Grade 2 fairy house
09/10/12
I took these photos earlier in the year when Lily was still in grade 2. With her friends she had made a fairy house in a quiet part of the schoolyard, and she enthusiastically explained all the features to me.
My camera lens had some condensation on it which gives the photos a dreamy quality.
I’ll have to consult Lily for the actual explanations and update this post…
[UPDATE] Now with labels from Lily! Click the thumbnails to view full-size with captions
Making Missions
27/09/12
Making Missions are activities I occasionally devise for the kids. The missions are Top Secret, but I have been allowed special permission to share them with you here. This one is a creative writing exercise which was really just for Lily.
Making Mission: Be an Alien!
Your mission is to imagine you’re an alien visiting planet Earth for the first time.
You must choose 3 everyday objects from around the house, objects that might be familiar to a human but which your alien eyes are seeing for the first time.
You need to send a report about these objects back to your alien friends.
The report
First choose a name for the object – remember, you don’t know what name humans use for it!
Next describe the shape. Try starting at one end of the object and work your way to the other end, describing the shape and appearance of each part. Remember that because you don’t know how the object is used, you don’t know which parts of the object are more important, so describe each part with equal importance.
Finally you could write an idea about how humans might use the object. You’ve never actually seen a human in person but you have seen photos and videos of them, so you know some basic human features like hands, eyes etc.
Try and make your idea quite different to the real purpose of the object!
Mission Complete!
Once your report is ready you can read it to family & friends – see if they can guess what objects the alien encountered!
Excaliber
24/09/12
Pat, Melanie, Honor & Huw visited for a couple of days last month. Pat shot this video in High Park which has an amazing new wooden castle to replace the one burnt down by vandals.
The rebuild added this irresistible sword in a stone.
Disappointingly it seems that none of our kids is the true king…
Bike rides update
10/09/12
Two weekends ago I got up at 5am, made a flask of coffee, loaded my bike into the car and set off towards Niagara to ride 50 miles for the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada.
Twenty minutes later I realised I had forgotten my helmet.
Just after 8am, after having raced home and back, nearly running out of petrol and getting lost 1 mile from my destination, I arrived and discovered I had lost my sunglasses (probably when I jumped out at that petrol station in the middle of nowhere).
After all those shenanigans the ride itself was really fun. It was a lovely sunny day and I finished in 3 hours.
Since then I’ve still been keeping up with my morning rides, as well as carting the kids around on my Dutch beast, and I’m feeling pretty fit (I even had to buy a smaller belt!)
I don’t have GPS but I’ve tracked lots of rides manually with Google Earth. Here’s a screengrab showing how much territory I’ve covered around Toronto:
A couple of these rides are 30 miles but mostly they’re between 10 and 20. Now to see how long I can keep this up once the weather starts turning colder…
An outbreak of Beatles
25/08/12
The day before yesterday we all watched “Yellow Submarine” and it made a big impression on Lily & Harry.
Today we’ve been at home, either tidying or its opposite (which they call “playing”). Whatever we’ve been doing, however, throughout the day each of us have been uncontrollably and contageously singing / humming / whistling snippets of “When I’m 64″*
So be warned: whatever you do, don’t start singing / humming / whistling “When I’m 64” to yourself or you won’t be rid of it for days.
*Harry’s version is “When I’m 34”
Busy summer 4: Nova Scotia
25/08/12
Busy summer 3: Jess & Alon
20/08/12
We had a busy week with Jess & Alon! Here are some highlights:
Busy summer 2: Back to the cottage
19/08/12
Jess and Alon came to visit on the Thursday following our weekend in the cottage.
Before we left Sue had told me the cottage would be empty Thursday night, and suggested I could bring Jess & Alon there straight from the airport for a night.
Caroline was away with work Thursday night so it seemed like a great idea. I got everything ready in the morning, then after lunch I picked up Harry from daycare, picked up Lily from gymnastics camp, picked up Jess and Alon and an hour or two later we were back swimming in the lake.
Busy summer 1: At the cottage
18/08/12
A few weeks ago our landlords, Sue & Gordon, invited us to their lovely cottage for the weekend. We went there for a short stay last year – it’s pretty remote and very relaxing, despite the passing motorboat and jetski traffic.
Here’s the location of the cottage, roughly in the centre of this satellite view. On Sunday we boated across to Rock Island for a picnic. There’s not much there except for trees and a big rock.
Bike rides at dawn
09/08/12
In the last few weeks I’ve been getting up at 6am and jumping on my bike before my brain can protest too much.
I’ll cycle for about an hour on weekdays, two hours at weekend, ostensibly in preparation for a sponsored cycle I’m doing at the end of this month. But also it’s been a great opportunity to see new parts of Toronto and to get a sense of achievement before breakfast.
Here are a few photos from the days when I’ve remembered to take my camera.
