Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns

Week in Review–May 27, 2012

2012-05-27T02:57:00.000-07:00

School is winding up. It looks like they mostly work on their iPads and prepare for graduation ceremony next Friday. There was also a note writing activity. Anna wrote me this lovely note – it’s very interesting to see how far her writing and spelling skills progressed in kindergarten. I hope we can keep up writing over summer, since it’s still not her favorite thing to do.

Afterschool. It often seems to me that we don’t do enough at home, especially during ultra busy work periods I’ve been having lately, but Anna, of course, does a lot in her Y program. I love it when she brings different crafts and drawings home, and they also have “worksheet time” where Anna usually asks to do what her first or second grade friends are doing.

Places we are going – we have a couple of barbecues to go to this week, and we decided to take it easy overall, especially since I’ve been so busy lately and preparing for business trip in a week.

Quote of the week.

Anna: Mama, in my Y friend’s family, his father has a child, but this child is not T’s brother. How can it be?
Me: Most likely it means that this man is married again and had a child with another woman.
Anna: Well, I think that this man is magical and has a child all his own. In my world it’s possible, you know. All fat men are fat because they have babies sleeping in their bellies.

What My Child Is Reading–May 26, 2012

2012-05-26T02:25:00.000-07:00

Anna has stopped Magic Tree House books at Merlin Missions a few months ago declaring that they are too scary. Suddenly she decided that they are not scary after all and is making her way (on her own) through the remainder of our Magic Tree House collection. She had a free choice of a book for a book report this week, and did one on Season of the Sandstorms. I learned enough from her book report to know that it’s a good book about deserts

Anna’s class is practicing some action songs and poems for graduation ceremony, and she pulled out Marc Brown’s Hand Rhymes book from her book shelf and practiced some of the hand rhymes in this book. I like it when she chooses to memorize a poem or a song on her own. I highly recommend this book, since it has both classic action poems and some less known ones. According to Anna, this is the funnest book ever.

The Gypsy Princess by Phoebe Gilman was a straggler from our Romania week. The setting of the story is unknown, that’s why I didn’t chose it as a main Romania book. The story itself is pretty engaging and built on the premise that a cage, even a golden cage, is not as good as freedom. We both really enjoyed beautiful and detailed illustrations in the book – Phoebe Gilman was a very talented illustrator.

I had mixed feelings about Dreamer from the Village that introduces children to Marc Chagall. For once, I am quite upset that this book and another one we read says that Marc Chagall was born in Russia. He was born in my country - Belarus. Secondly, Vitebsk is not a village and even early in early 20th century it was a fairly large town. Of course, it might have been a village in comparison to Paris, but still… Also, I wish there were some Chagall’s works in the book. The illustrator tried to imitate Chagall’s style, but it’s easier said than done.

Exploring Art Materials–Watercolor Pencils

2012-05-23T19:08:00.001-07:00

For Mother’s Day I bought myself a gift as well – Crayola Watercolor Pencils and a sketch book. I also was a lucky winner of Artterro giveaway from The Chocolate Muffin Tree blog, and so Anna ended up with her own Art Journal as well. We both enjoyed several sessions of drawing together so far. Both of us are not great artists, but I find it fun to try different things and to show Anna that you don’t need to fret about perfection, you just have to have motivation to experiment and learn. Here is her latest masterpiece.

Your turn: Have you tried any new materials or art techniques lately?

Week In Review–May 20, 2012

2012-05-21T19:13:00.001-07:00

School: It’s been a busy week! Anna and her classmates showered their teacher with flowers and gifts for Teacher Appreciation week. On Wednesday her school had an open house to showcase everything the students have been up to this year. Anna’s class had a special “iPad Academy” for parents, and then we were allowed to take a lot of artifacts home including fun writing samples that showed how much she progressed in the past few months.

Afterschool. I’ve been busy-busy at work and was “missing in action” on most days. But Mother’s Day was fun! I got an adorable card from my overexcited child and another one in Russian. Her Russian lessons are going well, and she now asks me more often for Russian words and sentences. Grandparents will be pleased

Places we are going. We finally managed to go to one of Anna’s favorite spots – The Gilroy Gardens. Anna’s best friend’s family came with us, and the kids had a blast. It was a lot of fun for Anna to be a tour guide and take A on all her favorite rides, especially on “sky train”. Luckily, even though A is tall enough to ride more adventurous rides, he had no interest in them – he is almost as cautious as Anna is when it comes to thrills.

