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.

Pondering Tuesday-kids and technology

During a conversation on one of the message boards I participate in I stumbled upon this article : A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute which discusses Waldorf approach for children of Google executives. The article makes strong points about not rushing kids into the world of technology and letting him learn through human interaction first. The comments are also most interesting and I recommend reading them.
We are not practicing Waldorf approach, although I find a lot of great ideas on related blogs and articles that I implement in our home studies.  We aren't totally screen-free, although we don't watch TV, except for movies on DVDs, we don't have a gaming console, but D. recently discovered some simple computer games, which he plays every day for 15 minutes. This article made me wonder: what if the limited exposure that my children have to technology is still too much? Sure a computer is a great learning tool, but do my children need it as an entertainment? We do a screen-free day every week, now I'm thinking should it be every other day, maybe? Sure, a cartoon can give me half an hour break that I really need sometimes, but has it become so invaluable that I can't think about any other option to keep kids quiet and entertained?

The answer is of course- balance. In truth I felt that our media time is out of balance lately, it's time to restore it. 

Another thing that really made me wonder is a movie I saw the other day -"Castaway on the moon". The protagonist was left on an empty island in the middle of the river and in view of the city without any means to get off . Poor guy was forced to survive on this island for some time. On the other side there's a girl whose life is all about technology- she doesn't leave the house and lives through the computer screen. The movie showed how basic life skills are still more important  than all the technology in the world. How technology makes us lonely sometimes, no matter how many facebook friends we have. And it makes me think- it is important for my child to be educated, but their education has to include more simple things such as cooking and sewing and gardening, there has to be more interaction with nature. More interaction with people, for me especially. We made new friends recently, it made us  happy. It is important not to forget that.

Friday mumblings

First of all, it was really cold today. I had to take D. to Kindergarten (he goes one day a week along with other home schooled children to the special program from the district) and I thought,"thank God I don't have to do it every day"- seriously, brrrrrrr. Another perk of homeschooling I guess, especially now that it's only getting colder. :)

Got  a lot of positive feedback from the teacher today. It's funny, no matter how confident I am in my abilities to teach him and his ability to learn, it seems that I need to hear that he's doing well from someone else after all. :) It was a relief to hear that he's doing great, that he is not shy with other children...


While D. was out and C. napped I attempted to give second life to hubby's old sweater. I accidentally washed it and it felted. I needed a new "winter" bag, so I sewn one out of this sweater.  First of all, I've never sewn wool before and it was tricky to say the least, second I think I cut out handles wrong because they stretch quite a bit, it'll be ok, I just have to remember not to stuff it with heavy books. Third, I can't put this needle away and I needle felted a crazy bird on this bag. I like it very much, even if this is too childish for a grown woman, I don't care :D

    So here it is- "Ginger Owl".

D. was very agitated after school it was very hard to calm him down, he did finish painting second side of the "destinations" folder, rockets, comet, planets and as he said a huge bird this time :))

To all my friends and visitors have a fabulous week-end!

Crazy Wednesday

Took a trip to Denver Zoo today (yay free days), while it's huge and has a lot of animals, it is also really really crowded. D. and little C. were really overwhelmed. On the way home everybody agreed that the best zoo we've been to so far is Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs. Not only it is beautifully situated and carefully planned, one can feed an enormous herd of giraffes that lives there, now how cool is that?


I'm still struggling with sticking to the "plan of the day". It's probably ok, since D. is only in Kindy, but it makes me wonder if there is a way to make our "studying" more efficient. There are always distractions and he wants to play all the time. I'm trying to keep at least reading (which he loves), writing and math as "must dos" every day, and throw some art in whenever we get the chance, but science and social studies- that we haven't touched at all...I mean science is there- nature walks, talk of personal hygiene, shopping for food...But social studies...ugh.

Picked up a gorgeous book from the library today- "One red apple " by Harriett Ziefert, illustrated by Karla Gudeon (saw it on Crafty Crow)- what a delightful afternoon read! Text describes life cycle of the apple - it is quite simple and thus is perfect for both D. who is 5 and C. who is 22 months. Illustrations are absolutely gorgeous- in D.and C. favorite colors, no less. Pages of the book are really sturdy, I think I will put it on the "wishlist", such a beautiful book must be at home. :)