Djembe Drumming

Last spring, one of our friends set up a drumming class for homeschooled kids. It was wonderful. The teacher came to her house for an hour, and taught the bigger kids; while the mom's all watched the little ones, had tea, and chatted. Last year, we managed to borrow drums from the church. This year since Eva was interested, we decided to use some of our curriculum budget to purchase a couple of drums.
We went to a local warehouse, where there were walls and walls of drums (as you can see from the picture). We had lots of fun listening to the sounds of the different drums, and choosing one hand crafted African drum, and one little manufactured wooden drum. So now both kids have something to practice on during the week.

Pet Caterpillar

Every spring, our homeschool program arranges for the kids to purchase butterfly larva kits to grow some butterflies at home. And each year, my school budget money has run out, so we don't get to participate. (The kids don't really know that others are getting them, so it's not the end of the world.)

Anyways, this year, the kids didn't even need a kit. For some reason, there were caterpillars galore around our neighbourhood! Seriously, at one point Theo and Eva had collected 10 caterpillars. They built a nice little habitat for them in a bankers box and they were always making sure that there were no escapees through the handles. They fed them leaves, and watch the leaves get eaten. We even watched them build their cocoons! It was a wonderful learning opportunity that I literally had nothing to do with. Here are some photos of their pet caterpillars.