Quote of the week:

Me (playing a game): Name three differences between boys and girls:
Anna: Boys are stronger than girls, boys love gross and yucky stuff and boys can go bald, and girls can’t!

What My Child Is Reading–May 19, 2012

2012-05-19T03:02:00.000-07:00

It was another Mrs Piggle Wiggle book in the house. I am reading Happy Birthday, Mrs Piggle Wiggle to Anna every evening, and we only had time for one picture book all week. She reads on her own a lot, usually more than 2 hours a day. She always has a ready answer for “favorite activity” question – reading! I was touched to get a book from her for Mother’s Day when she was answering prompts and describing reading as her favorite thing for us to do together and going to the library as her favorite place to go together. We are definitely quite successful in raising a reader!

I really wish my daughter would pick Japan for our Read Around the World journey. There are so many wonderful books about this country. Anna and I both really enjoyed Erika-San yet again by Allen Say. It sort of reads like a modern fairy tale of a girl whose childhood dream actually comes true through her perseverance and knowing exactly what she is looking for. Generally, the story is better suited for 5+ and for country study.

I got the first book from Joan Holub’s Doll Hospital series at the library book sale. It’s called Tatiana comes to America: An Ellis Island Story. Anna mostly liked the fact that there was an actual paper doll in the book but she also mentioned that the story was interesting. I looked through the book and decided that it will be good to reread it together as it tells a fascinating story of a young Russian girl (and her doll) getting separated from her family and coming to America on her own.

A Little Bit About Me

2012-05-17T15:07:00.001-07:00

I was tagged earlier this week by Leah at Almost Unschoolers for “get to know each other” game.

The Rules:
1. Post these rules.
2. Post a photo of yourself and 11 random facts about you.
3. Answer the questions given to you in the tagger’s post.
4. Create 11 new questions and tag new people to answer them.
5. Go to their blog/twitter and let them know they have been tagged.

1. This is my work mug shot. I work in a big well-known company. We’ve been in the news a lot lately… and not just because of the products we make and sell.
2. I don’t like wearing business suits and mostly wear jeans and sweaters/T-shirts to work unless I have to meet customers.
3. I hate shopping for clothes.
4. My favorite place to shop is Amazon, and I have weakness for Michael’s and other craft stores.
5. I am not at all crafty but want to pretend that one day I might be.
6. I wanted to be a chemist. Marie Curie was my role model when I was a teenager. I wanted to get two Nobel prizes too.
7. I find it very hard to focus. Maybe it’s because my work hours are full of unrelated meetings, emails and phone calls.
8. I love Harry Potter and admired J.K. Rowling Harvard Commencement Speech.
9. Regardless, the thought of failure still frightens me.
10. I never thought I will marry a German. It’s one of the best things that ever happened to me.
11. I love travel and I hope to be traveling again with my family soon.

On to Leah’s questions:

1. What was your favorite subject in school, and why? Chemistry – see above.
2. What sort of school did you attend for your K-12 years? Public, private, home based? Public. By the way, private school or homeschooling didn’t exist in the former Soviet Union.
3. Do you have a college degree (maybe a masters or doctorate)? If so, in what? Bachelor in System Engineering with enough math classes to qualify for M.S. in Math here.
4. What do you think our educational goal as a country (or your educational goal as a country, if you're not in the US) should be? Interesting question. I don’t believe in No Child Left Behind for many reasons. I rather like track based educational systems where children don’t have to study things they are not interested in.

5. What US landmark would you like to visit, that you haven't already seen. US has landmarks? Just kidding, of course. I really want to go to Yellowstone!
6. What is your favorite summer family activity. Barbecue dinners with friends.
7. Read the Scribbit post about blogging, linked in the answers above. What phase of blogging are you in currently. Interesting post. Adulthood, I dare say.
8. Can you tolerate other people's children as well as your own? Don't worry, I'm not planning on dropping mine off at your door. I'm just curious. No, and sometimes I cannot even tolerate mine.
9. Do you set limits on "screen time" in your house? And why, or why not? Yes, and the answer deserves a separate post. I actually wrote one 2 years ago, and the practice is still pretty much the same in the house.
10. Do you have a family pet? If yes, what kind(s)? Lobbying my husband for a cat
11. Do you use math, beyond the basics of what you learned in grades five or six, in daily life? And if yes, in what way? (I'd really like to hear in from anyone reading this post, on this one). Nothing over grade 8 and functions available in Microsoft Excel even though I went “all the way” in math. I still have no regrets about learning so much math, because I believe it gives me thinking skills and guides subliminally my decision making. I do catch myself assessing probability often and I am able to “catch” wrong assumptions quickly.

