Happy Easter!

What a beautiful, warm and sunny day we had today! I loved to see the girls dressed in their cute summer dresses!
Milana was simply delighted to find a surprise chick!

Yarn Eggs.

Making yarn eggs was a perfect example of creating something that seemed very easy in the beginning but required patience and some expertise.
Scrambled eggs for breakfast for a family of 6 and we had already a dozen blown eggs to wrap in yarn that made a great decoration for our Easter celebration.
The white glue did not work that well. The yarn slipped off the egg in the middle and we had to try a glue with a stronger bonding capacity. We decided to use wood glue and it worked better. Our wood glue was somewhat old, thick and sticky and worked just fine on the egg shell.
The girls wanted to try to make one yarn wrapped egg themselves. But after almost completing one Ivana's yarn came off and she did not want to do it all over again. I had to show her a good example and did it instead of her. And the egg came out great.
We used the whatever scrapes of yarn I happened to have. I think the eggs came out pretty, with some not so typical Easter colors.

Vareniki.

A few warm days last week were a real treat for us! We went hiking, bicycling, took a day trip and visited a cavern, soaked up some sun and turned off the heat in the house.
This week the winter is back. The heat is back on, and the jackets had to be pulled out again. But the desire to spend more time outside is simply too strong to resist.

We still went into the woods and visited some old as well as new spots. Playing soccer really helped to keep warm and make the best of a colder day. The other really nice way to make the best out of a gloomy day is to find something free and abundant! That is right up our alley with having the gift for foraging. I mean all the days we have spent fishing, mushroom picking, wild pear tree harvesting, picking wild blackberries and raspberries...

This time we got wild chives. They are bountiful all around the hiking trails and really tasty. While the kids were helping us to pick them they were sucking on the stalks and then we had a very nice garlicky aroma in the car.
We had frozen a batch before and had used the prewashed, precut chives in soups, stews, scrambled eggs, and other dishes. And today we made homemade "vareniki" stuffed with mashed potatoes with fresh wild chives. Everybody helped and the task of hand making the vareniki for a large family was not so overwhelming after all.
It was delicious and what is even better is that we have another batch in the freezer for another day of a homemade yummy lunch.

We- the artists...

Artist: Leona, age 5, "A New Baby", paper, 12'x9', poster paints.

Artist: Ivana, age 8, "Emperor Penguins Family", paper 12'x9', poster paints.
Artist: Julia, we'll skip the age (:0), "Love is in the air", paper, 12x9, poster paints.
Artist: Joan Paley, illustrator to the book "The Emperor Lays an Egg", handpainted paper collage.

The most inspiration any artist would find is, no doubt, in the nature, in the world that surrounds us. But, the other artist's work can also be a very valuable source of another artist's inspiration.
When we were reading this book with the girls, I had a strong feeling I would like to draw some of these beautiful images with them in our art session.

Taking into consedaration that the illustrations in the book were actually not paintings, but paper collages, the lines were easy to work with. And absence of many details made this page an absolutely perfect art project idea for the young aspiring artists.

Because the emperor penguins could be thinner or fatter, we had to use the book image only as a guide and it did not matter that Leona got to use more space on her paper and Ivana made her penguins look a bit distant.

A little chick is an adorable focal point on the picture and simply melts your heart away. Don't you think?

And we have found out that working with poster paints on a water color paper produces great results in color quality and makes it easier to handle the lighter/darker shades of the same color.

The bright bellies of the birds and the outstanding purple/blueish background make me want to look at the picture more. Simply, it makes me happy!..

How we learn what we like to learn about.

I have to admit that we thrive the most when we do things spontaneously. That includes our "science lessons".
Even though I have developed my own views on what and how to teach our kids, in the beginning of the school year I was tempted to purchase a science curriculum. I had looked into Apologia, but the price had deterred me away from buying it. I decided we would just read books from the library on the topics of nature and natural events, weather, animals, astronomy, etc., and we would look up things on the web whatever the girls want to learn about.

