Chinese Art and Calligraphy

We are in the middle of a study of China so for our art lesson this week I chose a watercolor of a dragon!  The kids were so excited.  They found an image to inspire them and proceeded to draw, outline and paint their dragon.  The teacher could not help but join in :)

Our next class included chinese calligraphy

Then we combined the two and created masterpieces!!!!!

Marco - age 12 - Fire Dragon

Madison - age 10 - Fire and Ice Dragon

Tina - age irrelevant :) - Water Dragon

Freaky Fruits!

We are studying the Eastern Hemisphere this year and so have been on the lookout for Asian fruits to taste.  We found Rambutans (basically a chinese guinep) and Dragon Fruit (Thai)  in the Fresh Market.

DRAGON FRUIT

RAMBUTANS

Delicious!!!

Creating Crystals

The kids received crystal kits from their Aunt Charlotte from her trip to Tennesee and couldn't wait to set them up.

Here are the results:

Egg -xamination

We purchased an egg-ploration :)  kit that details the embryonic development of chicks for the 21 days that they are in the egg.  Madison has been very diligently showing us an egg from "Babe's nest" every morning.  The kids decided to draw the daily development in their science notebook.

Starting SCUBA!

As part of our extracurricular activities this year the children will be completing their SCUBA certification and participating in a monthly dive.  We are well on our way.

We started with lessons in a classroom:

Then suited up and left for the pool:

Marco  and I completed all of our confined water skills, and we all passed our written exam.  We were back again the following day to complete two open water dives.

Madison, meanwhile, practiced her snorkeling and received instruction on driving the boat - a 42 ft dive boat - from the Captain.  She took us from the harbour to the dive site and from the dive site into the harbour and right up to the bridge!