Checking-in

Wow, am I a bad blogger this year :D

Our January was very challenging indeed, we managed to do school, read a lot and learn about a new country, but there were difficulties such as two new additions to our busy household- my sister came to visit and brought her sweet but demanding cat with her. Kids are overwhelmed with all the attention (5 grown ups around them) and so am I. I'm not sure I can do inter-generational household again. We had a small crisis regarding D. learning Russian, while his ability to write improved, his willingness to read it diminished, we tackled the problem, but I still have to remind him to speak more, and push him to find an appropriate word instead of just switching to English. Boy, am I grateful we homeschool, I don't think I'd be able to raise kids bilingual if I had to compete with school so much. Our math activities suddenly became "too easy" (c) for D., I'm trying to be more creative with our activities,it's trial and error so far. D. enjoys roller-skating classes, he's getting really good and asking for inline skating hockey classes (we'll see). He also continues his clay classes and learns piano with grandma. Baby C. started pre-school, she's slowly learning to read now, turns out she can count pretty well and knows her colors (oh joy of having an older brother), her English is far superior to D.'s at the same age (which is one less worry for me I guess).

Books we read in January can be found here.


Plans for February are to learn as much as we can about Ireland, to re-organize our home for leaving enough space for everbody, to re-think our math curriculum. I also need to find French curriculum for small children, D. keeps asking to learn and I need more structure in our lessons.

Checking in

This week is rather rough. My parents have left and now safely arrived to Motherland. I realized how used I got to having help at home and that getting back to being on my own with kids all days and most nights is not quite smooth, but manageable.
Our main activity this week is adjustment, however we managed to talk about weather a little bit, D. watched Eyewitness Weather DVD  , I'm planning a visit to National Center for Atmospheric Research sometimes soon.
We did go to our favorite zoo and got a little ambush surprise on the way there- crazy Coloradan weather being crazy. D. was fascinated, it was a nice guessing game will we freeze to death what would it be like when we finally reach our destination (we were dressed in summer clothes too), but it turned out to be a gorgeous day with some sneaky drizzles:)

I need to get our new old routine established (no more sleep ins for me, woe) , get meals planned, figure out our new budget...and it's almost time to plan for next year's homeschooling (books are loaned by our co-op and I have to make my selection soon enough)...

Checking in

I haven't posted for two days, I can't believe how busy we were.

D.'s clay classes have started again, fun at the pool- C. is such a little fish it's unbelievable. I'm working on another playscape-these things sure are addicting, in the meantime we are trying to prepare for Thanksgiving and to the month-long celebration that we usually do in December.

We've been reading "How to make an apple pie and see the world" by Marjorie Priceman the other day and I thought that it's time for us to start our geography/culture lessons. I'm trying to put everything together for the first "destination" and  I will make a special post dedicated to it later.

We said goodbye to the golden autumn until next year for sure, it was raining and snowing yesterday. Pretty dry today but lots of frost in the morning.

We learned about impressionists yesterday and D. did his first still life by choice :) I loved how he attempted to make small brush movements, which can't be really seen in the photo, I love his color choices too :) The dots are made with wine corks -lovely idea from ever creative Valerie at Frugal Family Fun Blog