Medieval Times

Medieval Times was a great dinner experience!

There were four courses to our meal (soup, roasted chicken, garlic bread and dessert). We had to eat everything with our hands!

The show was quite spectacular. There were jousting horses, prancing horses and the Knights of the Realm who made it all happen. It was a very exciting show. So exciting that it was hard to eat! My eyes were glued to the show. I didn't want to miss a thing.

The whole show was set in Medieval England. My favourite part was the Knights' Challenge Competition. The Red Knight was victorious!

Toyota Manufacturing Plant Tour

The tour of the Toyota plant was great!

We wore "shop coats", goggles and headsets. We toured around the plant in a trolley. We saw lots of cars - they manufacture the Corolla and the Lexus in this plant. While we were touring, we saw thousands of cars being made by thousands of people and robots. There were lots of memories, including the memories of seeing cars being tested as they came off of the assembly line. The Toyota plant was fantastic!!

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Joseph Schneider Haus

The Joseph Schneider Haus is an important historic site. It is the oldest, surviving dwelling in Kitchener, Ontario. Joseph Schneider was a Pennsylvania-German Mennonite. He built this house in 1816. Everybody in the community that he lived in, helped him to build this house in ONE day! The architectural style is: Georgian frame farmhouse.

Ice Floe on the Ottawa River

This amazing picture of a gigantic, island-sized, ice floe is very neat. This ice floe had broken off from a sheet of ice on the Ottawa River. The ice floe breaks into two pieces and will eventually become liquid water when the summer heat comes and melts it.

Montreal, Quebec

Montreal is a major seaport within the continent of North America. The port is connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence River and to other ports in the Great Lakes.

My trip to Montreal was great. It has a lot of historic buildings and lots of restaurants and cafes. I found an interesting old building that I liked very much. It was right beside a hotel/restaurant. It looked like an old store. It was four stories high and it was abandoned. My trip to Montreal was very good. I ate in a restaurant that used to be a horse stable. I spoke French while I was there.

I went to the Biodome that Montreal is known for. The Biodome had lots of animals in it. I even saw some very odd looking ones. There was a dark cave section where there were lots of bats. I got to a section where there were snakes.

My visit to Montreal was great.

Sir John A. MacDonald

He was born on January 11th, 1815 in Glasgow, Scotland. Sir John A. MacDonald, our first Prime Minister, has always been considered to be one of our greatest political leaders.

I like Sir John A. MacDonald because he played a large role in Canada's history. He is one of the Fathers of Confederation. I visited his summer house last year and visited his gravesite this year. Both are in Kingston, Ontario.

For Sir John A. MacDonald's grave he asked for a simple stone cross (as you can see in the picture on the right-hand side). The Canadian government added a fence, a Canadian flag and a monumental plaque.

Sir John A. MacDonald was a very great Prime Minister. All Canadians be grateful for the country we live in and for the man who made it happen.

Laurier House

Laurier House was the home of two famous Prime-Ministers: Sir Wilfred Laurier and William Lyon Mackenzie King. Laurier was the first French-speaking, Catholic born Prime Minister and King is the longest standing Prime Minister (22 years). Laurier lived in this house first and actually died in his bed in this very house after he had had a stroke while working at Parliament Hill earlier that day. His wife died two years later and left the house to Mackenzie King. He renovated the house and turned the third floor into his offices. His cosy office, tucked in a room on the front of Laurier House even has a crystal ball in it. He used to like to sit by his fireplace and read.

When he died, he left the house to the "Government and People of Canada" so that we could learn more about him and Laurier and what life in Canada was like at that time in history. The house is filled with all of his original furniture. Before he died though, he created "24 Sussex Drive" which is the official residence of the Prime Ministers of Canada.

A small room tucked away in the wall of the third floor was used for mediums to listen to spirits. Not everybody knows that King was a very spiritual man.

You can visit Laurier House too!

http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/on/laurier/index.aspx

Ottawa Food Bank

Today we went to the warehouse of the Ottawa Food Bank. We sorted and packed food into boxes that are sent out to community agencies that then give the food out to families in need. The warehouse distributes 12 tonnes of food every working day. They support 138 food programs in Ottawa. 43,000 people in Ottawa receive emergency food assistance each month and 35% of them are children.

There is a way YOU can help the Ottawa Food Bank too!

