Last week of March

After a long winter, the spring finally came, we had the most crazy weather with hot sun and snow storm in the same week, now it is warm again, we'll see if it lasts...But first leaves appeared almost overnight, such a delight!

What have we been up to this last week of March? Let's see...

Monday: We repeated what we know about Italy, D. read a Magic Tree House book on the subject
We also learned about one point perspective using this helpful lesson from smArt class blog.

Tuesday: D. is currently raising shrimp for his science class at co-op and he's very excited to see how they will turn out. Kids received a microscope as a present from my sister and of course attempted to look at shrimp- alas, too small to see properly still, we did compare leaves and algae meant for shrimp food though, successfully. Kids were fascinated by the difference in texture.

Wednesday: The nature is waking up, we decided to repeat what we knew about plants' life cycle (new info for C. since she's old enough now to understand these things better). We read The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle and planted a couple of seeds in egg cartons. Will they grow?

Thursday:We read up on endangered animals and watched Chipanzee movie from Disneynature. The movie was very sweet and interesting too. We did "finish the picture" art journal page, inspired by art projects for kids.

We also did a little Japanese language lesson (last two years' studies inspired us both to try and master it), which D. absolutely loved, he studies hiragana using workbook found here.

Friday was more or less uneventful, D. practiced his piano, he's preparing for a small recital and his special challenge is to play ensemble with his friend for the first time.

Saturday: We went to Barnes and Noble for the egg hunt, when we get home we decided to keep it artsy and made a decoration for our table. Russian Easter is still pretty far away  so we might do something else as it approaches.
Our first project was to paint blown-out eggs, inspired by a lovely post here. So we blew out three eggs, got our acrylic paints out and set to work. We had lots of fun, D. stuck to "Starry night" theme, C. painted pink and orange background and I messed around with putting spots in warm colors. The outcome seems to be pleasant enough.

C. also did some stamping with white acrylic paint over green construction paper to create a meadow for origami bunnies that we made. Instructions for these bunnies are extremely simple,  D. had lots of  fun folding.

We hung our eggs on some branches we cut off of the tree in front of our house.

Sunday: Today was calm, kids played a lot by themselves, read some, hanged out with grandparents...Taking a deep breath for a new week


Our reading highlights of the month are up at Our Bookshelf Blog, please stop by and check it out :)