Maple Sugar Time!

Over the March break we went to see some maple syrup being made! Last year we remember being able to go tubing on a hill after the tour, this year it was much warmer!

Emmi enjoyed being with one of her greatest friends:




Pip checking out the "old fashioned" way of getting sap into buckets:

A group of happy children learning how the early settlers made their syrup:

A more modern method:


We enjoyed samples of maple syrup, and had a great pancake lunch! It was one of those experiences that makes you happy to be Canadian!

Reading

As a family, we all enjoy reading! Here are a couple of neat photos I took this month with some of our readers! Above are David and Emmi enjoying a relaxing Saturday afternoon, and below are Pip and Tim (with Ben looking on - he seemed to be following just fine up-side-down as Tim read aloud, and Pip of course copied his big brother!!) waiting for their breakfast.

Rodman Hall

We took a field trip to Rodman Hall recently. Rodman Hall is an art gallery that is part of Brock University. The building is a very large, old home, and it has extensive grounds and gardens too. The art there was mostly contempory, including an exhibition by Brock Students. Here is one of our favourite pieces from that exhibit, a giant, cardboard Viewmaster!

After walking around the galleries and being (relatively) quiet, and not running, and not touching (harder for some than others), we went outside and enjoyed the gardens! There were winding paths, and stairs, and a river (just outside the gate) and there was a lot of running, and happy shouting! Here is Pip on the staircase, jumping down each step.

Basketball

Last Saturday was the last week for basketball! Emmi and Tim have been playing basketball with the Welland Warriors (Wow!) since September, and they have both really enjoyed it! It is hard to take pictures of them playing indoors (in a gym) and get the light exposure right, so please bear with the pictures! Here is Tim on the court (he was #10):



And Emmi (#6 light blue):


This is Tim after he received his trophy:



Here's what they thought of their season of basketball!

We Love Lego!

Like all of you, I am sure, we all love Lego in this household (who could not?). Some of us are more infatuated with it than others, but I think we all share a deep appreciation! Here are a couple of Lego projects that recently were built in our home! (These projects were not from kits by the way, they were out of the fertile imagination of the children!!)

Tim's shield: It even had a little handle on the back to hold it with!







Emmi's polar bear.

She called it "Pole-y", and a feature of Poley was that he could sit on top of doors easily. He had a mini-figure rider.


This is a good exercise for me, sometimes when we are picking up the Lego AGAIN (!!!!) I start to wonder why we keep it around, but looking over the pictures, it seems worthwhile!

Composer Night

We are part of a homeschool group called Jubal Cottage School. We are a group that trains children in the arts for the glory of God, specifically by teaching them skills that may help them as they participate in the local church. Jubal had a Composer Night last week. Children were invited to prepare a project on a composer, with a display board, and a presentation. We decided to join in and picked Mozart!

Did you know Mozart's favourite colour was red? Or that he was small for his age? We didn't until we did our project! Emmi and Tim prepared the display together, which included a written report, a picture, a lump of salt crystal from Salzburg (thanks Grandma!!), some CD's, some piano music and my clarinet (Mozart wrote some great clarinet music!). It looked pretty good!

Tim gave an introduction to Mozart, and then Emmi played a piece she has been working on for a while, Mozart's Minuet in F.

After all the presentations, we went to look at the displays, and enjoy some dessert.

Emmi and Tim enjoyed preparing their display, and I think Tim enjoyed his time at the microphone, but Emmi wasn't so keen on playing her piece! However it was great for her to be able to practice playing in front of people (you always need to know your piece much better than you think you do!!) and playing on a grand piano!

It was also a wonderful experience to see what their peers had prepared, and to be inspired by others' playing, perhaps Emmi may be as good as some of them one day! And to encourage the others who are at an earlier level than she is now. Here Emmi and Tim explore the "Liszt Museum" that one family prepared inside a refrigerator box! Too cool!!