save a quarter."

"How will we save you?" I asked.

"I kave zero clue. All I know is that will happen." said Droplet.

Twister said "Guys, can you help me with Jack. He still has wounds all over his body."

I said "Sorry, I totally forgot about you guys. How do you make a healing potion?" Then I suddenly remembered a great wizard who had taught me how to make potions. "Wait, I know how to make one."

"Oh, so that voice was right. You are becoming a warlock." said Twister.

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.