It has been working just fine for us. Doing things in our homeschool this way we were able to cover a plethora of topics already, even including some basic chemistry and physics.
But when this morning the kids were asking what we would be learning for science, honestly, I had no clue. I guess the spring blues are showing up a bit early with wanting to be outside more and enjoy the warm days and not wanting to be planning any lessons.

"Mom, why didn't you plan a lesson for us?" they would question me.
"Oh, I have...(think quick, quick)..." As I was coming out from our office room and saw a sticker book we had bought over a month ago, I knew in an instant what we would be studying not only today day, but for a few weeks, possibly. "We'll be studying the nocturnal animals!" I proudly presented the idea to the girls and it was happily accepted by the learning crew.

To get started with the topic we went on line and looked up a few nocturnal animals that are local to our area. The sticker book was with the animals that we had never heard of (like, cavy, genet, slender loris, etc.), so we left it for another time.

Meanwhile, we read about the red fox, snow leopard, opossum, badger, firefly, hedgehog (an animal of my childhood). The photographs we found on line were phenomenal and the girls kept on ohing and ahing with one cute image after another. We read about the animal, the girls reviewed the info by answering leading questions to help them retain some info and new vocabulary. We learnt about the physical characteristics and then measured the length of the animals with and without tails, added, subtracted and found out the differences between the animals and our body lengths, worked with inches and feet as measuring units. We compiled a new vocabulary list of the terms like nocturnal, hibernate, aestivate, insectivore, carnivore, omnivore, marsupial, mammal, looked up two new animals that were related to the subjects we were studying (marten and marmot). We learnt about the animals' habitats and looked them up on the globe and reviewed our knowledge of geography.

We read some amazing facts about the animals we constantly see in our backyard. Who knew that fireflies (so cute and adorable) actually are cannibals, as they can eat each other! Or, next time when we will be holding a firefly we'll be sure to count the seconds between the flashes. Five seconds-and it's a male, two seconds-and it's a female.

We also were tempted to write up a report on one of the animals of each girl's choice (thus doing the penmanship part) and then create a habitat out of the recyclable things we use for all our activities.
But, the weather was too gorgeous to stay inside for any longer, and we took off. With having such a rounded learning time before, we had no problem to be outside all the way till dinner time. Playing with rocks, water, going for a bike ride, and simply soak up the sun rays was a great way to spend an afternoon.
When you teach the kids and they use what they have learnt that is like the music to any teacher's ears! I got my music today, "Mom, Evanchik has excrement in his diaper!"

Skiing.

When our oldest was about 3 yo, I remember we bought her mini skis and were so anxious to teach her skiing. It didn't go too well, as she was too little and definitely not ready for that. Mirek had taught we a few years back and before the kids we used to drive for 3 hours for a skiing retreat just because it was so much cheaper.

We both love skiing. But lately we were not able to ski a lot. Mirek went once, I think, last winter with a childhood friend who came for a visit. And me... oh , well, I guess I just have to be a bit more patient. And this winter we have not gone skiing either, except for when the spring has started knocking at the door. The tickets got cheaper because the season is almost over, there is still plenty of snow on the mountain, and Ivana has been begging to go skiing now. It took her only a few years to mature and get excited about learning to ski.
So, that was her first time up on the lift going to have fun at the top of the mountain.
And since I don't like to leave the rest of the crew behind, we kind of hung out by the lift and cheered for Tata and Ivana, waited for them to come down and then headed home to cook dinner and wait for our skiers to come back from their adventure.
They came back a few hours later, exhausted, but very happy and were telling us all about their day (more like "night") of skiing fun.
Apparently, by mistake they ended up on a Black Diamond slope, and managed to get down in one piece. Ivana was doing a great job later in the evening, and was getting more and more confident. And as a addition to all the fun they had had they saw a shooting star. I got double jealous, as I had never seen one.
It was supposed to be my turn to take her again the next week, but it does not look like it. Patience, is a virtue. Till next season...ah

Last snow?

