A Year in Review and 2011 Look-Ahead.

Another year is coming to a close. It’s been a good year for our little family. We were blessed with the most important gifts of health, love and time together. We didn’t have any financial setbacks and enjoyed watching our daughter grow from a tentative toddler into a fairly confident and energetic preschooler. Still, as I look back at my Top 10 for 2010 post, I realize that I didn’t do as well in some of the goals as I hoped I would. Perhaps some of the goals were a bit ambitious, but the sad truth is that I didn’t check my progress against them as often as I should have. This will be useful to remember as I set out to plan for 2011. For once, I will limit my goals to four instead of ten, and hopefully this will allow me to focus on them better.
Health. This includes the same goal of exercising twice a week, eating better (more fresh produce and fish) and getting at least 7 hours of sleep every night.
Organization. This includes both organizing time and organizing space. We still have a lot of “mini-projects” floating around the house. This year I would really like to see them completed.
Traditions. There are a few things that we want to try to implement this year – a game night once a week, a “reading time” on the weekend where all of us read for an hour in the same room and special family trips/activities at least once a month.
Time outside. This actually ties in with the first and the third goal, but I would really like to spend more time outside. We have a pretty active and safe “playborhood”, and I would like to see Anna spend more time playing with peers rather than spending her time in adults’ company. I also hope to take up gardening together once the weather turns to spring.
I am looking forward to 2011 and wish everyone a healthy and peaceful year!

New Year’s Resolutions of a 4 Year Old

We picked up Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution from the “New Arrivals” shelf in our library, and we both really enjoyed it. The book actually explains the idea of New Year’s resolutions in a language that even young kids can understand. In the book all squirrel’s friends make resolutions – to plant a garden, to be less grumpy, etc, but squirrel doesn’t know what hers will be. Eventually her friends point out that she already has one and is doing it successfully.

After reading this book Anna was very enthusiastic about making her own resolutions. I printed out pretty paper from here, and Anna dictated hers to me. There is one resolution in this list that was suggested to me – can you guess which one?

• 1. Clean my room every day.
• 2. Give more hugs and kisses.
• 3. Brush teeth twice a day.
• 4. Stop putting fingers in my mouth and nose.
• 5. Help people every day.
• 6. Learn how to swim.

She said that she will come up with more since there is still space left on the page :)

Tune back in tomorrow for my own resolutions.

PS – my mom asked for this picture – she knitted the jacket for Anna, and her friends don’t believe her :) Mom, Anna loves her jacket!

Science for 2011

I was not pursuing science very actively in 2010, since I thought that daughter was really too young to appreciate it. Sure, we did some experiments here and there, and she loves to watch Sid the Science Kid, but just now she develops a lot more interest in a true scientific approach of forming a hypothesis, testing it and learning something. She also loves to read non-fictional books that explain how things work. When I brought What Is It Made Of? by David Glover from the library, she sneaked it into her room and spent two evenings reading it from start to finish. The book contains many experiments designed to introduce young scientists to materials and their properties as well as to using materials for different purposes. There is also a separate section on experiments with water. I gave Anna some sticky notes and asked her to select experiments that she found interesting. It was quite illuminating, because she was quite decisive in her selections and often didn’t select what I thought was interesting. The book is nicely designed for younger scientists with very engaging illustrations and clear instructions. Many experiments also “double up” as art projects – so I decided that I am going to get this book at Amazon and use it extensively in 2011. Hopefully I can start contributing again to “Science Sunday” at Adventures in Mommydom. As you can see from bookmarks, we have a lot of experiments to go through :)

What My Child Is Reading – December 26, 2010

Merry Christmas everyone! We have finally waded through a big stack of our own Christmas books. I think Anna was on Christmas overload by the end of it, since she kept pulling other books from her own library. What Do People Do All Day by Richard Scarry remains a clear favorite from our home library for the third month running. But here are other picks from this week.