My questions to Debbie at Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn, Amanda at The Educators’ Spin On It and Melissa at The Chocolate Muffin Tree:

1. Why do you blog?
2. How often do you feel guilty feeling that you could be doing more with your children?
3. What is your favorite childhood memory?
4. How many siblings do you have and did it affect your decisions on the number of children you wanted to have?
5. How did you choose your career?
6. If you could change one choice you made, what would that be?
7. Name three skills you would want your children to have
8. If you got $1000 to spend right now, what would you buy?
9. I think all three of my picks are stay-at-home moms. Do you consider going back to work? If so, why?
10. Do you have a favorite pick-me-up song? What is it?
11. Do you blog on schedule or when inspiration strikes?

Reading Around the World–Romania

2012-05-16T10:46:00.001-07:00

When Anna picks a new country for our “reading around the world” activity, I always try to tell her a few age-appropriate facts about that country right away to keep her interest going. I actually visited Romania twice, but the first things that came to my mind were gypsies and vampires. Oops, I forgot Olympic champions in gymnastics. Age-appropriate books were hard to find too, so I decided to introduce Anna to Carole Marsh mysteries and got The Mystery at Dracula’s Castle from Amazon. I looked through the book first to make sure there is nothing supernatural going on – my daughter is not at all a fan of supernatural suspense, but the book is a good “real” mystery with a lot of twists and turns. My only regret was that it doesn’t tell the reader much about modern Romania even though it’s set there. Every character “magically” speaks perfect English, and all my daughter got out of the book was that “Romania has castles, vampires, bats and treasures”. Not exactly an in-depth geography or history lesson, but good enough for kindergarten. I am sure she will have a big kick out of her mini-books a few years down the road. We also made this Romanian dish that, sadly, didn’t turn out as well as I expected despite an insane amount of garlic I plunked into it. No vampires in our house after that much garlic!

Anna wanted to do another book on Russia next, but I managed to negotiate with her and convince her to “visit” my own country of birth – Belarus. Here is a little trivia question – who do you think was the most famous person from Belarus’ in 20th century? Make your guesses, and I will reveal my pick in my next Read Around the World post.

Week In Review–May 13, 2012

2012-05-13T02:54:00.000-07:00

School. Children were preparing for Teacher Appreciation week this week with parent volunteers. Next week will be busy with some sort of special events happening each day and a school Open House and an Art Show on Wednesday. Anna was pleased to finally get to “Outstanding” behavior in class on Friday – interestingly, children can get to “outstanding” not by being very quiet but by problem solving and helping others.

Afterschool. YMCA was also busy with special activities. Their May “club” had Mad Science option. Of course, Anna is in this club and enjoys it a lot. Their first week was about bubbles, and the second week had rainbow milk experiment. Sadly, Anna couldn’t explain any of them, but I wouldn’t expect her too, as the science behind them is fairly complex.

Places we are going – We decided to take it easy this weekend. We volunteered at our neighborhood pool and helped prepare it for an opening over the Memorial Day weekend. We can’t wait to go swimming!

Quote of the week: Anna: Mom, I feel that my brain is almost full to the brim.
Me: Goodness, where are you going to keep all the things you will learn in the next 12 years of school?
Anna: Hmm… I will have to free some space. I have a lot of chambers in my brain. I think I will free the biggest chamber.
Me: And what chamber is that?
Anna: A chamber of bad thoughts. I will keep only one there – when we went to that Egyptian Museum and I thought an unwrapped mummy. That’s the worst thought (memory) I ever had.

What My Child Is Reading–May 12, 2012

2012-05-12T02:28:00.000-07:00

Our big “read-aloud” book this week was The Mystery at Dracula’s Castle set in Romania. I will review it separately in Read Around the World post, but it was our first introduction to Carole Marsh books. She apparently has two interesting mystery series – Real Kids, Real Places and now Around the World in 80 Mysteries. I was not sure how Anna will react to a mystery book targeted at ages 8+, but she is loving it, and I hope that we might finally have found a new series to get immersed in.

We are on Allen Say’s reading spree lately, picking one new book from the library. I love his illustrations, and the stories also have many levels in them. Allison is an adopted daughter of a white American family. Allen Say explores the feeling of a young child dealing with the realization that her birth parents gave her up to someone who doesn’t look like her and who is not her real parent. It’s a very interesting and touching story to read.