I guess it IS the last snow this winter season. We were lucky to get so much of it that we had a lot of great times playing outside. With building, the usual, the family of snow people, making an igloo right in front of the porch (we'll be looking at it till, like, what, June?), sledding, skiing, snow ball fights. I also made color sprays for the girls to do the "snow art". With having red, blue and green to spray on the white snow it was fun to color the white world around us away.

Snowman looked bloody with red all over it, so we put more snow to cover it up. And then the girls got book inspired and made those mini domes to put the candles in. During the day time it was great to see then colored, and when it got dark, it was simply adorable to see the candle light outside from the window. It felt like we kind of said farewell to winter...

Love her!

When a picture is worth a million words!..
Who cares that a few minutes later the color spots ( a butterfly to be) on the plaster plaque turned into one gray blur. I have managed to capture the moment. And got the art project as a gift for our wedding anniversary!..
Just love her :)

The Green Mountain.

It took me some time to learn to pronounce King Nebuchadnezzar's name when we were reading about the Babylonian Empire and the times of it's prosperity after the defeat of the Assyrians, before the great city of Babylon was captured by an army from Persia in 539 B.C. and became a part of the powerful Persian Empire (modern Iran).

The girls loved the story of the princess Amytis being married the Babylonian King Neduchadnezzar and how she was missing the cliffs, valleys and mountains of homeland Persia. She missed the green gardens people built on the hills at home and was very unhappy in Babylon. So the King, being much in love with her, wanted to make her happy and, thus, ordered to build the gardens in Babylon, a dry and harsh place to grow anything.

There is not too much info and details about the Ametis' garden in Babylon. The historians know only some details, and apparently, there is no image of the gardens saved on any clay tablets, only verbal descriptions of this Second Wonder of the Ancient World.
We were able to find a book in the library with some pictures, looked up some info on line, and were happy to learn that we were free to create our own gardens on the mountain to how we imagined them.

We read that there were terraces, hanging plants, various flowers, trees, shrubs, bushes, from all over the Empire. Water was brought up but the pumps, so we decided to make a water fall in our Babylonian garden. Once again, recycled pasta boxes, some paint, stickers, rocks, wax sticks, markers and hot glue, we had our own kids' made wonder with princess Ametis (made out of clay) sitting in her throne and enjoying the green beauty around her.

The piano top is becoming a place for the older girls to store their hand made projects so that the younger siblings won't be able to get them and try to play with them.

My favorite part in the project making is seeing how the girls are learning to handle the hot glue gun, freeing me a lot, as they can really make things the way they like it, to watch them play with their creations during the day, and, also, to call the grandparents on skype and ask them what that thing we were showing them was.

Falls in the winter.

Visiting favorite summer spots in the winter is a lot of fun! Even though everything around you seems cold and uninviting, the memories of the warm days do have the power of bringing tremendous joy to the frozen scenes around you.
We just love to go to "our" places and pay them a visit in the times when not so many visitors are around. And we still are able to do a lot of things we usually do there, like rock climbing over the stream. And then there is always a bonus in the nature's wonderful display of art works.

It's a PAAARTY!

The girls have been invited to a party! It was a Valentine's Tea Party and the guests had been asked to dress in their best and were presented with a etiquette lesson on how to drink tea in a proper manner. Here they are patiently waiting for the rest of the guests to arrive. Meanwhile, I was taking the pictures and was absorbing the beauty and elegance of the place. The tea sets were something! No ugly mismatched mugs, but charming tea cups with saucers simply stole my heart!
Everybody was asked to bring a plate to share. I think it is so clever, as everybody gets to contribute and it does not become too much of a burden on a hosting family.
Leona was sitting next to her best friend, Madelyn, waiting for her to take a first sip of tea, as it is polite to do that at an official tea party.
And then our little gentleman got his chance to sit next to the hostess and drink his tea. There were no broken tea cups, just some spilled tea, soggy cookies and napkins dunked into the tea, or some cloudy liquid that used to be tea at some point. Smile!

