Russia Unit Study

When I saw we were going to be studying Russia for history, I wanted to do the Five in a Row book, Another Celebrated Dancing Bear. I was disappointed to find that our library system doesn't have it. I was able to find a lot of other good books for our unit study though. The ones the kids enjoyed most were The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, The Littlest Matryoshka, The Magic Nesting Doll, A Perfect Pork Stew, Babuska Baba Yaga, and Babuska's Doll.
We read a few non-fiction books to learn more about life in Russia and the history.
We read Peter and the Wolf, listened to some of it, and watched this cartoon.
We also read about Tchaikovsky's life and discussed the ballets he composed.

We attempted to make blini, but it didn't turn out very well. I first tried to use my griddle, but the batter was so thin that it just spread too much. When I tried a pan, they burned or fell apart when I tried to flip them. We ended up getting enough for a taste test. Colin first said they weren't good, but then he continued eating and decided it was okay. Caleigh only touched it to her tongue, but she decided they bad.

My husband went to a Russian market for me to look for plain nesting dolls that I found online after it was too late to order for this week. They said they only have them around Christmas so we didn't get any, but he did bring back this box of candy he found there.

So far they've only tried this one piece that looks like a little cone, but they all liked it and are looking forward to trying the rest.

Since we weren't able to get the other nesting dolls, we made these from cardstock. The templates came from here.

Colin's nesting dolls

Caleigh's nesting dolls

This is Molly's. She was feeling a little lazy that day so she only wanted to color the biggest doll.

This is what they look like when they're all nested inside the largest one.

Here are their notebook pages. They did books for a map to locate Russia, the flag, landmarks, Matryoshka dolls, a wheel to show things Russia is known for, the religion, and onion shaped domes.

For our books and other ideas, I used the following:
Russia Lapbook
The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship Unit Study
Another Celebrated Dancing Bear lapbook pieces

Pottery Painting

A few weeks ago, I wrote in my weekly wrap-up that my sister and I took the kids to a paint your own pottery place for the first time. I forgot to post after we got the finished products.

The kids all chose banks. Molly got an elephant. Caleigh picked a turtle. Colin got a hockey puck with a stick. They had a good time painting. Molly does have a shorter attention span so needing to paint the same thing three times was a little much for her and we had to give her a little help. Colin and Caleigh did fine with it though.

Everyone hard at work



Colin adding the Carolina Hurricanes symbol



Caleigh drying between paint coats



Molly adding dots



Finished banks

This is the back of Colin's

The kids were amazed by how shiny they were once we picked them up.

Our Week: Russia, Mars, and Playing Outside

I'm really late getting this week's report written. It's been a busy couple days.

Monday was Valentine's Day so we read the books we didn't get to last week and did some fun things in addition to regular school. It was so nice that we sat outside to do some of our reading. I already posted about what we did here.

Three Rs

Everyone is moving along well in all subjects and there's nothing too exciting to report. In cursive, Caleigh got to z this week so she's learned all the lowercase letters. Now we'll work more on connecting them before going on to capital letters. In reading, Molly learned about silent e words even though she told me she already knew it from asking me about the word, home, once. So I guess I can say we practiced reading silent e words.

History

We read about the Rus warriors' attempt to conquer Constantinople and why they were unsuccessful. We also learned about Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible.
We expanded on this subject by doing a whole unit study on Russia, which I'll be posting about soon.

Science

We read some additonal books about Mars.
Colin made Mars rovers like the ones we read about from Legos.

Caleigh built a volcano from salt dough to represent Olympus Mons, the biggest known volcano in our solar system.

Then we erupted it.

The weather was great this week and the kids have been able to play outside some every day.

We met Colin's robot club group at a park Tuesday afternoon. Right now we're having them work one week and then play the next week, which has really helped to cut down on them asking to play while they're supposed to be programming. I'm sure it doesn't hurt that the stuff they're doing is more fun than when they were preparing for competition.

On Friday, we went to our homeschool group's park day. We ended up staying for 3 1/2 hours. It was the warmest day of the week and the kids had a great time playing. Unfortunately, I'm out of practice and forgot sunscreen. The kids all came home with pink cheeks. Luckily, it wasn't too bad and it's already starting to fade. I can't say the same for my arms, which got the worst of the sunburn.

Happy Valentine's Day

Banana Muffins

Top: heart person PB sandwich
Left: bear PB&J
Right: Cheese tortilla love bug

Heart sucker made from candy canes

The kids decorated cupcakes one day

Cookies we made to share with friends at the park

Colin and Caleigh with their gift bags

Molly with gifts from her bag

One of our traditions is a nice dinner where everyone dresses up. We dim the lights and light candles. Colin dresses as a waiter and serves us. He thinks it's so fun and takes it very seriously.

Girls dressed up

Colin the waiter with the paper moustache he made

 

Colin serving drinks. He insists that we get juice that looks like it's in a wine bottle.

Dessert

Hockey is Dangerous

I know hockey can be a dangerous sport, but apparently just watching it can also be dangerous . Colin got an air hockey table for his birthday.

Here are Colin and Molly (you can see the back of her head at the bottom of the pic) watching Chad and Caleigh play.

And this is what Molly's head looked like a few minutes later after she was hit by a puck.

So she decided to be safe, she should put on one of Colin's helmets.

Our Week: Marco Polo, Mars, and the Sniffles

We were a little slow getting started Monday, but I've been surprised by how well we've gotten back into school after all the interruptions from last week. The weekend was also busy. Colin had his birthday party last Friday. He had hockey games Saturday and Sunday. We went bowling with my sister on Sunday after his game. Then we went to a Super Bowl party Sunday evening. All of that and staying up late had the kids sleeping in some this week.

Molly giving five after she bowled

This week in history, we learned about Marco Polo and his travels to China. We also learned about the Forbidden City.
The kids followed the Silk Road through deserts, oases, the Yellow River, and finally arrived at the palace of Kublai Khan to trade for Chinese goods.

Reading the map to prepare to cross one of the deserts

Stopping for a drink in the desert

Crossing the Yellow River

Trading for gold, silver, ivory, silk, and exotic animals

We moved on to studying Mars in astronomy. We mostly just read from Exploring Creation with Astronomy this week. We discussed what they thought they would need to take with them if they were going to Mars. We'll read other books and do some activities next week.

We've been reading Valentine books and doing some crafts.

Colin had Robot Club and a roller hockey game this week. He also went to "stick and puck" at the ice rink for some practice on ice.

All three kids have a cold so we'll probably be staying home and resting up this weekend in hopes that they'll be better quickly. It's supposed to start warming up here so I'm looking forward to that and hoping they'll be able to get out and enjoy it some next week.

Colin's 11th Birthday and Hockey Party

I just can't believe it's already been eleven years since I became a mom. It seems like I was just watching him take his first steps, wondering if he'd ever sleep in his own room, being forced to go on adventures with him just like Dora, finding lines of matchbox cars all over the house, worrying about potty training, helping him learn to count, searching the house with him for clues that he would write in his Blues Clues notebook, teaching him the sounds of letters, holding his hand to cross the street. Now he's suddenly 11 years old.

Hockey player cake

Hockey stick cookies Colin helped make

Ice skates

Opening his acceptance letter for hockey camp