Our homeschooling journey

Checking-in

2012-02-12T17:53:00.000-07:00

Wow, am I a bad blogger this year :D

Our January was very challenging indeed, we managed to do school, read a lot and learn about a new country, but there were difficulties such as two new additions to our busy household- my sister came to visit and brought her sweet but demanding cat with her. Kids are overwhelmed with all the attention (5 grown ups around them) and so am I. I'm not sure I can do inter-generational household again. We had a small crisis regarding D. learning Russian, while his ability to write improved, his willingness to read it diminished, we tackled the problem, but I still have to remind him to speak more, and push him to find an appropriate word instead of just switching to English. Boy, am I grateful we homeschool, I don't think I'd be able to raise kids bilingual if I had to compete with school so much. Our math activities suddenly became "too easy" (c) for D., I'm trying to be more creative with our activities,it's trial and error so far. D. enjoys roller-skating classes, he's getting really good and asking for inline skating hockey classes (we'll see). He also continues his clay classes and learns piano with grandma. Baby C. started pre-school, she's slowly learning to read now, turns out she can count pretty well and knows her colors (oh joy of having an older brother), her English is far superior to D.'s at the same age (which is one less worry for me I guess).

Books we read in January can be found here.

Plans for February are to learn as much as we can about Ireland, to re-organize our home for leaving enough space for everbody, to re-think our math curriculum. I also need to find French curriculum for small children, D. keeps asking to learn and I need more structure in our lessons.

Learning about Morocco- part 3

2012-01-22T11:23:00.000-07:00

This week we read some more about Morocco.

"The Butter Man" by Elizabeth Alalou tells about a boy's childhood in Atlas Mountains in Morocco.

Zorah's Magic Carpet by Stefan Czernecki is a fairy tale about one curious woman and her desire to see the world.

My Father's Shop by Satomi Ichikawa tells a simple story about a boy playing in his father's carpet shop and playfully learning words from different languages from tourists.

We talked a little bit more about Morocco's culture, looked at photographs online and listened to the music. We also did a mosaic art project. The idea for the project can be found here.

D. drew a design of an archway and picked some colors for his mosaic. We did not have tiles so I just used paint chips from a home improvement store and cut them in small pieces. (Paint chips (as I discovered via pinterest) are awesome for children crafts- they are sturdier than construction paper and come in much wider variety of colors)

Learning about Morocco -part 2

2012-01-15T21:41:00.001-07:00

This time we learned all about Sahara desert and people and animals that inhibit it. We talked about Tuareg people and read One night by Christine Kessler. This lovely illustrated book talks about life of a Tuareg boy. The story is about deep connection within a family and with surrounding nature.

We also read The Storytellers by Ted Lewine to repeat all that we learned about Morocco last week.

D. drew a picture of a camel crossing desert. We ate some couscous that I made and drank mint tea just like people of the desert.

Snowy evening

2012-01-11T17:09:00.001-07:00

Today we woke up and found spectacular snowfall outside. D. had wonderful time shoveling snow on the patio and we enjoyed some hot cocoa in the afternoon.

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to read more poetry, especially to kids, so today we read Stopping by the Woods on the Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. After reading and discussing the poem we did a little art project. The inspiration came from a handout for art teachers my mom brought for me from Motherland.
Here's the process
1.Child paints winter evening background on a wet paper with watercolors. D. used blue and some purple.
2. Fold a piece of card stock and draw half a tree on the fold. Carefully cut the tree out creating a stencil.
3. We used Faber-Castell gel sticks and gouache paint, but I think kid's paint will work fine too if not too diluted to stencil trees. We used black for trees standing further away (higher on the sheet), blue for those in the middle and brown for the closest trees. We added accents with metallic colored gel sticks and white paint.We also added falling snow.

Fun and simple art project.

Learning about Morocco- part 1

2012-01-05T18:22:00.000-07:00

Second half of the first grade has started. A little bit slow too.
This month we are learning all about Morocco.

Today's lesson was a brief introduction to the country:
-we found it on the map and learned basic facts such as capital, official language and flag. We also learned some fun facts from Not for Parents Travel Book.
-we looked through Mirror by Jeannie Baker (I write more about this book in my new children books blog)

-D. made a Hamsa the Good Luck Charm art (inspired by a project found here).