What Does Peace Feel Like? by Vladimir Radunsky should be a must to read in elementary schools. The concept is pretty simple – children with different names (and therefore with different ethnic backgrounds) answer the questions, What does peace taste/feel/smell/look/sound like? The answers are very fascinating and they also opened up great discussions between me and Anna. I took a video of her describing her ideas – a precious memory of my daughter, the philosopher, at 5 years old.

Of course, we couldn’t completely miss Mother’s Day this year. Eve Bunting/Jan Brett offer a wonderful and gorgeously illustrated story of three brothers preparing surprises for their moms. It’s also touching how these brothers care and support each other. We read the same book last year and it still didn’t lose its appeal for me and for Anna. Now I am looking forward to my own surprise tomorrow

Read Around the World–California

2012-05-08T02:04:00.000-07:00

Our next stop in reading around the world was California. Anna is still struggling in the whole state vs country concept, especially if state is so big as our California. The book talks about several distinct regions of California, and I am thinking that it would be cool to visit all of them eventually. Our California is gorgeously illustrated by Rafael Lopez, and I really hoped to do a painting in this style, but daughter wasn’t terribly interested so far. Instead she wanted to do more coloring – we both enjoy coloring sessions when both of us color together for our mini-book and talk. That’s when I usually tell her more about the place we are studying. This time we started talking about famous man-made landmarks, and Anna wanted to know what top 10 are. Two in US made my list – Statue of Liberty and Golden Gate Bridge. When I got to Rio de Janeiro and its Christ the Redeemer statue, Anna wanted to know how did people know how Christ looked like which took us away from geography and on to religion, genetics and other topics.

We also watched this DVD from US Geography for Children series. I thought that it managed to cover quite a lot of ground in 23 minutes – touching upon history, geography, economy and culture of California. Still, Anna struggled a lot answering What is special about California? question. After some prompting she offered Golden Gate Bridge, redwoods, Pacific Ocean and… Statue of Liberty And then she picked up another “difficult country” for our next visit – Romania.

Week in Review–May 6, 2012

2012-05-06T13:32:00.001-07:00

School. It seems that May is a very fun month in Anna’s school. Last week they had a field trip and a walkathon. This week they had a special lesson on reptiles with live snakes, lizards and turtles and a music performance by a local music artist. Anna is still wild about her iPad, and this is what she is mostly talking about when she comes home. She keeps asking for her own iPad or a laptop.

Afterschool. I was down most of the week with a very painful inflammation in my right foot, but I started feeling better yesterday and we got out paints to do a guided painting on the canvas. The canvas painting is not exactly finished yet, but Anna really enjoyed splatter painting. Note to self – splatter painting with acrylics is not the greatest idea – an emergency bath and emergency laundry was needed directly after this activity.

Places we are going. We were hanging out a lot with the family of Anna’s best friend from school. We are hoping that the kids will stay together next year, because they click so well, and they also manage to include A’s little sister in their games. When they were at our place, I set up the melting ice experiment for them. All three kids predicted that the water would overflow when the ice melted. Their explanation of the results – the water must have evaporated! We will definitely repeat this experiment in a cool place

Quote of the week: Anna: You know, I would really like to parachute out of an airplane.
Me: Why not, but it’s something to do when you are older.
Anna: Can we do it for my 7th birthday party? We will jump out of the plane and then go to Pump-It-Up to finish celebrating.

What My Child Is Reading–May 5, 2012

2012-05-05T03:30:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went to a library book sale. Now I am mostly focusing on chapter books and non-fiction books during these events, and Anna was happy to get more books from Animal Ark series by a British author Ben M. Baglio and a couple of books from Judy Moody series by Megan McDonald. In our joint readings we were back to picture books this week:

We haven’t read MathStart books in a while, and by now daughter is quite ready for Level 3 books. Both of us really enjoyed the story of Shark Swimathon, especially since Anna just had her walkathon in school. The book deals with two digit subtraction, and it also presents not-so-simple word problems to solve. In addition to the math line, the story line is fairly engaging and the book is well illustrated, so it cam be enjoyed by younger (or less mathematically inclined) children as well.

Two Bear Cubs by Robert and Daniel San Souci is a legend from Indians of Yosemite Valley. There is a comment in Amazon reviews saying that Miwok Indians never lived in Yosemite Valley, but nevertheless the story is set there and explains the origin of famous El Capitan rock. Anna is learning “story ingredients” in school, so she was entertained by this book which piles one problem on top of another. Luckily, all ends well for disobedient bear cubs. I can’t wait to show real El Captain to Anna, but now it has to wait until tourist season is over.

