A mini-holiday for us (Week 34)

Our little brood (minus Kit) took off for the Mainland this week. First we stayed at Nana's house and then we went to stay at our friends Shona and Ryan's place. Of course we brought our caterpillars with us!

By now they are about 2/3 chrysalises and 1/3 munching caterpillars.


I brought along some Hollyhock for the road and figured they'd eat up and make their way up to the roof to make their final chrysalises.

I was wrong. And it was gross.

The leaves ran out, and I had no Vancouver source of Hollyhock. We tried various other types of leaves, but no dice. We tried Cheerios, nada. As we searched for a substitute, some caterpillars died. They just stopped moving and kind of deflated. In a bind I put a peeled carrot in there, and they ate right through it. Others crawled up to the top and did in fact make a chrysalis. But those turned black over night and then leaked thick black goo. Dead. Finally, with maybe 6 caterpillars left, a walk to the park near Shona's lead us past the always neat to see East Vancouver backyard gardens cultivated by Chinese Canadians. The trelises and neat rows of plants are a marvel of planning to me. And what do I spy on the border of the sidewalk? A Hollyhock! I've become quite the expert at spotting them by now. We nab some leaves and rush our bounty to the remaining caterpillars. They eat them up. We breathe a sigh of relief and head out to Granville Island.

We started our adventure there at Granville Island, a must-stop spot in my childhood and now theirs. We talked about how it's a man-made island, once used for industry, now for tourism and locals. We bought burritos and birdseed, and Leif focused on being still to get a pidgeon to eat out of his hand.





We all remarked on the big variety of pidgeon colourings. Did they get their colourings like cats did, how many eggs did a pidgeon lay at one time, could more than one male fertilise eggs within one 'litter', like cats? Yes, we had cats on the brain.




At one point, the universe intiated a series of tests for Leif and Hannah. Ivy'd fallen asleep on my lap, and Shona'd gone to get a coffee. Hannah really wanted a bagel like Leif had gotten, but I couldn't help her. I told her where to go and how to order it (I could see the counter through the glass wall and it was about 50 feet from me). She gave it a go. But when you're shorter than the counter, and a kid in a culture that tends to ignore kids, or expects an adult to speak for them, you can wait a long time for service. I asked Leif to go help her, and he got huffy about having to speak to strangers, but went. Upon their return, after I thanked Leif and told them how great they both were to try ordering on their own, they told me of a 'wierd' man they'd seen inside. He was standing on a box, all dressed in silver, not moving at all. I explained that he was a busker, a performer. And that if they put money into the box, he'd 'turn on' and do a litle show. So with loonies in hand and Shona as chaperone, the kids went in to see how it worked. They all tossed their money in at the same time, which proved to be trouble. The man started up and did some magic tricks that baffled them (he put golfballs in his pockets and they came out his mouth). Then he reached over to shake Leif's hand, after Hannah declined. Leif, brave and game, shook his hand. And the man turned off, still gripping Leif's hand. Leif panicked a wee bit, asking 'someone put in some money!'. Eventually someone did and he got his hand back. I thought it was a great experienced for this often-shy-but-sometimes-bold little dude.

Then we boarded the little harbour ferry and rode to Science World. We'd heard they had a Lego show, and we always like hanging out in the Eureka Gallery.


We danced in the special effects room, spun on the circular floor, played the drums, shot balls into the air, cranked the windmills and divided ourselves into 10 with the folding mirrors. Science World always rocks, especially when we miss the school groups and have it all to ourselves.

We boated back to Granville Island, and the kids pointed out the various huge art sculptures we passed on the way. Once back we wandered the grassy pathway to the car, and found turtles in the pond!



Ivy has expanded her love affair with owls to include Canada Geese. She had yet to see one for real, but loved to look at them in our bid book at home, and play their honking call. Then we found one 'for real'


It was very cool.

Here is a picture, showing how sweet my 8 year old is, having tea with the little ones. He's happy to play, with whomever is interested.



Leif and Hannah collaborated on a special Keep Out note for Isla's bedrooom door.



Ivy and Bryn shared their end of the bathtub just fine.


And Bryn shared a special moment with me, as she showed me how she coud use her own head for Mr. Potato Head parts. Love her!



