Vacation Here We Come!

If you are wondering why I am not going to be posting in the next little while, it's because we are going on vacation! Check back later!!

Sweltering Music!

It was a hot concert! The fans were on and the whole crowd was sweating. The dream for everyone was WATER. The temperature inside was at least 35 with a humidex of 45. (I'm NOT KIDDING!). That's pretty hot for a cold-blooded Canadian kid. So, now you get it........... On Sunday, I performed at a concert for strings. The age range was 7-17 and a professional violinist from an orchestra as a bonus. I played Air Varie by Dancla (second video) and my own composition, Piney Cliffs in Midsummer (first video). My accompanist is Mario Delisle. The concert consisted of solo performers (with piano) and small groups of string players. I didn't think I played as well as usual because I was a little under the weather(haha) and it was an hour past my bedtime. The paper program from the concert is pretty beat up from its second purpose as a FAN! I thank my grandparents, who, despite the heat and their age, stayed to watch me play..........thanks!

Ruby Arrives!!

It's been a long wait for a piano, but after a few years, we own one! It arrived yesterday in a small truck. We even have a name for her: Ruby Josephine! Ruby was made from 1915-1925 (we don't know her exact year, month, or date) by Newby and Evans in NY. The movers were really strong! They tilted the piano on its side and maneuvered it in many directions to get it up the stairs and through the door. Ruby is really big and beautiful! She is probably about 5' long, and 4' 5" tall! I have been saving up for Ruby for a very long time! Here are the pictures in order.

The piano in the truckOnto the wheeler

Into the house

Ruby being untilted

Finally played!!

Here is a brief story of Ruby:

In 1992, an elderly woman advertised a
Newby and Evans piano for sale in the newspaper.
It had been in her family all her life, but she needed to part with it.
Ruby was bought by Rob and Leslie, a couple with two young daughters.
She was very special and was played at small musical parties on Saturday nights at Rob and
Leslie's home. At this time, Rob and Leslie lived in New Brunswick. Ruby was in poor shape,
so they went to get it fixed up on Grand Manan Island by a piano technician.
Rob and Leslie wanted to move to a new home, so
Ruby (still not named yet) took a long journey to their new house.
Yet again, the couple planned to move(their children were grown and they wanted to move to a smaller place)and then
she was bought by me! I plan to continue to play lots of wonderful music on her!

Thanks Soph!
I went to a thrift store and noticed "A
Handful of Time" was on the shelf, so I
picked it up for fifty cents! Check on my
"books I am reading" list next week!
Lime Green

Book Review: The Root Cellar

Book Review:

The Root Cellar

by Janet Lunn 1981
Published by Lester Publishing
231 pages

Twelve-year-old Rose Larkin is an orphan whose life is very unstable. Her grandmother has taken care of her since her parents died when she was three years old. Her grandmother then has a heart attack and now she is living with her Aunt Nan and Uncle Bob and all their children, relatives she has almost never met before. She is very uncomfortable because her grandmother just died; she is feeling very out-of-sorts and there is a lot of hustle and bustle in the house. To escape the awkward situation, she climbs down an abandoned root cellar in the yard to have some time to herself. Surprisingly, she finds herself in the 1860's. There, she meets two friends, Susan Anderson and Will Morrissay. The next time she climbs back into the root cellar, time has passed and it is two years later. Will is fighting in the American Civil War! The rest of the book is about Rose and Susan's adventures to find him and bring him home from Washington. The adventures include, a disguise, narrow escapes, hunger, train rides, and a storm. How do they all connect? Join in the excitement and read the book!!

A Day at the Museum

Taxi! Taxi!

Yesterday, my friend Felix and I went to our local children's museum. There were two parts: inside and outside. Inside, there were lots of different country stations. Each person was given a "passport" and there were stamps at each of the stations where you put a stamp in the right place in your passport. Pyramids and a restaurant (with only plastic food) were there, as well as a tailor, toys from different countries, a boat that had a crane which could pick up bags, a market, an Indian bus, taxis, a camel (which belongs with the pyramid), some houses from a few different countries, and a LOT more! I really enjoyed the outside, too. It included a boat, an airplane, a kitchen, some little houses, a giant chess game (do you read or watch Harry Potter?), a craft tent, and a spot where you could fish for wooden fish with magnetic mouths. Hopscotch from different countries was painted on the path. To see a slide show of how we passed our time, click on HERE
(click on the "slideshow" button at the top of the page).