It's Valentine's!

In preparation for the Valentine's celebration at the co-op we have worked so hard today!
I was in the store the other day to pick up a few things and also almost bought new supplies for the Valentine cards making and decorations for the house. But then I left everything in the store and decided to pull out the craft boxes and the draws at home and see what we still have left to work with this year.

Since recycle mania is a hit in our family we started right from there. First, the girls needed boxes/containers to collect the Valentines in school. So, this year they were excited to do the mod podge technique. The containers I have saved from honey we buy on the local farm were for Ivana and Leona to work with. And the empty box after the Qtips was a great idea to let Milana try to make her own creation as well. We cut out the hearts from the gift paper I always safe, and then a few red roses from the napkins my Mom in law brought all the way from Europe where you can buy single napkins with various designs especially sold for people to use them for mod podge. Some red ribbon was a great addition to the container.

And then we needed to make the Valentines for their friends. Last year they had their boxes full of cards, handmade and bought, candy and chocolates, cookies and stickers. This year we decided to make bracelets. That would be for the girls, and the boys would get handmade mini cards.
I helped them with crocheting the bracelets, they did all the beaded ones and then we arranged them into mini purses. With now the three of them doing all the things it took time to make sure all their friends would get the Valentines. Even Milana kept on talking and being all excited about how she would give the Valentines to her friends!

We decided to make them kind of with a little secret, because the friend would not know who the Valentine was from unless they open up the heart.
I still have to bake a dessert to share... And it started to snow... The party could be postponed until next week :(

Telethon stars.

Today our girls have experienced a moment of fame.
We have participated in a local Big Brother Big Sister telethon that was aired on channel 13.
It was through their dance school and our wonderful Ms. Katy, the dance teacher, have been organizing this for a few years, but it was the first one for us.
Mimi and Leonka were in the Munchkins class, cute little ballerinas. And Ivana was performing as a pirate with her dancing group.
I was able to enter the recording studio with the small ones and , thus, snap pictures, but we watched Ivana's dance on TV in the hallway.
They were so proud of themselves. Ms. Katy said she would burn the performances on a DVD for us. Some things to remember and look back into...

Playing with coffins?..

There is too much to read, learn and discover about the ancient Egypt. Today we read about the two famous pharaohs and learned the reasons why they became famous in the world history. Amenhotep, for his idea of refusing to worship many gods and pronouncing monotheism in the time of his rule, and then Tutankhamen, for his efforts to erase the existence of the previous pharaoh and make sure the polytheism was back, plus the amazing fact of his tomb discovery and the priceless treasures found in his burial chambers.

As a craft activity we made the clay mummies, wrapped them in linen and made sure there was a place to put the mommies in. That are... the coffins!
I had to laugh today...When I was busy doing my chores and the girls had free time I checked up on them and inquired about what they were doing. "Oh, Mimi is playing with her mummy and we are playing with our coffins". Ah? Just take this out of the context and it might sound as a case of child abuse. Smile...

Then we felt like getting a party started. We had to celebrate King Tut's burial and be happy for him to go to afterlife. That was Leonka's suggestion. Playing Peruvian music did not spoil the fun as the beat was great and we all got to dance!
Hopefully we will be able to make it to King Tut's exhibit in NYC that is coming up this April. They are advertising it as the lifetime opportunity to see the magnificent treasures. Also, they are saying that that is the last time the exhibit is visiting the North American continent.
And the youngest scholar got to play with the sphinx and other Egyptian figurines we have at home. Before you know it he'll be joining our learning crew!

Discovery Museum.