We read several stories this week about artists, artistic process and imagination. We both found Emma’s Rug by Allen Say most intriguing. The main character is a child prodigy, but her imagination requires an external “helper” – her favorite rug. An unfortunate accident befalls a rug, and Emma needs to find another source of inspiration for her amazing paintings. What will happen? Read and find out. The story is good for children 4 and older.

Summer Bucket List

2012-05-03T02:53:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe that summer is so close already. School ends here on June 7th, and eleven weeks of vacation begin. We decided to be brave and do “half and half” this year – 6 weeks in a summer camp and 5 weeks out. I am curious to see what Anna will do with herself during her weeks of “free time”, especially on “my” days (Wed and Fri) when I will be working from home. I hope that summer will be a time for her to sleep in, stay a little later, read good books and spend a lot of time outside with friends. Here are a few other things that I would love to do this summer:

Trips
1. Sacramento
2. New Jersey (Grandparents)
3. Beach
4. San Francisco Headlands
5. U Pick Farm
Science Projects
1. Ice and Rock sculptures
2. Catapults
3. Bubble Bath Paints
4. Homemade Lava Lamp
5. DIY Bouncing Balls
Art Projects
1. Milk Jug Butterflies
2. Learn to fold an origami boat
3. Paint Monet style
4. Splatter painting
5. Matchbox miniatures
Recipes
1. Chocolate Cookies
2. Pineapple Cookies
3. Pretzels
4. Edible petals (Anna’s request, need to look it up in her cookbook)
5. Mexican Brownies

We also want to do some guided drawing projects and start learning to sew. So many plans, I really hope there will be time to do it all

Art and Writing Project–Map of Your Heart

2012-05-01T02:47:00.000-07:00

I saw reviews of Playful Learning by Mariah Bruel on several of my favorite blogs and was pleased to find it on the shelves of our library. I was especially interested in the sections of this book devoted to encouraging writing and art. A writing section contained a delightful idea of a “heart map” and a book to go with it.

My Map Book by Sara Fanelli takes the concept of maps beyond geography. A young character of the book creates a neat visual map of his day, a color map, a more common map of his room, a map of his (or her?) family, a treasure map, and some other maps. I am always impressed by adults that can imitate kids in their artwork – the book looks as if it was illustrated by a child.

I drew a big map on a watercolor paper with a sharpie, and Anna broke it into “regions”. She chose to write her favorite things, not to draw them, it’s pretty typical for her now. I wanted to do the whole project in her own spelling, but she insisted for me to tell her how to spell science. Then (on a different day), she filled her sections with watercolors to create a nice snapshot of her favorite things in the end of her kindergarten year. It’s sweet that we are still number one on her map with her favorite objects close by. It’s also good to see that friends take root in her heart – she definitely grew a lot socially this year. The only real surprise was to see “writing” on the map – it’s good to see my reluctant writer to develop into a pretty enthusiastic story teller and especially into a scientist who makes notes about things that she observes.

Your turn: What would be on your children’ heart maps? If you do this project, share a link in comments!

Week in Review–April 29, 2012

2012-04-29T13:22:00.001-07:00

School. It’s been a very exciting week of school. On Tuesday Anna’s class had a field trip to the Youth Science Institute where they learned even more about dinosaurs, did “fossil prints” and dug for dinosaur bones. On Friday her school celebrated its 50th anniversary with a walkathon. Anna loved every minute of these special events – she loves everything about school except morning assembly

Afterschool. My main goal for April is for us to spend as much time outside as possible and to become part of our “playborhood”. It’s working – every time Anna goes outside, she runs into a group of kids of various ages and disappears with them for a couple of hours. We still managed to get a little bit of afterschool done – we learned more about Uzbekistan.

Places we are going. Last Sunday Anna went to a birthday party in a park with a Mad Science show. This was her first Mad Science birthday party (they are not too uncommon here), and she told birthday’s Mom later that it was the best birthday party ever. She spent most of the show – mouth open, soaking it in. In the end everyone got to make slime and take it home.

Quote of the week: Mama, I love you so much. I miss you when you are not with me. I cannot bear the thought of being away from you… unless I am busy doing something fun, of course!

What My Child Is Reading–April 28, 2012

2012-04-28T03:21:00.000-07:00

Mrs Piggle Wiggle’s Farm was our “big read aloud” this week. I was pleased to see that it was significantly better than the second one (Mrs Piggle Wiggle’s Magic) and used more realistic ways of fixing children’s faults. I found one detail in “Fraidy Cat” story very amusing – the girl who is about 8 or 9 is refusing to take the bus by herself and her parents and brothers are making fun of her. 50 years later, and who is “Fraidy Cat” now – children or their parents?

