Science Week!

Science week also known as tear-my-hair-out-week! Or it would have been if reinforcements hadn't shown up! We started these projects well ahead of time. The experiments were performed, data collected and pictures taken. All that jazz was out of the way and so I thought we were out of the woods on this! Murray worked with them mostly, he's better at this stuff and handles the high tension environment better than I! However, even he threw in the towel one night when Honey was giving us the gears while practicing her presentation.

Luckily Nanny had come for a visit to see the big Wizard of Oz performance! (Since they were calling for a lot of snow, Grampy stayed home to keep the driveway cleared.) Also to our advantage: a sick day plus a snow day! Sweetie was home for a couple days not feeling well and but was well enough to sit at the table and put her poster together. She and Nanny were at it those two days for hours and hours while the other 2 were at school and made some good progress on the layout. It was a good thing Lovey's teacher hadn't assigned a project. There's no way we could have gotten all 3 done at the same time! Honey & Nanny logged a lot of time on the snow day and got it shaped up quite well!

Sweetie's:

Honey's:

 

Since she was in town and all.... we wanted her to really enjoy her visit and not feel like we only wanted her for her science talents! So if you're looking for a good time, you know where to come! I was never so happy to run to the hardware store in my life! Woohoo! A dishwasher that doesnt' crash and slide out of its own volition AND a microwave stand that doesn't wobble and tip? Sign me up! We're not sure if she'll ever come back after her little encounter with our slave labour guest house approach but we definitely enjoyed having her!

Instrumental Project

Honey & Sweetie were assigned a project last month. They had to invent/design/build a musical instrument. I am not creative with these things and always cringe when these assignments come home. Luckily, they have no such qualms and came up with their own and made them with very little help from Murray or me.

Sweetie used two plastic containers and I glue gunned them back to back. She added the decorations and stapled a piece of balloon around one end and filled the other side with rice and put the cover on. The balloon side was for plucking to create a drumlike sound and the rice side was for shaking.

Honey's was called a FlipStar or en francais une Tournetoile. She taped some small spindles together to create the triangle shape, wrapped tin foil around it and filled it with beads and added the outer starry decor. When you hold handles and turn the instrument, the beads rattle around to create the sound.

Honey

Interview!

Honey had a school project for her English class on family traditions. She didn't want to do the same one as Sweetie so she chose to do a video interview with us about the annual family golf tournament to celebrate my grandmother's birthday each year. She had lots of good questions but was a little nervous going through it.  After a couple of takes, she had it the way she wanted and presented it in class this week.

Her classmates were amused at Murray's statement that the food was his favourite part and they all giggled at my face in the freezeframe as the video ended and I was stuck on screen with my lips all pursed at the end of saying "Thank you".  Don't worry Honey, I'm sure it won't be the last time your parents embarrass you in front of your classmates!

Homework on the go

Recently Honey had a homework assignment that involved visiting downtown and taking a picture of a local business. They were making a map of the city and the kids had to bring in different pictures of the landmarks & businesses downtown.

Also, a friend had recently sent me another project! Some kids on the west coast had started a journal and it had been forwarded on from friend to friend. Jennifer asked if we'd participate and sent the book to us. The kids loved reading all the entries from across the country and seeing descriptions of the weather and other kids' past times. While we were downtown getting Honey's homework done, we got a picture to include in the journal too! It was a fun project and I hope the kids enjoy reading all the entries when they get their book back. It's on its way to them now.

Project Manager!

Murray's taken on a new role around here! "Project Manager" The girls each have to do a project on an animal they wanted to learn more about. Honey chose the snowy owl (in honour of Harry Potter books) , Lovey's working on panthers and Sweetie's into leopards.

I started working on it with them and ended up with 2 out of 3 in hysterics, screaming, crying, the whole 9 yards. Honey gets so frustrated when she doesn't think she can get her work done and freaks out. Lovey gets so frustrated when you don't understand the idea she has in her head but can't express. Sweetie sat down and drew her pictures and now has 5 pages of data and illustrations but thinks she can probably add a couple more before it's due on Friday.

Seeing the chaos around me, Murray has stepped up! We let Lovey work out her tears and finally she was able to explain herself. She got worked into a state because she was telling me she wanted lines like Sweetie had on her page. The only lines I'd added were to Honey's page to divide it into 4 sections so she could make notes on different things about the animals. I tried this on Lovey's page. NOPE! I asked her to show me what she meant but all I got were tears and screams. She just kept repeating that she wanted lines, and it was all very clear to her! Finally, she was able to explain that she wanted me to make the ruled looseleaf look like the double lined pages they use at school for printing. (which Sweetie did NOT have on her page at all!!!!!!!!!!!!) Once that was sorted out, I set her up with the iPad to read about her animal, explaining that she should just jot down a list of the facts she found and write the info on her project after. I went to get pictures of the other 2 working on their projects. Then it was getting late so we all went back upstairs for stories. Murray checks on Lovey and then looks at me and asks "You're justletting her copy from the website????" I thought I'd done pretty well not to throttle the kid in the midst of the wild tantrum!!!!

We put the projects away & got out Anne of Green Gables. They are LOVING this book! I wasn't sure if some of the words might be too complicated for them as the vocabulary is pretty advanced for us sometimes! This doesn't seem to deter them at all, they're eating it up! Murray reads while we work on our cuticles, moisturize and clean our nails. It's one of the rare times of day that everyone is sitting still! They're very intrigued by the whole Anne vs. Gilbert angle and anxious to see where that goes! They love her imagination and the predicaments she gets into! It's very entertaining to read it again & get their take on things!

Oh and guess who came down with an ear infection yesterday? this might explain a small portion of her behaviour but I can't honestly say it's out of the ordinary, even when she's well!