The Best Season of All 2013- 1st week of December

It's this time of year again!
This year we are continuing our tradition of activities-filled advent calendar.

This year even though I planned making something really stylish and unusual for a calendar, I ended up drawing a tree by popular request from kids. Under each ball there is an activity written for us to do. This year instead of mostly crafts I went for "special moments", this way none of us will be worn out by the end of the month.

Day 1: We made our traditional window display, coffee filters colored with metallic watercolors. This time we cut out gigantic snowflakes.

Day 2: We put some lights on the bush outside our window

Day 3: Baking cookies together!We made also out long time favorite chocolate cookies recipe here
Day 4: Lego Christmas trees:

Day 5: T-shirt decoration, I bought some white cotton t-shirts in Michael's (adult size too :D) and some fabric paint. We did our best painting some holiday pictures on them, kids had lots of fun and now wear these tees to bed and around the house.

Day 6: We attended Polar Express Story Time in local bookstore

Day 7: We made an attempt to create a snow jar. I was inspired by this pinhowever, kids didn't want to use any of their small animals and by the time they made up their minds it was too late to go hunt for new ones :) So D. just made a penguin out of playdough (weird color is due to the fact that all black dough was gone for some reason), a small fir was picked outside. Just add Epsom salt and here we have a snow jar (rather a candidate for "nailed it" meme I think) that kids pronounced "weird, but Christmassy"

Day 8: Snow!, so much snow outside! Kids are looking forward to rolling in it and cleaning the sidewalk. We are supposed to attend a concert today too, but I'm no sure about driving so far away, so we might not go after all 
We ended up going to see Denver Young Artists Orchestra and we had a marvelous time! Harry Potter suite was wonderful and put us in a holiday spirit.

We are reading books from Holiday List I made last year. So far kids watched "Chronicles of Narnia: the lion, the witch and the wardrobe" and Russian "Snow Queen" movie.

Happy Holiday Season to all!

Learning about Japan- 2012

In 2011 we learned a lot about Japan, the time has come for us to refresh some of the information and learn some more. So last week it was all about Japan in our house

Our activities:

• We read and wrote some haiku.

• We learned how to say some words in Japanese. Using 
Let's Learn Japanese Picture Dictionary

• We played Otedama game. How to make otedama.

our otedama

• We played math game called Shiritori math game, which basically consists of making up new number sentences using the answer from the previous number sentence.

• We made some oregami (yay! this year it was much easier that last), we listened to the music (great tracks from Orange Range: Hana, Kizuna, Silent Night , some excellent stuff by Joe Hisaishi , lullabies)
• We read some great books, check out our Reading about Japan book list over at our "bookshelf" blog.
• Finally, we tried some Japanese food, kids are definitely warming up to miso soup, but still wouldn't eat sweets, oh well, more for me :)

San Francisco trip

Last week was spent in San Francisco, such a great trip it was! We visited all of our favorite place and some new ones. Here are some snapshots of our favorite city.

Palace of Fine Arts

Exploratorium nearby is a nice place to play around and experiment.

Golden Gate Bridge

Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park

California Academy of Sciences and De Young Museum are also wonderful places to visit in the park.

Japanese Tea Garden

San Francisco Botanical Garden across the street is amazing.

We walked all through the park and came to Dutch Mill and Tulip Garden

Dutch Windmill

crossed Golden Gate Bridge

and arrived to Muir Woods

cable car ride next day

Sea lions at Pier 39

We also met our friends, re-discovered the city by visiting little nooks in the streets, eating at local cafes and just inhaling this amazing cool air, that we are going to miss come hot Colorado summer. Five wonderful days. And some books to remember our trip:


This is San Francisco by M.Sasek

 

 Good Night San Francisco

 
The Cable Car and the Dragon by H.Caen


Maybelle the Cable Car by Virginia Lee Burton.


City by the Bay: A Magical Journey Around San Francisco by Tricia Brown

 

Fly High, Fly Low by Don Freeman

 

Travelers and Explorers- book list

D. has always been a huge fan of maps and all things that relate to travel and adventure. C. is growing to love it as well. We have a few countries to study every year and currently we talk a lot about great explorers.
Today I'd like to share a few books on the subject, that we love very much:

1. Geography from A to Z: A Picture Glossary by Jack Knowlton , Harriet Barton.
 This book is extremely useful to us when a new word comes up. Definitions are brief simple to understand for children. Illustrations are lovely.

2. Not for Parents Travel Book It has information on all the countries of the world complete with basic facts, pictures and fun info.

3. National Geographic Kids Almanac 2012 is very popular with both of my kiddos, it's full of all sorts of interesting stuff from animals to planets. The pictures are great. Some stories are quite short and are great reading practice for the youngest readers.

4.The Once Upon a Time Map Book: Take a Tour of Six Enchanted Lands This book is awesome. Great introduction to map reading. We got this book when D. was almost five and it remains his favorite. It offers a trip through six fairy-tale lands- Neverland, Enchanted forest, Oz etc., treasure hunt included. Illustrations are lovely and very detailed- we can look at them for a long time.

 

5.Into the Unknown: How Great Explorers Found Their Way by Land, Sea, and Air by Stewart Ross , Stephen Biesty (Illustrator) 

This book is amazing. We are HUGE  fans of Stephen Beisty's illustrations- incredibly detailed and accurate. This book talks about all the major discoveries by greatest explorers. The book is full of maps, detailed illustrations of the ships, itineraries. Even the dust jacket is a full sized poster of these incredible voyages. The information in this book may be directed more towards older children (according to the publisher it's 12 years and up), but I abridge a lot for D. and he enjoys this book immensely.


6. And of course our favorite Eyewitness series : Explorer. Great book.

7.There's a Map on My Lap!: All about Maps by Tish Rabe
We love learning with Cat in the Hat. This book is great and absolute fun to read together.

8.Most Brilliant, Boldly Going Book of Exploration by the Brainwave This book will appeal more to the older kids, the illustrations are quite funny.
 



So here it is, our little list. Post about our activities on the topic is to come sometimes after Thanksgiving. Stay tuned :)