Sunday, May 28, 2006

A lesson in biology.


On Saturday morning Mirek went fishing. It always amazes me how he can after working so hard for the whole week and waking up so early every day for work, can still wake up even earlier (at 4 am) on a Saturday and go fishing!

Fishing is Mirek's hobby that he kind of gave up since the girls were born. When we were childless and worry free, he had introduced me to fishing. I could have never imagined that it's so much fun and so relaxing. We used to go fishing together to one of the lakes in upstate New York, we went fishing in the Delaware river catching perch and carp, and even went twice on a boat for the deep sea fishing. Once in NJ, on a boat "Norma K." that departs from Point Pleasant beach, and the other time when we were vacationing on Florida Keys. The first time I so enjoyed the thrill of feeling the fish fighting you, and was fortunate to pull a couple of blue fish aboard. But in Florida I was too sea sick to enjoy even the beautiful scenery. Oh, well.. at least Mirek had a fantastic time! But the next day I again felt adventurous and we went for a night fishing in the lagoon in John Pennekamp camp site. We used alive shrimps as a bait and we had a nonstop action. I was catching the same fish over and over again (we were releasing them back into the water), and then I had to stop because that fish already had a ripped mouth, but was still hungry for the shrimps. I guess it was a very smart fish as it knew that it was safe to go after the shrimp because it would be let go back into the water!

On Saturday morning Ivana woke up asking me where her Tata was. And when I told her he went fishing she was very upset that he didn't take her. She has her own fishing rod and loves to go fishing with Mirek on a boat on the lake in the Poconos.

So, yesterday she was anxiously awaiting for him to come back home to tell him not to exclude her from the fun activity next time. But when Mirek came back with a couple of bass fish and got busy filleting them, she was not that upset anymore. She got so excited to see how Tata would clean the fish and of course wanted to help! Well, what do you tell her? Even for some adults it feels gross to touch a fish, but not for our little girl. She was the most excited about the chance to see and touch the organs that we had been reading about in the books on human anatomy.

Well, I got some looks from our downstairs neighbor when our soon to be 5 yo was running towards them to greet her friend, a 4 yo old boy, and boasting with pure enthusiasm, "Look, I got bloody hands! Do you want to touch the fish?" No, he did not want to...

So, I guess we've had today what they call "hands on" learning approach.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Strawberries do grow in the city!

This morning we had our first harvest of strawberries. It wasn't much, just a handful, as we have only 6 bushes. But they were so delicious, so sweet, and the gentle aroma reminded me of my childhood. The girls were so eager to taste them, so we didn't wait for the strawberries to get really ripe. And also I was afraid that the birds would be the first ones to snap them once they are red. It's not that we don't want to share, but there is a huge mulberry tree, right in the backyard, covered with almost ripe mulberries! Go help yourselves, birdies!

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Please, meet our "conemen".


Lately, all Ivana wants to do are the "projects"! Her favorite book now is "365 Things to Make and Do" by Vivienne Bolton that I've bought in "Michael's". The projects that are gathered in this book are very simple and easy to do for a girl who is almost 5. She does need my help, occasionally, but most of the time she takes the initiative and gets busy with doing whatever she feels like doing.

Of course, Leona is right there to bother her and wants to do the same thing as her big sister. So I have to stop whatever I was doing (like tiding up, putting the laundry away, etc) and get to help Leona. I felt that I've been telling them to wait with the projets, that was not the right time for mommy at the moment quite often. And then I've decided to review my priorities and change my attitude. I do spend a lot of time with them every day playing, reading, going to the park, doing different projects. But sometimes I did not let them play with the clay or playdough because I did not feel like cleaning the mess afterwards, or I would forbid them to cut the construction paper into million little pieces because we'd just vacuumed, or did not let them paint because once again I was in no mood to deal with the cleaning part. Some days are better, some are worse, especially taking into consideration that I have to go to work from 7 to 10 pm, teaching ESL my Brazilian students. So every day I have to make sure I have saved a tiny bit of energy for the evening, and some days I simply have to kick myself out of the door to go to work, that how exhausted I feel.

Anyway, I'm doing much better (or so I think) with giving the girls more freedom to do what they feel like doing. I simply have changed my approach to dealing with cleaning up after, I try to prevent the mess as much as I can. If they want to paint or play with the clay, I cover the table with a big black plastic bag and ask them to wear their craft aprons. It does not look too aesthetic, but saves me time cleaning up. If they want to use the scissors, I ask them to do it in the kitchen, and after they are done they sweep the floor. Easy as that! Why did I not think of it before? They are so eager to help to clean, that I even let Ivana wash the dishes when they are not greasy, and she knows not to wash the knives.

