Year: 2004
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End of year thoughts
The end of a calendar year is always a time for me to reflect, reassess and think ahead. Some thoughts about where we’re at and where we’re heading. Erin (10) has agreed to start working at formal math again, after a break of almost a year. She’s been browsing through Singapore’s NMC 1 with interest, […]
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Screen time
There’s a discussion on an e-mail list I’m a member of about screen time and I got thinking about this again. We don’t really watch TV, though we have satellite service for dh so he can watch the news or occasional sports game. We get no local reception and there’s no cable here, so this […]
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A Little Structure to our Learning
As I continue to travel this path the distinction between unschooler and non-unschooler seems less important. A couple of months ago we decided to try subscribing to an on-line DVD rental service. Netflix and Mentura have been running in the US for quite a while, but in Canada these services are only just becoming viable. […]
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Our Moose is Home!
Seventeen months ago we said goodbye to Musette Moose. She’s a poseable stuffed moose. I sewed her a little polarfleece vest with a maple leaf on it, attached a Canadian lapel pin, put together a little suitcase containing a tiny violin and a blank spiral-bound journal, and mailed her to some friends of ours in […]
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Just a Day in the Life
I got up at 7:30, Chuck shortly after. Noah (8) was next up at about 8:45, followed by Fiona (21 months). I worked on the computer for a while, with my coffee. I’m still trying to get my new ‘puter tweaked and all set up with my favourite software and all my restored files. Noah […]
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Inviting winter home
Yesterday we could see the snow falling on the mountains above us. The kids were lazy and aimless. I had lots of fussy errands to do and the day was dreary and uninviting. I did some stuff at home, ran to town with the little one, did half of what I had on my list […]
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Mushrooming
We’ve lived in our little corner of the province for 10 years and this is the first year we’ve mushroomed. Back in the 1970’s an underground economy sprang up in our area when it was discovered that the pine mushroom, which grows in our region after the first fall rains, was equivalent to the much-prized […]
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Noah’s Birthday Bonfire
There’s a magic about the dark. Last night Noah had a birthday celebration. We had daytime and early-evening committments, but he wanted to celebrate his birthday on the day, and in the dark, in part because it was a full moon. So we lit a big bonfire at our place and arrived back here with […]
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On an even keel
Lately Fiona’s language has really taken off. “Cheese” is now “chizz”, not “zzeee”. There are several new words each day. We’ve lost count. And phrases … ‘happy kids’ and ‘pee done’ and and ‘want cookie’. What fun! She’s fallen in love with a little doll, and with a harmonica. She is insisting on having picture […]
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Digital Blue Days
Last spring the currently-visiting Ontario grandmother gave us some cash in lieu of Christmas and birthday gifts for educational or recreational supplies. We bought a basketball hoop with part of it. A month or so ago a friend gave a great review of the the Digital Blue QX3 microscope. We were really impressed with the […]
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Long time, no blog!
It’s been a busy month. The local music summer school began a few days after I last wrote. Erin and Noah were registered as piano students, and Sophie insisted at the 11th hour that she be enrolled too, as a violin student. Erin squeaked into the “Lower Advanced” piano class and was also registered in […]
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Piano paralysis
Noah has fairly decent note-reading skills but he will not access them while learning to play new piano pieces. Instead he will fumble around trying to learn a new piece by guessing at what he thinks the left hand ought to do while the right hand is playing a remembered melody. I’ll wander by the […]
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A Sandy Beach
I have a friend with a baby due soon and want to be able to attend the birth. Since Chuck is on call so much, and my mom is away on and off through the summer, I thought it would be a good idea to get Fiona comfortable with our favourite ‘babysitter’. I use the […]
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Noah is a violist!
It wasn’t like he had begged for a viola. I play both violin and viola and he had expressed no spontaneous interest in taking up the viola. But I’d heard about the magnificent little Sabatier instruments and so I planted a seed with him. I said “Maybe someday you’ll want to play the viola too.” […]
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Home again, home again, jiggety jog
Not much of note on the way home. We spent a day in Spokane, did some shopping, went to Riverfront Park and did some kid-things (rode the 1909 carousel, geocached, fed more ducks, etc.), swam in motel pools and so on. Bought some books and music CD’s, drove back to Canada and bought a new truck for […]