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T09:33:00.002-07:00

Happy 2012 to all my friends and visitors!

Sea voyages crafts

2011-12-26T07:41:00.001-07:00

The month of November was dedicated to learning a little bit about adventurers and travelers, I posted a book list a few weeks ago (will post and extended one soon in my book blog). Now it's time to share two crafts that we did.
1. The inspiration for this craft came from here. D. was very excited to make a playscene of his own. He painted all over a cardboard box, I scanned and printed some boats from our favorite books, we coated it with some modpodge and voila!

2. We learned about Ancient China in the month of November, we talked about inventions, so making a compass was a good idea. Instructions how to make a compass at home can be found here.

The best season of all- days 16 through 22

2011-12-21T18:53:00.002-07:00

Wow, what a week, we were so incredibly busy every single day I could hardly catch my breath.

We had some great activities and I learned one important thing- I simply planned too much for us to do :)
Anyway, here's a little round-up of what we've been up to the past few days.

D. loves to sew so much he asked to try out embroidery, his first piece is very simple of course, but in holiday spirit:

Saturday we went roller-skating again and D. met Santa (for the first time too, since I'm not a fan of mall Santas :)) It was also a day of surprise treasure hunt arranged by Daddy. The reward is a small chest with coins :)

Sunday: Baby C. turned three! (she insists she's "twenty-seven" though) D. selected a present for her (little pony) and it proved to be her favorite.

Monday: Daddy left to visit his parents overseas and we had a quiet day watching snow fall. D. also made a little picture book of his own.

Tuesday: Fun with friends in the afternoon.

Today: I took D. to the movies, we watched Hugo, which we both enjoyed very much. In the evening kids made a bear den and stayed there, talking, snacking and reading.

We read
The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rummer Godden, lovely, magical story about Christmas wishes and need for love.

Now we have a glorious snow fall outside of our window, there's nothing better than waking up with skylights entirely covered with white blanket- looking forward to the morning now :)

the best season of all days 12,13,14 and 15

2011-12-15T19:26:00.001-07:00

Busy days, fun with friends, awesome field trip, some crafts, learning about nature...

We talked some more about nature and made a bird feeder. We are still waiting for little guests to arrive, it's really warm outside so they aren't so hungry I guess, even a squirrel haven't visited for a few days.

We read "Who's Been Here" by Fran Hodgkins- a lovely book about our animal neighbors

We have a tradition- 10 days before Christmas we have little elves coming to our house, if children are especially kind to each other, they get small gifts from elves. D. made a special sock for little C. so elves can put some gifts for her. He already tried his hand in needle felting the other day when we made ornaments for the tree, this time it was his big project, he enjoyed it very much.

We read "The Twelve Days of Christmas" illustrated by Jan Brett

Yesterday was the most fun field trip with our co-op to The Little Shop of Physics in Fort Collins. D. had a great time trying all the experiments. They are having an open house event in the end of February.

Today D. and I went for another roller skating lesson at Skate City, D. looooves these lessons.

We made a little pine cone elf to guard our tree and bookshelves. It was a bit challenging because pine cones that we found have tiny spikes on them, but it's a fun project. Inspired by this craft.

We read Tiger's Adventures by Nick Butterworth- another favorite for my kids, especially little C. who's very much into tigers these days :)

My mom was in charge of yummies these past few days, tomorrow it's back to the oven I go, kids are begging for more cookies :)

We watched
While You Were Sleeping

the best season of all- day 10 and 11

2011-12-11T20:31:00.001-07:00

We had a lovely, quiet week end.

Children are very happy about having the tree up. Little C. keeps exclaiming "The tree came to visit!" and she touches ornaments all the time.
Yesterday we made our first ornaments of the season. We took out thick felt sheets and sewn up couple of birds. It was D.'s first big sewing experience as well as needle felting. He loved every minute of it. His bird was an owl and now it guards our tree. He did most of the work himself :)

I made a little dove, C. helped by messing with my thread and picking our sequins :)

Yesterday we read
Toot &Puddle I'll be home for Christmas by Holly Hobbie- another delightful little story about piglets

Today was another quiet day.