My daughter is very fascinated by the concept of death (just as I was at about her age) and she was begging me to get When Dinosaurs Die by Laurie Krasny Brown and Marc Brown when she saw it on the cover of another book from the same series. I wasn’t entirely sure by previewing the book that it’s appropriate for her, since it explains (and illustrates) the different ways people die including suicide, violence, accidents, etc. It’s definitely not the book that I would recommend for anyone who is not obsessed with the subject, but Anna took it really well and asked a lot of questions that seemed pretty mature for her age.

Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman/Caroline Binch was Anna’s kindergarten reading club book this week. We read this book before, but now Anna is old enough to appreciate the powerful message in the book – girls can do anything if they put their mind and heart to it, and their gender or color of their skin shouldn’t stand in their way. In her book report Anna wrote, I wish I was brave like Grace. I highly recommend this wonderful book, especially to girls 5+ and their mothers.

Follow the Line Around the World by Laura Ljunqkvist is another of our library favorites that I bring back from time to time. By the way, don’t believe it’s low Amazon rating – the book is wonderful. Anna and I spent an hour on Thursday just tracing the pictures and admiring an artist’s creativity and imagination. There are also a lot of facts about different animals and locations around the world, well known (penguins in Antarctica) and not so well-known (walruses in Greenland). Great book for 3+

Reading Around the World–Uzbekistan

2012-04-26T03:32:00.000-07:00

Last week Anna decided that she wants to read about the neighbor of Afghanistan – Uzbekistan. I dutifully went to Amazon and discovered that this is not going to be easy. I started to think what I know about Uzbekistan – Aral Sea ecological disaster, earthquake in Tashkent and cotton growing. Then I remembered the golden cities of the past – Bukhara and Samarkand. By looking for the books about Samarkand, I managed to find gorgeously illustrated collection – Stories from the Silk Road.

We looked at the online images of Samarkand, watched a short video of Uzbekistan on YouTube and talked a little bit about geometric designs in art. I was hoping to use our Spirogiro, but Anna wasn’t interested in it this week. Then we put together our Uzbekistan mini-book and added it to our growing “Read Around the World” collection. At least the next stop is a lot less challenging – Anna decided that she wants a California book

Identifying Trees

2012-04-24T15:37:00.001-07:00

I admit that I am very clueless when it comes to answering Anna’s “What is the name of XYZ” questions when we go hiking. I noticed that she is asking it less often, because she got used to my “I have no idea” answer. So I made a present for all of us and got this California Trees & Wildflowers pocket guide. It’s very simple and doesn’t contain a lot of information, but it’s also very small and light and either to carry on a hike. I couldn’t wait to test it out on our Saturday hike.

Together we managed to identify three trees in our favorite hiking place – Pacific Madrone (my husband used to think that the trees must be sick, but we learned that peeling bark is normal for them), Interior Live Oak and California Laurel. We had a lot less luck with identifying conifers – I “think” they were young redwoods, but I am not entirely sure. Anna had a lot of fun with this tree identification activity and said that we should bring a magnifying glass and a sample collection kit to the next hike to do real science. I am looking forward taking this guide around our neighborhood and identify more trees.
Question: What field guides do you use? I am also very tempted with this app for my iPod, especially since they have an Earth Day special right now…

Week In Review–April 22

2012-04-22T03:21:00.000-07:00

School. Anna was happy to go back to school after a spring break. Their class iPads arrived, and each student passed iPad handling test and got “an iPad license”. Her favorite app right now is Scribble Press. They also started a new science unit – dinosaurs. In Y they have two weeks of Earth Day based activities with a lot of gardening and campus improvement projects.

Afterschool. As usual, we had a pretty full week. Our afterschooling is usually limited to weekends and to small activities here and there during the week. We talked about India a lot and gardened. Anna also writes quite a bit on her own – creating pretend responsibility charts for her toys and making lists. I am really happy about warmer weather and more time to spend outside!

Places we are going – This weekend is full of birthday parties for Anna’s classmates, but we still decided to go hiking yesterday, since the first birthday party was in the afternoon. Anna loves going hiking, especially when she gets to drive to our favorite park in a convertible of our best friend. Of course, her best parts are climbing rocks and trees and a snack

Quote of the week: Anna, playing with her toys and inventing responsibility chart:

This is Allison A, this is Allison B. This is Jennifer. Those are Sally and Sammy, they are twins. And parents couldn’t decide how to name this boy, so they simply decided to call him Bob. When he grows up, he can choose his own name.

