This Wednesday is the Challenge to End All Challenges! Tonight is not only our annual End of Summer Backyard Campout …It’s also the night in which the kids are supposed to perform their Cover Songs on Guitar and screen their homemade Short Films that Scare Us! We’re excited more than we’ve ever been before! And we think we’re […]
Last Friday, we screened Jaws and In the Heat of the Night as part of our Summer Film Fest. Afterwards, the kids said that both movies were “scary.” So, we got to comparing how these movies chilled us to the bone. Sure, Jaws had its shark and its shark music. But the shots of the crowds […]
Last weekend, the kids watched Farenheit 451 as part of our Summer Film Fest. The one thing they were really drawn to this time [they’d seen it before] were the wordless comics or newspapers that Montag reads in bed while his wife is watching t.v. and that others read on the suspended monorails. These are, essentially, the […]
It’s August! Time for a book report, right? Just kidding! Here’s a mostly-visual sampling of what the kids are reading this summer! Their Together Book: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two, J.K. Rowling In July, Toby faithfully read a chapter a day of this book until completion…and he loved it: Armada, Ernest Cline […]
If the other week was about the Manga Selfie, this week is all about the “shelfie!” Recently, one of us saw a gorgeous book bag which featured a shelf full of beloved book spines on offer from a big-name publisher. It was beautiful, and we wanted it. But, then, we thought, why not make our own? So, […]
Summer of Funner 2014 is coming to a close. And so is our Backyard Campout Week! You know what that means…. It’s time for our Backyard Summer Film Fest! Last week, I asked everyone in the family to pick two summer movies that they’d love to see outside. Tonight, and over the next two nights […]
Who wants the summer to end? Not us! Our final week of summer is dedicated to our annual Backyard Campout. Since we’re trying to make our campouts a bit healthier, we thought we’d tweak a favourite recipe from The Lunchbox Season to honour the seasonal peach. This Endless Summer Peach Almond Cake is Gluten Free […]
Every summer, for the past five years, I’ve been posting our family activities and ideas here on Summer of Funner. As we come to the end of our fifth season, I wanted to thank all of you readers for your five years of dedication and support. The kids are growing up. And it’s likely we won’t […]
The kids and I decided that we wanted to learn how to make a version of our famous Bread and Butter Pickles without vinegar, i.e. by fermenting them in crocks or jars. Pickling crocks are rather exorbitantly priced, so we decided to make pickles in wide-mouth mason jars. After a little research, we decided that […]
You asked us what we were reading? Here are the kids’ top book pics for Summer of Funner 2015! Together, we’re reading…. Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lason and Sydney Smith Anansi/Groundwood, 2015 As lovers of JonArno Lawson’s poems, I wasn’t sure how the kids were going to respond to this wordless jaunt through town. Reader, […]
Since this is family meditation and mindfulness week, the kids got out their copies of De Brunhoff’s Babar’s Yoga for Elephants and started trying out some yoga poses. When they got tired, they started making their stuffed animals do the “work.” This, of course, led to Bea’s lovely attempts to draw her own stuffed animals in yoga […]
This week, we’re going to begin a family practice of meditation and mindfulness which I hope will last a lifetime. There’s nothing worse than looking at your kids’ faces or bodies tensing up when they realize that something bad has just happened or that they might have just done something wrong. I’ve certainly seen that frightened […]
A few years ago, we had “Crazy Fruit Day” in which we decided to do a blind sampling of all of the strange fruits we picked up in Chinatown. It was so much fun, we decided that we needed to do yet another blind tasting challenge this summer! This time around, we decided to have an […]
Although we’re nearing the end of the summer, I introduced the kids to a new art-meets-books project yesterday. It’s one I hope to revive in various forms as we move into The Lunchbox Season: Kid-Drawn Stories. What did I do? I asked the kids to draw a picture or series of pictures that told a story […]
For lunch during this last week of freedom, the kids wanted an outdoor barbecue. So, I finally got around to teaching them how to use the gas grill safely. I helped them light the grill, but then I moved back into the role of supervisor. Safety first, of course. They used silicon mitts and long-handled […]
Okay, I have to admit it, while it’s our FORTnight or Backyard Campout season, I haven’t been sleeping outside with the kids. I’m still wearing my cast at night, and so this makes camping particularly uncomfortable for me. So, to fill out my “half” of the bargain, I volunteered for “gourmet” breakfast duty! To kick […]
What? The summer is coming to a close? Shhh….Don’t tell the kids. For the last two weeks of the season, we’re setting up the tent in the backyard and letting the kids sleep out of doors whenever it suits their fancy! Actually, Bea put up our tent almost all by herself! So, what did we […]
Anyone who saw last year’s Chaucer Comics would know how much we love to make comic books out of classic literature! Today, I gave the kids and guest a few blank sheets of paper and asked them to come up with a quick six-panel modernized scene from Sense and Sensibility. Here are the kids’ Sense and Sensibility […]