D. wrote letter to Santa Claus asking for "a book about how to fly planes" and of course lego!
He wants The Pyramid very much. We'll see :)

We read The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett.

I'm back to baking, made marble cookies using this recipe.
The cookies are quite good, but too much work somehow mixing, and separating, and chilling the dough.

We watched Serendipity tonight, very nice:

the best season of all- days 8 and 9

2011-12-09T19:58:00.001-07:00

We had another lovely day yesterday- our friends invited us to a roller skating lesson for kids- it was so much fun! It was a first time for D. and now he can't wait to go back for more.

We made our traditional Cranberry Muffins (they were gone before I could take a picture :D)

We read some more winter poetry in Russian yesterday.

Today D. was in co-op all day and afterward we went and got our tree! We decorated it more sparsely this year to leave room for some more hand made ornaments that will be created. Kids are naturally very excited and this year little C. could really help with decorating.

No baking today, thanks to my friend who brought us a cheesecake :)

We read "Little tree" by E.E. Cummings from our Christmas book.

Kids are in bed now and I'm ready for my holiday movie. Today it will be :
You've got mail

the best season of all- days 6 and 7

2011-12-07T16:52:00.001-07:00

Yesterday awe had a lovely, quiet day. I skipped baking on account of my mom's (we all live together) getting yummy treats from her student. So delicious!

We spent the day playing board games. D. loves playing chess with grandpa- such a special time for them both. D. made up his own, winter festivities inspired board game- rules are chaotic but we had fun racing from one site to another- castle, Santa's village and get away from aliens' ship too of course :D

We had such a warm autumn that yesterday was the first time we lit our fireplace- so nice and soothing!

Today we made some more holiday cards- this time for D.'s teachers from co-op.

I made Almond Crescent Cookies, which also became a tradition for us.

We read from The Book of Christmas edited by Neil Philip

I was buried in bed with books all of yesterday :) , today though I'm planning to watch:
Christmas In Connecticut (1945)

the best season of all-day 5

2011-12-05T21:46:00.001-07:00

After lazy week end we had an incredibly busy day today. We went to the Museum of Nature and Science (yay for free days!). What a great visit it was. We had fun at Space Odyssey exhibition and a free planetarium show. I was incredibly proud of my little boy, how he answered questions from the show guide, how carefully he planned and asked his own questions. He's so into space theme now, I love it! We watched a performance of an African drums band and strolled in "dinosaur land" for a while (C.'s love for dinosaurs and dragons is another delight for me, she love sword fights and dragon tales, she's such a brave little thing).
We got home pretty late and D. made couple of holiday cards. (Simple task, yay for pinterest inspired paint chips projects). It was made entirely by him without my help.

Our evening treat today was fried apple rounds . It's basically apple rounds (skin peeled and cored) dipped in vanilla flavored pancake batter and fried in oil. We enjoyed it dusted with confectioner's sugar, with lots of whipped cream and hot tea.

We read a non-holiday book today, which my kids enjoyed very much :
Below by Nina Crews. It's a story of a boy and his favorite action figure, and their adventure together.

We also read some winter poems in Russian together.

Listening today :
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Ric Larsen and Lisa Cunningham

Now it's quiet in the house, I'm ready for my book and my tea. It's so cold outside, I love it!

the best season of all- day 4

2011-12-04T20:14:00.001-07:00

Another quiet day, I ran some errands in the morning, D. did his schoolwork on his own and read his stories with grandma, so proud of him.

It's cold here, the snow stays (for now).

Narnia :)

Our activity today was cutting snowflakes. Now it's snowing on our fireplace :)

What I especially love December for is that I have a perfect excuse for baking every single day and not even feel guilty about having all these cookies in the house. We made our annual chocolate cookies.

We read Let it snow! by Holly Hobbie (we just adore Toot &Puddle series!), cute tale and awesome illustrations.

We listened to
French Christmas Songs: Chants de Noël - Hélène Baillargeon

Mom and I are going to watch Meet Me In St. Louis tonight.
Life is good.