On the way home we had a big chat while waiting for the ferry, about the shipyard across from the terminal. How the freighters bring the traincar boxes across the water (or take them away) and then they use those huge cranes to lift them onto the trains, to take them across the land. We talked about what we might have shipped to us from other countries on such freighters, what we might ship out, and how they decorate the cranes for the holidays.

Once home, we entered the age of fine arts. Painting any and everything. All 3 of the kids painted the sidewalk in front of our house, and here is Hannah pinting a rock she found that looks like a fish. She's wearing her swim goggles because she planned the shape the rock by chipping little bits off it on the pathway. Smart girl.




You know what else happened this week?





We found it odd that so many (%99) of our caterpillars had cocooned up, while one or two stayed down and kept eating. We phoned the fellow at the Butterfly Gardens (thank you Curtis!) and he explained the eggs we ordered would have been collected from various sites, and so would be of varying ages, not siblings from one mother. So they'd grow a different rates.

We snagged a crazy shot, if these two have any sense of awe about themselves.

What if you can't find any Hollyhock? (Week 33)

Because dammit, we couldn't! Our dear caterpillars have continued to munch away, and eventually we exhausted our own supply of Hollyhock leaves. We did a little experiment, trying to find leaves that felt similar to Hollyhocks, and put a variety into the terrarium to see if they'd munch on something else. Nothing worked! We read online that caterpillars are very plant specific and will starve rather than eat the wrong plant. I sent out a desperate email and a friend said she had loads in her co-op, so I went on daily trips to fetch the goods.



They were most thankful. Eventually, after eating their fill and growing many times their original size, they started to form their chrysalids.




We were surprised to learn that they do not 'spin' a cocoon as we'd expected. Rather, they hang upside down for about 24 hours, and then in about 2 minutes, they just poof, morph into a chrysalis. their skin actually turns into it, like a marshmellow over the campfire suddenly turns into a burnt marshmellow over the campfire. Heebie-jeebie time indeed. So we watched them over the course of this week, slowly crawl up the terrarium and then go marshmellow-y.

So of course it was time for a trip to the Butterfly Gardens in Saanich! We grabbed our buddy Taro, whom we'd given some caterpillars to, and headed out. As we remembered, it was humid in there. There were gorgeous butterflies and moths everywhere, plus huge carp and Koi fish, flamingos and a very scary puna ibis bird who stalked Ivy. They have chrysalids from Costa Rica suspended behind a huge window, waiting to 'hatch'. It was a very cool outing for all.

Hannah spent parts of this week at the beach peering into tidepools, or on the computer playing a new machine-building game, or being the house DJ with our stereo system. She's reviving an old favorite of hers, Coldplay's X+Y album. One of her favorite songs is Fix You and as we listened to it she announced that Coldplay was a compound word. Leif and her grandma had been teaching her about these.

Speaking of Leif, he had a number of cool moments this week. On his paper route he was given a tip by one of his customers. At a family soccer game date he met up with his match, a boy named Sebastian who gave him a run for his money. And he perfected his recipe for 'slimy green smoothie'. If you're wondering, it's a banana, ice cubes, a bit of water and a scoop of spirulina powder.

But the big deal this week was that soccer began again and anew. Both kids had their shared class with Taro on Thursday, and Hannah rocked the 'big kids' class. Leif had his first practice with his first team, a big deal in our house. He's never played on a team, I didn't see the benefit over simply learning skills and having fun to see if he liked it. And since he likes it, and has been at it 4+ years now, his coach felt he was ready. We signed him up in a private soccer academy as Leif made it clear he wants to improve, to be the best player ever, so we skipped the community soccer route and went right to the big guns. After their first practice they had their first game on Saturday afternoon. Some photos of the blonde pony-tail dude.





It was a great game for all, and Leif especially had a good time. He scored 3 goals, one by accident, one in play and one through a penalty kick. His penalty kick went right up over the other team's heads and then down into the goal. It was a great moment. The game ended 3-1, with their one goal being scored when Leif was goalkeeper, so there was a nice balance of him rocking the fields, and also finding challenges he couldn't meet quite yet.

Perhaps we'll have butterflies to show you next week . . .

Are you really the Baron Munchausen? (Week 32)

How did Kit and I ever miss this movie? It came out in 1988, and we've never heard of it. The kids have watched it about 6 times now, and it has inspired many discussions, make-believe duels and art. And it's just a fun flick.

This week has been very much about SPRING!!!