Une message á Félix:
Merci pour la magnifique jeu des échecs!
C'est dommage que nous n'avons pas fini.

Music and Time Travel

My last concerts for the spring are finally coming up next week! I had my grade 5(and possibly 6) violin exam yesterday, too. On Monday, I am performing at a ballet and violin fundraiser at a local concert hall. I am playing Introduction and Polonaise, which I performed yesterday and a while ago early this month. In the following concert I am playing two pieces: Air Varié No. 5 by Charles Dancla, and my composition, Piney Cliffs in Midsummer, which I played for the competition. My first piano recital is next month, too. I am playing "Yellow Bird" and "Land of the Silver Birch" for it, both arranged by Nancy and Randall Faber(from the3A lesson book)

My new poll is about time travel. Our family has been watching the "House" series where people go back in time to live in different time periods from 3-6 months. We have seen Colonial House, Frontier House, and 1900 House so far. It would be really fascinating to participate in one of those shows. We have learned a lot about what it was like to live during those times. It wasn't always easy, that is for sure! In my time travel poll, I voted for Ancient Greece and Rome, because I couldn't choose between the two. My mom chose the Renaissance era. It would be extremely thrilling if you could go in a time machine and go anytime you wanted to go back to. There are too many time periods for this one poll, so the next poll will be about the same thing, but it will have more recent periods in it. By the way, lilac won the last poll with 11 votes. Tulip came in second with 8 votes and daffodil in third place got 6 votes. Needless to say dandilion was not a favourite!

My Pen Pal Brodie

One of the benefits of having a pen pal is that you get to learn about other parts of the world. When you have a pen pal, you also get to have a friend that you wouldn't have at home. I have a pen pal called Brodie and he lives in Australia. He is almost the same age as me (his birthday is exactly 6 weeks before mine) and we both are homeschooled. Where he lives, near Kununurra in northern Australia, the climate is very different from here. There are dry and wet seasons (the wet season brings floods), and 45 degrees is quite a normal temperature for summer! It is so very, very hot there. There are lots of dangerous snakes, creatures, and bugs there and Brodie's mom has to shoot the snakes around their house.(One even tried to get their cat!) Unlike me, Brodie and his younger brothers and sister have only seen a large city once, whereas I have never been to a place like where he lives. They live about 7 km(I think) from the nearest town, which only has a few thousand people living in it. Brodie likes to ride his horse, Radial. I have never ridden a horse. There are waterfalls during the wet season within walking distance that they can swim in.Sometimes they can't go swimming because there are crocodiles in the water. His dad musters(rounds them up) cattle with a helicopter and works in a diamond mine, which keeps him away sometimes. Their family also has a mango farm. Everyone helps out when it's mango harvesting season. His mom and dad are doing renovations on their house getting it ready to sell because they are moving to north of Adelaide next year. Brodie and I don't just send letters, we exchange souvenirs, too. I have found Australia to be a very interesting country since I have been writing to Brodie. Here are some photos of him.

Brodie with an unidentified reptileRiding his horse Radial

With a goanna found in the linen closet!

A VERY big Barra fish!

Favourite Game IV: The Settlers of Catan

This game is advertised as being a game of discovery, settlement, and trade. It certainly is! Our family really likes this game because it's a different dynamic and even a different board every time! In this game, you are settlers and you have to build settlements, roads, and cities with different resources to make them. You roll the dice and trade to get resources. But sometimes this is hard. There is a robber going around, and anytime someone rolls a 7 on the dice, they move the thief and take a card from somebody's hand. People who have more than seven cards when the robber comes have to give away half their cards to the "resource bank". There are 5 resources: wood, rock, clay, sheep, and wheat. Whoever gets ten points first wins and the game ends. The reason why there is a different board every time is because there are cardboard octagons that have the resources on them. The desert is in the middle and the ocean is on the edge, but the resources can go anywhere in between. There are also circles with numbers and dots on them. The number of dots indicates the probability of the number being rolled. If the dice roll a number that is on a circle on a resource that you are bordering, you get some of that resource. If you have a city or two settlements there, you get two of that resource. If you have three settlements there, you get three of that resource. If you have two cities or four settlements there, you get four of that resource. And so on....and so on.

