Hot air balloons study

Lately D. was really interested in hot-air balloons, so last week we dedicated to learning about it.
We watched some videos on youtube, there is plenty that show how to set up balloon and how to fly it properly.
We read some books on the topic:

Anya's favorite books »

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D. made a painting (crayons and watercolor) of an "animal-themed" balloon with him and his sister on board :)

and this craft made his week I think. I found a lovely tutorial here. This mobile was so much fun to make and "crayon fairy/fuzzy girl" has a fantastic journey on it so far :)

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I'm waay behind on my postings, but I'll try to catch up in the following week since we did a lot of stuff and I'd like to share it very much.

Flowers on the window

Our window display is blossoming :)

January- learning about JAPAN ( wrap-up)

The whole of our January was dedicated to learning about JAPAN. It was really great and interesting. D. fell in love with this country and hopefully one day our dream to visit it will come true.
We did lots of fun activities, read plenty of books, learned lots of new things, there's a lot that we couldn't fit in so looking forward to returning to our "japanese adventures" soon.

Our activities this month can be found here
Here is the wrap-up post in which I'll put together books and links that I found helpful.

Movies: 
Satoyama: Japan's Secret Water Garden (TV 2004)


Books:
Full list of books here

Anya's bookshelf: children-books-japan




More of Anya's books »

Activities:
 Learn about Japan- tons of activities

Asian crafts
Japanese crafts at Crafty crow
Japanese crafts at The crafty classroom
Kids Web Japan
Pastel kimono from Art Projects for Kids
Japanese art lesson plans from Smithsonian

Art of Japan lessons
Japanese art for elementary, lessons
New Year in Japan

Learning about JAPAN: origami photo frame tutorial

We talked a little bit about origami, we tried to make something, but it proved to be a little bit too difficult for D. just yet, so we decided to come back to it later. However we made a pretty photo frame using origami paper. I saw an idea for it  at The Crafty Classroom.

Materials:

• wide wooden photo frame (I found it cheap at Michaels) 
• mod podge and brushes
• four rectangles of origami paper
• rick rack for additional decoration (optional)
• glue gun (optional)

1. Spread mod podge all over the photo frame.

 

 2. Put origami paper rectangles on the photo frame and allign. Tuck extra paper to the back of the frame and secure with scotch tape.

3. Apply another layer of mod podge all over the paper.

4. Let dry and decorate with rick rack if desired (we hot glued them on to hide some imperfections :) D. also added a little butterfly) Insert your favorite masterpiece (in our case Ponyo) and voila:)

the best season of all ..."just keep swimming "(c)

Work, work, work, barely can find time to sleep. Hubby returns from his trip to Motherland tomorrow.Yay!

What we've been doing:
1. We made an ornament for our kitchen - craft sticks painted white, glued together and decorated with glitter = snowflake mobile :)

2. I finally got myself a present- oebelskiever pan. SO much fun and deliciousness, can't get enough of it.

                         
3. We finally saw "Tangled". Wow, what a great movie! Beautiful, cute, funny and smart. D. and I loved it.The music is great, we've been listening to the OST non-stop. Probably we'll see it again sometimes next week :)

In the meantime I'm trying to catch up on all the wonderful blogs that I'm reading, soooo behind on everything...

the best season of all :day 4

Today we did the simple craft. We used plastic holiday beads from the craft store, little bells and pipe cleaners and made these fun bracelets. D. made one for everybody.

We read "Christmas trolls" by Jan Brett.
My mom is baking cream puffs now. All is well.
The movie tonight will be "Sleepless in Seattle".

The best season of all: day 2

A little crazy today, more work for me, more fun for kiddos :)
It was really warm today too, a decent snowfall is long overdue and I'm craving it.

Today we have winterized our window display (Valerie at Frugal Family Fun Blog had some great ideas), we made snowflakes and birdies out of coffee filters , and we made "lights"  using paints from Paint and peel window art kit.

I'm planning to see "Sun Valley Serenade" later tonight, great winter movie, not much of a plot but the music is great.

Learning about Italy part 1

We are learning about Italy this week. I figured I'd better make one or two big posts about it just to keep all activities in one place.

Monday:

We took out globe and atlas and found Europe, then Italy ("it looks like a shoe!" ), looked how far it is from out town and vowed to go there someday ("mommy, can we go tomorrow?" ). D. demanded to know if there are any volcanoes, we found two and he was satisfied. We talked a little bit about Pompeii too. We looked where the major cities are situated, what is the capital and learned some Italian words.
Then we made a card that will go to our "destinations" folder. On a sheet of white construction paper D. wrote Italy in English and Russian, capital, language and drew the flag. Then the fun started- we have a huge pile of old National Geographic magazines at home and we looked through them for some pictures. The pictures  and tiny maps that we found we then glued on the sheet. I wrote few Italian words on the back of the sheet- D. loved the idea of learning a new language.  D. was absolutely thrilled when he found this ad "look mama, it says ITALIAN!"  he even did a little dance around the room. :)

Tuesday:

We read " Strega Nona: her story" by  Tomie de Paola  and learn more words. D.'s favorite was "aglio selvatico" :). D. loved the book and the little rhyme in it. Then he drew a picture of Strega Nona he tried but the tile roof was a challenge for him I must say.