It is finally here, sort of. We've been spending lots of time in our backyard, and noticed little birds (house finches?) gathering nest supplies out of our side nursery. Bits of cardboard and moss. We've had a few haircuts here, and we put our hair clippings out for them, and they snatched them up in under an hour. The kids have been watching for birds of prey and have called me out to watch a turkey vulture circle above.


Our big excitement, especially for Ivy, was that we saw an owl this week. It was fantastic! It was up in a tree at the side of the road, so majestic and still. It was hard to get Ivy to really see it, but she eventually did. We agreed it was definitely a Barred Owl and then debated it's gender for about 30 seconds. Who cares, really? We just felt so lucky to see it. Now we'll keep our eyes out for them more often.


Just to mix things up, let's talk about Ivy first. I'd never want her to seem like 'last' in my mind, just because I also talk about her last. :)


She's adopted a new thing this week. Reading glasses.





Now, whether this is because I wear glasses daily, or because both her grandmothers need reading glasses to read books to her, who knows? But now when I say 'Let's read some books" she goes and looks for her glasses. And if we can't find them, look out!

Every day, she likes to go outside and spend some time 'in her car'. I found this thing by the side of the road, with broken wheels. It's the kind of kid's toy that costs too much new for me to bother with, and takes up too much space for me to justify owning it. Yet somehow it being free means it's temporarily ours, and thus takes up less space. Er . .

Imagine her as your salesperson, if you will.

"Look at this lovely car! It has all the latest features. Squeaky red horn for saying hello, and a decent trunk to store your many, many little bouncy rubber balls."





On our paper route, we pass a house a few doors away, that has a front yard filled with little toys for us to set up and re-arrange. Ivy likes to spend some time there, and it's a great little neighbourhood destination for her.




Ivy is learning the alphabet, with help from lovely Hannah. Hannah holds up the magnetic letters for her and tells her what they are called. Then she puts them together on the wall and creates a word (or a non-word) and Leif tells Hannah what it says. It's like a split-class, only way better. :)

Hannah has been spending each morning on her Reader Rabbit Math computer game. She completes activities to get boat parts so she can re-build her damaged pirate ship and sail off the island. She told me next week she wants to get going on her phonics RRabbit game, so she can learn to read. Okey-dokey.

Hannah was working on writing an Easter card this week, and asked me for some spelling tips. I only offer if asked, and never correct her own spelling. So this week her questions led us to a chat about how an E after a vowel+consonant combo, make it a long/sharp vowel sound. Hat vs. hate, ma vs. mate. It's a first step.

Hannah's been bringing me many, many vases of dandelions. I was glad that one night she noticed that they had all closed up. I explained that they knew there was no sun so they, in effect, went to sleep (this wacky thing has a wacky name, Nyctinasty). We checked on them in the morning and voila, they were open. Hannah was very impressed. "You mean they can tell there's no light, like they can see, but they don't have eyes?". Yep, it's pretty cool huh?

Hannah has been getting very crafty lately. Besides drawing a new animal face on herself each morning with markers. :) Whether it's cutting out paper eggs to colour for Easter, making cards for each of us, or making a dragon puppet


. . or making a Blair-Witch-like self-portrait with popsicle sticks (she hung his up herself, I swear)




. . it's nice to see her doing something she loves and sharing it with all of us.


Speaking of loving things, Leif loves to juggle. It's the coolest, craziest development. He just picked them up one day (I bought these juggling balls for Kit years ago) and started tossing them around. Then he did it more, took them in the yard, started juggling in bed at night (that was very awesome to watch from the hall) and now he's working on training his left hand to juggle solo as well as his right hand can, so he can practice a two-handed but separate juggling thing he saw on youtube.

Here he is the backyard, juggling three balls in both hands, and juggling two balls in one hand.






I happened upon another set of these same balls in a store the other day and snatched them up. Now he and Kit are inspired to work on something together. I've vetoed practicing in the kitchen, after a ball hit a bowl of salsa and flung it all over the wall today.

Oh yes, and in other news . . . . our caterpillar larvae arrived this week. Wooohooooooooooo!!!!!

Now, I'm a gal who actually gets creeped out by clusters of bugs, and thinks tent caterpillars suck, spray them to death Kit. But we'd tried (and failed) to raise caterpillars last year, so this year we gave it another shot.