Thanks for everyone who joined Afterschool last week. I love visiting and commenting. My favorite posts were:

Fairy Play by A Mom With A lesson Plan
Coffee Filter Earth Art for Earth Day by Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
Measurement Gallon Guy from Quirky Momma

What My Child Is Reading–April 21, 2012

2012-04-21T02:56:00.000-07:00

We read a lot of great books this week. Our longer read-aloud book is Tales from the Arabian Nights that is nicely split into manageable chapters (about 10 minutes each). As I was reading it, I was thinking that Anna’s tolerance of scary content increased quite a bit since she started Kindergarten. Sindbad adventures are actually quite scary if you happen to think of them as true. Luckily, daughter is much better nowadays firmly separating fact from fiction, which leads to more reading choices.

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Patridge by Mem Fox/Julie Vivas was Anna’s kindergarten book of the week this week. While many of other books in her reading programs were misses (some due to too much familiarity), this one was a gem. I wanted to read it for quite some time, and it opened up many interesting conversations about memories. It’s funny what a memory is to a five year old – something very unusual that happened some time ago, like losing and then finding her bucket on the beach last summer. It’s probably best for readers 5+ due to the subject and length, but younger readers might enjoy illustrations as well.

since April is Poetry Month, we are reading some poetry books. Anna read It’s Raining Pigs and Noodles by Jack Prelutsky by herself and then asked me to read selected poems to her. She was especially fascinated by concrete poems (poems created in the shape of something) – her favorite was A Maze. And, of course, she enjoyed “silly poems” – like I don’t want to clean my room. She has a very keen sense of funny and absurd, so this book quickly became her favorite.

I am not much of a list maker even though I wish (not so secretly) that I were as organized as some of my coworkers and blog friends. I do try to encourage Anna to think about what she wants to do and make lists, which she does when fancy strikes her. However, Wallace’s Lists is not about value of making lists but rather about taking opportunities presented to us by life regardless of whether they were on our list in the morning. This is an important skill too wrapped in a cute story. I highly recommend this book – both for children and for adults!

Read Around the World–India

2012-04-19T02:29:00.000-07:00

Anna looked at the map and chose India as the next stop for our reading around the world journey. Easy-peasy as there is no shortage of great children books about India. We read many of them last time we “visited” India. I brought back one book that we read before - The Road to Mumbai by Ruth Jeyaveeran. I chose it because I find it a nice cross between fact and fiction. A lot of things mentioned in the books are real, but all action is actually happening in the dream. Interestingly, quite by accident, all three country books that we read so far feature little girls as main characters of the books.

I am sure both Anna and I will enjoy looking at her early “book reports” a couple of years down the road. I can also observe that she is writing more willingly later, and her “endurance” increases. I am not pushing spelling at this point unless she asks how to spell a certain word. We are still working on neatness and starting sentences with a capital letter.

I tweaked somewhat the flow of our mini-books to include coloring pages, since daughter is more interested in coloring lately. She asked to color Taj Mahal page and she also wanted to have a person in national clothes in her mini-book. We also have a map page which has some India facts. According to Anna, India has Taj Mahal, special bikes (rickshaws), deserts, elephants and girls in saris.

I have to look for an Indian recipe to cook for Friday night – anyone cares to share their favorites?

Preparing for Earth Day

2012-04-17T08:02:00.001-07:00

Anna loves holidays. Easter was barely out of the door when she was asking what holiday will be coming next. She was very excited to remember that Earth Day is coming up on April 22. As always, we read a book to kick things off. It was Dinosaurs Go Green from Marc Brown/Laurie Krasny Brown Dino Tales series. It gives a pretty detailed overview of what we are trying to conserve, why and how kids can help. It’s a bit too long and detailed for younger children but good for 4+.

What can be a better activity to celebrate Earth Day than gardening? We added to our vegetable garden by planting broccoli and beans and finally started a little herb greenhouse that Anna got for Christmas from her German uncle and aunt. We also enjoyed watching hummingbirds that frequent bright red flowers in our backyard. There is something amazing about them drinking nectar from these flowers while hovering in mid-air.

Anna is enjoying writing mini-books at the moment, and she made this book about Earth as a birthday present for her favorite cuddle blankie. I know that there are some Earth Day activities planned in her school, and I am hoping to get some crafting with recyclables in sometime this week. The good part about Earth Day that it can and should be celebrated every day of the year.