We received this version of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas from Tiger Tales for winter review, and I held it back until now. It’s a beautiful and playful take on the famous poem, since all characters are mice and not people. The book also has gorgeous “touch and feel” pages, and Anna really enjoyed it. She had fun comparing and contrasting it with another edition illustrated by Becky Kelly that we already owned.

Laura Star series by Klaus Baumgart are quite popular in Germany. We even have a movie at home (which daughter doesn’t want to watch since it’s in German). Incidentally, English version of Laura’s Christmas Star was also published by Tiger Tales, but I bought it at the library book sale. As all other Tiger Tales books, it’s very beautifully illustrated. I was amazed to see Anna sit down with this book and read it from start to finish, since it’s a pretty long story and has a lot of text per page. She can truly read anything now that appeals to her.

Anna pulled The Sandwich Swap from “New Arrivals” shelf in the library. Only after she read it to me and asked some questions I saw that it was written by Queen Rania of Jordan, which is by itself very fascinating. Anna wanted to know why Queen Rania is not wearing a crown in her picture on the jacket of the book. The story is really good and some adults in high places would benefit from reading it. How often we look down at something that is not part of our culture? That’s what the story is about. We both give it five stars.

Since we watched Nutcracker last week, both The Nutcracker Ballet by Vladimir Vagin and Time for Ballet by Adele Geras were quite popular this week. We read a couple of other books by Adele Geras about ballet, and she makes ballet sound very fun. Her books will definitely be appreciated by little ballerinas out there. I also like that they come with a good story and beautiful illustrations as well.

What are your children reading? Link up and share – the linky is open all week.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, my blog friends!

I hope that you enjoy this time with your families. We are looking forward to seeing our friends tonight, opening the presents and playing with all the new toys tomorrow. But the best gifts don’t come from the store. They are gifts of health and love, and I hope they will be given to you.

I will move my What My Child Is Reading to Sunday for this week and will return to “regular programming” next week.

The Nutcracker

Yesterday we took Anna to the “real theater” for the first time to see The Nutcracker. I was a bit nervous, because the tickets were anything but cheap, and we had to leave in the middle of our first ever attempt to show the beauty of theater to our daughter. However, everything worked out great, and the show was absolutely spectacular. Now I am worried that it set the bar very high for “real theater” – with gorgeous costumes, amazing scenery and great dancing. We were lucky with the seats – there were a few open seats all around us, so nobody objected when Anna couldn’t contain her enthusiasm any longer and raised her voice asking questions. I was hoping to avoid them by reading The Nutcracker Ballet by Vladimir Vagin, and we even brought it to the theater, so Anna could follow the story line. The only problem was that this ballet production had a changed story line. The whole second part was changed to show that the Prince and Maria (yes, Maria, and not Clara) travel to his own country of Muscovy and meet his parents. The dance of Sugar Plum Fairy was danced by his parents. Umm.. Interesting, and as I said, the production was great otherwise, but I would still prefer to see the traditional The Land of Sweets take on it.

I promised Anna a small “surprise” if she contains her “wiggles” in the theater. To her credit, she didn’t wiggle much and mostly enjoyed the ballet (it was about 15 minutes too long for her). Her surprise was Nutcracker Sticker Paper Doll. I stumbled upon Dover Little Activity Books by accident, and it was Anna’s first experience with them. This was $1.50 well spent! She was delighted with her surprise and spent good hour dressing her doll into various outfits while listening to The Nutcracker. We might also create puppets eventually following this link that was shared both by Superheroes and Princesses and Our Worldwide Classroom.

Christmas in Other Lands

Even though we didn’t get around to formal “Christmas Around the World” study, we did read two great books that I want to share. Both were library finds.

Christmas in Other Lands by Janet McDonell is a fairly old book from Circle the Year With Holidays. We stumbled upon Thanksgiving book from the same series in our library, and it was pretty popular. It’s similar in format to Anne Rockwell series about kindgergarten celebrations. In this book a school class celebrates Christmas with “guides” from five different countries – Mexico, Sweden, Greece, Zimbabwe and The Philippines. We looked up all the countries on the map and Anna told me that she wants to visit them all for Christmastime.