"The conemen" were from our heads, not the book. We had some cones that we had collected in one of the local parks. We had a couple of caps put aside from the milk cartons and beer (!), some yarn for the hair, colored paper, glue gun and ,of course, the wiggly eyes. "The conemen" are Ivana, Leona, Mommy and Tata (that's how they call Daddy in Czech).

The girls had so much fun playing with them and the house we've made before, that cooking dinner was a pleasure. The time I spend with our kids, the smiles I get to see on their cute little faces, the laughs I hear while they are playing with something that a while ago was just a bunch of "stuff", the pure joy of watching them while I'm doing my chores, all these experiences are simply irreplaceable! Every day when I come home from work I kiss our little angels and look forward to spending another day of our lives together.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Ivana is reading!

Ivana will read this page to you, no problem!
This page was the beginning of Ivana's journey to learn to read...

Today was the time for celebration! We have finished the book that I've been using to teach Ivana to read in Russian. All 95 pages! I didn't expect this to happen this soon! She can read!

I've been teaching her to identify the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet since she was very little. By the age 3 she could remember all 33 of them and was eager to tell them over and over again, so proud of herself. I started with demonstrating her the "sound" that the letter makes first, rather then the "name" of the letter. When she was comfortable with the visual part of recognising the letters, we had moved on to the recognising them by the ear. All the trips to the park, stores, bank and post office had been spent playing the games like "What's the first/last sound of the word", "Finish the word", "Tell me the word that starts with this or that sound", etc. There had to be a lot of effort from my part to teach Ivana to read in Russian since there was not too much exposure to the language in the every day life, except in the house and with a few Russian speaking friends and kids.

Then I decided to start sitting down with her for 20 minutes every day with this one book, that is very logically, step by step leads the child to start reading on his own. We started with reading the singles letters, moved to syllables, then to 3 letter words, one syllable words, 2-3 syllable words, combinations of words, short sentences, longer sentences, short stories, and finally to 40-50 word stories. We would first repeat the page that we'd read the day before, and then read a new page. And before we knew it, we were approaching the final pages of the book, and Ivana had acquired the most wonderful and useful skill in life, reading!

And that book was ALL we have been working with! There were no fridge magnets, Leap Frog materials, CD roms or flash cards. On the other hand, there were countless hours of reading (a lot of times the same book over and over again, especially when she was a toddler), playing speaking Russian, singing songs in Russian.

It is extremely important to me that our girls know my and my husband's cultures. Know what kind of childhood we had, meet and have the relationships with the family members that are overseas. I truly hope that one day they will thank me for passing on to them the knowledge of another language, for the ability to enjoy countless masterpieces in literature written in the original language, for being able to have a conversation with the grandparents and cousins, for making it a bit easier to feel like the citizens of the world and really know and appreciate other cultures.

Ivana learned her ABCs long time ago, and ever since she got the concept of the sounds that letters represent, she has been trying to read in English. She notices all the signs around her and stops to try to read them. I help her out a bit, since there are some letters that are written the same in both alphabets , but sound differently. She is reading all the brands of the cars, names of the streets, signs in the stores, titles of the books we sit down to read.

It just proves one more time that you don't have to have all those over 200 skills that the "educational professionals" are teaching kids in preschool and kindergarten. For some years, a Board of Education reading expert, Bernard Gallegos, has been putting together a package of the reading skills children need to learn in elementary school. At one point, Gallegos' list topped 500 elements. It has since been reduced to 273 over grades 1 through 8. I think Mr. Gallego was simply wasting his time!

Monday, May 08, 2006

A wonderful weekend.

The "birthday girl" got a kite as one of her gifts, and on Sunday we went to the Liberty State Park to try it. While Mirek was assembling it with Ivana's help, Leona took time to blow the dandelions.
It was such a gorgeous day! As we were walking on the boardwalk, we saw this huge ship living the harbour.
The girls were running around chasing the kite and then taking turns holding it in the sky.
I got to try as well! I've never had a kite when I was little, so I was so thrilled to play with it!

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Happy 2nd Birthday!

On Saturday Leona turned 2 yo! Happy Birthday to our little treasure! I always bake all the cakes, and from a scratch. But on Saturday it was very hot that there was no way I was going to turn the oven on. We haven't put the ACs in the windows yet, and because we live on the second floor it gets extremly hot in our apartment, that's why we had voted for the ice-cream cake. The girls were so excited and couldn't wait to have a piece.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Our very young artist.

I was chilling out, enjoying the sun and the singing birds while putting the laundry on the line this morning, when Ivana started calling me. And that's what I saw when I walked into the living room...Thank goodness the markers were washable! I just had to snap a picture!