What are you doing to celebrate and honor Earth?

Week In Review–April 15, 2012

2012-04-15T15:06:00.001-07:00

School. It was a spring break week. Anna spent it in a spring break camp in her YMCA and had a blast despite an unusually rainy and cold weather. Luckily, they had a non-rainy day when they had their field trip to a local park for children called Happy Hollow where they got to pet animals, ride the rides and play on the playground until they were ready to drop. We were letting her wake up whenever she wanted this week. It only meant about 30 minutes later than usual school time, but she was more rested and very happy with her activities. She kept complaining though that she misses school – she can’t wait to go back on Monday.

Afterschool. We had a very busy weekend last week with Easter celebrations. There were a lot of new experiences this week including climbing the tree for the first time. I was strewing various invitations to writing around the house including a new mailing station, “to do” list templates and Mad Libs Junior. Mad Libs was a huge hit, and we played through most of the book by now.

Places we are going. Anna had two big trips this week to Happy Hollow with school and to Exploratorium in San Francisco with papa and a family of her best friend. She really loves new experiences. All three kids were very tired but very happy after their Exploratorium trip, and Anna can’t wait to come again. She also had a dentist visit (all is well, no cavities!)

Quote of the week: On Friday evening: Mama, I went to three of my favorite places today – a dentist, a hairdresser and YMCA. There was only one thing that could have made this day better – going to school! I am so glad that spring break is over, and I cannot bear the thought of summer break, except that I will get to go to Babushka.

Thank you all for joining Afterschool last week. My favorite post last week was Five Ways to Play and Learn with Plastic Eggs from Mom to 2 Lil Posh Divas. A lot of brilliant ideas in one post!

What My Child Is Reading–April 14, 2012

2012-04-14T03:40:00.000-07:00

I am taking a break from reading long chapter books to Anna. Instead we read one picture book and a few short stories from The Story of Jesus every evening. Her independent reading this week was mostly from library Highlights magazines (I really need to subscribe to this magazine!) and Emma the Easter Fairy which was delivered in her Easter basket.

We like math books by Loreen Leedy, and Seeing Symmetry was well received. The book talks about different forms of symmetry and focuses on natural symmetry in the world around us. There are also interesting questions on many pages (with answers in the end of the book) and some activity ideas in the end. Anna was not really interested in trying these ideas out this week, but I caught her reading the book on her own several times, so I am pretty sure she will try them on her own when she feels like it.

While the illustrations in The Big Test by Julie Danneberg and Judy Love are cheerful, I found the story rather depressing. The teacher spends a whole week prepping her fairy young students for “the big test” with the goal of learning how to show what we know. As a result, anxiety rises to the point that several children have to go to the nurse. Unfortunately, it’s all probably pretty true to life, and I am not looking forward to “the big tests” coming in the next few years of school. If somebody read this book, I am curious to know what you think.

Zero the Hero is a delightful sequel to the book by Tom Lichtenheld I reviewed about a month ago - Emergency!. It’s illustrated in the same comic book style and tells an entertaining math story. I certainly need to follow up with Anna and tell her more about Roman numerals – I am afraid she will now forever think of them as “bad guys” from this story.

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith as an Easter present from my parents. I quite disagree with 3+ recommendation of Amazon. I would think that this book is better suited for upper elementary students that can appreciate humor in taking familiar fairy tales and twisting them in all directions. I only browsed through the book and was quite happy to let Anna read it on her own, because I wasn’t sure that I can put enough dramatic flair into reading these stories. She said it was fun, but I doubt that she really understood double take in these stories.

Making Memories

2012-04-13T10:18:00.001-07:00

One of the blogs that I read, The Educators’ Spin on It, has series going about parenting with purpose. I was very interested in reading an idea that comes from Danielle – she set out to create 52 new experiences for her children – one for every week of the year. While I am not that ambitious, this post made me think about making memories that last and about all the new things. big and small, we’ve been doing here lately. Here are some snapshots from the past couple of weeks:

Easter was a lot of fun with two parties and two egg hunts. Anna had a blast playing with her school friends.

We celebrated with big pomp 7th birthday of Anna’s favorite object – her cuddle blanket. I assume blankie is seven, because some of her classmates are turning 7 this year. Anna made invitations and party favors (crowns) for this party.

She and papa went to Exploratorium in San Francisco. According to her, it was fun, fun and you wouldn’t believe what you missed!

She loves cooking and was very proud to cook French toast almost by herself. I only needed to help her get things from high places. Next step – clean after herself too

What new things have been happening in your house lately?