The best season of all- day 3

2011-12-03T19:44:00.001-07:00

Lazy Saturday, we woke up to another glorious snowfall. This, unfortunately, caused hazardous road conditions and we had to cancel our going downtown for lights parade, I simply didn't dare driving all this way on icy roads.
Our activity from the calendar was looking at Christmas lights tonight so instead of the parade we took a tour of the neighborhood. We liked a lot all the displays, people really do get creative. What more is that there are even prettier lights all around, so we will take a drive around as soon as it gets drier.

Our treat today is one of our favorites Banana bread with chocolate and crystallized ginger. Delish!

We read Snow by Uri Shulevitz, lovely book!

the best season of all- day 2

2011-12-02T18:46:00.001-07:00

Lovely, sunny day today. It still looks like winter outside, but all the nasty slippery ice from the road is gone. For me the best thing about winter evenings is the golden light of setting sun on top of white roofs. It's magic for me.

Our activity today was simple- decorating candles. We grabbed plain, unscented candles, mod podge, lots and lots of glitter and set to work. Kids had so much fun, and glitter is everywhere. D. picked up couple of pine cones and they also got some sparkly treatment.

The yummy treat for today : Crunchy cookies
Preheat oven to 385 F
2 cups of flour+pinch of salt -mix together, 125 g of softened butter +3/4 c of sugar +1 egg+1 tsp of vanilla -mix well. Add flour. Make a ball and let sit in a fridge for 45 min. Roll the dough, get cookie cutters out and bake for 15 min or until golden.

We read The Mitten by Jan Brett

Today's music :

Putumayo Celtic Christmas - Various Artists

The movie for me when kiddos are in bed :
Sleepless In Seattle

The best season of all- day 1

2011-12-01T19:21:00.001-07:00

Easing into winter and first little door in our calendar is open. We woke up to a delightful gift from Mother Nature- snow, so much snow everywhere!

We did some school, and pulled out our coffee filters and window art paints and created this year's window display. It's getting dark so early in our parts (it's night by 5 pm) that I barely had time to take a picture :)

It was sort of "Breakfast for dinner" event today as well and we celebrated the beginning of winter by eating raspberry-chocolate filled aebelskivers. Recipe found here.

We read "One Snowy Night" by Nick Butterworth (I wrote about this lovely book in Sleepy books post recently)

Great day!
Today's soundtrack :

Movie for me tonight :)

The best season of all-we are ready!

2011-11-30T19:44:00.001-07:00

We are looking forward to a long month of holiday fun. Our advent calendar (made by me, my first, with all its imperfections) is ready and waiting, fun activities hidden, one for each day. Recipes of cookies, old and new are copied and begging to be tested. Music is ready, movies are ready. Tomorrow, come faster :)

Last fall artwork for this year

2011-11-27T10:09:00.001-07:00

We are done with fall. We had been so blessed with prolonged "season of golden trees" this year, but the wind the other night blew the last of the leaves away. I know the winter is not coming for people here is US until December 22, but for us December 1st is the official beginning. So this will be our last fall craft this year.
We wanted to do a leaf rubbing craft with crayons and watercolors. However our paper turned out to be too thick for that, and thin paper could not support amounts of watercolor without breaking apart. So, we just covered the whole sheet of failed leaves rubbings with colors of the fall, and cut trees out of the scrapbook paper. We made each tree out of two different pages, glued it on, traced with oil pastels and voila! I think it's very pretty.


Goodbye fall!

We are now looking forward to the festivities of holiday season :)

Soundtrack for today: November Woods - Live to Dance

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

2011-11-24T16:50:00.001-07:00

So many things to be thankful for this year- family, friends, we are truly blessed! Delightful meal is ready and we will sit down to it in a few minutes.

We had a lovely peaceful day, warm and sunny. D. took a bike ride-he's getting so good at it! We read

And made a Thanksgiving collage-D. pasted a little note of what he's thankful for, a little thanksgiving song, some fall leaves on brighly painted background. We sealed the whole thing with the mod podge and it made a lovely centerpiece for our table. :)

Blessings to all friends and visitors!