• You can volunteer to sort and pack food like we did;
  
• You can help with transportation of the food;
• You can help at a Food Bank event;
• You can help in the office;
• You can also donate food; and
• You can donate money. With the Ottawa Food Bank's buying power, every $1 that you donate can be turned into $5 worth of food.

http://www.theottawafoodbank.ca/index.php

Fort Henry

Fort Henry is a very old fort in Kingston, Ontario. Built in 1832, Fort Henry is a nice place to visit and you can have dinner there and be served by a "servant soldier". We had a very nice dinner in the "Officers' Mess".

After World War 1, the fort fell into disrepair and was restored in 1936. Fort Henry is now designated as a National Historic Site.

Kingston, Ontario is a very historic city. There are some very fancy castle-like homes there. These historic homes have turrets and ornate decorations on them that give them a grand feeling.

Reid's Dairy

Reid's Dairy is a very popular milk company. It also has tasty ice cream. The factory is located in Belleville, Ontario and is open to the public.

Stores that sell Reid's Dairy products are everywhere! They even bag milk under the brand of Neilson. In this picture they are bagging milk. After it is in the bag, the bags go into the green plastic crates. The crates travel along a conveyor belt and take a trip to the distribution centre where they are loaded onto trucks and distributed all over Ontario.

Life of Aboriginal Peoples

The life of Aboriginals is an amazing and spiritual one. I visited a native village. Its exhibits and reproductions of longhouses show the lifestyles of Aboriginals 500 years ago. The Ontario Museum of Archaeology is in the middle of a residential area. Surprising for its kind!

The Aboriginals lived in longhouses. The longhouses were usually about 20-40 meters long. The inside of a longhouse had rows of beds and 3 firepits that were used for cooking. The Aboriginals had a very interesting life. There were originally 14 longhouses in the village. The village had a palisade and lookouts to watch for enemies. Near the entrance there was a maze so it would be hard for enemies to enter into the village. Aboriginals still exist today throughout Canada.

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Castle Kilbride

Castle Kilbride is an amazing work of the Victorian-Italianate style of architecture. It was built by James Livingston in 1877. He was a very successful business man in the area. This mansion lies in Baden, Ontario.

The inside with the grand hall is spectacular. Even the "smoking room" was grand. Every room in the house had a grand feeling.

There was a belvedere at the top. It was painted green and red. It has a slate roof. The belvedere was there so that the man of the house could watch over his fields - in this case, flax fields.

The library, with its painted tassels, look as if they were real. Laura's toy collection is displayed in the cellar. The interesting floor lamp is a piece of art.

In 1988 the house had deteriorated and it was abandoned. The furnishings and toys were sold off in an auction. A heritage group restored the house to its original splendor and it was designated a National Historic Site. Most of the furnishings and toys were brought back to the mansion. Only 65% of the original furnishings remain while the remainder are from the same period of time but not original to the house.

The house is amazing. You can try going to visit there. It is open from May through December. You can see all of the beautiful furniture in the house.

Biltmore Estate

This is Nicholas reporting from Florida.

I visited this castle a few days ago but I want to talk about it right now.

Biltmore Estate is a very nice estate. It has a farm and it has a castle that is very beautiful and has 250 rooms.

My favourite part of the castle was the big hall which they used as the dining room.

My favourite part of the visit was holding the chicks at the farm.

I had fun at the estate. See you next time.

Dangerous Fire Ants!

This is Nicholas reporting from South Carolina. I've discovered some new ants - they are called "fire ants". They can sting you and they can even be deadly!

How to prevent getting bitten by a fire ant:

1. Don't go near their nests. (Fire ant nests can be under bricks, logs or just a big hill that looks like a mound of sand up to 40 cm high.)
2. If you see a fire ant, don't touch it! They will bite you.
3. Don't let you pets near them.

The Water Jar Experiment

This is the first of many posts by Nicholas. If you're a Mum or Dad who is homeschooling your children and using lots of worksheets, you will change your mind once you listen to my ideas!

SO - let's get on to our first experiment...

1st step - take a jar

2nd step - fill the jar with cold water (reminder: always make the water COLD - as cold as you can get it)

3rd step - put the jar, filled with water, in a sunny window - what do you think will happen to the water?

4th step - wait for 2 hours

5th step - pour the water on your wrist - is it warm or cold?

ANSWER:

The water will have warmed up. Why? Because the sun's radiation heats it up. You can google that to find out more about how that works.