On Tuesday we got a little jar of tiny, tiny caterpillars in the mail. They'd been mailed as larvae, with a paste of food in the bottom of the jar. They hatched en route and became ours. We got a packet of food paste with them, and spread them out into some more containers.



We had ordered the standard 'classroom' package, 33 caterpillars. They sent us about 80!!! We also got a poster and some butterfly pics, so we taped them up on the dishwasher, right near our caterpillar jars on the kitchen island.



But it kind of sucked to have them in tons of plastic containers, eating a floury paste. Hardly a 'natural' scenario. so, after checking with another homeschooler's butterfly blog, we went ahead and constructed a caterpillar condo in our terrarium.



We had to find the leaves they'd like to eat, through trial and error. Our cold spring had left us odd choices. But once we hit on the right ones (Hollyhock and Jerusalem Sage), they dug in and never stopped. They eat through piles of leaves three times a day!






And they grew. And grew. and I was fascinated. We took some out and let them roam around on our hands. They have these great furry bodies, with crazy white wisps of hairs longer than the rest. Kind of remind me of lions.




They molt 5 times between larvae and chrysalis, and to do this they shed their outer skin layer, AND THEIR FACE!!!! Yes, we find tons of shiny black bug faces on the ground in the morning.


We noticed that out of our many, many caterpillars, one was white, not black like the rest.



She is now The White Queen.

And we learned not to leave the terrarium lid open.





And then it was Easter. Hannah had been counting down since the first day of Spring.

The kids had been to another seasonal craft class with Ana. They crocheted great egg decorations, to hold blown eggs.




They also did cool egg card art by putting paint on squares of solid gelatin and then creating patterns and pressing the paper into it.




This is a photo essay of Ivy's first (aware) Easter, which was priceless.








She got new shoes, velcro "like Hannah's"



And sunglasses, of course. It's Spring!



Next week, soccer starts up, the caterpillars may cocoon-up, and mysteries may be found around any corner.

C

It's all about the birds . . . (Week 31)

I've always had a thing for birds, whether it's the birds I hated (the bastard crow who woke me up a 5 am each morning for a year) or birds I saw often but had no idea what kind they were. Lately, they are falling at me feet trying to get me to learn about them, so I'm listening.

Last week at our Wilderness camp, we each were given a wooden disc with an animal's name on it. This was our guide for the day. Leif's was Raccoon, which was fun because we saw one just that morning. Hannah's was a Spotted Towhee bird and mine a Flicker. I have no idea what either of those are, so this was a good starting point this week.

We have a great little book that we use to try to identify a song or bird. It's limiting because it doesn't give you various views of each bird, so ID'ing them can be uncertain. But the audio song for each bird is great. We looked up the Towhee and the Flicker, and it did not register for us at all. None of us recognised them from our yard or camping trips.

Then on Leif's paper route this week, I spotted a bigger-than-robin-sized bird up in a tree. As Leif and I watched it, our eyes adjusted and realised there were about 5 in that tree. What were they? We guessed woodpeckers, because of their longer beaks and spotted wings. But they had the Robin-like tummy. So home we went to look up Woodpecker's and hear their song. I don't know that we've made a match, but it has piqued our interest, and we'll pay more attention as the days go by.

As if a household could not contain enough Lego, we have more. No really. Leif read about a new set in his Lego magazine (ah yes marketing blatantly disguised as a free subscription to children. nice.) and we went to check it out.

Before going, I shared a dilemma I was having with Leif. He was excited to go because he has lots of paper route money saved up, to spend on whatever he likes. Hannah does not, and this was my dilemma. I do not think it's fair for Hannah to have nothing; she is 5 and I completely understand why she does not want a paper route, does not want to work for money, and so on . . . but I do not want to buy her stuff and then upset Leif because he has worked so hard to earn this money, and here I am just giving it to Hannah. He said he was okay with me buying her something, and understood why she is not earning her spending money yet.

So off we went to the big mall. It was their first time in this big toy store, and they had eyes for nothing but the Lego section. After much thought and comparing set contents, Leif chose this one, and Hannah chose this one. It has led to many hours of interesting experiments with physics, as these sets have working parts. Can we catapult the rock monsters right into the machine? How fast must the machine be going to pick up the crystals? Do the claws actually help load crystals into the digger scoop?