Joy to the World is a collection of Christmas stories from different countries. They are more exotic than previous set – Syria, Malta, Mexico (OK, this is an overlap), Ghana and Russia. We also looked them up on the map, and it was fascinating to see how different countries have the stories that reflect realities of their daily lives. Russian entry was the story of Babushka that appears to be well known, except that I have never heard of it when I was back home.

I was hoping to make some sort of activity for Christmas around the world (some are recommended in the first book), but Anna suddenly came down with a nasty bug and a high fever on Monday. I certainly hope that she feels better by Wednesday, since we were all looking forward to going to see Nutcracker ballet.

I am linking this post to History/Geography Exchange hosted by Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.

What My Child Is Reading – December 18, 2010

I cannot believe that next Saturday we will wake up on Christmas morning! Oh well, I start believe that looking at our reading list. We had a lot of good Christmas reads – both secular and religious. Here are our favorites.

We love original Toot & Puddle books by Holly Hobbie, and both of us really enjoyed Let It Snow. Anna had fun guessing what presents Toot & Puddle might decide to give to each other, and there is a fun twist when they ask advice from someone else. There is also a nice message about best presents being self-made and thought out. There is no Santa or Jesus in the story, but it would be a nice read before shopping or making presents for siblings or someone else in the family.

It was the first time we read The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg. I found the story quite enchanting, but I don’t think Anna was completely “on board” with illustrations. They are beautiful, but she prefers bright colors, not muted tones. After listening to the story she thought for a while and then informed me that she doesn’t think she believes in Santa Claus, but she does believe in Jesus. Then she changed her mind and said that she believes in Santa Claus after all, because she wanted the bell to jingle for her as well.

Speaking of reindeer bells, Christmas Magic by Sue Stainton was one of Anna’s favorite reads this week. Like Toot and Puddle, the story doesn’t have a lot of suspense. A group of animals goes on a treasure hunt for missing magic reindeer bells and find a special surprise from Santa. Frankly, I thought that the story was a bit weak, but Anna was falling asleep with this book and with Toot and Puddle every night, so clearly we had different opinions about the merits of the story line.

We read plenty of Christian holiday books as well. Anna’s favorites were Christmas Donkey and A Baby Born in Bethlehem. Both books are too long for a younger set, but Anna read them on her own after one joint reading together and had a lot of questions. A Baby Born in Bethlehem stays pretty closely to the Bible version but simplifies a few points. We also got The Story of Christmas by Jane Ray from the library, but it uses the Bible language word by word, and I thought that it would go over Anna’s head at this point. We ended up not reading it.

What are your children reading? Link up and share – the linky is open all week.

Week in Review – December 17, 2010

Today is the last working day of the year for me – woo-hoo! I am looking forward to the break and hanging out with my family and friends. Anna had a Winter Wonderland party in school, and her theme was music. At home we were busy finishing up homemade cards for friends and family, and we had precious little time for anything else. I keep reminding myself that she is still learning a lot from playing, listening to Christmas music and reading many books every day – both on her own and with us.

Reading. This is how Anna’s room looks like on Saturday after a visit to the library. Usually we split the books into “reading together” pile and “her” pile. Then she sits down with her blanket and goes through her pile like a wildfire. She also spends most of her rest time reading through many books we own. The length of the book and complexity of the text don’t hold her back – she can read any book if she wants to. This girl loves her books, especially the ones she hasn’t read yet.

Math. I am excited to join a review team at Timberdoodle. The first thing that they offered for me to review was a title from one of my favorite publishers Critical Thinking. Anna was reasonably open to some paperwork, especially when I told her that she can earn one point per fully completed page. We haven’t quite discussed redeeming the points (the point is represented by one penny). Anna said that when she has “enough money”, she will buy one toy to donate and one toy to keep. I think it will be quite a lot of pages before she has “enough money” for that.