Travelers and Explorers- book list

2011-11-23T19:00:00.001-07:00

D. has always been a huge fan of maps and all things that relate to travel and adventure. C. is growing to love it as well. We have a few countries to study every year and currently we talk a lot about great explorers.
Today I'd like to share a few books on the subject, that we love very much:

1. Geography from A to Z: A Picture Glossary by Jack Knowlton , Harriet Barton.
This book is extremely useful to us when a new word comes up. Definitions are brief simple to understand for children. Illustrations are lovely.

2. Not for Parents Travel Book It has information on all the countries of the world complete with basic facts, pictures and fun info.

3. National Geographic Kids Almanac 2012 is very popular with both of my kiddos, it's full of all sorts of interesting stuff from animals to planets. The pictures are great. Some stories are quite short and are great reading practice for the youngest readers.

4.The Once Upon a Time Map Book: Take a Tour of Six Enchanted Lands This book is awesome. Great introduction to map reading. We got this book when D. was almost five and it remains his favorite. It offers a trip through six fairy-tale lands- Neverland, Enchanted forest, Oz etc., treasure hunt included. Illustrations are lovely and very detailed- we can look at them for a long time.

5.Into the Unknown: How Great Explorers Found Their Way by Land, Sea, and Air by Stewart Ross , Stephen Biesty (Illustrator)

This book is amazing. We are HUGE fans of Stephen Beisty's illustrations- incredibly detailed and accurate. This book talks about all the major discoveries by greatest explorers. The book is full of maps, detailed illustrations of the ships, itineraries. Even the dust jacket is a full sized poster of these incredible voyages. The information in this book may be directed more towards older children (according to the publisher it's 12 years and up), but I abridge a lot for D. and he enjoys this book immensely.

6. And of course our favorite Eyewitness series : Explorer . Great book.

7.There's a Map on My Lap!: All about Maps by Tish Rabe
We love learning with Cat in the Hat. This book is great and absolute fun to read together.

8.Most Brilliant, Boldly Going Book of Exploration by the Brainwave This book will appeal more to the older kids, the illustrations are quite funny.

So here it is, our little list. Post about our activities on the topic is to come sometimes after Thanksgiving. Stay tuned :)

Science Sunday-The Planets

2011-11-20T19:09:00.001-07:00

Last week we started to learn about Space. The first lesson- The Sun went quite well and D. were impatient to learn more.
Throughout the week we talked about what we already know and finally today we sat down and talked about different planets.
The Planets by Gail Gibbons was a great help. We read about half of it and decided to return to planets beyond Earth next week :)

We made felted model of Solar System mobile (something I was dying to do for a while now and,boy, was it a pain to put together as a mobile :D). There is this great tutorial, I, however, totally forgot to even look for a solar system kit, so we had to improvise. :D Initially it was planned as a wet-felted solar system, but since we have never wet-felted before it did not go quite as planned.
We used wool stuffing as a core for all planets (except for the smallest ones) and put colorful wool on top. D. wet-felted it all into balls in the sink and I added some needle felting after planets were semi-dry (we really wanted to hang the whole thing today :D). We attached it with some wire to a wicker wreath (no easy task I tell you) and voila! It's not to scale of course and Jupiter is almost upon the Earth now :D

Some extra stuff on topic of planets study :
Solar System at NASA
Solar System at Kids astronomy
Solar System 101 video

Solar System coloring book via A to Z Home's Cool Homeschooling's great page with many links

change of seasons

2011-11-18T18:16:00.000-07:00

As much as we miss California we really appreciate the change of seasons here.

Yesterday was a gorgeous late autumn day- clear skies with a few fluffy clouds, warm breeze...It's hard to believe that it could change overnight (having had a couple of heavy snowfalls this year already we are prepared:)), and yet the snow on the ground will be welcome.
Today -slightly colder, but still bright sun and fairly warm outside. We decided to talk again about seasons changing and what it means for plants and animals.
The book that helped us do it is Four Seasons:Uncovering Nature by Annie Jones - a beautiful present from friends. The book contains loads of information and is beautifully illustrated.