Then we listened to some songs (Stella stellina, Volevo un gatto nero- kids songs and couple of my personal favorites Una poesia anche per te by Elisa, Nell'azzurita by Eros Ramazzotti)  and opera pieces ("O soave fanciulla", "O sole mio", "O mio babbino caro"). I translated for him "O mio babbino caro" and he was very serious while he listened to it. After it was over he turned to me and asked "So where is the daddy , isn't he coming on stage?" :)

Wednesday:

It turned out a very busy day for me, so we did only a fraction of what was really planned. We looked through "Anno's Italy", it is a great book with very detailed pictures. It doesn't have any text so it was fun to imagine what people on the pictures were doing and thinking. He loved poppies on the pictures about Tuscany.
We talked about the leaning tower of Pisa and did this project. We deviated a bit from the instructions and merely bended our pipe cleaners, D. wasn't up to scrupulous work that day.

Thursday:

Today we learned about Venice. We read "Olivia goes to Venice" by Ian Falconer. Now I'm not sure if I liked the story in this book very much especially towards the end of the book , but pictures are great and D. enjoyed it. The final part where the bell tower breaks had him frowning and we had to look some pictures up in order to assure him that the tower was indeed fine.:)
After that we did a great art project Venetian Architecture that we borrowed from laugh, paint, create 
We outlined palazzi using crayons and painted over with watercolors. D. loved the idea of painting reflections and he drew his gondola after I showed him how. I love his colors as always, so bright.

So here we are, 3 more days to go. I'm still thinking if it should be one country every month or one country per two weeks. Every week is going to be too much- D. is only 5 after all and no way I can prepare the material and organize it for every week :) So yeah, I will post part 2 on Sunday I think :)

Sweet and lazy Wednesday

Well, lazy for D. anyway, he only did couple of worksheets under Grandma's supervision while I was out on errands and he read a lot  as usual. He couldn't wait to "make something", because mommy said it was "art every day" and  "we made a poster that says so " :)) He was pretty impatient. He decided that we needed some forest people for his new  playscape and we created this crazy pair.

The "daddy's" hat had to be modeled after the one from "Children of the forest" which we read yesterday (I was getting this book from amazon today and got a little crazy, ugh, well at least I can write it off as a holiday shopping, can't I)

I'm currently re-reading "Chocolat" by Joanne Harris and couldn't resist making the candy of my childhood - chocolate covered almond -stuffed prunes  and dried apricots. There isn't really a recipe, I just bough chocolate chunks from Whole Foods (bittersweet and milk), melted it in double boiler (3 parts bittersweet and one part milk). I believe the correct term for the process should be "tempering", but I didn't take a temperature or anything , I just warmed chocolate up until it looked nice and glossy. I stuffed prunes and dried apricots with whole roasted almonds and dipped the fruit in chocolate. Picked it out with chopsticks and chilled on the parchment paper covered plate overnight. YUM!

Crafty mood

D. just finished making little owl family (lovely idea from Frugal Family blog). What a hit, and really easy to make (although C.'s intervention required some owl eye surgery after :DD)  D. drew some "scenes"- a "playground and an "owl house". I really liked how he positioned wings on baby owls :))

I have finished my second crochet project ever. This is a little case for crayons. It's not perfect but D. loved it. Handmade presents warm the heart so much, both  the maker's and the receiver's. A post at Moment to Moment blog made me think a lot about making the majority of our holiday presents handmade, I think I will definitely try.

fall crafts- something borrowed

A few wonderful crafts from my favorite blogs :) Thank you, all the crafty ladies, for the inspiration.

Tissue paper+watercolor fall leaves from Art projects for kids  

D. took the idea of "tracing around" a little too literally :)

Autumn window display from Frugal Family Fun Blog

C. helped a lot with painting the leaves for this one, we had to give her a bath afterward:)

Leaves and a lantern from Moment to Moment

This is a great idea, we loved this project!

D. picked leaves for this one with special care, they had to be perfect :)

It's so much fun to make fall crafts- the colors are so warm and inviting.

Fall crafts-mobiles

We like to make mobiles for our kitchen and in the end of September we decided to make a fall mobile.

D. said that he would like to have a "rain" mobile. That was the simple one. D. drew a shape of cloud on the gray card stock paper (folded in two so we have two sides to the cloud) then cut it out and glued sides together. Then I had him pick out tiny sequins of "rain" colors (blue and silver) for "raindrops". Then we put sequins on the embroidery thread and sewn the threads onto the cloud. Punched a hole on top of the cloud and put a piece of yarn through and voila.

Second mobile that we did was inspired by Paper Birds Craft from Family Fun magazine. We made birdies two-sided  and stuck feathers between sheets to represent tails, D. also put googly eyes on some birds. We hanged birds by embroidery thread (decorated with more sequins:) ) attached to the cross made out of craft sticks and hanged the mobile next to the "rainy cloud". We had one extra bird and it made a pretty fridge magnet.