Cooking. ‘Tis the reason for the cookies. Anna tells everyone who listens how much she loves to cook and bake, and it’s true. She loves helping in the kitchen, and gets better with cutting, mixing and stirring. She went to two cookie decorating parties and went wild with icing and decorating pieces. Interestingly, then she doesn’t want to eat the cookies – she only likes chocolate treats.

Arts and Crafts. This is also a season for coloring. In the mornings when Anna is home, she comes to the office in the morning and busily sets out to “work” on her own – coloring Christmas pictures. I used her colorings to make Christmas cards for friends and family. We didn’t get to do messier projects this week, since our time together was limited. I hope we can do more painting and baking over the next two weeks.

Nativity Playmobil Style

As I mentioned before, we mostly “standardize” on Playmobil play sets in the house. Since this is a German product, we usually get small sets from Anna’s German side of the family for Christmas and her birthday. Last year she got this Three Wise Men set from her uncle and aunt. This year we reassembled what was left from their clothes and accessories (those small parts do tend to get lost!) and added other Playmobil figures to reenact Nativity story. We borrowed a stable from our Playmobil Farm, there is a baby in a Lego crib, and Anna insisted on having a Lego path towards the stable that represents the journey to Bethlehem. Joseph came from a chimney sweeper set, and donkey is also from yet another small set. Anna also assembled quite a team of shepherds and shepherd children, but they never really made it into her story line. The story line was mostly about a journey to Bethlehem and was heavily influenced by Christmas Donkey book that she really liked. She was quite disappointed that Playmobil Mary (who happens to wear a farmer outfit) couldn’t ride on the donkey. I kept pointing out to her that Mary can ride on Playmobil horse (originally the horse came with the knight), but Anna insisted firmly that it has to be donkey. She also loved putting small Playmobil pieces into treasure chests of three wise men – this explains somewhat how small pieces “magically” disappear over time – we probably have a stash of tiny Playmobil accessories somewhere as “a salad” or “spices” – I just wish I knew where.

Come and play at Childhood 101.

Christmas in Germany

I was considering some sort of Christmas Around the World unit for December, but I realized pretty quickly that it’s just not going to happen. So instead we visited Israel for Hanukkah (and as a birthplace of Jesus), we are talking about Christmas in Germany this week and will do “Christmas in Russia” the next week. Ticia at Adventures in Mommydom did a great post about Germany and generously shared some free printables. The problem with focusing on Christmas in Germany for me is that a lot of traditions are simply transplanted here – decorating the tree, making gingerbread cookies and even some of the most famous Christmas carols. We can say “check” to all of those – Anna decorated gingerbread cookies (paper drawn, real, playdoh), we listen to Christmas music (in German and English) all day long and we also colored, painted and decorated Christmas trees of various kinds. This one in the picture was an ambitious project of making a Christmas collage with green cutouts from magazines. I believe I’ve seen a similar idea once on No Time for Flashcards. Anna was less than enthusiastic at first, but warmed up to the  activity after I started it.

The most “German” book that we read was “Cobweb Christmas: The Tradition of Tinsel”. To be honest, I didn’t enjoy the book at all, because it involves hundreds of spiders entering the house and exploring a Christmas tree. Ewww…. I had a plan for a tinsel-like drawing with glitter glue, but our weekend included two birthdays and a cookie decorating party. It was way too busy for a messy craft project. Hopefully we will fit it in later in a week. A good extension for Christmas in Germany would be watching Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town, but Anna was completely terrified watching it last year and very vigorously protested when I mentioned the possibility of revisiting it. Oh well, maybe when she is older…

I am linking this post to History/Geography exchange at Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.

What My Child Is Reading – December 11, 2010

We are now in full on Christmas reading mode. Some of our books are the same books we read last winter, and some are new finds. Our library seems to have inexhaustible amount of Christmas books, and a lot of them look very good. But I want to share first a couple of non-Christmas books that we found on our “New Arrivals” display.

Anna grabbed Alex and Lulu by Lorena Siminovich from the shelf and announced that she will read this book to me. Something in illustrations appealed to her right away, and the story didn’t disappoint either. Alex and Lulu are a boy dog and a girl cat who are best friends but like different things. Can their friendship last? This book is great for 4+ since it tackles important questions – how do we make friends? How do we play fair? What do we love about our friends? Check it out when you get a chance.