Another book we enjoyed is Autumn Story ( Brambly Hedge) by Jill Barklem. Sweet story and gorgeous illustrations.

After reading we did an art project , inspired by this picture I found on pinterest. This project took us two days to finish.
Day one: We sketched a forest scene on a large sheet of paper- some trees, animals. Second step was separating sheet vertically into four equal parts- one for each season (initially it was done in pencil, when D. was ready to color I erased pencil and traced a line with a white crayon). Day Two: D. traced outlines with crayons using appropriate colors for each season (bright green for fresh grass, gray-blue for snowy ground, dark brownish-green for autumn grass, etc.). The forth step is painting each part with watercolors. Add some outlining with oil pastels and glitter accents and voila!

Happy Weekend to All!

Denver Center for the Performing Arts field trip+poster artwork

2011-11-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

We had the most interesting field trip today, thanks again to our co-op. Just two weeks ago we saw The Lion King at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and today we got the chance to see what's going on backstage (not for this particular show) and to visit "the kitchen" of the theater so to say. Unfortunately, my camera died on me in the very beginning of the tour, so no pictures apart from those on my phone :( and the quality is terrible.
The tours are open to the public, more info found here.

The tour was great indeed. We learned a few curious facts about the facility which comprises several venues- each has its own purpose, one of this facts is that it is the world’s largest performance facility under one roof. We visited two stages at Bonfils theatre- one of which was The Space theatre- theatre in-the-round (Tom Sawyer is the current prodiction) , I've never seen stages like this before and I'm most curious to see a play there. D. was very impressed with decorations for The Christmas Carol play.
We also visited Ellie Caulkins Opera House, which is lyric theatre. We saw both the stage and dressing rooms.

The most exciting part of our visit was a tour of costume and props workshops. One truly starts to appreciate how much effort goes into creating the magic of a play. All these rooms full of fabric, prop parts, the creative process of designing of stage lightning- absolutely fascinating. We had a discussion later of the whole new world of theatre professions that was open to us today.
Incredibly grateful for the visit and planning to see more shows at this wonderful place.

We decided to try and stage a small play at home one day, and for starters D. has created a poster for his upcoming play. It is based on a Russian folk tale Kolobok (English text can be found here).

Sleepy books

2011-11-16T22:28:00.001-07:00

There's nothing better than ending a long long day with a nice sleepy book. Here is a list of my kids' favorites:
1. Grandfather Twilight by Barbara Helen Berger
Beautifully illustrated, this book invites kids to follow Grandfather Twilight through the woods to the sea. Grandfather Twilight carries a pearl that grows in his hands and becomes the moon.

2. I Don't Want To Go To Bed by Astrid Lindgren
Beautifully illustrated by Ilon Wilkland, this book is great for calming a restless child. My daughter especially loves it because she is often protests the bedtime (even if she is very tired) just like little Larry from the book. Larry looks to the forest through magic glasses and watches animals go to sleep in their little beds. C. is usually out by the final page. She especially loves the part about little bird that plans his flying practice and falls asleep.

3.The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren

This is a wintertime book. The text is very simple, like an old lullaby. Tomten (sort of an elf from Swedish folklore) goes through the farm on long winter night. I heard and argument that this book might be scary, but for my kids it was rather soothing.

4. One Snowy Night by Nick Butterworth

This book is part of the series about Percy the Park keeper, which we absolutely adore. This is perfect wintertime read, when it is cold outside. The story is about park animals that came to Percy on especially cold winter night. This book makes kids giggle, great book for snuggles :)

5. Of course there is Goonight moon, which doesn't need an introduction. My little one is especially fond of it.

6. <Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book is another favorite of my son's. Its language is rich, the poem is quite funny. It's quite long and by the end of it D.'s eyes are closing.

7. The Man in the Moon by William Joyce
This book is fairly recent addition to our library. My almost 3 y.o. daughter wasn't interested in the story, but my 6 y.o. enjoyed it a lot. This is a story of the Man in the Moon, how he got there, what is he doing there. This book has a dark moment, but overall the message is positive. This book is full of magic, glowworms and moondust. The artwork in this book is gorgeous, both of my kids love it.