A few days later, Leif had a moment of misery because he felt he was being jipped that I bought toys for Hannah and he bought his own. So we discussed it again, never with the goal that he see my point of view, but that we are all heard and considered, and a solution is found that suits all of us. I pointed out that up until now, for 8 years, I've bought him anything he's wanted. And that at some point Hannah too will take some responsibility for earning her toys. Then he was alright. Phew.

Leif's colour blindness came up this week, though it took um awhile to figure out that was what was happening. Hannah had launched a copter thingy into our big willow tree, and we needed Leif's stellar climbing skills to get it down. We pointed to where it was but he couldn't spot it. I kept pointing, describing it, going over below it, but he still did not see it. Then it dawned on me; it was a turquoise copter in a green tree. That is the same colour combo he could not see on one of the tests. I explained this and then had him use his 'owl eyes' to see the diff shape the copter made in the curly branches. He got it then and climbed up to fetch it. It was great that he was not bothered by his inability to see it by colour, and that we found an alternate way for him to 'look' for it.


A friend from Wilderness camp invited us out to Uplands Park to explore and build shelters. Hannah was not interested in 'going outside' so we took her to Grandma's and then were off. It was very, very wet and muddy. Leif practiced his skill, throwing sticks at prey (imagined prey, please), and Christopher collected sticks for a shelter. Again, birds were in abundance and we looked at them to find which ones were the same and which differed, and was that a damn Robin or not? Christopher told us about his project he and his sister are doing for the Homeschoolers Science/Project Fair this week. It sounds very interesting (he is setting up the battle field for a war that his much older sister is doing a report on).

An exciting event this week was the annual homeschoolers science and project fair. It started out years ago as your typical science fair, for homeschoolers to showcase an interest they have. But then other kids needed and venue to display non-science interests, like dancing or playing an instrument, or showing a collection. Now it is a grand melee of science, books for sale, tap dancing and this year a ballet interpretation of the life cycle of a bee. Good times! It's a great place to see other homelearning families we do not see that often, and check out what some kids have created. Thus far neither Leif nor Hannah show any interest in showcasing their own interests, and that's fine.

On the way home from the fair Hannah asked me "Does o-p-e-n spell open?", and then proceeded to correctly add up numbers totaling more than 10, a first. "3+3+3 is 9, 9+9 is 18, 6+5 is 11, 6+7 is 13". Sweet!

On that same car ride the CBC news covered the arrest of a Bacon Brother in Abbotsford (a known crime family) for a murder a few years back. Leif asked about this story and we discussed how the police may gather evidence (undercover, phone taps) over a long period, hence it being 2 years later and they are just now making an arrest. That you need a judge's approval to monitor citizens, that they cannot arrest anyone without having strong evidence that they may be involved in the crime.

Another in-the-car chat Leif and I had this week centered around the current economic situation (they reported more job losses on the news), and my own belief that it links in to globalisation and the practice of out sourcing jobs, started over a decade ago. He followed the topic well and shared his opinion of things. I want him to form his own opinions, not just parrot mine, and feel giving him one point of view is part of explaining the topic in general. I'm always clear when I'm branching out into my own opinion.

Hannah challenged Nana to a game of Battleship this week, and is still struggling to grasp the concept of marking your misses to determine where to shoot next. It is a big thing to figure out, when you really think about it, and involves an understanding of mapping, ariel views, seeing the ship's shapes on your 'screen'.

We got a bunch of new Families Around the World DVDs from the library this week. Hannah's not too interested, but Leif and I are. We watched Brazil, Korea, Canada and China. We are intrigued at how other families live and what is expected (or not) of children in other countries. We both can't get over how little sleep (in our opinion) other kids get!

Hannah prefers to watch The Magic School bus, and this week was all about germination, symbiotic relationships in the ocean, and weather.

I've been leaving them a bit to their own moderation in terms of going to sleep, so many nights are spent in bed drawing, or playing with lego, or talking in the dark. Leif created this comic strip one night, and Hannnah drew a fabulous picture of me lounging in a beach chair under and umbrella and the stars eating a giant orange popsicle. It's great!






Kit is gone this weekend to an Ulti tournament up island, the first of the season. I had hoped to take the kids into Science World in Vancouver for their big Lego display, but Ivy's sudden cold has nixed that. We've made plans to go in to Vancouver after Easter. Hannah could tell you that Easter is 8 days away. It's all about the chocolates friend.

C