Hot Rod Hamster by Cynthia Lord and Derek Anderson was another random find. I actually had to google “hot rod” to be able to explain what it means to Anna (and the book made a lot more sense to me then). Young car enthusiasts might appreciate this book even more than my daughter did – illustrations are playful and bright too. Anna’s favorite part was the end of the book when Hot Rod Hamster made out with all the prizes.

I am always looking for the books that introduce traditions from other countries, and I was excited to find Hannah’s Christmas by Melissa Peterson. Technically, the story is not about Christmas, but about Swedish tradition of St Lucia’s celebration on December 13. It’s a cute story about the girl who just relocated with her family to America and misses Sweden and her grandma. An unexpected house guest helps her get ready for St Lucia day. We both really enjoyed this story.

Since Anna is half German, we couldn’t miss St Nicholas Day on December 6. We enjoyed reading The Legend of St Nicholas by Dandi Daley Mackall. The story nicely links past and present and tries to focus the reader on the joy of giving this holiday season. I used the book (and a Veggie Tales movie about St Nicholas) as a “kickoff” to convincing Anna donate some of her toys to children in need. To be honest, it wasn’t easy, but she did feel the big box to donate to the shelter.

What are your children reading? Link up and share – the linky will be open all week.

Week In Review – December 10, 2010

Anna is 4 years 2 months old.

It’s been a rather relaxed week. Anna had her belated 4 year checkup on Tuesday and got 4 shots, so she was a bit cuddly and tired while her body was dealing with them. She had vision and hearing tests, both of them checked out fine. She is still a tiny little thing – 8% in height, but she doesn’t have anyone even remotely tall in the family. She will probably always stay “petite”. Her theme in preschool was creative canvas, and they did some nice decorations. At home we said “goodbye” to Hanukkah, ate another plate of latkes and played. Anna finally had her fill of Polly Pockets and returned to Lego and Tinkertoys. For some reason Tinkertoys always remind her of fishing. She transforms the couch in her room into a boat and sets out to find India. Tinkertoys are fishing rods, fish, boat engine and tools “to fix the boat if it leaks”. Of course, I have to come too – sometimes I am very jealous of families with kids who are close in age. She also loves making people with her playdoh and decorate them in various ways. It’s pretty neat to have these evenings when I cook, Anna plays with her playdoh and listens to Christmas music, and the world seems so cozy and bright.

We attended a gymnastics birthday party for Anna’s friend last Saturday. Anna loved the obstacle course that was set up, and especially this big trampoline. It made me realize that she could really use more daily exercise, since swinging on a swing in the park can hardly be considered one. We have a plan of having her learn to swim before next year comes around, so she will probably start swimming classes some time after Christmas. We were also considering an afternoon language program, but apparently finding a teacher for either German or Russian is a lot more difficult than we thought, so I am not sure whether it’s going to work or not.

StArt – An Angel Came to Nazareth

December seems to be a season for coloring here. Every day we open an Advent activity at Activity Village, and Anna selects a couple of things to color. Suddenly she loves to color by number (she used to hate it with a passion) and she was also interested in nativity coloring pages. We had a lot of discussions about different characters as she was coloring them. She knows the nativity story, but it’s not reinforced all the time as religious households, so a lot of her questions and comments really cracked me up: Why does baby Jesus have straw in his baby carrier? Why do they all have hangers (haloes did look like they were supposed to be used for hanging these figures) over their heads? Where are Mary’s legs? Why does she wear such a long dress? Why do angels have arms and wings?

I tried to answer her questions to the best of my ability, and we also read a book telling Nativity story – An Angel Came to Nazareth by Maggie Kneen. The illustrations are gorgeous, and the style looked familiar. I wasn’t surprised to discover that Maggie Kneen also illustrated The Lonely Scarecrow by Tim Preston. The story is not exactly following the Bible, since it focuses mostly on the journey to Bethlehem, but it covers basic facts. It’s really a beautiful book, and it gets 5 stars from both of us.

