One of Those Great Moments.

 So Elliette wanted to sing a song for the primary talent show.  She wants to do Show Choir this next year but she is incredibly shy in front of groups of people.  So I told her that she needs to be able to show me that she is able to perform something.  She did sing this song for our homeschool group and was now going to do it for the talent show.  It is a song that she knows and that her cousin did this year in show choir and taught them some actions to go with it.  So Elliette and Dawsyn went up to sing "Hello Dolly".

 When they got up to the front Elliette Froze in her scared little pose (head down, curling up trying to look small, looking around with big terrified eyes) and Dawsyn followed her lead.  So they stood there looking around and not saying anything.  After a few tense seconds someone called out (Paul) that they should have their sister help them.

 So Kyndal got up and cuddled her sisters both and sang their song for them.  They continued to look scared and tried to hide in Kyndal.  She leaned down into the microphone and had her arm around them stroking both of them to be less scared.  It was so awesome to see her come to her sisters rescue and work to comfort them.  One of these moments to remember and cherish and celebrate.  It was a great moment of sisterly love!

This is some of the many kids coming up afterwards to take another bow, Dawsyn up there but still looking shy and then Elliette has jumped up into Kyndal's arms.  So funny!  I guess that is her thank you!

Our Newest Additions

For my birthday this year I was very specific with Paul about what I wanted, this picnic table from Costco.  We have had so much fun having extra seating outside for a large number of people.  We have always wanted a picnic table, not patio furniture, as it can fit a whole lot more people around it, especially kids.  So when we found this it was a perfect fit!  I am still excited about it and we enjoy it!

The next addition was a trampoline!  We have been wanting one for a few years.  We left a corner of the yard with the gravel that was there, so that we could put a trampoline there.  It has been great to have and very helpful for the kids getting outside and getting lots of exercise.

They spend a lot of games just running around in circles like this.  I don't know what the game is but it is great exercise.  Paul and I both growing up with trampolines, it is a great fit.  We even get some exercise playing on there with the kids.  So much fun!

Flying

 We had such a great time doing a flying unit, it started spontaneously one windy afternoon this spring, when the girls began building their own kites.  They went out playing with those and found quickly that they needed to modify their designs, as the wind just tore them to shreds.  So we came in and remade the kites, to fix the problems that they found in the first ones, different shapes, more tape and strings attached differently.  So then we went out and had a fun time flying kites.  They didn't really fly high in the air, but more flew out behind the running children.

 We then went to the library and got out a bunch of books on kite making, aerodynamics, airplanes, history of the first airplanes, the Wright brothers, the first man to fly across a body of water (the English Channel) and even the making of paper airplanes.  We had so much fun reading about flying, and having paper airplane flying contests and learning about why kites fly and flying a few more kites.  We would talk about what would change in the designs of our kites or airplanes to make them better or worse.  Kyndal was just last week making paper airplanes and then cutting the wings a little bit and see how it flew, and then trimming them a little more to see how that would change it.  We read about the people trying to make the first airplane and how the studied birds and how they bend the tips of their wings to change directions and how they applied that to designing a plane.  It is all so fascinating.

 We were so excited about this that we went to visit the aerospace museum in Calgary and there we saw a model of the first plane flown in Canada, it was later then the Wright brothers but still very early in history of the airplane, it was a tri-wing plane, very cool to see.  There we also learned more about the planes that were used in wars including ones personally related to their family.  They learned there about World War II and some of their families involvement, especially their Great-Grandpa Selman.  We talked about some of his experiences and learned more about what happened when you bail out of a plane going down.  Kyndal came home to tell her Daddy that his grandpa had a survival kit that contained chocolate, that he would eat 1 per day to have enough calories to keep him alive for x number of days.  It was neat information to apply to us personally.

We have so many more directions to take this learning and plan to continue with some of these streams, but I just love this process that it took.  It began with a fun game that the kids were doing, something that they were interested in.  Then we continued to learn more and apply it to our lives.  All of this was fun and not forced upon anyone, we all wanted to learn about this.  We loved the books we read and the activities and were able to share in this together.  I love this route of learning, following interests and curiosity.  It was all just right for us!