Prior to this year I couldn't play this game, but now I can, and it is a lot of fun. It is for 3-4 players and it says ages 12 and up, but if you like and understand games, you could be younger.

P. S. Thanks to Martine and JP for teaching Mom and Dad how to play this game!

FIRST PRIZE!

I'm a bit late for my post on the competition (it was four days ago), but I won in my category. There was myself and a pianist shortlisted in my category. Everyone does get something ($50 for the participants, $150-500 for the winners, depending on their playing category), so I'm congratulating everybody including the winners. Everybody tries their best and everybody did play well. Even some of the ones that did play well didn't win. In my head, I count them as second winners. I now have another $250.00 towards my piano............

THE PUNCH FOUNTAIN!

(See photo above, I am standing in front of the punch fountain!) The punch was really good...........
but the caterers already had the glasses displayed with punch in them. So I drank the punch as usual........and refilled the glass in the fountain!

Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms! We are actually celebrating Mother's Day next Monday because my mom is sick. She has the common cold plus a bonus headache. Ouch!

Monday isn't a week day next week- it's the long weekend.

Spring Flowers in the Community Garden

April showers bring May flowers. And what do May flowers bring? Pilgrims! Nah, just kidding. The photos below are of flowers we saw at a community garden near us. I took the bottom three photos myself! The only flowers really up when we went (Tuesday) were tulips, daffodils, poppies, snowdrops, and purple flowers (I don't know what they are - I don't think they're violets).

This is a picture my mom took. These are extremely red!

How did that dandelion sneak into this photo?
The purple ones are pretty though!

I wonder where this tulip got its red streaks! My
mom said I took a really striking picture here.

I really like these very white flowers.
There are so many of them they are
like white grass!

Plants and Flowers

The reason that my poll is about spring flowers is because I am doing a unit on plants right now. Here are some of the things we did so far:

Ginger Root Beer
When I was studying roots, I made this drink out of grated, boiled, and strained ginger root, lemon juice, honey, and water.This concoction tasted YUCKY! It was actually my mom that drank it first: she said it tasted like BLECH and so I didn't drink it at all.

Coloured Celery

This experiment was to test the function of a stem. First, I put water in two glasses. I added a couple drops of different coloured food colouring in each glass of water. Then, I split the bottom of a long stick of celery so that the top was still full. After that, I put one half of the bottom in each glass. An hour or two later, there was each colour of food colouring at the top of the celery. So I learned that the function of a stem is to carry up water and nutrients from the roots to the leaves.

Growing a Sweet Potato

A sweet potato is actually a root, so you can grow another sweet potato plant from it. First, I inserted 5 toothpicks on the side of the sweet potato, around it. Then, I filled a jar with water and put the pointed end of the sweet potato in it. It hasn't started growing yet- it'll probably sprout in a week.

Growing Lima Beans

This project is easy: get a few dried lima beans, wet a paper towel, and put the lima beans and the paper towel in a Ziploc. Then twiddle your thumbs for about five days. Then watch how they grow!

Dissecting Lima Beans
Soak lima beans in water for about a day. Take off the thin coating. This is the seed coat, which protects the seed. The stuff inside is the cotyledon, which the baby plant, the embryo, survives on. The tiny plant at the top of the seed is the embryo, the baby plant.

Dissecting a Flower

Dissecting the daffodil took a few steps. I took off the sepals, which are the two petal-like things under the petals. Then I removed the petals and cup, which are a sort of runway and flashing neon lights for pollinators to arrive to pollinate. Next, I pulled out the little stalks with yellow on the ends. These are the stamens (pronounce STAYmens), which have the pollen on them. The last thing to take off is the carpel. This has the ovary in it, the thicker part down at the bottom, which has the ovules, the not yet pollinated seeds, in it.

I am making a lapbook on plants, too. If you don't know what a lapbook is, check back here in a few weeks and I will display it.