When it is too cold outside, then it is time to look for some fun things to do indoors. And when going up north for a mini trip turns out to be the coldest spell of the season, then to find some local activities to do with kids is a must. Otherwise, what memories would the little ones have of the trip? "How was it up in Maine?" . "Oh, we didn't like it up there. It was too cold!".

After visiting one farm we have had enough of bitter winds blowing into our faces, so we stayed the second half of the day in the motel room. Our activity bag from home came in handy, the laptop and the free internet in the motel were great as well since we were able to call our family oversees!

The next day we decided to visit a Discover Museum. We were kind of not sure what it would be about. Actually, we did have an idea of what we thought a discovery museum should be about. Well, it was not what we thought it would be. And we still made the best out of it. In a way, it was a three floors playground for the kids. Divided into thematic sections for the kids to run around and "discover". The nature learning mini center was downstairs, where the girls were climbing into a raven's nest, a beaver dam, explored the river system of Maine by making their hands wet in the water works display.

Singing in the recording studio was fun. We could see them on TV and Mirek was a recoding professional. The girls would take turns to come out the studio and look at each other on the screen. Our family made a lot of noise in the drumming corner.
My favorite was the play kitchen. The girls were cooking away, taking orders and Milana could not stop admiring her dessert plate, arranged by her older sister.
I was so amazed at the fabric pretend food at the kitchen. It was SO CLEVER! I couldn't stop admiring it and snatching pictures, bedazzled at how come I hadn't come up with this idea myself! I asked at the frond desk about this play food and was told that a lady that worked for the museum had made it and donated it to the play kitchen. How clever! I am so inspired! I can't wait to make our own food! We have tried the salty play dough before. The food turned out great, but then the babies were munching on them for real, a lot got broken and kind of disappeared.
We are in need for new play food, and Mimi's birthday is coming up. I'd better roll up my sleeves and get to work!

A cold friend.

Everybody wanted to have a picture taken with our newly created cold friend "Snowy".
Unfortunately, he didn't live for too long. It's been raining.
The snow is all gone and we woke up to a carrot and a hat being on the ground.
We'll miss you! Hopefully it will snow soon again!

Nubian breakfast.

I have been asked why I do such a subject as History with a 8,5 and 2 year olds, learning about all the things that don't interest them, don't make sense to them and their little brains can't even comprehend. Why not to learn things that they can see around, that are easier to understand and used in everyday life.

We do learn about things around us. We go for hikes year round, we spend a lot of hours reading books on various subjects, we have playdates with friends, we do art together, learn musical instruments, and so much more that is right for their age level that they absorb and understand effortlessly.

But I have always been an advocate for giving children a little push and exposing them to things that are way higher for their intellectual level. When we read a book together that everybody is enjoying, adults including, and when there is a great language for them to hear and a wonderful plot of the story to follow, why would one want to wait when the kids are "old enough " to comprehend. I am not talking here about the age inappropriate literature or those books that I even have hard times calling "literature".

But a lot of times kids are not given a lot of credit, thought to be too young or immature. And you would not know what the kids are capable of until you try. And we do not do the drills with them to learn and memorize the dates, or the names, or even the big historical events. Right now I am exposing them to the subject, hoping to spark up an interest for it and hoping to do a good job by not killing the desire to learn more when they do get bigger and would understand more. That's why the major motto is "to have good times"! And any teaching or learning experience should be thought of as a tool to provide the pieces of puzzle for the children to put together later in life!

As we are continuing with our studying history, we have been learning about Egypt and Nubia. We read books, watched a few episodes on Utube, made a craft. Yesterday when we stopped by at a health food store we picked up some organic millet and today the question "what's for breakfast" was answered "a Nubian royal breakfast".
Cooked millet with some butter and and sliced almonds, sweetened with chopped dates, cold raw milk poured over ... What a treat! The breakfast was very yummy, everybody liked it and we thought we'd have it some time soon again.