I helped Anna to cut her figures and make stick puppets of her Nativity characters. Then she put up a play. It went about like this:

Here is baby Jesus. He was born in a manger. His mother was very surprised when he was born, because she wasn’t married yet and didn’t know she is going to have a baby. But an angel told her and Joseph that it’s all OK, and they will have a very special baby. Joseph and Mary got married after Jesus was born, and the three wise men brought Jesus presents. They brought him gold and… two other things. Now Jesus and his parents could buy food and clothes. The end. I am thinking this retelling could make for a good soap opera :)

I am linking this to Tiny Talk Tuesday hosted at Not Before 7 and to StArt hosted by A Mommy’s Adventures.

We Play Dreidel

 On the first night of Hanukkah Anna got a very special present from me – a dreidel that I brought over from my last trip to Israel. It was not as easy to find a dreidel in Israel as I hoped. I was there in the middle of the summer and people looked at me very funny when I asked whether I can buy a dreidel. Even Judaica stores didn’t have them, but fortunately an airport souvenir store did. Anna took to the game with all the gusto of a born-again gambler – I think we have to keep this girl as far away from Las Vegas as possible. Of course, inability to eat her loot might cool her enthusiasm for money games, but still…

I was thinking as we were playing dreidel every night this week how this game is perfect for early math skills (and possibly for money management too if you want to play with real money). There is counting, adding and subtracting, figuring out if the pot is odd or even and taking a half (dividing into two). There is also an implicit code breaking – each letter means some sort of action that needs to be taken. I kind of feel sad that this game is played only for 8 days a year, but maybe that’s what makes it even more magical.

I am linking this post to We Play at Childhood 101 and Math Links hosted by A Joyful Learner. And, in case you are wondering, here is what we (and grandparents) are getting her for Christmas (one of those presents is for Hanukkah, and Magna Tiles is from Santa Claus).

What My Child Is Reading – Dec 4, 2010

This week marked the first advent, first day of December and beginning of Hanukkah. We have a lot of holiday books stashed in our own library and also borrowed from a public library, but we also read some good non-holiday books this week.

It’s a Miracle was very popular with Anna this week. It’s a long book that features one story for each night of Hanukkah. Each story is told by grandma of a main character and, as it turns out in the end, almost all the stories are true and related to one of the members of his extended family. We both loved the book, and Anna read it to herself every single night since we got it. She was also very excited when we let her light Hanukkah candles almost on her own, and she assumed the title of an official candle lighter of Hanukkah.

Wake Up House! by Dee Lillegard is a book of short poems (each no more than 4 lines) about various things found in the house – a stove, a refrigerator, a sink, a clock, even a bathroom floor. Illustrations by Don Carter are beautiful and appear three-dimensional. This is a great way to make young children to look at ordinary things with fresh eyes and attempt to compose their own poetry. Some words were a little… advanced, but overall both Anna and I give this book 5 stars.

I was thinking that Anna will be interested in a snowman craft earlier this week (she wasn’t), so I picked up the only remaining snowman book in our library – The Biggest Best Snowman by Margery Cuyler. It was a big hit for our California girl who has never seen real snow, since it kind of explains the process of making a snowman. Now Anna is even more determined to see snow this winter.  I thought that the family dynamics was a little weird where big sisters were allowed to bully their younger sister, but Anna didn’t pick up on it.

We continue to work through Houghton Muffin Reading program, and our topic this week was Animal Adventures. Anna read through several books recommended for the 1st grade. Imagine You Are a Tiger was her favorite. I kept thinking that the text structure sounds familiar and then I realized that we own I am a Tyrannosaurus by the same author Karen Wallace. I think young naturalists will like the book, especially the ones who don’t mind reading about animals eating other animals. This book doesn’t mince words about it, but the illustrations by Peter Melnyczuk are not explicit and quite beautiful.

What are your children reading? Link up and share! Linky is open all week.