Our First Lego Minibuild

The Lego Store has a Minibuild on the first Tuesday of every month starting approximately at 5pm. It is free and they have about 250 available for kids.

The Minibuild this month was a tree with a little bird since spring is supposedly on it's way.

So we went to the mall for 5pm and were told we were in time to participate...at 7pm.

So we went home with special time cards and returned at 7pm.

See Cris in there? He wanted his own. But, he's not between the ages of 6-14, so he was denied.

But in the end, he charmed his way into getting one....

We left the Lego Store with 3 of these and a happy family.

Oh...we don't just take the freebies they offer, we also spend a considerable amount on Lego. Cris met us at the Lego Store and while he was waiting he filled up a Lego cup with the Pick-a-Brick selections. This is our 3rd cup in a week and a half.

Lego is pretty awesome!

Lego Everywhere

This week we have started a daunting task. Organizing the Lego.

We are about half done and are needing about double the bins we recently purchased for this endeavour.

Here we are with the first half of the bins...the rest are strewn about in Elijah's room:

The boys help sort for a bit, then get distracted by possibilities and start building.

They have come up with pretty cool things. What amazes me most is their stamina in looking for pieces they need. They will look and look and look for many different pieces. I'm sure I would have given up 5 minutes into their projects. They have endurance!!

Last week the Lego Store had some bricks Cris has been wanting for a long time.

These flat ones with 1-pip on the top:

We bought a large container (780 pieces of them in all) and the boys have been busy creating their own Lego games,

They have also made a little micro world of animals with the itty-bitty pieces.

I hope to get the Lego all sorted by the weekend. I want to vacuum!!

Faith and Courage

One of the most compelling authors and home educating advocates is John Holt. I have read (well...skimmed) some of his books, watched old interviews of him, and tried to glean wisdom from his views and writings.

What is really boils down to is faith and courage. In this day and age we have a plethora of resources literally at our fingertips, and many more at stores, libraries, and organizations, not to mention friends. It should be easy to have faith that my boys want to make sense out of life and will work hard at it. It should be easy to have courage to let them do it. But, it is a daily struggle for me.

I have this on my fridge:

I pray for faith and courage.

Digging Deeper

We went to the Royal Alberta Museum this week with a group of home educators.

We had booklets given to us designed to slow the kids down, to dig a little deeper, to ask questions, to make guesses, and to find answers.

At first the booklets were received with disappointment and distress. But then the boys both got pretty into it.

"This is pretty interesting stuff!" they said.

Toviel was a little overwhelmed, so I spent the majority of my time with him, looking deeper into some of the things he already knew. 

Elijah ended up on his own, and when I found him. He was in the bug room, both totally fascinated and disgusted with the spiders.

Toviel oo-ed and ah-ed over the rocks and minerals. I have an inkling to find some mineral and rock kits to explore. Rocks are really fascinating!

Then on to the dinosaur room, Toviel learned a bit about his favorite dinosaur that is at this particular museum, the drameosaur.

In the Aboriginal exhibit, we talked about the early days of the aboriginal people, mostly about how they survived. Elijah teared up when we discussed how reliant the people were on the bison. It is hard for him to imagine that anyone could hunt and kill such a majestic creature.

Here Toviel is making observations on the Trumpeter Swan diorama, noting differences between them and other swans of Alberta. I learned stuff too. He pointed out that they made a mistake in the diorama. I was confused, but after he explained it, he makes total sense and I agree with him. They have a baby swan in the water, and it looks like that swan is swimming, but the water all around it is completely still. No ripples or little wake. He thinks of things like that a lot....very physics-minded.

We saw a short 20-30 minute presentation on rattlesnakes and it was pretty engaging and interesting.

It was refreshing to me to see my boys slowing down, observing, asking questions and finding delight and satisfaction in it.

Family Day Fun

This past Monday was family day. Because the biting wind had died down, we decided some outdoor fun was in order.

A community just north of us a dozen blocks or so had a great (free!) event going on, so we went.

The first stop was the petting zoo.

Elijah loved the pig. He kept going back to it and petting it. Toviel liked all the rabbits. They weren't as content to stay put when they were getting pet.

These hens standing on a donkey cracked me up! They stay on the donkey's back because the ground was too cold for their feet.

Free hot chocolate! Free cookies and brownie bites! Free hot dogs! It was amazing that everything was free.

Free sleigh ride!

On the sleigh. 

After we finished here we went to a church carnival not too far away. It was all inside the church: inflatable jumpy castles, another petting zoo, carnival games, a big slide, glow-in-the-dark maze, shooting gallery, concession areas, puppet shows with a magician vantriliquist, karaoke...lots of things. We could not stay for long. The event was so well attended that we all felt squished and overwhelmed by the crowds and noise.

Edmonton takes family day seriously! We also passed a city park that had more free food!

Some Nice, Light Reading

Toviel is reading a big, fat, 300+ page book about spy stuff. It cracks me up that he is pouring over this book, bookmarking certain pages that really inspire him...

...like this section, which tells how to prepare yourself in case you get caught spying. Tove thinks it's hilarious.

February 4, 2014

Yesterday we finished making our Valentine mailboxes to hang outside our rooms to get / give each other little notes and cards.

Toviel loves to check his every day and put little notes in everyone's mailboxes.

Elijah is hoping to collect a ton of cards and is saving them all to open on Valentine's Day.

We went to the Royal Alberta Museum today. We caught a presentation on coyotes, and we were the only ones present for it. The boys were hesitant to commit to any sort of presentation and their questions about it were "How long is it?" and, "Can we leave if we want to?" It was only 20 minutes. An easy commitment. And in the end Tove said, "I actually quite liked that. It wasn't too bad at all." It was a gentle lecture. :)

After we came home, I read several chapters in an abridged version of Gulliver's Travels to the boys. I started reading it last night and will probably end up finishing it before Friday. 

For supper tonight we decided to eat popcorn and watch some Shakespeare Animated Tales.

We watched Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, The Twelfth Night, and Taming of the Shrew.  After each one we discussed them and compared them to other stories we knew. Toviel was disturbed by Macbeth, and I should have known better. Before we went to bed, he requested I find a book with all Shakespeare's plays in it, and maybe an app that tells us more about Shakespeare and his works.

I am discovering that while Elijah likes to play all day, every day, and can create anything exciting in his mind, Toviel is often feeling bored with all the play and has a desire for different things. He needs more exposure to things and has this thirst to learn more, while it seems Elijah wants to create original ideas and play and read. He can play and play and play and play. He can outplay anyone I know!